Section: European Voice (EU)
Yatsenyuk remains Ukraine’s prime minister
Arseniy Yatsenyuk was yesterday confirmed as prime minister of Ukraine by the Ukrainian parliament in a strong show of support by five parties that will on Tuesday become members of the country’s new government. Yatsenyuk, whose Popular Front emerged as the most popular party in parliamentary elections on 26 October, has served as prime...
Single-sky proposal back on the agenda
Transport ministers from the EU’s member states will return to discussions on the Single European Sky (SES), a proposal to unite Europe’s national airspaces, at a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday (3 December). The discussion will have the limited aim of further developing the initiative, which the European Commission hopes will...
Russia’s war of nerves
Ideal adversaries use the tactics we expect, as part of a strategy we understand, and work on a timescale that gives us plenty of time to react. The regime of Vladimir Putin is not stupid and it does none of those things. For a start, it has different priorities to us: it is prepared to accept economic pain, take risks and lie expertly and...
Van Rompuy’s low-key success
The manner of Herman Van Rompuy’s departure from office will be of a piece with his five-year tenure of the presidency of the European Council: low-key and understated. It is not his style to hog the limelight, nor to seek to upstage his successor. Van Rompuy has been consistently underestimated and undervalued, and that will remain his...
EU abstains from UN vote on ‘Nazism’
The European Union’s member states have abstained en masse from a United Nations resolution against the ‘glorification of Nazism’. In all, 155 countries backed the motion, which was presented by Russia on Friday (21 November) under the title “Glorification of Nazism: inadmissibility of certain practices that contribute to fuelling...
EU presses for monitoring of Russia’s border with Ukraine
The European Union today called on Russia to allow international monitors to be deployed along the length of its border with Ukraine and took a step towards further measures against separatists in eastern Ukraine. They did not, however, indicate any plans to toughen economic sanctions on Russia. Foreign ministers from the EU’s 28 member...
European Parliament backs Moldova deal
The European Parliament yesterday ratified a political and trade agreement between the European Union and Moldova, amid warnings from Russia and shortly ahead of parliamentary elections in Moldova. The association agreement, which the EU and Moldova signed in June, was approved by 535 MEPs and opposed by 94 mainly far-right and hard-left MEPs,...
Mogherini puts focus on Ukraine
Federica Mogherini, the new head of EU foreign and security policy, will for the first time assume the chair of the European Union’s foreign affairs council on Monday and Tuesday (17-18 November), by focusing on Ukraine and reviewing the state of defence co-operation between the EU’s member states. The major immediate decisions on...
No winners if UK heads to the exit
Britain is harming Europe and will cause further harm if it leaves the European Union. Normally, a ‘Brexit’ is discussed only in terms of the damage it might inflict on British economic and political interests. Little is said about its potentially damaging impact on the EU and its future development. This is partly a reflection of the...
A triumphalist West?
Anniversaries are marvellous excuses for lazy journalism. Instead of the difficult business of reporting real news, editors can simply ask some reliable old buffers to dust off their notebooks, polish their anecdotes, and relive their glory days. The 25th anniversary of the collapse of communism in Europe has prompted much such writing. In past...
