Section: POLITICO – Europe Edition (EU)
German In the loop May 27: Wolfgang Ischinger über die Zukunft des transatlantischen Verhältnisses
“Natürlich müssen wir mit Russland reden — dass ist, was man bei uns Realpolitik nennt,” sagt Wolfgang Ischinger, eine Koryphäe der europäischen Diplomatie und Leiter der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz. Vor dem NATO-Gipfel in Warschau im Juli ist Ischinger bei In the Loop zu Gast, dem deutschsprachigen Podcast von POLITICO. Der ehemalige...
Russia bombing Syria to tilt ‘balance in favor of Brexit:’ Labour MP
Russia is bombing Syrian civilians to worsen the refugee crisis in Europe,”tilt the balance in favor of Brexit,” and fragment the European stance on Ukraine, U.K. Labour MP Geraint Davies said in a question-and-answer session in the House of Commons Tuesday. The Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond agreed there was “definitely a Russian strategy to...
Russia, France, Germany, Ukraine discuss holding elections to regain Minsk momentum
The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France discussed preparations for local elections in eastern Ukraine, a key step in the Minsk peace agreement, in a call Monday, the German government said. Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President François Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko were...
A drive through Eastern Europe’s twilight zone
When I embarked on a road trip from Ukraine’s capital Kiev to Romania’s Transylvania in early May, I was blissfully unaware of the fear and paranoia that lurks in the border zones between East and West. I had bought a Peugeot convertible in Estonia the previous year, and needed to drive it out of Ukraine to avoid paying expensive...
Victims’ families of downed MH17 flight sue Vladimir Putin
President Vladimir Putin and the state of Russia have been named as defendants in a lawsuit by the families of people who had been killed in the MH17 flight. The Malaysian Airlines aircraft was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a Russian-made missile in July 2014. All 298 passengers and crew on board were killed. The victims’ families are...
EU to back temporary halt on visa-free travel
EU interior ministers are expected to approve on Friday an “emergency brake” that would allow member countries to temporarily suspend visa-free travel for non-EU citizens. Germany and France led a push for the measure to assuage fears in national capitals that non-EU citizens could travel to the bloc in large numbers. The European Commission came...
Ukraine’s song about persecuted minority by Josef Stalin wins Eurovision
Charged with historical and current political tensions, Ukrainian singer Jamala’s song about the 1944 deportation of Tatars from now Russia-annexed territory of Crimea, was crowned the winner of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest on Sunday. The 32-year-old Susana Jamaladinova, who is a trained opera singer and uses the stage name Jamala,...
Petro Poroshenko ally takes Ukraine’s top legal post
KIEV — Ukraine’s parliament appointed a close ally of President Petro Poroshenko to the post of prosecutor general Thursday, only hours after passing a law that would have barred him from the office because of his lack of the required legal qualifications. Yuriy Lutsenko is a close confidant of Poroshenko’s and led his faction in...
In the loop April 28: Chernobyl, Italian-Austrian border, Google competition, tobacco lobby
This week POLITICO’s lobbying reporter James Panichi talks with energy reporter Kalina Oroschakoff about the 30 year anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster. Antitrust and competition reporter Nicholas Hirst joins to discuss the Commission’s accusations against Google for abusing its dominant position on the market. Jacopo Barigazzi...
Decades after Chernobyl, Ukraine hooked on nuclear more than ever
Three decades after the world’s worst nuclear accident, the home of the shuttered Chernobyl power plant remains more reliant than ever on nuclear power. When a botched test in the early hours of April 26, 1986, blew apart the reactor’s core and spewed huge amounts of radiation into the atmosphere, nuclear power accounted for about a...
