
EU offers Turkey upgrade, as Sweden nears Nato entry
The EU has offered Turkey almost all it wanted in return for ratifying Sweden's Nato entry, amid signs the saga is drawing to its climax.
Tuesday
5th Dec 2023
The EU has offered Turkey almost all it wanted in return for ratifying Sweden's Nato entry, amid signs the saga is drawing to its climax.
Tesla is facing combined opposition from its Swedish employees, trade unions and even companies in the industry itself. A small industrial dispute over the rejection of a collective agreement has snowballed in little over a month.
The world has changed, not least in northern Europe, which is rapidly becoming one of the new frontlines between Nato and Russia. It is sometimes said that even the largest avalanche is caused by something small. Watch Northern Europe.
Finland's closure of its land border crossing points with Russia likely violates both international and EU asylum laws, warns the executive director of the Finnish Refugee Council.
Israel is breaking the rules of modern warfare in Gaza, Norway's prime minister said in Oslo on Tuesday.
Only two parliaments in the world have more than 50 percent female representation, Rwanda and Bolivia. This week's Nordic parliamentary meeting in Oslo will join that select group, with 54 percent female participation.
Denmark witnessed this week its first 'greenwashing' litigation, against pork producer Danish Crown A/S, in what seems to be the first lawsuit against a European food producer over climate claims.
The Russian army is telling Syrians where to cross into Finland on bicycles, according to posts on a Telegram account with around 7,500 subscribers.
Norway has confirmed its border with Russia is so far calm and unchanged, in the wake of Finland accusing Moscow of shuffling irregular migrants across the Finnish/Russian border.
What remains baffling, to Ukrainians fighting for their country and environmental NGOs fighting to save the planet, is that terminals in Belgium and France continue to serve as transshipment points for Russian LNG cargoes destined for India and China.
Sweden has called for an EU immigration crackdown to stop terrorism, with a right-wing slant on Muslims that risks sharpening division.
Estonia is pursuing the same Chinese ship as Finland in its enquiries into the latest mystery to strike Nato's underwater pipes and cables.
The EU Gender Equality Index records the biggest-ever jump in its overall score, but there are major nuances behind it — such as the unpaid care burden between men and women, and the gender pay-gap.
Finland said the damage to both the Baltic gas pipeline and the data cable was likely caused by "external activity".
House prices, mortgages and rents are strangling citizens across Europe, depriving 895,000 people of access to housing, as the cost of living crisis, the fallout from the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic put ever-more pressure on people's pockets.
Sweden is not going to change its deal with Turkey on Nato ratification, which Finland and Nato still expect in October, despite Turkey's new rhetoric.
Hungary is now threatening to halt Nato's war-time expansion over a 10-minute Swedish video-clip it doesn't like.
Turkey has shifted attention to US warplanes from Koran-burning in endless bargaining on Sweden's Nato entry.
Koran-burnings in Sweden are to go on as before, despite its upgrade of the terrorist threat from "violent Islamism".
Another Koran burning is set to take place in Sweden on Thursday, risking Muslim anger and feeding Russian propaganda.
Russia has become "totally unsafe" for foreign investors, the EU foreign service has warned in reaction to the daylight robbery of Carlsberg and Danone.
Russia's raid on Carlsberg and Danone will likely see other foreign firms still there "stampede to the exit", the Yale School of Management says. "It's ridiculously risky and foolish for them to stay there."
Russia's latest attack on EU national-level probes into last year's Nord Stream 2 blast fell on largely deaf ears at the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Russia cannot block Nato from taking in new members, the alliance has said, amid preparations for Sweden and, one day, Ukraine to join.
There is widespread human exposure to so-called 'forever chemicals' — technically known as PFAS — in Europe, with growing hotspots identified in Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, and Denmark, experts warned in a new piece of research.
Now summer is officially here, temperatures are rising and the risk of wildfires increases — how prepared are EU member states to respond to such emergencies?
Consuming more than 350 grammes of meat per week can harm health and environment, according to new public nutrition advice from the Nordic Council. A Swedish minister quickly refused to follow the advice.
Researchers found that global societal costs of the so-called forever chemicals or PFAS amount to €16 trillion per year. Meanwhile, the bigger producers of these chemicals are also among the ones spending the most to lobby EU policies.
It is problematic that many EU countries have rules that basically exclude men who have sex with men from the possibility to be blood donors. These bars are not evidence based.
GDP is an unreliable indicator of economies' capacity to thrive in times of change. And the over-reliance on GDP won't get our economies on track to meet environmental and social goals when crises hit.
Acts of sabotage on wind farms or the underwater electricity grid are likely to be carried out as 'grey zone tactics', state-sponsored sabotage may be disguised as a civilian accident, or carried out from a leisure yacht or fishing boat.
Curiously, it is not easy to ascertain exactly why Sweden could not enter the alliance on the same day as Finland, given the submission of parallel bids, writes former Swedish ambassador to Ankara, Michael Sahlin, and Kjell Engelbrekt.
Internal discussions on a key EU asylum bill have led to a raft of opposition from member states that have yet to agree on numerous issues.