Section: European Voice (EU)
EU sanctions on Iran’s central bank overturned
The European Court of Justice has struck down the European Union’s decision to freeze the assets of Iran’s central bank, in the latest of a series of legal blows to the sanctions regime imposed by the EU to persuade Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Yesterday’s ruling, against which the EU’s member states can still...
Greens quit Finnish government in nuclear row
The Green League today (18 September) quit the five-party Finnish coalition government in protest at a decision to build a nuclear power plant in the north of the country. Nuclear power company Fennovoima’s application to build the country’s fifth nuclear power plant was approved in 2010 but changes in the firm’s plans needed to...
Parliamentary notebook, 18 September
Keep it in the far-right family Each MEP is entitled to appoint an unlimited number of parliamentary assistants using a monthly budget for their salaries of €21,000. However, in 2009 a rule came into force forbidding MEPs from employing close relatives as their assistants. But Golden Dawn – the Greek delegation of three right-wing MEPs – has...
Will NATO respond with a bang or a whimper?
Collective security depends on a mixture of trust and fear: trust that your allies will make sacrifices for you, and fear that you will suffer if you challenge or break the rules. Both of those are fraying in Europe. It is hard to see how the new European Commission will be able to impose its will on Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, now...
The EU-Ukraine association agreement: a potted history
Ukraine’s association agreement with the EU, now signed and in the process of ratification, has become highly controversial because of Ukraine’s political crisis in 2013 and Ukraine’s crises with Russia this year. When and how did the association agreement develop? The idea of an association agreement was floated in 2006,...
Gloomy economic outlook as Russia’s trade war takes its toll
Ukraine’s gloomy economic prospects have become darker still in recent weeks. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) now projects that Ukraine’s economy will shrink by 6.5% this year, rather than by 5.0%, its forecast early this summer. Those figures, which bear the heavy imprint of a drop in trade with Russia and a plunge in output in...
Maidan coalition breaks up
Ukraine’s two leading politicians have decided not to combine forces for parliamentary elections in October, leaving questions about the long-term unity of the country’s pro-reform and pro-European alliance. Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk had been exploring the possibility of leading a...
Feeling the cold from Russia’s gas war
The fear stalking European leaders is that European voters may soon feel the war in Ukraine on their skins. Russia has long tried to depict Ukraine as an unreliable partner for the European Union and, since Russia stopped supplying Ukraine with gas, there are fears that Ukraine might use Russian gas in its stores that is earmarked for the EU....
Two deputy directors-general for trade appointed
The college of European commissioners has today (16 September) approved two appointments to the senior ranks of the Commission’s management, both of them in the department for trade. In May of this year, the two positions of deputy director-general for trade fell vacant in quick succession, when João Aguiar Machado was named in February as...
Ukraine ratifies association agreement with EU
The European Parliament and Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, today (16 September) ratified a political and trade deal between the European Union and Ukraine, completing their role in a treaty that has already shaped the history of Ukraine. In both parliaments, deputies overwhelmingly backed the treaty. Approval had been so assumed...
