Polish riot police on the country’s border with Belarus have fired water cannon and teargas at people forcibly attempting to cross into the European Union. Dozens of men threw rocks and approached a fence near the border crossing at the Polish town of Kuźnica. The clashes come a day after EU governments approved sanctions against the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for allegedly engineering the crisis by allowing thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East to travel through Belarus to the border with Poland
Continue reading...Category Archives: European Union
EU agrees new sanctions against Belarus over border crisis
Sanctions to target ‘people, airlines, travel agencies and everyone involved in this illegal push of migrants’
The EU has agreed on new sanctions against Belarus targeting “everyone involved” in facilitating the transport of people to Belarus’s border with Poland, where thousands are stuck in makeshift camps in freezing weather.
The EU accuses Alexander Lukashenko’s regime of waging a “hybrid attack” against the bloc by allowing people from the Middle East who are desperate to reach the EU to fly into Minsk then head for the Polish border.
Continue reading...Fortress EU is beating Belarus, with refugees as pawns in cruel game
Analysis: Lukashenko’s strategy seems to have backfired, with a united European Union placing sanctions against his regime
There was chaos at the border. Thousands of Middle Eastern refugees and migrants had massed at the crossing point to the European Union, hoping for a better life. Many had been taken to the barbed-wire fence on state-funded buses, after the authoritarian leader made good on years-long threats “to open the gates to Europe”. But when people arrived, the hope of a better life collided with police teargas and stun grenades.
This was not a scene from the Polish-Belarus border this week, but Greece’s land border with Turkey less than two years ago.
Continue reading...Far from the border forest, Minsk and Moscow dictate refugees’ fate
President Lukashenko is using a humanitarian crisis to further his own ends – but his success depends on which path Putin follows
Gunshots echo through the forest as Belarusian soldiers fire warning shots to drive back terrified asylum-seekers from Iraq and Syria seeking aid. Along the border, Polish and Belarusian troops eye each other warily through razor wire fence. At night, Polish guards say they’ve been blinded by Belarusians wielding strobe lights and lasers as migrants sneak across.
Asylum seekers have described hellish conditions in the forests and at improvised campsites, where they chop branches for firewood and ration water to survive. The body of a young Syrian man was found in the forest in Poland on Friday, at least the ninth person to have died this year. Others have been beaten by attackers and thieves waiting in the forest.
Continue reading...Brexit has made it easier for small boat crossings to reach UK, refugees say
Outside EU, people can no longer be returned to other European countries under legislation known as Dublin regulation
Refugees living in northern France say Brexit has made it easier for them to reach the UK in small boats, as it emerged that record numbers of people crossed the Channel in one day.
Despite the worsening weather conditions and the UK government’s attempts to deter them, 1,185 people made the crossing on Thursday, according to the Home Office.
Continue reading...EU welcomes ‘change in tone’ from UK at Northern Ireland Brexit talks
Brussels Brexit chief offers glimmer of hope, but London says threat of article 16 still on the table
A glimmer of hope of a solution to the dispute over the Northern Ireland Brexit arrangements has emerged after a fourth week of talks ended on Friday.
After a week of recriminations and the threat of a trade war, the European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič said there had been a change in tone from the UK’s Brexit minister, David Frost, confirming the UK had stepped back from the brink of triggering article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol.
Continue reading...‘We are stranded’: man describes hardship on Poland-Belarus border as crisis deepens – video report
A migrant man stranded on the Poland-Belarus border along with thousands of other people made a plea to authorities for help on Thursday. Speaking in Kurdish, the unidentified man described the problems migrants were facing without any amenities or essential items. Countries bordering Belarus have warned the migrant crisis on the European Union's eastern borders could escalate into a military confrontation. Meanwhile, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko hinted at shutting down gas supplies to Europe on Thursday amid the escalating migration dispute with the EU.
Continue reading...Belarus threatens to cut gas deliveries to EU if sanctioned over border crisis
Lukashenko responds to possible sanctions as thousands of migrants camp in freezing temperatures at Poland border
Alexander Lukashenko has threatened to cut deliveries of gas to Europe via a major pipeline as the Belarusian leader promised to retaliate against any new EU sanctions imposed in response to the crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.
Backed by the Kremlin, Lukashenko has struck a defiant note after inciting a migrant crisis at the border, where thousands of people, mainly from Middle Eastern countries, are camped out as temperatures plunge below freezing.
Continue reading...EU to tell Frost Brexit talks will fail unless he ditches ECJ demand
Concerns grow that Boris Johnson has already decided to trigger article 16 of Northern Ireland protocol
The EU’s Brexit commissioner will tell David Frost that negotiations over Northern Ireland are doomed to fail unless he drops an “unattainable” demand over the role of the European court of justice.
At a meeting in London on Friday, Maroš Šefčovič will warn the UK’s Brexit minister, Lord Frost, that Downing Street needs to “take a step” towards the EU for the talks to be “meaningful”.
Continue reading...Joe Biden supports EU position on Northern Ireland, says Von der Leyen
Brussels chief says US president agrees Britain should not ditch post-Brexit protocol
Ursula von der Leyen has claimed that the EU’s position on Northern Ireland has the support of the US president, as Brussels prepares a “ladder” of retaliatory options up to and including the suspension of the UK trade deal over Boris Johnson’s threats to ditch the current post-Brexit arrangements.
After a meeting at the White House, the European Commission president said Joe Biden was in agreement with the bloc that Johnson should not upend the tortuously negotiated Northern Ireland protocol.
Continue reading...Poland-Belarus crisis volunteers: ‘Border police can be very aggressive’
Grupa Granica strives to bring supplies to stranded migrants and help them deal with border officers
The call came in at about 1.30pm in the afternoon. A group of 15 people, all Iraqi Kurds, had been found in the woods of Narewka after managing to cross the border from Belarus into Poland. One woman could barely walk. Others had early signs of hypothermia.
The young volunteer who answered the phone – one of about 40 members of Grupa Granica, a Polish network of NGOs monitoring the situation on the border – knew they had to act quickly.
Continue reading...Polish PM blames Vladimir Putin for Belarus border crisis
Mateusz Morawiecki says Russian president is mastermind behind flow of migrants towards EU borders
Poland’s prime minister has accused Vladimir Putin of “masterminding” the migrant crisis on Belarus’s border with the EU, while Minsk’s key ally in the Kremlin pointed the blame at Europe.
The escalating rhetoric, including claims from the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, that Russia could join a potential conflict at the border, has underlined the role that regional alliances are playing in the standoff and ensuing humanitarian crisis.
Continue reading...Poland-Belarus border crisis: what is going on and who is to blame?
Thousands of migrants are in the freezing region trying to get into Poland and aid is prevented from reaching them
More than 1,000 people, many fleeing dangerous conditions in Middle Eastern countries, arrived en masse at Poland’s border with Belarus this week, in a dramatic escalation of a simmering migration crisis on the edge of the EU. They had been escorted to the border by Belarusian authorities.
Continue reading...Germany urges unity as crisis worsens for migrants at Poland-Belarus border
German interior minister says Poland needs support to deal with ‘hybrid threat’ of politically organised migration
Germany needs to get the “whole of the democratic world” onboard to support orderly immigration to Europe, its interior minister has said, amid a worsening crisis at the Poland-Belarus border.
Horst Seehofer accused Belarus and Russia of exploiting refugees and migrants in an attempt to destabilise the west, and said EU countries must stand together in the face of a “hybrid threat” posed by “politically organised migration”.
Continue reading...EU could shelve Brexit trade deal if UK triggers article 16, Irish minister warns
Simon Coveney accuses British government of ‘deliberately forcing breakdown’ in negotiations over Northern Ireland
The prospect of a trade war between the UK and the EU has edged closer, with Ireland giving the clearest hint yet that Brussels plans to suspend the entire trade deal struck last December if the British government suspends the Northern Ireland Brexit protocol.
The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, accused the UK of “deliberately forcing a breakdown” in negotiations over Northern Ireland, adding that there was still time to step back from the brink.
Continue reading...Brexit: EU warns of ‘serious consequences’ if UK invokes article 16
Maroš Šefčovič says Brussels has seen no concessions from UK side in Northern Ireland protocol dispute
Britain and the EU appear on the brink of a trade war after Brussels accused Boris Johnson of lacking sincerity in negotiations over Northern Ireland’s future and warned of “serious consequences” if Downing Street suspended the post-Brexit deal.
As he emerged from his latest tense meeting with the UK’s Brexit minister, the EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said that despite Brussels’ attempts to find a compromise, “we have seen no move at all from the UK side”.
Continue reading...Will the UK trigger article 16 – and what will happen if it does?
How likely is it that Britain will trigger the Northern Ireland protocol clause, and could it lead to a trade war?
Fears are growing that the UK will trigger article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol, potentially rupturing the already strained relations with the EU. If current talks with the EU collapse, it is expected just after Cop26 in seven days’ time.
On Wednesday Ireland’s prime minister heightened concerns that this was now almost a racing certainty after his bluntest warning yet to the UK that such a move would be “reckless”, “irresponsible” and have “far-reaching consequences”.
Continue reading...EU scientists demand bloc finalise UK’s membership of £80bn programme
Researchers fear Horizon Europe programme is collateral damage in UK-EU political dispute
More than 1,000 universities and 50 academies of science across Europe have called on the EU to “immediately” finalise the UK’s membership of its flagship £80bn research programme and end the 10-month delay to the ratification process.
In a letter to the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, they say the lengthy delay is “endangering current and future plans for collaboration” and any further delay will “result in a major weakening of our collective research strength”.
Continue reading...Arrests in Belfast after police attacked in Brexit protocol unrest
Missiles and fireworks thrown at demonstration in loyalist area with trouble also on nationalist side of peace wall
Two children have been arrested following disorder in Belfast after a rally against the Brexit protocol. Police came under attack with missiles and fireworks close to a peace line on Wednesday evening.
The disorder came on Lanark Way in the loyalist Shankill Road area; there was also disorder on the nationalist Springfield Road side of the peace wall. Two males, aged 12 and 15 years, were arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour and released on bail as police inquiries continued.
Continue reading...Animals farmed: meat taxes, death in farming and anti-climate lobbying
Welcome to our monthly roundup of the biggest issues in farming and food production, with must-read reports from around the web
As UN climate talks take place in Glasgow, the role of cows and other farm animals in human-induced climate emissions – and what can be done about it – has been in the spotlight.
The world’s biggest meat and dairy companies are being “given a free pass by governments” over the lack of clear targets to reduce climate emissions, say campaigners, who have published a new ranking of the worst offenders.
Cutting methane is the biggest opportunity to slow global heating between now and 2040, say experts, who lament that “no country has a real target to reduce its livestock-related emissions or meat consumption”.
Brazil and Argentina, two of the biggest producers of beef products and animal feed crops in the world, are reported to have argued strongly against UN recommendations that reducing meat consumption is necessary to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The net zero climate pledges made this year by the world’s largest meat company, JBS, have been critiqued as an attempt to “avoid scrutiny from shareholders and investors” in a new report by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.