Greece between provocation and cooperation: Greece no longer wants to work together with the Eurogroup inspectors. A meeting between Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who is looking to write down half of Greece’s debt, and Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of the eurozone finance ministers‘ group, ended in a major row. President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, is alarmed at Athens’ „irresponsible“ behavior. Despite this provocation, Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is determined to keep Greece in the euro zone. Paris announced a meeting between Francois Hollande and Alexis Tsipras before the European Council summit on 12 February, where the debt question is sure to take centre stage. The French and Greek Finance Minister, Michel Sapin and Yanis Varoufakis, will meet in Paris on 2 February.
bbc.com, euractiv.com, yahoonews.com
Rapid reaction force for Eastern Europe: The NATO members at the eastern border of the alliance are set to receive support. An interim force of German, Norwegian and Dutch troops stands ready to respond to any security threat from the east. The rapid-response force will be on seven-day standby in case of an attack and could go into action faster if it picks up signals of an imminent threat. The high-readiness force, made up of land, sea, air and special operations units, is a key part of NATO’s strengthening of eastern Europe’s defenses following Russia’s seizure of Crimea.
latimes.com, bloomberg.com
Iraq welcomes potential EU police mission: On Sunday, the Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz travelled to Iraq. He spoke with Iraqi President Fuad Masum about a possible future EU police mission in Iraq. Masum showed interest, an official request will be sent to the EU shortly. The mission would allow EU states to train Iraqi security forces in the future.
derstandard.at
Ukraine negotiations in Minsk failed: The hopes for a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine were dashed. On Saturday, the first meeting in five weeks of the conflicting parties through mediation of the OSCE ended after only four hours without results. The Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels accuse one another of sabotaging the talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande in a telephone conference about the tense situation in eastern Ukraine. At least 20 people were killed and more than 40 injured during fights in the east of the country.
cnn.com, bbc.com, reuters.com
Commission reviews German minimum wage: Germany has put on hold rules requiring foreign trucking firms to pay its minimum wage to their drivers while they are on German roads, pending a European Union decision on their legality. Eastern European countries neighbouring Germany had protested against the rules because they fear decreased competitiveness for their companies. Many of those countries’ firms have been able to take a big share of the international road freight business because they pay their drivers less than their Western European competitors. Germany is the only European country not to exclude transit workers from the minimum wage which it has argued was needed to stave off wage dumping.
reuters.com, financialtimes.com, yahoonews.com
War Crimes Tribunal confirms judgements: The United Nations Yugoslav war crimes tribunal has upheld the convictions of five men for their role in the Srebrenica massacre. The men, high-ranking officials in the Bosnian Serb Army in 1995, had appealed against their convictions in 2010 for a range of crimes including genocide. About 8,000 Bosnian men and boys were killed in Srebrenica in just three days in 1995, the worst atrocity on European soil since the Holocaust. The men are among just a few to have been found guilty of genocide and were sentenced to life. 7,000 bodies of victims of the massacre have been found. The search is still on for 1,200 more victims.
bbc.com
Japanese hostage Federica Mogherini expresses condolences to family of Kenji Goto europa.eu
Neighbourhood policy EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn speaks about relations between EU and Jordan europa.eu
Arrests EU demands fair trial for alleged conspirators in Macedonia europa.eu
„Even with lower oil prices and a low level of investment in the oil industry, we still expect growth for this and next year. We are an economy in transition and we are attempting to develop companies in sectors other than oil- and gas-related.“
Norwegian President Erna Solberg believes her country to be well-positioned regardless of low oil prices.
adn.com„If inflation in the euro area were to rise to 4%, everybody would expect the ECB to do something about it. Consequently, the ECB also has to step in when inflation falls to nearly zero.“
Peter Praet, member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, defends the controversial decision of the ECB to purchase government bonds.
europa.eu
Germany mourns: Former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, the statesman who addressed Nazi crimes more directly than any of his predecessors, died on Saturday at the age of 94. The CDU politician served as German President from 1984 to 1994. Born in Stuttgart in 1920, Weizsäcker was also Berlin’s governing mayor from 1981 until 1984. In his most famous speech on May 8, 1985, the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II, he said the war’s end had meant liberation from the inhuman system of the National Socialist tyranny. Weizsäcker will be honoured with a state funeral February 11th in the Berlin Cathedral.
dw.de, wallstreetjournal.com, nytimes.com, europeonline-magazine.eu
Mattarella is Italy’s new President: Italian lawmakers elected 73-year-old Sergio Mattarella, a constitutional court judge and veteran center-left politician, as new Italien president. After three inconclusive rounds of voting, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s candidate Mattarella was elected in the fourth round, when the required quorum fell to a simple majority. Mattarella, who is little known to most Italians, got 665 votes. The election shows Renzi in firm control of both his fractious party and his allies in the ruling majority.
usatoday.com, reuters.com
Thousands rally for change in Spain: Tens of thousands of Spaniards took part in a rally organized by radical Spanish leftwing party Podemos in central Madrid. The party, which was founded last year, is already leading the polls. The „March for Change“ is one of the party’s first outdoor mass rallies, as it looks to build on the recent victory of its close allies Syriza in Greece. Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias has vowed to write off part of Spain’s debt if it comes to power.
cnbc.com, bbc.com, theguardian.com
Strauss-Kahn on trial: The former head of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, is facing trial in France on pimping charges. He is accused of organizing parties with prostitutes. The court case is being stylised as a fight over French values by Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers and parts of the French society. It is the last chance to hold Strauss-Kahn responsible for his offenses.
theguardian.com, telegraph.co.uk, reuters.com
Croatia cancels personal debts: On Monday, around 60,000 Croatian citizens will see their debts written-off by banks, telecoms and utilities operators as part of a deal with the government. The aim is to boost the economy by helping households to regain access to basic facilities including bank accounts. The ambitious 273 million euro program has been dubbed „fresh start“ and is set to give some of the 320,000 inhabitants of the country access to their accounts again.
telegraph.co.uk, washingtonpost.com, foxnews.com
Gunman recorded terrorist attack: The terrorist Amedy Coulibaly who gunned down four people at a kosher market in eastern Paris earlier this month recorded the attack on a camera. Investigators have examined computers recovered from the grocery store and are investigating any accomplices in an attempt to find out whether the perpetrator sent the video to anyone before police shot him. Meanwhile, French counterterrorism police arrested five people in an operation aimed at rooting out a suspected jihadist network hat had been recruiting people to join militants fighting in Syria.
usatoday.com, cnn.com, nytimes.com
Russia State media receive less funding handelsblatt.com
Serbia Army general accused of war crimes europeonline-magazine.eu
The average cost of living in the euro zone dropped to 0.6 percent compared to 2014. In december, consumer prices dropped for the first time since 2009. The ECB insists on preventing deflation and recently started a massive program for the purchase of government bonds.
bloomberg.com
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Creativity counteracting downturn in visitors: Necessity is the mother of invention: A ski resort in Switzerland is fighting back against a recent downturn in visitors with its own exchange rate of 1.35 Swiss Francs for one euro. „So far, we have had no cancellations“, says Berno Stoffel, head of tourism of the municipality Grächen and the initiator of a campaign that aims to defy the Swiss central bank. A model that could prove successful.
telegraph.co.uk, faz.net