
Opinion
How EU leaders should deal with Chinese government repression
If the EU can map out a strategy to "de-risk" economic and trade relations with Beijing, it can do so on human rights.
Sunday
4th Jun 2023
If the EU can map out a strategy to "de-risk" economic and trade relations with Beijing, it can do so on human rights.
After the war ends Ukraine should work to make Russia a safe place, which respects independent and sovereign neighbours as well as Nato.
The EU led support for the waste management crisis in Lebanon, spending around €89m between 2004-2017, with at least €30m spent on 16 solid-waste management facilities. However, it failed to deliver.
Five Moldovans are to have their EU money frozen and lose access to Europe to help stop Russia from usurping power in Chișinău.
Hungary is blocking EU sanctions on the jailers of Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, amid a wider dispute involving its Russian banking arm.
Trading fishing rights with Moscow has become a heated foreign policy pickle in the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic.
The European Broadcasting Union is wooing Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov for a splashy TV interview, despite his record of bizarre anti-Ukraine hate speech.
The Kremlin's main tormentor of 'foreign agents' is to join an EU blacklist for sending dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza to die in jail.
The EU has condemned plans by Belarus to host Russian nukes following a signed agreement between Minsk and Moscow.
Russian media didn't show the Eurovision finals, while attacking them as a "total bacchanalia" for "perverts" in its anti-Western culture war.
EU countries are preparing to help their companies to exit Russia, amid a growing risk they will be taxed to fund Putin's war.
Sanctions and hard talk can do little to stop China becoming ever more dangerous to Europe, an EU analysis has indicated.
New EU sanctions against foreign kleptocrats should take into account the size of bribes taken and be decided by majority, instead of unanimity, details of the proposals say.
The EU has been receiving whistleblower tip-offs on Russia-sanctions violations, but European capitals are doing little to share information on frozen assets.
EU sanctions have begun to put on record Russia's looting of Ukrainian art, alongside abduction and brainwashing of Ukrainian children.
This Sunday the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia will resume peace talks in Brussels. Some say even it might even lead to peace treaty.
The EU fears that Chinese and UAE firms could be supplying weapons components to Russia, new sanctions indicate.
European institutions should warn Erdoğan that there will be serious consequences if votes are rigged and the legitimacy of upcoming elections put in question.
Russian president Vladimir Putin will cheer on a mini war-parade in Moscow on Tuesday, as German chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks of peace in Europe in Strasbourg.
"Africa has to unite behind a single agenda on debt resolution. We know what China wants, we know what the US wants, we know what the World Bank wants, but we don't know what Africa wants."
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.
On 15 May, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) will elect its next leader. Just like five years ago, the contest is not without controversy, with member states divided over prospective candidates.
Turkey's presidential and parliamentary elections on 14 May will show whether Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's decade of relentless state interference with the media has paid off. Or whether a new generation of journalists finally taste freedom?
Russia is gaining power in the Central African Republic as the EU pulls out, amid similar developments in neighbouring Sudan.
In the Czech Republic, the extravagant promises of Chinese investment never materialised and the former president Miloš Zeman's sycophancy toward Xi Jinping provoked a wide revulsion. In contrast, Slovakia has avoided a real debate about its relationship with China.
The ability to use different foreign policy discourses is the EU's biggest asset. It keeps a systemic rival like China on its toes, while signalling to the US that Europe has its own interests.
With 60 percent of African countries spending more on debt repayment than on national healthcare, the EU should use Global Gateway financing to address structural issues rather than conversations about finance.
Nobody in Belgium wants Russian "blood diamonds" any more, but the next round of EU sanctions still won't ban them.
Serbia is trying to block Kosovo's membership in the Council of Europe, putting in doubt an EU-brokered deal amid heightened tension in the region.
Prominent Iranian rights defenders are demanding the EU list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation.
The narrative now is all about how clueless African, Asian and Latin American leaders can still be brought back to the right path — and out of China's embrace — with the right amount of tough pressure and sweet persuasion.
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.
EU diplomats and civilians are fleeing Sudan amid concern Russian mercenaries will exploit the Western vacuum.