Section: European Voice (EU)
Cyberattack under way on Europe’s energy and transport companies
A ransomware attack is spreading across Europe in what looks like an outbreak of malware like the global WannaCry attack last month. Russian petroleum company Rosneft confirmed its systems were under attack, saying in a tweet that “a massive hacker attack has hit the servers of the company.” The transport company A.P. Moller-Maersk confirmed in...
NATO’s senior military officer: Russia threat growing on all fronts
NATO’s senior military officer said the alliance was confronting efforts by Russia to increase its military capabilities on virtually every level and allies were on guard to prevent any repeat of the Kremlin’s military intervention in Crimea and eastern Ukraine. Speaking at a POLITICO Brussels Playbook breakfast Monday, General Petr...
Macron hopeful of resolving Ukraine conflict
French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko expressed hope Monday of making progress in resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Reuters reported. Speaking at a joint press conference after a meeting in the Élysée Palace, Macron said the French government still did not accept Russia’s March...
How a US-Russia back channel came to life
The inscription etched on the wood paneling was almost mocking, given the terrible state of U.S-Russian relations: “That our two nations never again polarize,†it intoned. “A keystone to peace in the 21st century is positive relations between the United States and Russia.†But inside the Russian-American...
Britain, 10 years on
With a weakened government and an uncertain future outside the EU, the U.K. is facing a generational challenge as it forges a future on its own. On the anniversary of its decision to leave, a POLITICO symposium asks what the next 10 years are likely to bring. Â * * * Britain, the awkward years In 1962, former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson...
Macron-mania grips Brussels for French president’s EU debut
A strange new trend gripped Brussels on Thursday. Call it Macron-mania. For his debut appearance in Brussels as French president, Emmanuel Macron unleashed a sort of feverish excitement not seen since Britain voted to leave the European Union or the darkest days of the Greek debt crisis. Journalists tussled over a microphone to ask him questions....
UK and EU on collision course over rights of EU citizens
The British and EU27 Brexit negotiating teams are headed for a major clash over how the rights of the 3.2 million EU citizens living in the U.K. will be enforced post-Brexit. Prime Minister Theresa May, in a statement to EU leaders at the European Council in Brussels, rejected calls from the EU side for those rights to be upheld by the European...
Donald Tusk channels John Lennon, imagines there’s no Brexit
European Council President Donald Tusk is used to dealing with thorny, high-stakes issues, from the threat of eurozone meltdown to the migration crisis, but Thursday he delved into far more divisive territory — the politics of the Beatles. Under questioning at a news conference at the European Council in Brussels, Tusk, a former...
Theresa May speaks, EU puts on poker face
Theresa May arrives in Brussels for the European Council meeting brandishing an olive branch: the principles of her “big and generous†offer on European Union citizens’ rights. Well, the broad principles at least. The detail will come when she has skipped town, in a policy paper published Monday. The expectation...
EU leaders look beyond Brexit and love what they see
Call it summer EU-phoria. There was a blazing sun overhead as European leaders arrived in Brussels for their summer summit Thursday, and the political outlook seemed just as bright, with an array of crises in check, economic indicators on the upswing across the Continent, and spirits lifted by a series of ballot-box triumphs. Perhaps most...
