Section: European Voice (EU)
EU suffers major court defeat on Ukraine sanctions
The General Court of the European Union on Monday annulled European sanctions against a Ukrainian oligarch, harshly criticizing the evidence relied on by European countries and delivering a blow to the bloc’s fledgling sanctions regime. The court struck down a March 2014 decision by the Council that froze the assets of Andriy Portnov. The...
Why Nord Stream is another Mistral deal
The decision of some German, Austrian, British, Dutch and French energy companies to do business with Gazprom must be severely lamented. Not only is it environmentally and economically wrong, it’s a brazen-faced dismissal of the principles of the intended European Energy Union, which are based on fair competition and solidarity. Just a few...
The Stalinist voice of Labour
LONDON — Jeremy Corbyn has done it again — he’s confounded everyone’s expectations. This time, he’s done it not by winning the Labour leadership but in his latest bid to win the general election itself. He has hired the Guardian columnist Seumas Milne to be his director of communications. This is a man who many in the British...
The 10 faces of Poland’s election
WARSAW — Poland’s parliamentary elections Sunday will once again be a contest between the ruling centrist Civic Platform party and the right-wing Law and Justice party — a bitter rivalry that has dominated Polish politics for the past decade. Polls suggest that Law and Justice, which has been in opposition since 2007, will win. A survey by...
Fear and family values in Putin’s Russia
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — Vitaly Milonov, the architect of Russia’s infamous anti-gay “propaganda” law, fears for Europe’s future. “Europe is sick with political correctness and liberal tolerance,” Milonov, 41, tells me, as he reclines on a sofa in his spacious offices at St Petersburg’s Legislative Assembly, where he is head of...
Prepare for a pricklier Polish foreign policy
WARSAW — The nationalist Law and Justice party will, barring any last-minute slip-ups, sweep into power in Poland in parliamentary elections on Sunday — bringing a more confrontational foreign policy style with it. In many ways, a change of government from the pro-EU Civic Platform to the Euroskeptic Law and Justice (PiS) won’t make a...
It’s time to rearm Germany and Japan
No issue in next year’s election will have more impact on our day-to-day lives than the Republican pledge to spend hundreds of billions more on the military than will occur in a Democratic administration. Since it’s accompanied by the party’s unanimous opposition to any net increase in federal revenue and a promise to...
Donald Tusk’s hard European education
When Donald Tusk got a top European Union job, the former Polish prime minister took a crash course in English, going from virtually zero to proficiency in the language in less than a year. The political folkways of Brussels have proven harder to master for the president of the European Council. Arriving in town trailed by high expectations from...
Parliament Socialists reach out to Russia
Socialists in the European Parliament are pushing for a new dialogue with Moscow despite ongoing tensions over Vladimir Putin’s intervention in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine, which have tarnished EU-Russia relations for more than a year. Knut Fleckenstein, vice chairman of the assembly’s Progressive Alliance of Socialists and...
When Donald Trump quits
After sending mixed signals about what might drive him to withdraw from the presidential race, Donald Trump settled on a definitive answer last month: “I’m never dropping out.” The next day, he tweeted, “I’m leading big in every poll and we are going to WIN! Remember, Trump NEVER gives up!” But, like many successful businessmen, the...
