Category Archives: Ursula von der Leyen

Von der Leyen criticises European far right for being ‘Putin’s proxies’

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Commission president, who is seeking another term, took aim at group that includes AfD and National Rally in pre-election debate

The European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, has criticised the far right as “Putin’s proxies”, while refusing to rule out working with other rightwing nationalists, as campaigning began ahead of June’s European elections.

Von der Leyen is seeking a second five-year term leading the commission, in the looming reshuffle of EU top jobs that follows the European elections.

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Europe live: Ursula von der Leyen accused of watering down green deal for farmers in European Commission presidential debate

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Ursula von der Leyen takes part alongside representatives from seven other parties as EU gears up for European parliament elections

The far-right Identity and Democracy’s representative, Anders Vistisen, wrote on social media ahead of the debate:

“The entire EU system has tried to prevent me and the right wing from participating in the EU top candidate debate tonight. They want to exclude right wing votes! They didn’t succeed - so tonight I will tell the truth about the EU’s disaster course directly to Ursula and the rest of the EU!”

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Sunak rejects offer of youth mobility scheme between EU and UK

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Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU

Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years.

The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

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Von der Leyen’s re-election chances hit by €17k-a-month job for ally

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European Commission defends appointing adviser Markus Pieper after selection process is questioned

Ursula von der Leyen’s run for a second term as president of the European Commission has been dented after accusations of favouritism in the selection of a fellow party member for a lucrative new job.

Some of the highest-ranking people in Brussels, including the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the French commissioner Thierry Breton, have written to von der Leyen to complain that the appointment of the German MEP Markus Pieper as a special adviser “has triggered questions about the transparency and impartiality of the nomination process”.

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EU nature restoration laws face collapse as member states withdraw support

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Brussels vote cancelled after it became clear law would not pass final stage with majority vote

The EU’s nature restoration laws appear on the verge of collapse after eight member states, including Hungary and Italy, withdrew support for the legislation.

The laws, which have been two years in the making and are designed to reverse decades of damage to wildlife on land and in waterways, were supposed to be rubber-stamped in a vote on Monday.

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EU agrees in principle to give profits from frozen Russian assets to Ukraine

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Ukraine could receive the first €1bn of interest on the sequestered assets by early July

EU leaders have agreed in principle to commandeer a large majority of the profits generated from frozen Russian assets and give them to Ukraine.

The proposal could generate €3bn (£2.6bn) this year and the first billion could be released to Ukraine by July, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said late on Thursday at the end of the first day of an EU leaders’ summit in Brussels.

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European Commission accused of ‘bankrolling dictators’ by MEPs after Tunisia deal

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Members of justice committee say €150m in EU funding went straight to country’s president, Kais Saied

The European Commission has been accused of “bankrolling dictators” by senior MEPs who have claimed that the €150m it gave to Tunisia last year in a migration and development deal has ended up directly in the president’s hands.

A group of MEPs on the human rights, justice and foreign affairs committees at the European parliament launched a scathing attack on the executive in Brussels, expressing anxiety over reports that the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, was about to seal a similar deal with Egypt.

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Von der Leyen’s EU group plans Rwanda-style asylum schemes

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Centre-right European People’s party says it wants to create deportation deals with non-EU countries to head off rise of far right

The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, has given her support to controversial migration reforms that would involve deporting people to third countries for asylum processing and the imposition of a quota system for those receiving protection in EU countries.

Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s party (EPP), said the policies – similar to the UK’s Rwanda scheme – had been worked out with all the parties in the EPP political group, which includes von der Leyen’s Christian Democrat Union in Germany.

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‘Putin must lose everything’: defiant Zelenskiy hosts western leaders in Kyiv to mark two years of war

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Ukraine’s president met the prime ministers of Italy, Canada and Belgium in a show of unity after recent battlefield defeats

Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed western leaders to Kyiv on Saturday on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “must lose absolutely everything”.

Ukraine’s president met the prime ministers of Italy, Canada and Belgium – Giorgia Meloni, Justin Trudeau and Alexander De Croo – as well as the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

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Ursula von der Leyen vows never to work with Europe’s far-right parties

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European Commission president seeks a second term and says there’s no place for ‘Putin’s friends’ in bloc

The chief of the European Commission has vowed to never work with extremist parties such as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, no matter how big a vote they get in the European elections in June.

Ursula von der Leyen, officially launching her campaign for a second term in Brussels’s top job against a backdrop of rising concern over security and Russia, said on Wednesday she would only work with “pro-European, pro-Nato, pro-Ukrainian, clear supporters of our democratic values”.

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African Union Commission calls for ‘paradigm shift’ at Italy-Africa summit

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Moussa Faki welcomes Giorgia Meloni’s plan to strengthen relations but says ‘we are not beggars’

The chair of the African Union Commission has said “we are not beggars” as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, outlined a plan aimed at helping African countries to prosper in return for curbing illegal immigration.

Speaking at the much anticipated Italy-Africa summit in Rome, Moussa Faki welcomed Italy’s overtures for a mutually beneficial strengthening of relations with the African continent, but said: “We cannot be satisfied with mere promises that can’t be kept.”

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Swedish PM agrees to meet Viktor Orbán as Hungary holds up Nato membership – as it happened

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Ulf Kristersson says dialogue between countries is needed amid frustrations following Budapest’s failure to ratify Sweden’s Nato membership. This live blog is closed

Two agriculture union chapters have called for a “blockade of Paris” tomorrow, Le Monde reports. They have asked their members to gather on main roads around the capital.

Populist battles are not the way to resolve the conflicts between farmers and environmental policy, the chair of the strategic dialogue on the future of agriculture group said today at the opening of the first meeting in Brussels.

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Zelenskiy tells Davos chiefs: ‘Strengthen our economy, we will strengthen your security’

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Standing ovation greets Ukrainian president’s speech amid strong support from EU and business leaders

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has made an impassioned plea for international support for his country’s war against Russia, insisting that Vladimir Putin must live to regret starting the conflict almost two years ago.

In a speech that received a standing ovation from the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Ukrainian president said the Putin had stolen 13 years of peace and would only respond to military defeat.

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Trump told European leaders that US ‘will never come to help you’

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Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that ‘Nato is dead’ and the US would never defend Europe if it were attacked

Donald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.

Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence.

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‘Alone you are weak’: top German politician calls for closer links between UK and EU

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Martin Schulz, former leader of Germany’s ruling SPD, says the Brexit divide is harming efforts to solve international crises

A leading figure in Germany’s ruling Social Democratic party (SPD) has called for far closer links between the UK and the European Union, amid rising concerns the Brexit divide is harming efforts to solve international crises, including mass migration.

Martin Schulz, a former SPD leader and candidate to be chancellor of Germany, said it was vital that regular meetings, known in EU jargon as “structured dialogue”, be set up to bind the UK closer to the EU – and Germany – once again.

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Younger Britons are more pro-EU but ‘fixing’ Brexit not their priority

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Ursula von der Leyen hopes young people can drive a rapprochement but polls show they have other things on their minds

“We goofed it up, you have to fix it,” the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Tuesday in a message to the younger generation about Brexit.

Fixing it would be “the direction of travel” with regard to the UK rejoining the EU, she told an audience in Brussels. But as the fourth anniversary of Brexit approaches, is it likely that Britain’s millennials and generation Z will demand a rapprochement?

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Sunak rejects von der Leyen’s comments that UK could rejoin EU

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European Commission president said Brexit could be fixed because leaders had ‘goofed it up’

Rishi Sunak has rejected the suggestion that Brexit could be in peril after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, claimed that the UK could be on a path to rejoining the European Union.

At an event in Brussels on Tuesday night, von der Leyen admitted that European leaders had “goofed up” over the departure of Britain from the bloc and suggested the younger generation could “fix” it.

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European Commission backs talks on Ukraine and Moldova EU membership

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Negotiations with Kyiv should formally be launched when it fulfils conditions in areas such as fighting corruption, report says

The European Commission has recommended that formal EU membership negotiations should begin with Ukraine and Moldova in a move its president, Ursula von der Leyen, described as a response to “the call of history”.

In a 1,200-page report on future enlargement of the 27-member bloc, the EU said talks should formally be launched once Kyiv satisfied remaining conditions related to stepping up the fight against corruption, adopting a law on lobbying in line with EU standards and strengthening national minority safeguards.

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Zelenskiy denies he is under pressure to enter peace talks with Russia

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Ukrainian president rejects war at ‘stalemate’ and points to similar lulls in 2022 before Kharkiv was liberated

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has rejected the idea western countries are putting pressure on Kyiv to enter peace talks with Russia.

It came after NBC reported US and European officials had spoken to the Ukrainian government about what possible peace negotiations with Russia might entail to end the war.

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EU leaders vow unified effort to mitigate humanitarian crisis in Gaza

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After week of mixed messages in Brussels, Charles Michel stresses need for ‘clear unified course of action’

EU prime ministers have vowed to step up their efforts to mitigate a looming humanitarian crisis in Gaza in a bid to present a united diplomatic front after a week of dysfunction and mixed messages from leaders in Brussels.

After an emergency video conference to address the conflagration in the Middle East, the European Council leader, Charles Michel, stressed the need to present “a clear unified course of action that reflects the complexity of the unfolding situation”.

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