Summit also calls for release of activist and traveling companion.

In response to the interception of a passenger jet by Belarus, EU leaders on Monday demanded the release of opposition activist Roman Protasevich and his traveling companion, Sofia Sapega, and called for a barrage of new sanctions against the government of strongman Alexander Lukashenko.

In a statement after discussions at a summit in Brussels, heads of state and government called for sanctions against individuals and “entities.” They also said the Council of the European Union would adopt measures to ban Belarusian airlines from flying in EU airspace or accessing EU airports.

The leaders’ statement effectively provides the appearance of a quick, forceful response to the incident on Sunday, which several have denounced as a “hijacking” and “state-sponsored terrorism.” But the true extent of the EU’s response will not be known until officials, diplomats and lawyers work through the details of sanctions, which must be drafted to withstand legal challenges.

(24. 05. 21. via politico.eu)

Results in Saxony-Anhalt give conservative bloc a boost before September ballot.

Germany’s ruling Christian Democrats scored a commanding victory in a closely watched regional election on Sunday, handing the conservative bloc a crucial boost in the final test before September’s general election.

The center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) won 37.1 percent of the vote in Sunday’s state election in Saxony-Anhalt, according to preliminary results, relegating the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) to a distant second with 20.8 percent.

That means that CDU is all but certain to retain control of the state in coalition with smaller parties.

The win will likely squash fears that the CDU is vulnerable on its right flank in the wake of a caustic battle for the chancellor candidacy in April that some feared would divide the conservative bloc in the run-up to September’s election. It also provided a substantial boost to the CDU’s new leader, Armin Laschet, who is running to succeed Angela Merkel and extend his party’s 16-year hold on power.

The CDU has slipped in national polls in recent months as many voters flirted with the idea of voting for the Greens. The ecological party has pulled even with the CDU and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), in many polls, suggesting that it has a chance of leading Germany’s next government. The CDU is also under attack from the AfD, especially in former East German states, where the xenophobic party is especially strong.

An eastern state with fewer than 2 million voters, Saxony-Anhalt doesn’t normally have much impact on Germany’s national politics. But this year, the timing of the state’s election made it something of a bellwether, as it marked the last time Germans will go to the polls before selecting a new federal government and a successor to Merkel on September 26.

In the run-up to election day, the AfD was neck and neck with the CDU in many polls, raising the possibility that the anti-immigrant party might win its first state.

Instead, that prospect appears to have driven voters to back incumbent state premier Reiner Haseloff of the CDU. Haseloff, who has governed the state since 2011, recorded his strongest result yet on Sunday.

“I’m grateful to all of our citizens that a really substantial majority chose democracy and drew a line between us and the right, preserving our image as democrats,” Haseloff said in an interview with German public television.

Most observers attributed the CDU’s win to Haseloff’s personal popularity. Even so, the victory was also good news for Laschet, who campaigned for Haseloff in the state even though the state premier had supported Laschet’s rival, Bavarian leader Markus Söder, in the race to become the conservative bloc’s candidate for chancellor.

A CDU defeat in Saxony-Anhalt at the hands of the AfD would have been an unmitigated disaster for Laschet and renewed questions about his suitability as a candidate to lead the country.

Although the AfD, which in Saxony-Anhalt has a reputation for particularly extremist views, still won about a fifth of the vote — roughly double the roughly 10 percent the party receives in national polls — the result was below what the party received in the last election in 2016, with a loss of 3.4 percentage points.
Left-wing parties struggle
Even as the CDU managed to capitalize on concerns that the AfD would put in a strong showing, parties to the left of the political spectrum had a tougher time.

The Greens, which are traditionally weak in eastern states, won 5.9 percent of the vote, marginally better than the 5.2 percent they recorded in the last election in 2016.

The Social Democrats (SPD), who have struggled across Germany in recent years, fared even worse, falling below the 10 percent threshold to 8.4 percent, a drop of 2.2 percentage points. The same was true of the leftist Die Linke, the successor to the East German communist party, which won just 11 percent after garnering more than 16 percent five years ago.

The Free Democrats (FDP), a conservative liberal party, won 6.4 percent, an increase of 1.6 percentage points over 2016.

That raises the possibility that the CDU could drop the Greens to forge a coalition with the SPD and FDP, the traditional partner of the center right.

(06. 06. 21. via politico.eu)

Commission president aims for political deal by the end of this month.

The EU might just be able to help you get a holiday this summer.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Saturday the bloc is “on track” to have its system of green passes in place by June.

EU officials hope the scheme will boost tourism as the coronavirus pandemic eases by offering a standard certificate verifying travelers’ jabs, tests or past infections.

The legal and technical work on the green certificate “is on track for the system to be operational in June,” von der Leyen said at a summit of EU leaders in the Portuguese city of Porto.

As for securing a deal among EU politicians on the passes, von der Leyen said that “we can realistically aim to have a political agreement by the end of this month.”

That target looks ambitious, as talks between the European Parliament and Council of the EU are far from straightforward. Parliament insists the certificates should be used to drop further restrictions such as quarantines — a tough sell in the Council, as EU countries warn they must keep their options open in case new health threats emerge. Parliament also called for free coronavirus testing as part of any deal.

Negotiators from the Council and the Parliament launched talks on the passes earlier this week, and a second meeting is due next week.

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, whose economy relies heavily on tourism, told POLITICO in Porto that there was a “general consensus” that the talks should be accelerated. But he conceded that it’s “difficult to be confident in the timeframe” of the negotiations.

The EU is aiming for the framework to enter into effect by June 21, but that’s “not a promise,” according to Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. “It’s a target date, depending on how the European debate goes,” he said. EU leaders will discuss the passes again at a meeting on May 25.

Several countries, including Austria, have already taken matters into their own hands with the launch of a national pass. If there’s no EU-wide progress, countries could cut bilateral deals, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said. But he added that even countries that had aired concerns about the scheme were under pressure to restart travel.

“There aren’t just politicians in the world, thank God, there’s the population, and the population … is impatient: People want to travel again, they want to have the possibility of going on holiday again,” he said.

(08.05.2021. via politico.eu)

Labour is losing ground to the Conservatives in elections across England, in the first big test of Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership of the party.
The first blow for Labour came when the Tories took a Westminster seat from it in the Hartlepool by-election.
It has also lost control of several councils, while the Conservatives have made gains.
And the Tories won more than 70% of the mayoral vote in Tees Valley – an area that used to vote Labour.
Sir Keir said he was “bitterly disappointed”, but pledged to lead a fightback for his party and to set out a “bold vision” in the next few days.

More than half the results from Thursday’s English council elections have been announced.
The rest, as well as those for mayoral and police and crime commissioner contests, will continue to come in through over the weekend.
Among the details so far, the Conservatives have taken Pendle, Maidstone, Cornwall, Nottinghamshire, Basildon, Northumberland, Dudley, and Nuneaton and Bedworth councils from no overall control.
They also took control of of Harlow council, in Essex, from Labour.
And Labour has lost Sheffield, Plymouth and Rossendale to no overall control.
The Green Party has increased its number of seats across England, while the Conservatives lost Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Wight to no overall control.

Conservative Ben Houchen was re-elected mayor of Tees Valley, which includes Hartlepool, receiving 73% of the vote. This involved a swing from Labour to his party of 23%.
Mr Houchen said there was “pride returning” to the area, adding that it was “not true” that the government had pumped lots of money into it over the past few years only because it was run by a Conservative.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice, of Strathclyde University, said “what was once traditional Labour territory” in north-eastern England had “now been well and truly painted blue”.
England is electing 143 councils, 13 mayors.
It is also choosing 35 police and crime commissioners, of which the Conservatives have so far gained three, for Dorset, Cleveland and Avon and Somerset.
The prime minister described results declared so far as “very encouraging” for the Conservatives.
“I think that’s really because we have been focusing, as a government, on our priorities, the people’s priorities, and bouncing back from the pandemic as much as we can and getting through it,” he added.

Sir Keir offered a stark assessment of Labour’s performance, which follows its worst general election outcome since the 1930s in 2019.
He told the BBC the party, which he has led for just over a year, had “lost the trust of working people, particularly in places like Hartlepool”, adding: “We have not made a strong enough case to the country.”
He said that he intended to take “responsibility for fixing things”.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn criticised the party under Sir Keir for “offering nothing” but “insipid support for the government”.
“We have to make a very clear pitch for what real social justice would look like,” he told Channel 4 News. “You don’t succeed in beating the government if you agree with their strategy.”
But Labour has won some key votes, including in Doncaster, where Ros Jones was re-elected as mayor.
It has also retained control of councils including Liverpool, Manchester, Hastings and Exeter.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey, whose party has lost a few seats with more than half of councils still to declare their results, said it was “moving forwards and making progress”.
Reacting to the gain in seats in Cambridgeshire, he added: “If you want to beat the Conservatives, it’s the Liberal Democrats that can do it.”

England is seeing a bumper set of local council elections this year, after polls in 2020 were postponed due to the pandemic.
In Scotland, parliamentary results will give an indication of the public level of support for a second independence referendum, as proposed by the SNP.
Meanwhile, Welsh Labour is aiming to remain the largest party in the Senedd, where it has held power since the parliament was founded in 1999.

(08.05.2021. via bbc.com)

Prosecutors in Bulgaria say they are collecting evidence about the possible involvement of Russia in explosions at Bulgarian arms depots. Officials claim there may be a link with similar blasts in the Czech Republic.

Bulgarian prosecutors on Wednesday said they were investigating the possible involvement of six Russians in four explosions at arms depots from 2011 to 2020.

The arms stores were holding munitions destined for export to Ukraine and Georgia, the prosecution team said.

Talks with Czech colleagues
Prosecutors’ spokeswoman Siyka Mileva said investigators could reasonably assume there were links between the blasts and munitions depot explosions in the Czech Republic in 2014. They also believe there may be connections with the attempted poisoning of Bulgarian arms trader Emilian Gebrev in 2015.

“The collected evidence points so far, with a great degree of credibility, to the conclusion that the aim of the actions of the Russian citizens was to stop the supplies […] to Georgia and Ukraine,” Mileva said. “Evidence is being collected on the complicity of these six Russian citizens.”

Mileva said the team of prosecutors was talking to Czech counterparts to investigate possible connections. The 2014 explosions in the Czech Republic were at depots that stored munitions Gebrev owned.

Prosecutors claim the blast at Gebrev’s company EMCO in 2011, two explosions at state arms company VMZ in 2015 and a fourth at private arms firm Arsenal in 2020 all had no obvious technical cause.

All were triggered remotely and followed the outbreak of fires apparently timed to allow workers to leave the area and avoid casualties.

Disputes with Russia widen
Moscow and Prague are locked in their biggest row since the end of the Cold War, after Czech officials claimed Russian spies were behind the explosions on its soil.

Russia has rejected the Czech allegations as absurd and also dismissed the Bulgarian investigation on Wednesday.

“Either the Bulgarian side knew nothing and only now, after the Czech Republic announced the 2014 incident, decided to outshine the Czechs and look further back into history,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters. “Or they knew about it for all this time but did not make it public for some reason.”

Russia on Wednesday expelled diplomats from Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia in a tit-for-tat move amid a widening dispute over the Czech accusations.

Ukraine and Russia have been at odds since the Crimean Peninsula was annexed by Moscow and Russian-backed separatists in 2014, and an insurgency was launched in eastern Ukraine. There have been tensions between Russia and Georgia since the two were briefly at war in 2008.

(27.04.21. via Deutsche Welle)

It’s the latest twist in a row involving Slovakia’s ex-prime minister, its drugs regulator and Russia over Sputnik V.

A Hungarian laboratory will assess the Russian Sputnik V vaccine for use in Slovakia, Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said Friday.

“Our Slovak friends asked us to help them in the expert assessment of vaccines coming from Russia to Slovakia. We are happy to meet this requirement because we have the capacity, internationally accredited laboratories and knowledge,” Szijjártó said at a news conference in Budapest.

The move is the latest twist in a row involving Slovakia’s ex-prime minister, its drugs regulator and Russia over the quality of batches of the vaccine delivered to Slovakia in March.

Igor Matovič, who was Slovakia’s prime minister at the time, secretly ordered 2 million doses of the Sputnik V vaccine for his country, triggering a revolt among his coalition partners and forcing him out of office. He is now finance minister in the new government.

On Thursday, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), which promotes the vaccine outside Russia, demanded the Slovak government return the 200,000 Sputnik V doses already shipped to the country, alleging “multiple contract violations.”

That followed a negative assessment of the vaccine by the Slovak drugs regulator ŠÚKL, which on Thursday said that the Sputnik V doses delivered were different to those supplied elsewhere or to the European Medicines Agency. The ŠÚKL also said the Russians failed to provide sufficient data on the jab.

“Batches of vaccine used in preclinical tests and clinical studies published in the Lancet [medical journal] do not have the same characteristics and properties as batches of vaccine imported to Slovakia,” the ŠÚKL wrote in its opinion.

The RDIF dismissed the ŠÚKL’s assessment as “fake news.” It said all Sputnik V batches are “of the same quality and undergo rigorous quality control.”

Hungary and Slovakia are so far the only EU countries to order the Sputnik V vaccine, which has not been approved for use by the European Medicines Agency.

Following a visit Thursday to Moscow, Matovič said Friday in Bratislava — he also attended Szijjártó’s Budapest news conference — that the Russians had terminated the Slovak contract because they felt “extremely damaged” by the fact that the ŠÚKL had entrusted the testing of the vaccine to an unregistered laboratory.

That charge was immediately refuted by the institute in charge of the testing, the Biomedical Center of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (BMC SAS).

That’s “not true,” the BMC said in a statement. “Eight of the 14 tests were performed in the Biotechnology Laboratories of the BMC SAS, which are registered in the European database EudraGMP and certified to perform microbiological, chemical and biological tests of drugs.”

The remaining six tests were carried out in the laboratories of the BMC’s Institute of Virology, with the approval of the Slovak health ministry and the ŠÚKL.

“Therefore, our results could not damage the reputation of the manufacturer,” the BMC declared.

However, the RDIF had complained in a tweet that the vaccine had not been tested in an accredited EU Official Medicines Control Laboratory (OMCL), which the BMC SAS is not. This was a “violation of [the] existing contract and an act of sabotage,” the fund said.

“At the moment, we have no evidence that [Sputnik V] is safe or that it is dangerous,” ŠÚKL director Zuzana Baťová said. “We have too little information.”

However, she welcomed the Hungarian laboratory testing the vaccine, noting that the ŠÚKL had asked it three times to perform such testing, but had been turned down because the vaccine was not registered.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the ŠÚKL’s negative assessment of the vaccine would not undermine EU confidence in the jab.

“If Slovakia doesn’t need the vaccine, other countries will be pleased … there will be more for others,” Peskov said.

(9. 4. 2021. via politico.eu)

Bernd Lucke has got Germany’s top court to hit pause on flagship European initiative.

Bernd Lucke has got Germany to halt ratification of the EU’s €750 billion coronavirus recovery fund, sending chills through European capitals. But he insists he’s doing the European Union a favor.

“I didn’t set off any bombs,” the German economics professor and former Euroskeptic MEP said in an interview with POLITICO. “The bombshell is that the European Council developed a completely new finaencial instrument that is contrary to the European treaties.”

Late last month, Lucke spearheaded a complaint to Germany’s Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe against the debt-financed recovery fund. The court promptly issued an injunction preventing President Frank-Walter Steinmeier from signing off on legislation amounting to Berlin’s consent to set up the fund, while judges decide whether to accept the complaint for full examination.

All EU member states must pass similar legislation before the European Commission can borrow on the markets to establish the fund. A hold-up from any country is a cause for concern in Brussels and around the bloc. But the flagship fund is unthinkable without Germany — so it would be effectively dead if the court in Karlsruhe triggers a long delay or rejects its funding mechanism outright.

This is not the first time Lucke has led a charge against European economic integration. After leaving Angela Merkel’s CDU party, he co-founded the Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) in 2013, before making an inglorious departure after it lurched to the far right.

He is also no stranger to high-profile cases at the German Constitutional Court. Last year, an alliance he leads won a big victory when the court ruled the European Central Bank’s 2015 bond-buying program would be illegal under German law unless the ECB could prove the purchases are justified.

Lucke argues EU leaders should have seen a legal challenge to the recovery fund coming and acted accordingly: “First, they should have refused to give their consent because it is against the treaties, and second, they should have remembered that in Germany lawsuits before the Constitutional Court are to be expected.”

The European Commission insists it is “convinced of the legality” of the financing mechanism for the recovery fund. A Commission spokesperson said the “EU objective remains to ensure the completion of the ratification process in all member states by the end of the second quarter of this year.”

But the future of the fund now rests with the judges in Karlsruhe, as they examine the complaint filed by Lucke and some 2,280 fellow German citizens. The first key moment will likely come within a few weeks, when the court decides whether to admit the complaint. If they decide to do so, that could delay Germany’s approval of the fund for a year or longer.

A German government spokesperson expressed cautious optimism that the court will take its decision “very swiftly,” given that the judges are “probably aware of the dimension” of the lawsuit.

‘Not a bogeyman’
At its core, the complaint is about the so-called Own Resources Decision, which raises the ceilings on the amount of money the EU can ask for from its member countries. This would effectively provide financial guarantees from EU members to allow the European Commission to borrow money on the international financial markets to establish the recovery fund.

Lucke says this means pooling the debt risk, because under the proposed system all EU countries would be jointly liable for the money that the EU spends via the fund — effectively creating so-called eurobonds and turning the EU into a debt union. As the EU is meant to present balanced budgets, such a move would be against the bloc’s treaties, he says.

“I would like to note: Mrs. Merkel was always against eurobonds. I am not a bogeyman, but I am Mrs. Merkel’s faithful Eckart,” Lucke said, referring to a fairytale character in German literature seen as an honest, incorruptible and reliable companion.

“I am watching to make sure that nothing happens that she has always considered wrong,” Lucke said. “One is not a bogeyman, I hope, if one stands up for the rule of law in the EU.”

Merkel has long opposed the idea of eurobonds but said last year the recovery fund was necessary as a one-off measure to deal with the historic challenge of the coronavirus crisis. She disputes that the funding mechanism amounts to the creation of eurobonds.

“I fear that this is yet another attempt to dupe the public by saying ‘one-off’ and ‘exceptionally,’ but actually paving the way for a permanent fiscal union,” Lucke said. “Once you’ve opened this door, you can’t close it again.”

The legal action puts Lucke in a position similar to one he was in a decade ago, when he quit the CDU in protest at Merkel’s financial rescue policies for countries like Greece.

In 2013, he founded the AfD to campaign for abolishing the EU’s common currency, the euro. Yet as one of the party’s three leaders, he was unable to stop far-right elements gaining influence. When the AfD took a decisive far-right turn amid the 2015 refugee crisis, he quit his own party.

Lucke founded a new party, the Liberal-Conservative Reformists, which is now languishing in political insignificance. He stayed on in the European Parliament, where he had been elected as an MEP for the AfD in 2014, until failing to get reelected in 2019.

That year, Lucke said he was quitting politics and returning to his job at the Hamburg university, where police intervened after protesting students interrupted one of his lectures, shouting “Nazi pig” and “get lost.”

Lucke rejects any association with the far right. “I have always, as AfD leader and in the time since, distanced myself from any form of right-wing extremism. I am an active protestant Christian, and I would never engage in xenophobic or right-wing extremist activities or tolerate them; that is out of the question,” he said.

However, when it comes to his opposition to the financial mechanism behind the recovery fund, Lucke finds himself allied with his former party: The AfD was the only party to vote against the Own Resources Decision in the Bundestag last month. (Leftist party Die Linke abstained.)

“They are not comrades-in-arms,” he said, stressing he made sure none of the 40 main complainants in his Bündnis Bürgerwille (Will of the Citizens Alliance), which launched the lawsuit, had any ties to the party. “There is no common ground, no agreements and no joint action with the AfD.”

Lucke insists he is not against the idea of an EU recovery fund per se, or even economic solidarity within the bloc.

He has proposed an alternative model, whereby each country would borrow money individually on the markets to pay into the recovery fund. Under that plan, countries could still receive more money than they had paid in — with Germany for example contributing more than Spain — but they would each be responsible for paying back their own share.

That plan would not be nearly as attractive to EU members such as southern European countries, which have been hit particularly hard economically by the pandemic and expect to receive large sums from the EU fund. They would face higher borrowing costs than the European Commission, which could borrow more cheaply thanks to the support of Germany above all.

“I would offer you a bet,” Lucke said, predicting that if the German Constitutional Court accepts the lawsuit, “the heads of state and government will get together very quickly and do exactly what I said. Right now, of course, they are trying to put pressure on the court and give the impression that the future of Europe depends on Karlsruhe rejecting our application. But that is wrong.”

(5. 4. 2021 via politico.eu)

Armin Laschet’s proposals have been met with skepticism by political opponents. Germany is struggling to contain a third wave of the coronavirus.

North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) State Premier Armin Laschet called for a harder lockdown on Monday as Germany struggles to contain a third wave of the coronavirus.

However, Laschet’s request has been met with skepticism from fellow German lawmakers.

The chairman of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and one of her potential successor as chancellor said that Germany needed harder lockdown measures to stem a rise in cases of COVID-19.

‘Bridge lockdown’
Speaking at a vaccination center in Aachen, Lasschet said Germany must create a lockdown that bridges the time until immunizations can make a difference.

“We need a bridge lockdown. We have to build a bridge to the point in time when a lot of people are vaccinated.”

“We are very close to the goal,” he continued. “For the last meters we need an extra effort and that’s what I’m calling for today.”

Laschet is asking for fewer private contacts, which could require curfews at night, and for more people to work from home.

He said that a meeting planned for April 12 among the premiers of Germany’s 16 states and the federal government should take place this week instead.

Backlash
But Thuringia State Premier Bodo Ramelow (The Left party) expressed doubt over his counterpart’s strategy. “We can meet at any time, but there must be something on the table first that we can actually decide on together and, above all, implement it,” he told Der Spiegel. “The current speeches are again patchwork and hectic.”

“I think a lot of what Mr Laschet says is unclear,” said Berlin State Premier Michael Müller (SPD). “A bridge lockdown is temporary with what measures? I don’t think Mr Laschet has thought things through.”

The co-chairwoman of The Left party, Janine Wissler, also criticized Laschet. “It is irresponsible that the numbers have risen so high that so many people have fallen ill and the intensive care units are full,” she told Der Spiegel. “Whether his proposals are based on insight or because he has lost the power struggle against the chancellor, remains be seen. In any case, this crisis management makes one become fearful and anxious.”

Germany, despite months of restrictions, has seen a rise in coronavirus infections as it lags behind Britain, Israel and the United States in its vaccination pace.

(5. 4. 2021 via dw.com)