Ministers of the Eurozone meet on 7 July in Brussels to discuss the consequences of the 5 July referendum in Greece.
Military working dogs (MWDs) are of great value in Counter-IED operations, and the pooling and sharing of this capability at the European level has long been a subject of discussion among C-IED experts. Late last month, the European Defence Agency organised the first Ad Hoc Working Group on MWDs at the Austrian Military Working Dogs School facilities of Kaisersteinbruch, in Austria.
Twenty-two participants from Austrian, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden gathered for three days to discuss national capabilities and their respective level of ambition. The C-IED Centre of Excellence and representatives from academia also took part in the event.
Several training opportunities were also staged on the margins of the meeting. Four MWD teams (each comprising a dog and its handler) from Hungary and the Netherlands attended the event, as well as teams from host nation Austria. Capabilities of Labrador dogs were also demonstrated, while a full day was dedicated to training at the Austrian MWD school. Attendees took the opportunity to train teams with specific innovative explosive conditioning materials in a pure multi-national environment.
The Working Group also had the opportunity to receive lectures on innovative solutions for MWDs preparation as well as on previous operational deployment experiences and lessons learned. Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) experts from the Austrian Armed Forces provided support by preparing specific scenarios for military search performance by the teams.
Big interest was showed by all participants and planning for the next Ad Hoc Working group meeting is currently on-going. It is envisaged that MWDs teams will participate in further multi-national C-IED related exercises in 2016. Thus, such a capability will be fully included within the planning process and subsequent execution of C-IED related tasks at the mentioned events.
EU Ministers responsibles of Sport meet on 6 July in Luxembourg.
Eurojust is a judicial cooperation body created to help provide safety within an area of freedom, security and justice set up in 2002 to improve the fight against serious crime by facilitating the optimal co-ordination of action for investigations and prosecutions.
Normalement, le patrouilleur hauturier L’Adroit aurait dû être rendu au groupe industriel français DCNS, au terme d’un accord de trois ans passé avec la Marine nationale. Cet accord permettait à la marine française de préparer le projet de bâtiment de surveillance et d’intervention maritime BATSIMAR. L’industriel et le ministère de la Défense ont négocié un nouveau contrat de mise à disposition qui porte jusqu’à l’été 2016.
Après quatre mois d’un déploiement qui l’aura conduit du Canal de Suez au détroit de Gibraltar, en passant par le Cap de Bonne Espérance, le patrouilleur hauturier L’Adroit a accosté le vendredi 3 juillet 2015 au matin à Toulon.
Durant ce déploiement, le patrouilleur a participé à l’opération européenne de lutte contre la piraterie ATALANTE, en conduisant plusieurs opérations de renseignement au large des côtes somaliennes. Le 5 avril 2015, alors que la situation se dégrade sérieusement aux Yémen, le patrouilleur contribue, avec la frégate de type La Fayette, (FLF) Aconit à l’évacuation de ressortissants français depuis le port d’Aden. Ensuite, il participera à la mise en place d’une route d’évacuation entre les ports d’Al-Mokha (Yemen) et de Djibouti en escortant les boutres dans la zone sensible du détroit de Bab-al-Mandeb. À partir du 28 avril 2015, il entame deux semaines de mission de surveillance maritime, de contrôle de pêche illégale et de veille contre l’immigration clandestine le long de la Zone Économique Exclusive (ZEE) française du canal du Mozambique. À cette occasion, l’Adroit participera à plusieurs exercices avec les marines étrangères, notamment en Afrique Centrale et en Afrique de l’Ouest.
Arrivé à Mayotte pour les festivités de Camerone, le patrouilleur quittera Mayotte le samedi 2 mai, pour porter assistance à Serge Girard en panne de dessalinisateur. Serge Girard l’ultrafondeur français, était parti de la Réunion en mars pour deux ans de traversée des espaces maritimes et terrestres. Le 10 mai 2015, victime dans le canal du Mozambique de courants et de vents contraires dans une mer déchaînée et étant dans l’impossibilité de rejoindre la côte africaine, Serge Girard sera secouru par un cargo norvégien.
Au total, ces derniers mois, le patrouilleur Adroit aura parcouru plus de 17 000 nautiques et fait escale dans treize ports différents.
Greece’s recently-departed finance minister Yanis Varoufakis repeatedly argued that Greece could never leave the eurozone because there is nothing in the EU treaties that permits exit from the bloc’s common currency. But that hasn’t stopped EU lawyers from looking.
According to eurozone officials, EU legal scholars have been combing through the treaties to find provisions that would allow for Grexit – not because it is something they’re pushing for, but rather because they’re worried the country could be soon entering a legal limbo that could prevent it from getting the financial aid it desperately needs.
If Greece begins printing its own money – which could happen in a matter of weeks if the European Central Bank decides to cut off emergency loans to Greek financial institutions – it may no longer be eligible for aid from the eurozone’s €500bn rescue fund, since it is using a different currency.
But because Greece would still be legally part of the eurozone, it wouldn’t be eligible for the aid scheme reserved for non-EU countries, known as a “balance of payments assistance” programme. Hungary, Romania and pre-euro Latvia all received so-called “BPA” programmes during the crisis.
The traditional assumption is that because there is no explicit way to leave the eurozone, the only clause that comes into play is Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, which allows for withdrawal from the entire EU. This would require Greece to request a departure, however, which is unlikely, and while there are an increasing number of leaders willing to let Greece leave the eurozone, none want it to leave the EU.
Officials say lawyers are instead looking at Article 7, which was adopted for a very different reason: In the wake of the Austrian government’s decision to include the far-right Freedom Party of nationalist Jörg Haider in a coalition, EU leaders wanted a way to punish countries that did not live up to European values.
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