Category Archives: Europe

Europe must reassess its relations with China, says EU chief

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Ursula von der Leyen calls for ‘clear-eyed picture’ of risks as she prepares for Beijing trip

The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, has called on Europe to reassess its diplomatic and economic relations with China before a visit to Beijing next week with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Europe needed to have “a clear-eyed picture on what the risks are”, she said in a wide-ranging speech in Brussels, noting that EU-China relations had become “more distant and more difficult” in recent years as China moved into “a new era of security and control” and ramped up “policies of disinformation and economic and trade coercion”.

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Russia-Ukraine war: US ‘deeply concerned’ by Russia’s arrest of American journalist – as it happened

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Dymtro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, has tweeted to criticise the fact that Russia will take over chairing the UN security council on 1 April. He writes:

Russian UN security council presidency on 1 April is a bad joke. Russia has usurped its seat; it is waging a colonial war; its leader is a war criminal wanted by the ICC for kidnapping children. The world can’t be a safe place with Russia at UNSC.

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Russia arrests Wall Street Journal reporter on espionage charges

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Evan Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison after allegedly ‘collecting classified information’

Russia’s top security agency has said a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Thursday that Evan Gershkovich had been detained in the Ural Mountains city of Yekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.

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Russian man whose daughter drew anti-war pictures is detained after fleeing

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Alexei Moskalyov had been jailed for two years after investigation triggered by 13-year-old’s drawings

A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts, following an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, has been arrested, his lawyer said.

“He has been detained, yes,” Dmitry Zakhvatov told Reuters, without providing more details.

Alexei Moskalyov was sentenced to two years in prison as punishment for his criticism of Kremlin policies in social media posts. Police investigated him after his 13-year-old daughter, Maria, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”

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Britons have more confidence in EU than Westminster, poll finds

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Faith in bloc higher than that in UK parliament for first time in three decades of World Values Survey

People in Britain have more confidence in the EU than the UK parliament, reversing a state of affairs that has lasted for more than 30 years, research reveals.

Since the UK voted for Brexit, the proportion of people declaring confidence in parliament has slumped by 10 percentage points to 22% while there has been a seven percentage point rise in confidence in the Brussels-based bloc, to 39%. Confidence in the UK government also fell from 2017 to 2021.

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UK is Europe’s worst private jet polluter, study finds

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UK tops all league tables for highly polluting form of travel, with a flight taking off every six minutes last year

The UK is the private jet capital of Europe, with more flights than anywhere else on the continent, analysis has found.

Last year, a private jet set off from the UK once every six minutes, putting the country ahead of the rest of Europe when it comes to the extremely polluting form of travel. Many of these journeys have been called “polluting and pointless” by Greenpeace, as they are so short they could have easily been taken by train – and in one case, cycled in 30 minutes.

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Paris breathes easier as refuse workers’ strike called off and rubbish cleared

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City is cleaner, though not yet entirely clean, after three-week strike ends but union threatens more action

The smell of spring is in the air in Paris. It makes a change from the stench of overflowing bins that had hung over the French capital for the last three weeks after refuse collectors went on strike and up to 10,000 metric tonnes of festering rubbish piled up on the streets.

Hours after the CGT trade union announced it was suspending the industrial action and lifting a blockade of incinerators serving the city, much of the rubbish had gone.

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Russia-Ukraine war: object found near Nord Stream 2 ‘no safety risk’; Bakhmut battle has ‘badly damaged’ Wagner forces – as it happened

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Global commodities trader Cargill has told Russia’s agriculture ministry that it will stop exporting Russian grain from the start of the next exporting season, which begins on 1 July, the ministry said on Wednesday.

“The cessation of its export activities on the Russian market will not affect the volume of domestic grain shipments abroad. The company’s grain export assets will continue to operate regardless of who manages them,” the agriculture ministry said in a comment to Reuters.

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King Charles to lay wreath to German victims of wartime air raids

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Planned visit to St Nikolai memorial in Hamburg contrasts with approach taken by his mother

King Charles will this week become the first British monarch to lay a wreath to the German victims of allied air raids in the second world war.

The move is a departure from his mother’s handling of the historically sensitive subject on previous royal visits to the country.

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Switzerland and France accused of lack of climate action in ECHR hearing

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Group of Swiss women and French ex-mayor suing their governments in first such cases heard by rights court

The governments of Switzerland and France have been accused of breaching the human rights of their citizens by not acting decisively enough on climate change, at a landmark legal hearing in Strasbourg.

A panel of judges at the European court of human rights heard petitions from a group of Swiss women and a French former mayor seeking to bolster climate action in their countries. Although climate litigation has spread quickly around the world, these are the first such cases to be heard by the ECHR.

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‘Microcosm of Brexit Britain’: Norfolk documentary is surprise German hit

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Jens Meurer’s Seaside Special follows Brexit-divided Cromer as town prepares for annual variety show

A German film director’s whimsical and heartfelt portrait of Cromer has become an unexpected hit among audiences and critics in his home country, sparking an interest in the town on the north Norfolk coast.

Seaside Special follows the town as it prepares for its annual end-of-pier variety show – a burlesque mix of song and dance, standup comedy and slapstick performed twice a day for three months – in the summer of 2019, set against the tumultuous backdrop of clashing views within the community over Brexit.

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Italian plan to ban lab-grown food criticised as misguided

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Minister says aim is to ‘safeguard our nation’s heritage’ but campaigners say artificial meat holds promise

The Italian government has approved a draft law that would ban food grown in laboratories, including artificial meat, as it seeks to “safeguard our nation’s heritage”.

Under the ban, which needs to be passed in both houses of parliament, those who produce, export or import food grown from animal cells would face fines of up to €60,000 and risk having their manufacturing plants closed.

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French protesters and police clash in marches against pension changes

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Police use teargas and water cannon against hooded protesters on the margins in some cities

Protesters and police clashed on the edges of street demonstrations in France on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of people took part in marches against Emmanuel Macron’s use of constitutional executive powers to push through an unpopular rise in the pension age to 64.

While demonstrations in Paris and Nantes were peaceful, with the majority of demonstrators chanting and calling for the pension changes to be scrapped, on the margins in some cities, men in masks or hoods clashed with police.

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Michel Houellebecq sex film to be released despite attempt to stop it

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Amsterdam court dismisses French author’s complaint against film that shows him having sex with young women

A Dutch art collective can release an experimental erotic film showing the French novelist Michel Houellebecq having sex with young women in spite of the author’s attempt to stop its circulation, an Amsterdam court has ruled.

Amsterdam’s district court on Tuesday afternoon dismissed a legal complaint by Houellebecq and his wife, Qianyun Lysis, that had aimed to curb the distribution of the film KIRAC 27 by Keeping It Real Art Critics, as well as a trailer that was uploaded on the art collective’s website last month but has since been taken down.

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Amsterdam tells young British men who want a ‘messy’ weekend to stay away

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In bid to reduce nuisance behaviour ads will be triggered if people search online for terms such as ‘stag party Amsterdam’

The city of Amsterdam is geo-targeting a campaign to tell young British men wanting a “messy” weekend to stay away.

Research has suggested these Britons aged 18-35, and Dutch men of a similar age, tend to cause most nuisance in the red light district, with stag parties, pub crawls and all-night drink and drug benders making life unbearable for residents.

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Russian man detained after daughter’s anti-war drawings flees house arrest

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Alexei Moskalyov convicted of discrediting armed forces on social media, after police investigated daughter’s drawings

A Russian man who was detained by police after his daughter drew anti-war pictures at school was sentenced on Tuesday to two years after being convicted of discrediting the armed force.

But in a dramatic turn of events, a court spokesperson said the man, Alexei Moskalyov, had fled house arrest overnight and his whereabouts were currently not known.

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Russia-Ukraine war: UN warns of ‘very dangerous’ situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant – as it happened

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Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports on its official Telegram channel that this morning the border village of Chernatske in Sumy oblast has been struck. It writes: “Twenty hits were recorded, probably from barrel artillery. The infrastructure of the village was damaged – a cultural centre and a children’s playground, as well as five private houses.”

The UK Ministry of Defence says Russia’s 10th tank regiment has borne the brunt of the assault of Avdiivka and has likely lost a “large portion of its tanks” while attempting to surround the town from the south.

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French student protests show depth of anti-Macron anger over pensions

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Crisis engulfs president amid growing row over plan to raise retirement age from 62 to 64

The depth of the domestic crisis facing Emmanuel Macron can be measured by the growing university barricades and packed student assemblies where angry young people have gathered in recent days to intensify protests and help teenage high-school pupils blockade their lycées.

As long as the country’s youth largely stayed away from the two months of trade-union-led street demonstrations and transport strikes against Macron’s plan to raise the pension age from 62 to 64, the government felt the protest movement would be manageable. But street demonstrations on Tuesday have shown how far anti-Macron feeling and anger at the use of constitutional executive powers to push through the pension changes without a parliamentary vote, have spurred growing numbers of young people to take part.

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Putin prepares Russia for ‘forever war’ with west as Ukraine invasion stalls

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The Russian president has managed to rally people around the flag with talk of a fight for national survival

One evening in late December, as Muscovites strolled along their city’s brightly lit streets in anticipation of the end-of-year celebrations, a group of old friends gathered for dinner at the flat of a senior state official.

Some of the guests present, which included members of Russia’s cultural and political elite, toasted a new year in which they expressed hope for peace and a return to normality.

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German Leopard 2 tanks now in Ukraine, Berlin confirms

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Eighteen German vehicles handed over at border to bolster military supplies from Britain and EU countries

Germany’s much-awaited shipment of 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks has arrived in Ukraine, the German defence ministry has confirmed.

After months of prevaricating, the German government announced in late January it would provide Kyiv with the state-of-the-art fighting vehicles as part of a deal under which several EU states would contribute to a shipment of two Leopard 2 battalions and 31 American-made M1A2 Abrams tanks from the US.

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