Section: European Voice (EU)
EU agrees economic sanctions on Russia
The European Union today (29 July) agreed to impose economic sanctions on Russia, four and a half months after it first warned Russia that it would suffer “far-reaching economic consequences” if it did not try to end the crisis in Ukraine. The sanctions, which were agreed by the EU member states ambassadors in Brussels, prevents EU...
The Yukos case and the EU
An international tribunal in The Hague today (28 July) ordered Russia to pay $50 billion (€37.2bn) to investors who held shares in the now-dismantled oil company Yukos, once Russia’s largest oil company. The award is 20 times higher than any previous award by the court, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the wording leaves no...
EU sanctions Russia’s intelligence chiefs
The European Union has imposed sanctions on some of Russia’s top intelligence officials in a prelude to possible sanctions against strategic sectors of the Russian economy. Among 15 individuals added to the blacklist on Saturday were: the director of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Mikhail Fradkov; the director of the Federal...
EU extends Russian sanctions list
The European Union has agreed to extend its blacklist of Russians subject to sanctions for stoking the conflict in eastern Ukraine. It has also started intense discussions on details of possible restrictions on sophisticated sectors of strategic Russian industries. A meeting of ambassadors of the EU’s member states ended yesterday with...
Ukrainian government collapses
Ukraine’s prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, resigned today (24 July) following his failure to push through two pieces of legislation and the decision by two parties to leave the governing coalition. Ukrainian media report that the political parties had been negotiating behind closed doors about the possibility of leaving the government,...
EU names head of Ukraine mission
The European Union has appointed one of its former special envoys to head its newly established security-sector mission to Ukraine. Kalman Mizsei, who is Hungarian, served as an EU special representative to Moldova in 2007-11 and before that, for five years, as a director for the United Nations Development Programme in Europe and the former...
ECB board faced with struggling eurozone
Worse than expected economic figures for the eurozone in the second quarter of 2014 will weigh heavily on the European Central Bank’s governing council when it meets on 7 August. Industrial production in the eurozone fell by 1.1% in May compared with April, according to Eurostat. Notably, Germany experienced one of the largest slowdowns in...
Digital and energy reforms head business wish-list
At the outset of a new legislative cycle, European business lobbies, sector-specific trade associations and individual companies are all setting out their recommendations and demands to the new MEPs and the incoming European Commission. There is an element of formalistic ritual to this process. Some of it is about using the external focus to...
Bulgarian prime minister stands aside
Plamen Oresharski yesterday (23 July) formally resigned as Bulgaria’s prime minister, clearing the way for a caretaker government to lead the country to early parliamentary elections – and bequeathing his successor problems that promise a summer of febrile political activity. Oresharski’s last cabinet meeting had been scheduled...
EU steps up efforts to help Ukraine
The European Union has stepped up its efforts to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, with EU foreign ministers warning Russia that it faces economic sanctions unless it does more to stop pro-Russian rebels and unless it co-operates fully with an international investigation into the shooting down last week of a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine. A...
