Section: POLITICO – Europe Edition (EU)
In pictures: Chernobyl, 30 years later
Over the past eight months, Getty Images has sent its Berlin-based photographer, Sean Gallup, to Chernobyl and the surrounding villages to document what life is like there 30 years after the world’s worst nuclear power plant accident. Long-term effects continue to this day, as Gallup’s photographs show. A sign warns of radiation near...
Chernobyl poisoned my childhood
On a warm spring evening on the last day of April 1986, my grandmother, a doctor, rushed to my parents’ house after work. “Don’t take Zoya outside and close the windows,” she told my mother. “Something has happened.” Earlier that day, a colleague whose husband was a high-ranking KGB officer had whispered that an accident had occurred...
‘Dangerous times’ for Europe’s journalists
Ask Dunja Mijatović if conditions for journalists have improved in the six years she’s been the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Representative on Freedom of the Media, and there’s a deep, exasperated sigh. Then a long pause. “We live in a more dangerous time for journalists,” Mijatović told POLITICO....
What will define Obama’s European legacy?
Barack Obama burst onto the European scene in 2008 in Berlin, with a speech that dazzled a crowd of thousands. His hopeful speech hit a nerve on a continent disillusioned with the botched interventionist politics of the Bush era. Expectations sky-rocketed. And quickly plummeted. Russia’s annexation of Crimea; the NSA wire-tap scandal; the...
Commission proposes visa-free EU travel for Ukrainians
The European Commission wants to lift visa restrictions on travel in the EU for Ukrainians, Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said Wednesday. If the proposal is agreed to by EU member countries and the European Parliament, Ukraine would be included on the list of countries whose citizens can travel without a visa to the Schengen...
Netherlands sticks with EU-Ukraine deal despite referendum No vote
Dutch MPs voted not to ditch the EU-Ukraine association agreement Tuesday, despite a referendum earlier this month at which more than 60 percent of voters opposed the deal. The non-binding April 6 referendum saw the Dutch overwhelmingly reject the agreement, which seeks to create closer economic and social ties between the EU and Ukraine. Only 32...
Russia and NATO meet at crossed purposes
NATO and Russia will hold their highest-level meeting in two years on Wednesday but the only sign of rapprochement is the fact that they are talking: Even their interpretations of the topics on the agenda vary wildly. The ambassador-level meeting in Brussels of the NATO-Russia Council — the first since June 2014 — is the fruit of efforts led by...
Ukraine says Moscow agrees to release pilot Savchenko
Vladimir Putin has agreed to release jailed Ukrainian pilot Nadiya Savchenko, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said Tuesday, indicating that she could be swapped for two Russians who were sentenced Monday for crimes in east Ukraine. Poroshenko and the Russian president discussed the case by phone Monday evening, Associated Press reported, the...
Ukraine sentences two alleged Russian soldiers
A court in Kiev found two Russian citizens guilty Monday of taking part in an “aggressive war” and committing a “terrorist act” on Ukrainian territory, sentencing each to 14 years in prison. Ukraine says the two men, Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Alexander Alexandrov, were serving in the Russian military. They were captured by Ukrainian forces last May...
World’s cartoonists on this week’s events
First published in The International New York Times, April 13, 2016 | By Chappatte. Exclusively drawn for POLITICO.eu | By Rytis Daukantas First published in La Vanguardia, Spain, April 9, 2016 | By Kap First published on Caglecartoons.com, The Netherlands, April 14, 2016 | By Tom Janssen. First published on Caglecartoons.com, The Netherlands,...
