Section: European Voice (EU)
EU foreign ministers back arms supplies for Kurdish forces
Foreign ministers from the European Union’s member states have approved the sending of arms to Kurdish security forces fighting militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq. Arms will be provided by member states on an individual basis. France and the UK have announced that they will send arms to Kurdish forces....
EU foreign ministers converge on Brussels for crisis talks
Foreign ministers from European Union member states are meeting in Brussels today (15 August) for an emergency summit called by Catherine Ashton, the EU’s foreign policy chief, earlier this week. The ministers will discuss three ongoing conflicts that have come to a head: Russian troops amassing on the Ukraine border, the Islamic State...
EU to compensate farmers for Russian food ban
The European Commission will next week come forward with market stabilisation measures to compensate a number of perishable fruit and vegetable producers for losses suffered as a result of Russia’s ban on food from the European Union. The Russian ban is a counter-measure against EU sanctions on Russian individuals and financial institutions...
Ashton calls emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers
Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, has called an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers on Friday (15 August). France and Italy have been pushing for an urgent meeting to discuss the worsening situation in Iraq, where militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has taken over vast swathes of the...
EU prepares for more bad news on GDP
Eurostat, the official statistics agency of the European Union, will tomorrow (14 August) publish data on economic growth in the eurozone during the second quarter of 2014, amid fears that the European economy is about to slip back into recession. Today Eurostat said that industrial production in the eurozone fell for a second consecutive month...
Taking care not to stumble into another catastrophe
This month – the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War – is an opportune time to reflect on big risks. As Michael Spence recently warned, the international order’s widening security deficit, reflecting the weakening of whatever global governance we have, is fast becoming the biggest risk facing the world economy. The same point...
EU pledges aid for Iraq as France and Italy call for emergency meeting
Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid, announced today (12 August) that the European Union will mobilise an additional €5 million for humanitarian aid to Iraq as the country struggles to deal with an Islamist insurgency that has taken over vast swathes of the country and spurred a refugee crisis. Yesterday it...
EU and US suspicious of Russian aid convoy
A convoy of 280 trucks carrying 2,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies are on their way to eastern Ukraine from Moscow this morning (12 August), according to Russian media. The Russian government said in a statement that Russian president Vladimir Putin had informed José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, about the aid...
EU may compensate farmers for effects of Russia’s Western food ban
The European Commission created a panel today (11 August) to assess the impact of Russia’s ban on food imports from the European Union and to determine whether EU farmers should receive compensation. The panel, headed by Jerzy Plewa, the Commission’s director-general for transport, is expected to share its findings with member states...
Russia revives Cold War alternative to Eurovision
In the heady years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, there were many changes in Europe that were seen as symbols of the Cold War’s end. There was nuclear disarmament, NATO enlargement and accession to the European Union. But the most musical change was the extension of the Eurovision Song Contest from West to East. Until 1992, countries on...
