EU & Europe

Photo credit: Munich Security Conference.

Europe Ventures To Speak Up Against USA

By Somar Wijayadasa*

NEW YORK | MUNICH (IDN) – "The whole liberal world order appears to be falling apart – nothing is as it once was," said Wolfgang Ischinger, a senior German diplomat in an opinion article in the run-up to the 2019 Munich Security Conference (MSC) that he chairs.

He added: "When Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea and started the bloody conflict in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, many considered him to be the major cause of global destabilization."

"Nobody could have known," Ischinger went on to say, "that just a few years later the U.S. President, of all people, would seriously challenge the current international order. Donald Trump questions free trade just like he questions the Western set of values or NATO. This has massive consequences – not just for us Europeans."

: Somar Wijayadasa; THE WORLD; USA and Canada; 22 February 2019

Photo: U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev at the first Summit in Geneva, Switzerland, in November 1985.

A Nuclear Arms Race Will Produce No Winners

Despite everything, it is still in our power to avoid nuclear confrontation.

Viewpoint by Mikhail Gorbachev*

MOSCOW (IDN-INPS) – The fate of the INF treaty has politicians and ordinary people worried on every continent. I am also concerned, and not only because I signed that treaty with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Dec. 1987. These events are yet another manifestation of the dangerous and destructive trends in world politics facing us today.

The main idea guiding us on the path to signing the original treaty was expressed in a joint statement with the United States, adopted at our first meeting in Geneva: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; OPINION; 21 February 2019

Photo: Joseph Hammond, aged 91, is a Commonwealth veteran from Ghana who fought for Britain in WWII. Credit: DFID

African WWII Vets Seek Formal Apology, Compensation From UK

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK | LONDON (IDN) – The UK government is coming under pressure to compensate and apologize to the last surviving African veterans who fought alongside white British soldiers in the Second World War that began 80 years ago and lasted six years.

More than half a million black African soldiers who fought in the British army were paid up to three times less than their white counterparts, a newly unearthed document has revealed, prompting calls for an investigation and the government to compensate surviving veterans.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 20 February 2019

Photo: Refugees in Burudi. Credit: UNHCR

A Safer, More Secure Europe Starts Way Beyond The Continent

By Dimitris Avramopoulos

The following are extensive excerpts from keynote speech by the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, Dimitris Avramopoulos, on Europe’s response to the challenges of migration and security at the London School of Economics on 23 January 2019.

BRUSSELS (IDN-INPS) – In the year 2015, Europe was confronted with a large number of vulnerable and desperate people seeking refuge on its shores.

At that time, the European Union and its Member States were unprepared and taken by surprise.

: IDN-INPS UN Bureau; THE WORLD; EU & Europe; 14 February 2019

Photo: Numbers of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean may have dropped in 2018, but at a heavy human cost. Source: MSF Sea.

Europe’s Invisible Wall Whets Human Trafficking

By Klara Smits

BRUSSELS (IDN) – After his visit to Austria, Libya’s foreign minister Mohammed Sayala told the Kuwaiti News Agency on January 31 that Libya’s southern borders have now become Europe’s borders. Illegal migration could not be stopped at the Mediterranean Sea, he argued. Therefore, he promised that on the February 20, Libya will present the EU with a policy to cooperate on ‘protecting’ those southern borders. The plan will also include border agreements with Chad, Niger and Sudan.

: Klara Smits; THE WORLD; Middle East & North Africa; 14 February 2019

Photo: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the White House had "ordered and planned" a "coup". Credit: cancilleria.gob.ec

Venezuela Crisis Drives A Wedge Between Europeans

Viewpoint by Shastri Ramachandaran*

NEW DELHI (IDN) – It’s a topsy-turvy world. President Emmanuel Macron’s France can recognise Juan Guaido, who is leading the protests in distant Venezuela, as “Interim President” of that country. But Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio cannot meet “Yellow Vest” protestors demonstrating on the streets of Paris.

Why is recognition of protests acceptable in the case of Venezuela but not when it comes to France?

Because the West led by the United States and its camp followers in Europe say so. This is the so-called “international community” known for its duplicitous standards.

: Shastri Ramachandran; OPINION; 09 February 2019

Photo: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz, at the Department of State in Washington, DC on May 21, 2018. Credit: State Department.

EU, Iran Not Amused By U.S. Middle East Summit In Poland

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (IDN) – Nearly four months after the U.S. Department of State released on the eve of the Islamic Revolution's 40th anniversary a 48-page report 'Outlaw Regime: A Chronicle of Iran's Destructive Activities', Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has made a much frowned upon announcement that an international summit on the security and stability of the Middle East will be held on February 13 and 14 in Poland's capital city Warsaw.

Since that announcement on January 11, few details about the agenda of the event have been revealed. Pompeo said the gathering would “focus on Middle East stability and peace and freedom and security,” including “an important element of making sure that Iran is not a destabilizing influence.”

: Robert Johnson; THE WORLD; Middle East & North Africa; 24 January 2019

Photo: ACP Secretary-General Dr. Patrick I. Gomes addressing the United Nations Summit for the adoption of Agenda 2030 for global development on 26 September 2015, United Nations, New York. Credit: UN Photo/Amanda Voisard.

ACP Group Chief Calls For Strengthening The UN System

By Robert Johnson

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – In the face of burgeoning unilateralism and generally "turbulent" global environment, the 79-nation African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States has urged “vigorous support” for the United Nations.

”Vigorous support for the United Nations to advance multilateralism will loom large in all the programmes and projects of the ACP in 2019,” according to ACP Secretary General, Dr. P. I. Gomes.

The Guyana-born Secretary General said that in a turbulent global environment and increasing violence of regional and civil conflicts, “strong and unequivocal action by the UN system is needed now more than ever."

: Robert Johnson; GLOBAL GOVERNANCE; ACP Group of States; 12 January 2019

Photo: Russia's 9M729 missile reportedly has been tested using a mobile launcher system similar to that used by the 9K720 Iskander-M pictured here on September 18, 2017. Photo credit: Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation

The INF Treaty Crisis Is A Global Security Problem

Viewpoint by Daryl G. Kimball

The author is Executive Director of the Arms Control Association. He wrote this editorial for the January-February issue of Arms Control Today.

WASHINGTON ; DC (IDN-INPS) – Next month, it is very likely the Trump administration will take the next step toward fulfilling the president’s threat to “terminate” one of the most far-reaching and most successful nuclear arms reduction agreements: the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which led to the verifiable elimination of 2,692 Soviet and U.S. missiles based in Europe. The treaty helped bring an end to the Cold War and paved the way for agreements to slash bloated strategic nuclear arsenals and to withdraw thousands of tactical nuclear weapons from forward-deployed areas.

: Daryl G. Kimball; OPINION; 09 January 2019

Photo (left to right): Ms. D. Walsweer-Sore, ACP Secretariat; Stefano Manservisi, European Commission's Director-General; Professor Robert Dussey, ACP Chief Negotiator; Rimnick Pato, Foreign Minister of Papua New Guinea.

A Critical Year Ahead For EU's Ties With 79 ACP Countries

By Reinhard Jacobsen

BRUSSELS (ACP-IDN) – 2019 will be a crucial year for relations between the European Union (EU) and 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) – uniting more than half of all UN member countries and representing over 1.5 billion people.

The current partnership, governed by the Cotonou agreement, is one of the longest-standing and most comprehensive framework for cooperation between the EU and developing countries. The current agreement expires in 2020. Therefore, the new agreement needs to be both finalised and approved by then.