Section: European Voice (EU)
Moldovan leadership takes EU reform track
Moldova’s new prime minister will on Monday lead a large delegation to Brussels to set out his government’s plans for implementing a months-old agreement intended to modernise the country’s economy and deepen relations with the European Union. Chiril Gaburici and as many as five ministers will meet Federica Mogherini, EU high...
Europe struggles to find its voice in Russian-language media war
Boris Nemtsov was no fan of Russian media. The opposition politician, who was assassinated in central Moscow last month, believed the use of political propaganda by the Russian government had reached dangerous levels, and drastic means were required to counter it. Krzysztof Bobinski, from the Warsaw-based think-tank Unia & Polska, met Nemtsov...
Has Russia been treated arrogantly?
One of the West’s most attractive qualities is self-criticism, but taken to extremes it corrodes self-confidence, and thus our ability to defend ourselves. We do not take our values, our promises or our allies seriously. Two new books exemplify this. One is “Frontline Ukraine: crisis in the borderlands”, by Richard Sakwa, a British academic...
Machiavelli in Euroland
Niccolò Machiavelli is trending. More than 500 years after writing his famous treatise The Prince, Machiavelli has re-emerged as one of Europe’s most popular political thinkers. And, indeed, his book – one of the earliest political ‘how to’ manuals – has some useful advice for economic policymakers at a time of extraordinarily...
EU targets Assad-Islamic State middleman
A Syrian businessman has been placed under European Union sanctions for brokering oil deals between the Syrian authorities and one of its supposed opponents, the jihadist group Islamic State, in the latest round of targeted sanctions against the regime of Bashar al-Assad. This is the first time that EU sanctions have explicitly drawn a connection...
EU official killed in Mali
An informal gathering of European foreign ministers was today (7 March) overshadowed by news of the death of a Belgian serving with the European Union in Mali. The name of the official has yet to be released. He was one of five people – three of them Europeans – killed in a terrorist attack in the Malian capital Bamako late last night (6 March)....
EU takes Yanukovych aides off blacklist
The European Union today prolonged sanctions on Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yanukovych and 17 of his close associates, but, in a decision that reflects Ukraine’s failure to put together criminal cases, it dropped restrictions on the head of the Yanukovych-era secret service and three other people. Oleksandr Yakymenko headed...
EU forced to stand firm on Russia
European leaders are embarking on two weeks of intense debate about whether to exert further pressure on Russia over violence in eastern Ukraine. The question will come to a head at a European Council on 19-20 March, but will be uppermost in a series of meetings over the next week, beginning with a meeting of the EU’s foreign ministers in...
Transport and gender equality on plenary agenda
The plight of European lorry drivers affected by Russian sanctions will kick-start a parliamentary plenary sitting in Strasbourg next week (9-12 March). The Parliament’s transport and tourism committee has submitted a number of written questions that Violeta Bulc, the European commissioner for transport, is expected to answer in person. The...
A region in flames
The European Union yesterday launched a consultation on its neighbourhood policy that if the conclusions are as far-reaching as the questions could enlarge, deepen and focus the EU’s engagement with the world, not just with the 16 countries that it currently labels ‘neighbours’. The consultation, which should translate into a revised...
