Newsletter
Newsletter
EUROPE
Ukraine moves to cut diplomatic ties with Iran: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday he was submitting a proposal to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to formally cut diplomatic ties with Tehran after a wave of Russian attacks using what Kyiv says are Iranian-made drones. The United States, Britain and France plan to raise alleged Iranian arms transfers to Russia at a closed-door UN Security Council meeting this Wednesday. NATO will deliver air defence systems to Ukraine in coming days to help the country defend itself against the drones, including those from Iran, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said. reuters.com, reuters.com, reuters.com
- EU imposes sanctions on Iran’s morality police and officials. apnews.com
- Concern for Iranian athlete who climbed without hijab. dw.com
Third of power stations in Ukraine destroyed: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia’s military has destroyed some 30% of Ukraine’s power stations. Much of the damage has been done in the past week, with repeated strikes targeting energy infrastructure and causing blackouts across the country. Over 1,100 cities and town in Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, have seen power cuts after more strikes hit energy facilities on Tuesday. dw.com
- EU countries agree to train Ukrainian soldiers as part of new mission. euronews.com
- Ukraine receives two billion euros in aid from EU. reuters.com
- EU considers paying Elon Musk to keep giving Starlink internet to Ukraine. politico.eu
- Estonian parliament declares Russia a terrorist state. politico.eu
- Four Russians caught taking pictures illegally in Norway. rferl.org
EU Commission proposes new emergency package on energy prices: The EU wants countries to better coordinate their gas purchases and be subject to new rules on sharing gas supplies in an emergency. The package aims to bolster the EU’s joint gas purchasing by asking countries to aggregate roughly 15% of their gas demand for next year. EU countries could then negotiate gas deals jointly with third parties through a consortium and avoid competition for gas between capitals, von der Leyen said. politico.eu
- Plans to redirect nearly 40 billion euros of unspent EU budget funds to help vulnerable citizens and businesses hit by high energy prices. reuters.com
- Dozens of LNG-laden ships queue off Europe’s coasts unable to unload. reuters.com
EU Commission wants to better protect critical infrastructure: The Commission has proposed to strengthen the resilience of EU critical infrastructure such as gas pipelines or transport routes. European critical entities are more interconnected and interdependent, which makes them stronger and more efficient but also more vulnerable in case of an incident. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has brought new risks, physical and cyber-attacks, often combined as a hybrid threat. ec.europa.eu
Denmark says explosions caused Nord Stream pipeline leaks: Danish authorities said on Tuesday that powerful explosions had caused the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines to rupture three weeks ago, but declined to say who might have caused them. Three weeks after the explosions on the bed of the Baltic Sea, European investigators have said little about who was responsible for the blasts that, according to images taken by an undersea drone, commissioned by the Swedish tabloid Expressen, tore away 164 feet of one of the steel-and-concrete pipes on Nord Stream 1. nytimes.com
- New video shows just how big the Nord Stream explosion was. gizmodo.com
MEPs refuse to discharge EU border agency Frontex over its management in 2020: MEPs criticise the magnitude of the committed serious misconduct under the previous executive director of the agency, who resigned on 28 April 2022, following the release of a revealing report by the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF. The agency failed to protect the fundamental rights of migrants and asylum seekers and, according to media report, was involved in the illegal pushbacks of at least 957 refugees between March 2020 and September 2021, Parliament says. europarl.europa.eu
- UN urges investigation after 92 naked migrants sent from Turkey into Greece. theguardian.com
EU election reform debate emerges even as countries stay wary. politico.eu
Covid pandemic: Life expectancy in Eastern Europe and the US has fallen significantly. nature.com
Visa free movement area: EU lawmakers back Romania and Bulgaria Schengen bid. dw.com
Chips Act: Czech Presidency tries to close in on the Chips Act. euractiv.com
Baltic Sea: Council of the EU agrees catch limits for 2023. consilium.europa.eu
Animal rights: EU Commission to propose EU-wide phaseout of male chick killing. euractiv.com
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
After weeks of market turmoil and countless U-turns, British Prime Minister Liz Truss apologised late Monday for what she called “the mistakes that have been made” during the opening weeks of her already imperiled premiership. politico.eu
NATION
Germany extends lifetime of remaining nuclear plants: Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Monday ordered Germany’s three remaining nuclear plants to remain in operation until April to fend off a possible energy crunch. There has been disagreement in the governing coalition over the lifespan of nuclear power plants. However, Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck of the Green Party said he accepted the fact that Scholz had overridden others in the Cabinet. The chancellor has asked the Economy, Environment and Finance Ministries to create the legal basis for the plants to remain open. dw.com
German cybersecurity chief fired over alleged Russia ties: German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser on Tuesday dismissed the head of the BSI national cybersecurity agency, Arne Schönbohm. He was removed from his post after media reported that he had links with people involved with Russian intelligence services. dw.com
Strikes spread in France: It started several weeks ago at refineries. Then it spread to nuclear plants. And finally, on Tuesday, railway and postal workers, nurses, some teachers and even high school students across France, at least for the day, joined a snowballing strike that has become the biggest test so far of President Emmanuel Macron’s second term. Dozens of black-clad protesters clashed with police and broke shop windows when several thousand people took to the streets of Paris to call for wage hikes as high inflation eats away their purchasing power. nytimes.com, reuters.com
UK summons senior Chinese diplomat over violent attack at Manchester consulate: The UK has summoned a senior Chinese diplomat for urgent talks after a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was dragged into the Chinese Consulate grounds in Manchester and violently attacked. Footage from the incident, which happened Sunday, shows unidentified men emerging from the consulate compound, tearing down a satirical portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping erected by protesters outside and then attacking a protester within the consulate grounds. politico.eu
- UK to issue threat alert over China’s attempts to recruit RAF pilots. theguardian.com
- US warns that China sees much faster timeline on taking Taiwan. france24.com
- Mysterious UK defence secretary trip to Washington amid fears of Russian escalation. news.sky.com
Abrupt reversal of tax-cut plan deepens crisis for Liz Truss: Under relentless pressure from financial markets, Britain’s new chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, swept away the free-market economic agenda of Prime Minister Liz Truss on Monday, a humiliating repudiation that left her credibility in tatters and her political survival in doubt. Hunt said he would reverse virtually all the government’s planned tax cuts, which were the centerpiece of Truss’s promise to reignite Britain’s economic growth, but which kicked off weeks of market turmoil because of fears that they would force the government into massive new borrowing. nytimes.com
Swedish government scraps country’s pioneering feminist foreign policy: Sweden’s new rightwing government has announced it is ditching the country’s pioneering “feminist foreign policy”, launched by the leftwing administration in 2014, saying the label could be counter-productive. The foreign minister, Tobias Billström, announced the move just moments after the prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, presented his new government, backed by the far-right Sweden Democrats for the first time. theguardian.com
French cement company pleads guilty to supporting Islamic State in Syria: French cement company Lafarge pleaded guilty in a US court Tuesday to making payments to Islamic State and another terror group in order to keep a plant operating in Syria. It agreed to pay $778 million as part of the plea agreement. The court heard that between 2013 and 2014, Lafarge paid Islamic State and al Nusra Front, through intermediaries, more than $5 million to help keep one of its plants operational. politico.eu
Democratic standards: Polish row with EU worsens with billions in aid at risk. bloomberg.com
Austria: Corruption probe linked to former chancellor Sebastian Kurz expands. ft.com
Netherlands to leave embattled Energy Charter Treaty. politico.eu
Scotland: Independence will rid Scotland of UK economic chaos, says Nicola Sturgeon. theguardian.com
France: State fined further €20 million for inadequate action over air pollution. rfi.fr
NUMBERS
While youth unemployment across the bloc has decreased to 13.8%, European towns are struggling to remain attractive to young people. euractiv.com
AT LAST
Berlusconi said he received vodka from Putin for birthday: Silvio Berlusconi has allegedly said Vladimir Putin gave him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday after he “re-established” relations with the Russian president. Italy’s three-time former prime minister, an old friend of Putin’s, is reported to have told a meeting of Forza Italia parliamentarians in Rome on Tuesday that the shipment of vodka was accompanied by a “very sweet letter”. theguardian.com