Feed aggregator

Russia is thinking of retaliatory measures after Washington accused Moscow of violating the Open Skies Treaty and made a decision to limit the flights of Russian aircraft over the USA. Accusing Moscow of violating the Open Skies Treaty, Washington tries to "distract attention from serious cases of violations of the treaty committed by the USA

Blankets from Lesotho are at the centre of controversy in the fashion world, as BBC Africa's Mayeni Jones reports.

Es sollte ein EU-Gipfel der Zukunft werden, über die künftigen Chancen und Herausforderungen der digitalen Gesellschaft in Europa. Doch das

In dieser Ausgabe von The Brief From Brussels sehen sie Berichte zu den Brexit-Verhandlungen und dem Tallinner EU-Gipfel.

Les organisations de défense des victimes du massacre du 28 septembre 2009 à Conakry, où au moins 156 personnes ont été tuées par les forces de l’ordre, affirment jeudi avoir reçu l’assurance que l’enquête serait clôturée avant le 31 octobre.

En janvier 2016, la Sierra Leone, petit pays d'Afrique de l'Ouest meurtri par la guerre et classé parmi les plus pauvres de la planète, crée l'événement au concours de Miss Univers. Pour la première fois, une Miss Sierra Leone, Hawa Kamara, participe au prestigieux concours de beauté. Pour les autorités, l'enjeu est de taille : il s'agit de redorer le blason du pays, afin de redevenir une destination touristique phare en Afrique.

Good evening. Let me start by thanking Prime Minister Ratas for hosting the Tallinn Digital Summit. It was indeed a very special event about the future of Europe. And many thanks to all the Estonians for your great hospitality and for inspiring Europe with your "digital" spirit.

We held this summit because Europe must use the opportunities created by huge advances, in everything from robotics to artificial intelligence. We need to actively shape our future and manage the risks posed by the digital revolution to our societies and democracies. That is why the leaders focused on how the EU could successfully navigate the opportunities, as well as the risks. We will now work together with Prime Minister Ratas to  prepare the conclusions for the October European Council, based on our discussions.

Now, let me make a comment on the last night's dinner. As you know, the leaders had an informal debate on the situation of Europe and on our future work in the European Council. I was mandated to translate this good debate  and the visionary speeches we have heard recently, into a concrete work programme. Therefore, I have already started bilateral consultations. In addition to my meeting with Prime Minister Ratas, today I also met the Prime Ministers of Bulgaria, Croatia and the Chancellor of Germany. And during the next two weeks I will consult all Member States.

Based on those consultations,  I will present a very concrete working plan with a number of decisions that need to be taken by the leaders in the next year. Something I could call the “Leaders Agenda 2017/18”. This means further development and enrichment of the programme that I have presented in my Tallinn letter. It will include, inter alia, the launch of the  permanent defence cooperation by the end of 2017, a Euro Summit in December to further deepen the Economic and Monetary Union, with a special focus on the completion of the Banking Union, or a Western Balkans' Summit during the Bulgarian presidency in the EU.

Our guiding principles are clear and I hope will not change. First and foremost, I will do everything in my power to keep the unity of the EU. Secondly, I will  concentrate on finding real solutions to real problems of our citizens, who are concerned about security, migration or unemployment. And finally, we will all make sure that Europe is making progress.

Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP

The 12th edition of the Joint Personnel Recovery Staff Course (JPRSC), a project initiated and supported by the European Defence Agency (EDA), was co-organised and hosted for the first time by the Italian Joint Air Operation School from 12th to 22nd of September 2017 in Guidonia, Italy.

A total of 19 students, from 6 contributing countries (Cyprus, Ireland, The Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Italy) benefitted from the knowledge and experience of a cadre of instructors from Germany, Hungary and Italy. The European Personnel Recovery Centre (EPRC), a close partner of EDA, contributed to the event by organizing a specific instructor course aimed at ‘training the trainers’.

The main focus of the course was to train staff officers to support their commanders in personnel recovery related matters. The course was designed for personnel in Tactical Operational Centres (TOCs), Personnel Recovery Coordination Cells (PRCCs) or Joint Personnel Recovery Cells (JPRC’s). The overall objective of the JPRSC is to ensure that trained personnel are available to support any future personnel recovery activities in an operational context.

Personnel recovery is a vital element of modern operational planning as it provides a security net for deployed personnel. Most importantly, it boosts morale and acknowledges the responsibility of Member States and the European Union to develop and provide relevant capabilities to recover and reintegrate isolated personnel deployed in the context of crisis management operations under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).

The next EDA JPRSC will take place from 15th to 24th November 2017 in Italy (Poggio, Renatico) and will be organised by the European Personnel Recovery Centre (EPRC).
Background

The EDA PRCPC project was established on 30 May 2013 as an EDA Category B project under the lead of Sweden. As of today, it includes eight contributing EU Member States (cMS): Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands and Sweden. The course has been extended three times and will be finalised on 30 May 2019. The JPRSC is part of the EDA’s Personnel Recovery Controller and Planner Course (PRCPC).

Good morning. Yesterday evening we had a good and constructive debate. I will use this debate to build what I could call the leaders' agenda 2017 and 2018, of course in consultation with all the Member States and I will present this political agenda in two weeks time.

In this process I will respect as always three key principles:

• one, the need to find real solutions to real problems,
• two, the need to make progress step-by-step, issue-by-issue
• three, and above all, the need to keep the unity of the 27 Member States, also in the context of the new ideas.

And there have been plenty. But even though some may think it is a kind of a Eurovisions' contest, and perhaps it is, I am personally convinced that together, we will make good use of it, if we sing unisono.

Das Politische und Sicherheitspolitische Komitee der EU hat Kauko Aaltomaa, einen hochrangigen Beamten des finnischen Innenministeriums, zum neuen Leiter der Polizeimission der Europäischen Union für die Palästinensischen Gebiete (EUPOL COPPS) ernannt. Er tritt sein Amt am 1. Oktober 2017 an.

EUPOL COPPS ist Teil der allgemeinen Anstrengungen der EU zur Unterstützung des Aufbaus eines palästinensischen Staates, mit denen eine umfassende Lösung für den israelisch-palästinensischen Konflikt auf Grundlage einer Zwei-Staaten-Lösung angestrebt wird. EUPOL COPPS hilft der Palästinensischen Behörde seit Januar 2006 beim Aufbau der Institutionen eines künftigen Staates Palästina in den Bereichen Polizeiarbeit und Strafjustiz. Durch ihren Beitrag zur Reform des Sicherheits- und Justizsektors unterstützt die Mission Bemühungen, die die Sicherheit der palästinensischen Bevölkerung verbessern und die Rechtsstaatlichkeit stärken sollen. Das laufende Mandat der EUPOL COPPS endet am 30. Juni 2018. Das Hauptquartier der Mission befindet sich in Ramallah.

Kauko Aaltomaa ist Nachfolger des Franzosen Rodolphe Mauget, der dieses Amt seit dem 17. Februar 2015 inne hatte.

Véritable caillou dans la chaussure du rassemblement de la gauche en vue des législatives du printemps prochain, le cas de l'ancien Premier ministre Ferenc Gyurcsány devrait faire l'objet d'une négociation entre le Parti socialiste (MSzP) et la Coalition démocratique (DK). Selon une information du Magyar Nemzet, la direction du Parti socialiste hongrois (MSzP) a décidé de […]

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2017 - EP

Az EU Politikai és Biztonsági Bizottsága Kauko Aaltomaat, a finn belügyminisztérium magas rangú tisztviselőjét nevezte ki az Európai Unió palesztin területeken folytatott rendőri missziójának (EUPOL COPPS) új vezetőjévé. Kauko Aaltomaa 2017. október 1-jén foglalja el hivatalát.

Az EUPOL COPPS a palesztin államépítés támogatására irányuló széles körű uniós erőfeszítések részeként jött létre az izraeli–palesztin konfliktus átfogó, a kétállamos megoldáson alapuló rendezését elősegítendő. Az EUPOL COPPS 2006 januárja óta támogatja a Palesztin Hatóságot a jövőbeli palesztin állam intézményeinek a rendőrségi tevékenységek és a büntető igazságszolgáltatás területén történő kiépítésében. A biztonsági és az igazságszolgáltatási ágazat reformjához való hozzájárulása révén a misszió támogatja a palesztin nép biztonságának fokozására és a jogállamiság megszilárdítására irányuló erőfeszítéseket. Az EUPOL COPPS jelenlegi megbízatása 2018. június 30-ig tart. A művelet parancsnokságának székhelye Rámalláhban található.

Kauko Aaltomaa (a francia állampolgárságú) Rodolphe Mauget utóda lesz, aki 2015. február 17. óta töltötte be ezt a hivatalt.

L’équipage a pu s’éjecter. Le navigateur est blessé.

L’équipage a pu s’éjecter. Le navigateur est blessé.

Prime Minister Theresa May’s speech in Florence was intended to move forward stalled Brexit negotiations. But as I argue in this post that first appeared on the Dahrendorf Blog, Britain has found itself running into numerous problems with Brexit because its strategy for exiting the EU has been a textbook example of failed strategic thinking.

It’s said that in the First World War the Germans viewed the British troops and their generals as lions led by donkeys. One hundred years on, to much of the rest of Europe it is Britain’s national leaders, bereft of any coherent unified strategy for exiting the EU, who are donkeys misleading a great country.

If things continue as they have been, Britain’s approach to Brexit will be studied by generations of strategists as an example of flawed strategic thinking. The rest of Europe and Britain’s key allies such as the United States should lament this. As the Henry Jackson Society pointed out in a recent report, Britain remains a country of immense power and potential. It is not a dwarf and Brexit does not doom it to become one. The British people, like the troops of the First World War, will soldier on. But Brexit does pose the biggest political, administrative, and economic challenge Britain has faced in a long time. If it is handled badly, Britain will suffer unnecessary pain and losses. In facing such a challenge, the British people deserve to be led by leaders with a grasp of what it is they want to achieve and an ability to direct Britain towards it.

Strategy is a balanced combination of ends, ways, and means, which incorporates an assessment of risk and an opponent’s likely behaviour. Successful implementation and adaptation of strategy depends on having leaders who are able and willing to react and lead the struggle. Britain’s approach to Brexit has not lived up to this definition.

Before we open this up further let us be clear that Brexit is not a simple one-off event. It is a series of overlapping multifaceted, multi-levelled processes, negotiations, and debates involving multiple actors in Britain, the remaining EU, Europe, and the rest of the world. Its wide-ranging nature and complexity make it one of the most important and difficult political issues to define and analyse. Finding a way through it, for all involved, was never going to be easy. As I’ll touch on in a future blog post, the EU’s own approach has not been without problems. But Britain has so far gone about it in a particularly poor way.

Ends

Britain has made the fundamental strategic mistake of not knowing what end it seeks from Brexit. “Brexit means Brexit” said Theresa May. But Brexit is a process with no clearly defined destination. It’s like saying “War means war”. War, after all, is a means to an end. Britain’s leadership has been divided, unsure, and left shell-shocked by the Leave vote in a referendum in which most of them had campaigned for Remain. But in voting for Leave what the British people wanted Leave to mean – and therefore what end they want the UK government to deliver – has never been entirely settled. Its why British politics since 23 June 2016 has been defined by a battle to define the narrative of Brexit. It was the need for a mandate to define such a narrative that led Theresa May to trigger an unexpected general election. She hoped it would empower her to pursue the Brexit she outlined in January. Instead, the hung parliament that emerged has only confused things further.

That more than a year on from the vote British politicians are still arguing about the nature of a transition deal points to how far there is still to go before Britain knows what it wants from what Theresa May describes as a “deep and special partnership” with the EU. And it has not been just the governing Conservative party that has struggled. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and other opposition parties have either fudged the issue or offered unrealistic ends as part of electoral manoeuvring rather than an assessment of what is possible or in the national interest. The inability of British politicians to know what they want and whether they can get it has led to calls for the EU to take the initiative by explaining to the UK what its options are.

Ways

With an unclear end, the UK has been in no position to assess or prepare the ways to get there. Given that no plan survives first contact, the need to constantly plan and adapt is one of the key requirements of any strategy. As Former U.S. President and U.S. Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower once said, “plans are worthless, but planning is everything”. It makes sense, therefore, to task the British civil service with planning for a range of possibilities, including a no-deal scenario. That sounds an ideal way towards a resilient strategy. But the planning only started a year ago, thanks to David Cameron’s refusal to contemplate a Leave vote in the run-up to the referendum. Since then, and as noticed by the EU’s negotiators, Britain’s negotiators have struggled to grasp the detail because there’s so much for them to do. This hasn’t stopped British Ministers from promising to achieve great things. They ignored that they lacked a way – and the time –to settle Brexit in the two-year timeframe provided by Article 50. They forgot that under-promising and over-delivering is a shining virtue; vice versa, a mortal sin.

Means

With no clear end and inadequate and confused ways, it should come as no surprise that Britain has been unable to prepare, configure, or effectively deploy the means it has available. The means are plentiful: staff, money (not least Britain’s budgetary contributions), legal positions, diplomatic support from allies, trade deals, military and security capabilities, the status of UK and EU citizens, Britain’s trade relationships with the rest of the EU, the power of the City of London, and so forth. One reason Britain has struggled is because its diplomatic means in Europe are not what they once were. Before the referendum, a great deal of EU business was conducted via Brussels. Large parts of Britain’s diplomatic resources throughout the rest of the EU were redirected towards areas of the world outside Europe, especially emerging powers. That now must be rebalanced.

Britain also needs replacements for EU regulators, additional civil servants to undertake new work, new facilities at ports, new IT systems to address changes in how trade is handled, and much more. None of this is impossible and work has begun, but it’s still in the early phases. The rest of the EU knows this. Those who compare Brexit negotiations to a poker game overlook how both sides know exactly what the others hand is. Threatening to walk away from the EU when you won’t have the means in place to deliver a ‘hard Brexit’ in a way that doesn’t inflict real and lasting damage is a bluff the other side sees straight through.

Assessment of Risk

Britain’s assessment of the risks involved in Brexit has been lacking. In triggering Article 50 when she did, Theresa May made time an ally of the EU and increased the risk of Britain not having a settlement in time for an exit it wanted. The British government forgot what the ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu argued in the 5th century BC: ‘The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory’. Having jumped headlong into Article 50 negotiations, Britain has come to realise over the past year that it needs to look for a way to victory.

Assessment of the EU

Assessment and understanding of the EU, the UK’s opponent in Brexit, has been limited. May’s speech in Florence was billed as a ‘re-engagement with Europe’. That will have perked up the ears of the rest of the EU, because, as the outgoing French ambassador in London recently noted, the UK has spent the past year talking to itself about Brexit. Leaders and decision makers elsewhere in the EU have routinely denounced talk such as ‘having your cake and eating it’, and done so to the point of ridicule. Yet with donkey-like stubbornness, some British ministers have continued to repeat and, even worse, believe their own rhetoric. Mrs May and the rest of the UK’s leadership need to recognize that the EU is changing and that Britain’s place in Europe will be shaped by this dynamic, and not only by its own hopes and plans for Brexit. Brexit is but one of several challenges and opportunities confronting the EU, among them the pressures facing the eurozone, Schengen, Russian relations, the future of NATO and ties with the U.S. How the EU responds to these pressures will determine its place in the world and frame its future relationship with Britain.

Does this mean Britain is doomed to lurch from one Brexit crisis to the next, resulting in catastrophic humiliation for Britain? Not necessarily. Britain might have over-reached in the first phase of Brexit negotiations, but it’s still too early to evaluate the full significance of Brexit and whether the old phrase holds that you can lose a battle but win the war. That, of course, depends on where Britain and the EU end up in the 2020s in terms of their relations and relative power in the world and in Europe. The rest of the EU has its own weaknesses. Strategies for saving the euro have sometimes been nothing more than glorified exercises in muddling through, with EU decision-makers often making donkeys of themselves. The only strategy that can realistically work is one based on mutual self-interest, where losses are minimised for both sides. However, it remains unclear whether Britain, or the EU, can find ways towards this.

This post first appeared on the Dahrendorf Blog.

The post Britain’s Brexit Strategy: Lions Misled by Donkeys appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

In view of the continuing instability and gravity of the situation in Libya, the Council has extended the duration of the sanctions against Libya, targeting three persons for a period of six months.

On 1 April 2016, the Council imposed restrictive measures against Libya on three persons: Agila Saleh, president of the Libyan Council of Deputies in the House of Representatives; Khalifa Ghweil, prime minister and defence minister of the internationally unrecognised General National Congress; and Nuri Abu Sahmain, president of the internationally unrecognised General National Congress. These persons are viewed as obstructing the implementation of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) of 17 December 2015 and the formation of a Government of National Accord in Libya.

The Council last adopted conclusions on Libya on 17 July 2017. The Council reiterated its firm support to the Libyan Political Agreement and to the Presidency Council and Government of National Accord led by Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj established under it as the sole legitimate government authorities in the country. 

The Council reaffirmed its commitment to existing restrictive measures. It reiterated its readiness to repeal them if the conditions for their application are no longer met and to introduce new measures against individuals who threaten the peace, security or stability of the country by, for instance, impeding or undermining the successful completion of Libya's political transition. 

The EU called on all armed groups to refrain from violence, to commit to demobilisation and to recognise the authorities entrusted through the Libyan Political Agreement as the only authorities invested with the right to control Libya's defence and security forces. Violence threatens Libya's stability: the EU believes there is no solution to the Libyan crisis through the use of force.

The Council also warmly welcomed the appointment of Ghassan Salamé as the new Special Representative of the UN Secretary General, who will play a central mediation role helping to promote an inclusive political settlement based on the Libyan Political Agreement.