#EU commission president

[thoughtlessarse]

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is set to unveil her new top team on Tuesday, navigating complex political dynamics as she balances member state interests for the EU's next five years. After weeks of fierce political horse-trading, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen unveiled Tuesday her new top team to help steward the EU through the next five years of global uncertainty. Faced with Russia's war in Ukraine, the potential return of Donald Trump as US president and competition from China, the formation of the new commission comes at a crucial moment. To confront the challenges, von der Leyen handed powerful economic portfolios to France, Spain and Italy -- putting a hard-right candidate from Rome in a top role. "It's about strengthening our tech sovereignty, our security and our democracy," the commission chief said as she announced the team at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. French candidate Stephane Sejourne was handed an executive vice president role overseeing industrial strategy, after von der Leyen ousted Paris's first nominee. Spain's candidate Teresa Ribera, a socialist climate campaigner, was also made an executive vice president, tasked with overseeing the bloc's economic transition toward carbon neutrality. As Russia's war against Ukraine grinds on through a third year, security and defence roles assumed a new prominence. Former Lithuanian prime minister Andrius Kubilius was handed a new defence role overseeing the EU's push to rearm, making him one of several hawkish Russia critics in eastern Europe to receive a prominent role.

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Great, we now have our first fascist vice president, Raffaele Fitto who, unsurprisingly, has been involved in various trials for bribery and corruption, one in which he was banned from public office for 5 years and got 1 year in jail. He was later acquitted.

He was given a “cohesion” portfolio, whatever that may be. If it related to EU cohesion, then he's a strange choice given his previous anti-EU stance.

[notayesmanseconomics]

Can Mario Draghi reform the European economic performance?

The last year or so has seen the leaders of the European Union forced to start to come to terms with the economic under performance of their bloc. In our terms we looked at a facet of this back on February 19th when ECB policymaker Dr. Isabel Schnabel said this. Over the past three decades, a striking gap in the real IT-related capital stock has emerged between the euro area and the United States…

[suetravelblog]

Exploring Kraków

[head-post]

Advances in EU fiscal rules

The prospect of an agreement on fiscal rules has long been surrounded by doom and gloom, with Germany’s opposition to the far-reaching changes proposed by the European Commission providing the greatest cause for pessimism. However, it is possible that the expected changes are coming, POLITICO reports.

Last month, the French and German governments succeeded in unlocking the positive momentum now seen in the talks. Both countries say the two-day retreat between President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz was a “huge atmospheric success,” which, given the current state of relations between the two countries, is very important.

According to those present in Hamburg, Germany and France committed themselves to reaching agreement on the two biggest outstanding issues: electricity market reforms and economic governance. And in line with that commitment, after months of unsuccessful negotiations, an agreement on the latter was finally reached earlier this month.

Overall, the Commission’s aim is to migrate the single set of Stability and Growth Pact fiscal adjustment requirements into more individualised, bilaterally agreed fiscal adjustment plans unique to each member state, based on debt sustainability analyses.

Read more HERE

[niveditaabaidya]

EU’s Von Der Leyen Praises Amazing Pace of Ukrainian reforms. eu #nato #...

[allthegeopolitics]

Elon Musk, unlike other tech bosses, "is not able to recognize good and evil,” a European Union top official said Wednesday. The multibillionaire tech mogul and boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX is amplifying hatred, outgoing European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová told POLITICO in an interview, calling him a “promoter of evil.” Musk has been on a collision course with European officials, fighting regulators and governments on multiple fronts. The tech mogul bought Twitter in April 2022, rebranding it as X shortly after, and he has attracted criticism for his management of the platform, with European politicians and civil society saying he has allowed hate speech to fester on the site.

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[mariacallous]

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump claims to have ideas for quickly settling the Russia-Ukraine. Whether or not that’s true—and there’s plenty of reason to think it’s not—it’s likely the Trump administration will soon halt its bankrolling of Ukraine’s war effort. On the campaign trail, Trump derided U.S. funding of Ukraine, which currently amounts to more than $60 billion—around half of Ukraine’s total military support from abroad—and has given every indication that he would discontinue it.

This would plunk the problem of support for Ukraine squarely in Europe’s lap. The continent is still not prepared for that reality. The fear of a Russian rout of Ukraine, however, could motivate Europe to try assuming responsibility for supporting Ukraine on its own—beginning with a recognition that ramping up its support is not beyond its ability.

The possibility of U.S. disengagement from Ukraine hasn’t caught Europe completely by surprise. Although Trump didn’t disclose specifics while on the campaign trail, he presented an outline of a plan to end the war: U.S.-led negotiations would stop Russia where it is on the battlefield, cede the territories that Russia occupies to it, and then lift international sanctions against Russia in exchange for the termination of military hostilities toward Ukraine. There would be no NATO or other Western security guarantee but rather, according to Vice President-elect J.D. Vance, a demilitarized zone along Ukraine’s new borders with defensive fortifications robust enough to prevent another Russian invasion. Most important to Trump seems to be jettisoning the U.S. financial commitment to Ukraine.

Europe’s own contribution to Ukraine’s cause so far should not be underestimated. According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the European Union is the largest provider of aid to Ukraine, having allocated a total of $133 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion. (In total, the US has shelled out nearly $91 billion in combined military, economic, and humanitarian assistance.) The EU states have come up with more than $45 billion in military aid for Ukraine’s defense, including large volumes of weaponry and munitions. The bloc’s offer of membership to Ukraine and money for reconstruction and recovery—all directed toward fulfilling membership criteria, as well as rebuilding—buttress the country’s resilience and fuel its democratic aspirations. And at home, member states are accommodating 4 million refugees and have dramatically cut their fossil energy imports from Russia.

The losses, however, should the United States really step back, would be egregious in terms of leadership, money, and weaponry. Europe’s leaders remain convinced that maintaining Ukraine’s independence and halting Russian aggression is vital to the entire continent’s security. But there’s also a recognition that Europe’s effort alone is likely not enough to hold Ukrainian lines on the battlefield, much less serve Russia a knockout blow.

Germany was never a convincing candidate for leadership on the military front, and now that Chancellor Olaf Scholz is heading up a minority coalition until new elections early next year, it will enjoy even less clout. In France, even though President Emmanuel Macron has aspired to leadership—and obviously understands what is at stake for Europe—he is politically weak and facing tough elections soon, too. And the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, is fresh in office and already engulfed in struggles.

Thus, the task could fall on the shoulders of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, if they accept it. Even though she doesn’t command a single battalion, von der Leyen has already shown what she can do as point person when the occasion demands it: When the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in Europe in 2020, she organized the EU-wide response like a seasoned field marshal, and then immediately on its heels, the quick pivot of Europe’s energy imports away from Russia. Simultaneously, the EU wasted no time imposing sanctions on Russia. And though only by a hair’s breadth, the EU recently outbattled Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moldova, where it helped fend off an onslaught of Russian disinformation, thus helping to reelect a liberal-minded president who is committed to democracy.

If the United States really bows out of the Russia-Ukraine war, however, von der Leyen is going to have to assume an even greater burden—leading a truly global military effort. The EU has allies beyond the bloc in countries like the UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, South Korea—all of which are pitching in for Ukraine but require a point person to look toward and to coordinate their support. This war was internationalized long before Russia put 10,000 North Korean troops on the ground, and the maintenance of a global pro-Ukraine front is vital to success.

Von der Leyen’s first hurdle, though, will be rallying the entire EU to the cause, and two members—Hungary and Slovakia—are pushing Trump-like “solutions.” Moreover, Russian-friendly populists are surging just about everywhere in the bloc.

At the recent European Political Community summit in Budapest, von der Leyen and Europe’s other top officials seemed to grasp the urgency of the task at hand but stopped short of offering specific plans for a way forward. “It is in all our interests that the autocrats of this world get a very clear message that there is not the right of might, that the rule of law is important,” von der Leyen said.

One thing appears absolutely certain: Europe will have to dig much deeper into its pockets. This means domestic politicos have to make the case to their populations much more bluntly: This war is about Europe, and Ukraine’s defeat would throw into jeopardy much of what decades of integration has accomplished—and cost their countries dearly in many ways.

EU leaders have already begun shifting monies to defense-related priorities.  Nearly a third of the bloc’s common budget, over $400 billion for 2021 to 2027, is allotted to cohesion funding, namely for the reduction of economic inequality between members. But, according to the Financial Times, nearly 95 percent of this budget goes untapped. This spending cannot go toward traditional military hardware but it can buy “dual-use products,” such as drones, global positioning satellites, night vision technology, thermal imaging, and some lasers. Germany, for instance, which is a transportation nexus for western Europe’s shipping for military goods to Ukraine, could call on its more than $40 billion in cohesion funds to repair its badly aged roads, bridges and trains.

A first step will have to involve pushing the third of NATO members who don’t even bankroll the alliance with the stated goal of committing 2 percent of their output to military spending. But maintaining Ukraine’s war effort will demand far more than that.

A proposal by Estonia, made before the U.S. election, deserves serious consideration. It calls for all NATO members anteing up at least 0.25 percent of their GDP for Ukraine’s defense, as the Baltic states already do. That would net   for ensuring Ukraine can still purchase weapons to check Russia. The EU could also consider pursuing raising funds in this way on its own, outside of NATO.

Whether these armaments come from the production facilities of European or foreign arms-makers is beside the point. Europeans’ procurement of weaponry is already happening beyond Europe’s own defense industries. The Czech Republic, head of a multinational arms-buying initiative, tapped markets in a number of non-EU countries to supply Ukraine’s armed forces with 800,000 million artillery shells.

Denmark is trailblazing direct investment in the Ukrainian defense industry. The Danish contribution and frozen Russian assets managed by Denmark on behalf of the EU pay the Ukrainian defense industry $600 million to produce attack drones, artillery, anti-tank weapons, missiles, and naval missiles. Belgium is also working in this direction, with the idea being that every euro buys armaments (more cheaply than on the international market) and establishes a more sophisticated defense industry in Ukraine itself.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) recommends the creation of a law similar to the U.S. Defense Production Act, which grants the U.S. president powers to bolster the nation’s defense by fast-tracking the production of materials and services. It would, according to ECFR, “provide European policymakers with the tools to use the collective power of EU institutions, member-state governments, and European development banks to respond faster and more effectively to crises.” This would allow Europe to more efficiently use any additional money it commits to Ukraine, accelerating production of defensive armaments such as artillery shells and air-defense missiles, as well as medical supplies. The key would be for Europeans to do all this as one unit—not 27 separate states.

One key item that Europeans will not provide is the advanced surveillance and reconnaissance technology that the United States excels in. “All precision weapons systems today depend on this technology and no industry does it like the [United States],” said Christian M��lling, deputy director of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

Certainly, part of the European strategy must be to talk sense to Trump. A scenario to avoid at all costs would be the United States canceling sanctions or just ignoring them in return for nothing but Russian business. Europeans might point out to Trump that Russia’s two main allies are Iran and North Korea, countries that he disfavors. And perhaps, if the United States can’t be convinced with political arguments, they can find a way to interest Trump in the form of a bargain: The Europeans could agree to spend big specifically on U.S. weapons in exchange for Washington holding the Western line on Russia. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace suggested Europe’s NATO members offer Trump the carrot that they raise defense spending to 3 percent by the end of his tenure in 2028.

Whatever happens, even in best case, it is highly unlikely that Trump will lead an alliance against Russia the way the Biden administration did. This means that Europe’s hour has arrived: It can grab the initiative and set the agenda rather than allowing the Orbans, Putins, and Xis of the world to do it their way.

[tanadrin]

My brother linked me this wonderful document of EU-isms in English. One big sticking point the author points out is nouns that are countable/uncountable in English but the other way around in another European language. Occasionally pronunciation as well--i.e., pronouncing "cabinet" as "cabinay."

One example he cites that must be extremely annoying is the way "concerned" means two different things depending on whether it comes before or after a noun: "the concerned official" vs "the official concerned [with something]." I actually have no idea what's happening grammatically there, or whether there are any other words that do that.

Also I did not know that "actor" in the generic sense (as in "state actor") was a particularly North American expression.

Other highlights:

In English, the term ‘Anglo-Saxon’ is generally used to describe a member of any of the West Germanic tribes (Angles, Saxons and Jutes) that settled in Britain from the 5th century AD. ... Furthermore, the Anglo-Saxon language ceased to exist in the 12th century (I am ill-informed about Brussels, but the last known speaker in Luxembourg was St Willibrord, 658-73922). This term is particularly inapplicable (and, I gather, irritating for those concerned) when used to describe the Irish, Scots and Welsh, who partly base their national identities on not being descended from the Anglo-Saxons (everybody seems to have forgotten about the poor Jutes), and verges on the ridiculous when used to include West Indians or people like the incumbent US president, who, in EU terminology, would be the leader of the Anglo-Saxon world.

Every now and then a job advertisement appears, saying, for example, that the Commission is looking for a ‘head of sector to animate 12 staff members’. Looking in the Oxford online dictionary for a clue as to what this might mean, we can probably exclude the fact that the person in question will be expected to: ‘bring [the staff members] to life’, or ‘give [them] the appearance of movement using animation techniques’. This means that we are left with ‘giving them inspiration, encouragement, or renewed vigour’, which also sounds a trifle unlikely. Actually the new employee will probably find that he/she will just be expected to lead a team.

[motsimages]

Info about European Parliament elections

Because the elections to the European Parliament are approaching (6-9 of June), I wanted to make some kind of master post about it to see if I understand it better and to give some tips. But I forgot we're talking about the fucking European Union and all its levels and sublevels and the respect to each country doing whatever the fuck they want. You may want to watch the series Parliament. It's funny and you will understand how the EU works better than I could ever explain it (I am not kidding).

THANKFULLY, the EU knows the mess it all is and they created a very clear and easy to use website just for this: https://elections.europa.eu.

It gives you general info and a guide for your country. I want to kiss in the mouth to whoever designed the website and wrote the text. Whatever it is they are paid, it's not enough.

IF READING THIS POST IN ENGLISH IS HARD FOR YOU, THAT WEBSITE, AS MOST EU WEBSITES/INFO, IS TRANSLATED INTO EVERY OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE EU.

The most important thing about these elections is that the European Parliament represents the interests of the European citizens. Copying from that website I gave: The European Commission is the EU’s executive branch, responsible for proposing and implementing EU law and the day-to-day running of the EU. The European Parliament, representing the interests of EU citizens, and the Council, representing the interests of the countries, shape Commission proposals and, if they agree on them, adopt them.

This is important to know because the Parliament will elect the new President of the European Commission who later will examine and approve the entire College of Commissioners. But this is another thing, so go check wikipedia about the President of the European Comission. In the last elections there was some mix-up between the candidate, the system and who ended up being president (current president is Ursula von der Leyen, chosen in 2019).

The European parliament is separated into 7 political groups. 23 members are necessary to create a group and each group must represent at least a quarter of the countries in the EU (again, watch Parliament, this is very well explained there in a fun way). Here you can find the list of the political groups (if you click each link, they send you to the website of the group and you can look for who/which party from your country is part of it). Some people do not belong to any political group.

From what I see, those 7 political groups include:

4 Right-wing groups (some say "center-right" but they may be right-right. 2 of them are clearly called something like "Christian democrats" or "Conservatives")

1 green party

1 left party

1 center-leftish party

Not all of the websites for these political groups are in several languages of the EU, but they are all in English. Here you can see how many members of the parliament belong to each group by country. In short, you can see where your country is leaning in the European parliament. For instance, Spain has 13 christian democrats, 9 "center-right" and 4 right vs 21 "center-left", 3 green and 6 left, plus 3 non registered in any group for a total of 59 members.

In reality, we do not vote for those political groups. We vote for politicians in our countries and then, they, if they want, they join one group or another. In short, if you vote a left-wing party from your country, it is likely that they will be part of The Left political group of the European parliament.

Historically, over 50% of the parliament is a group of right and another group of center-right. No sé qué de los nazis por Europa estos últimos años. This is how it looks like right now. The yellow party is right-wing adjacent too (Renew Europe), so you can see how it currently looks for the left (green and red colours, where the dark red colour is The Left and the bright red is center-left). The gray one do not belong to any political group.

In other elections, about 50% of the population did not vote (which may be why there are more right-wing parties than others, just saying).

So yeah, vote. This organ represents you and your interests directly. They are the ones who adopt laws that affect anyone and everyone.

Vote because the European Parliament is your voice in the EU.

[darkmaga-returns]

Vice President-Elect JD Vance has warned the European Union that any further attempts at censoring social media will result in the U.S. completely defunding NATO.

This warning was made during an interview with podcaster Shawn Ryan, where Vance relayed an incident involving a top EU official who threatened Elon Musk for allowing former President Donald Trump back on the platform.

Infowars.com reports: Vance highlighted the stark contrast between European and American values, particularly on the issue of free speech. “The leader, I forget exactly which official it was within the European Union, but sent Elon this threatening letter that basically said, ‘We’re going to arrest you if you platform Donald Trump,’ who, by the way, is the likely next president of the United States,” he reported.

Vance is likely referring to Thierry Breton, a pro-censorship crusader who was, at the time, European Commissioner for Internal Market. Bretton has since resigned.

In response to Breton, Musk promised a “very public battle in court,” and revealed, “The European Commission offered X an illegal secret deal: if we quietly censored speech without telling anyone, they would not fine us. The other platforms accepted that deal. X did not.”

The Vice President-Elect argues that America’s participation in NATO should be contingent on the alliance’s respect for free speech, a core American value. “So what America should be saying is, if NATO wants us to continue supporting them and NATO wants us to continue to be a good participant in this military alliance, why don’t you respect American values and respect free speech?” Vance questioned. He criticized the notion of supporting a military alliance that does not uphold free speech as “insane,” insisting that American support comes with prerequisites, such as respecting free speech, particularly among European allies.

President-Elect Trump, Vance’s running mate, has been critical of some aspects of NATO, having expressed a desire to pull out from the alliance and disregard the Article 5 collective defense clause.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Kyiv is in talks to transit gas from Azerbaijan to the EU after the contract to transit Russian gas expires in December 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with Bloomberg on July 3.

Kyiv and the EU have said they would not seek the prolongation of the transit deal for Russian gas at the end of the year. The deal was signed in 2019.

Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko told Bloomberg in March that he does not "see the possibility" that Russian gas would continue to flow through Ukraine after December.[...]

Transiting gas from Azerbaijan instead is "one of the proposals," Zelensky said.

According to Bloomberg, Ukraine earned around $1 billion from transit revenue in 2021, and therefore continuing to use the extensive system of pipelines "would help provide crucial funding for the war-torn economy."[...]

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed a deal with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku in July 2022 to bring imports of Azeri natural gas to "at least" 20 billion cubic meters annually by 2027.

4 Jul 24

[dividedindiversity]

So far, this blog has mostly been about silly EU-themed polls. But ultimately, the EU is a very powerful institution that influences the lives of hundereds of millions of people, for better or worse. I have made some serious posts on here before- but with the EU election coming up, I was wondering if we could do something with that.

I won't do a political party bracket or anything like that, but I'm honestly kinda interested in how much tumblr knows about the EU, how tumblr Europeans have been using their voice in EU politics, etc. With the bonus of maybe spreading some knowledge. So let's start off simple:

Do you have any ideas for more polls? My ask box is always open, and as long as posts from this blog don't get too many notes, I read those too!

[head-post]

Paris sued the Commission over discrimination against the French language

France is ready to defend the “language of Molière” in the EU Court of Justice.

France has not given up hope that all of Brussels will speak French, even though the use of Euro-English and Globish, a simplified version of English, has become widespread in the EU.

Brussels currently recruits new staff in areas such as space, defence and the economy using a selection process that includes some tests that are conducted in English only. Paris has strongly criticised this selection criterion. According to France, these criteria favour English-speaking candidates over their rivals. Paris has therefore filed two complaints with the EU’s highest court, one of which was made public on Monday.

France has suggested that English-only tests are discriminatory and violate EU treaties. The bloc’s rules provide for equal treatment of all EU citizens, regardless of their nationality. The rules on hiring EU employees also prohibit discrimination on the basis of language in general and allow it only under certain conditions.

Learn more HERE

[historyforfuture]

Now they left GAZA a lone

🚨The EU is Just scattering phrases right and left but no actions to stop the massacre , the eu like the us also supply the zionists with weapons and huge amounts of aids .

The EU and US official statements are in a way and their actions are in another completely different way

Too much hypocrite 👀

The vice president of the european commission says :

~ The situation in GAZA is shocking "OMG🙈" , and aid workers are being killed . (so what did u do ?)👇🏼

~ UN activities have been suspended .

(Now GAZA between the fangs of a beast . This decision has sure harm the opressed civillians in gaza )

~He says : The quantity of the human aids that entered GAZA in July is the lowest since the beginning of the war (so what did you do ?! )👇🏼

He proposed to the EU expanding the sanction list to include more occupation ministers but there was no consensus🤮

This is a clear complicity

[mariacallous]

Europe’s center of political gravity is veering to the right.

Center-right and far-right parties are set to take the largest number of seats in Sunday’s European Union election in the most populous nations: Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Poland.

France led the rightward lurch with such a crushing victory for the far-right National Rally that liberal President Emmanuel Macron dissolved France’s parliament and called an early election. Early results suggested the National Rally would win some 32 percent of the vote, more than twice that of the president’s party.

“The president of the Republic cannot remain deaf to the message sent this evening by the people of France,” National Rally’s President Jordan Bardella told his supporters at the Parc Floral in Paris.

In Germany, the center-right is cruising to a comfortable victory, with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) coming second and beating Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Socialists into third place.

Voters across 27 nations have voted over the past week to select 720 members of the European Parliament, who will serve over the next five years. Their first main role with be to approve or reject the main candidate for Europe’s top job: president of the European Commission.

In a Continent that has sought to exorcise the ghosts of fascism for eight decades, the scale of the presence of far-right will be one of the hottest topics of conversation.

Even though they are highly unlikely to be able to coordinate as a unified group inside the European Parliament — thanks to divisions on topics such as Russia — they will still be able to influence the overall direction of the EU, on everything from immigration to climate policies.   

Collected together, the radical right parties would theoretically represent the second biggest bloc in the Parliament — being on track to come first in France and Italy, and second in Germany, the three biggest and most important countries in the 27-nation bloc. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing party secured the most support, projected to be about 28 percent.

The far-right is also expected to win in Hungary, and picked up five more seats in the Netherlands. The center-right was comfortably first in Greece and Bulgaria.

The single most ominous warning signal for the future of the EU is France, given the scale of the far right’s win over Macron. All eyes will now be on whether France’s populist wave can maintain its momentum through the impending parliamentary elections and on to presidential elections in 2027 — where a victory for far-right leader Marine Le Pen would threaten to throw the whole EU into turmoil.

The official winner of the evening looks set to be European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen whose center-right European People’s Party will still make up the single-biggest bloc in Parliament. 

With early projections showing the EPP will secure about 181 out of the 720 seats in Parliament, the center right will be the dominant force but can hardly govern alone as it will be miles from an absolute majority in the chamber.

The main challenge for von der Leyen in the coming days and weeks will be whether she can strike a deal with the traditional centrist parties — the socialists and liberals — to build a majority of 361 or more in the Parliament.

“Today is a good day for [the] EPP. We won the European elections, my friends. We are the strongest party, we are the anchor of stability … Together with others we will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and from the right. We will stop them!”

Her supporters replied with chants of “Five more years.”

In all, the three big center groups look set to have just over 400 seats. That means von der Leyen’s reapproval will go down to the wire, because she will be rejected if only about 10 percent of lawmakers from the main parties rebel against their party lines. The rebellion rate is normally higher.

This raises a big question of whether she will need to fish around for other allies, ranging from the Greens to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy.

Von der Leyen’s center-right is quick to reject the xenophobia and euroskepticism of the far right, but it knows its voters share the same concerns on the cost of living, migration and a sense that Europe’s traditional core businesses — manufacturing and farming — are being strangled by green regulation.

Staking out its ground in the culture war over the EU’s identity, the EPP opened its EU election manifesto with its commitment to Europe’s “Judeo-Christian roots.”

[follow-up-news]

The European Union announced Friday it had made 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) available to support Ukraine, the first tranche of money generated from profits on frozen Russian assets. In May, the EU’s 27 member states reached an agreement to use the interest earned on some 210 billion euros ($225 billion) in Russian central bank assets for military support for Ukraine and rebuilding efforts in the war torn country. The money, most of which is held in Belgium, was frozen as part of sanctions packages in retaliation for Moscow’s full-scale invasion. Brussels estimates that the interest on those assets could provide around 3 billion euros each year. “The EU stands with Ukraine. Today we transfer 1.5 billion euros in proceeds from immobilised Russian assets to the defence and reconstruction of Ukraine. There is no better symbol or use for the Kremlin’s money than to make Ukraine and all of Europe a safer place to live,” European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement.