European Union

In an unprecedented move the ECB lowered the base interest rate to zero percent on Thursday. It also extended its bond-buying programme and increased the rates banks must pay for parking their deposits with the ECB. Can the flood of cheap money jump-start Europe's economy?

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ASTANA – Kazakhstan will not opt to purchase shares of BG Group in the Karachaganak Petroleum Operating (KPO) consortium, Kazakh national company KazMunayGas head Sauat Mynbayev said on March 17 in Astana.

The merger of the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell and of the British oil company BG Group was completed in February of this year.

As reported, according to the laws of Kazakhstan, after the completion of this deal government of Kazakhstan can opt to purchase shares of BG Group in the Karachaganak field. “No, we will not opt to purchase shares of BG, Shell is a potential buyer,” Mynbayev said at the briefing, responding to a question of journalists.

Karachaganak field is controlled by a group of investors, which, in addition to the BG Group, include ENI (29,25%), Chevron (18%), LUKoil (13.5%) and KazMunaiGas (10%).

As noted on the website BG Group, As noted on the website BG Group, production at the field is conducted at the highest level and is about 45% of the total gas production in Kazakhstan and 16% liquid hydrocarbons.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Karachaganak field is about 15% of the total production of BG Group and 9% of its revenues in 2014 in the amount of $19 billion.

The Karachaganak field, discovered in 1979, is one of the world’s largest gas and condensate fields. Located in north-west Kazakhstan and covering an area of over 280 square kilometres, it holds estimated hydrocarbons initially in place (HIIP) of 9 billion barrels of condensate and 48 trillion cubic feet of gas, with estimated gross reserves of over 2.4 billion barrels of condensate and 16 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The post Kazakhstan not to buy the shares of BG Group in KPO consortium appeared first on New Europe.

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A Bucharest court upheld a two year sentence for a Romanian MP on corruption charges; the court of appeal sustained that offering his voters fried chicken was indeed bribery.

Exchanging food for votes in rural areas in not unheard of in Romania; it is usually flour and oil. Florian Popescu went the extra mile.

During the 2012 Romanian legislative elections, candidate Florin Popescu distributed no less than 60 tons of fried chicken worth €108,000.

Since the first trial in 2014, Popescu had been known with the nickname “Chicken Baron.” He protested he did not have the time to east even one chicken wing.

Popescu resigned his post as an MP in March 2nd.

Romania ranked 58th in the corruption perception index of transparency international in 2015 making strands from its 69th place in 2014.  In 2015, the famous Romanian National Anti-Corruption Agency (DNA) was pursuing 10,000 cases and was believed to be going after a third of the country’s business and political elite. Nonetheless, a Council of Europe report published in January 2016 asked Romania to do more to promote transparency, especially as at a legislative level, where the report notes “gifts” and “conflict of interest” are not unknown.

However, the use of food rather than hard cash points towards a related to corruption challenge. Besides having a serious corruption challenge, according to Eurostat, Romania has the second biggest population in Europe after Bulgaria in risk of poverty and social exclusion.

(with AP, The Telegraph)

The post Jail time for Romanian MP trading votes for chicken appeared first on New Europe.

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Nearly half of Thailand’s monks are severely overweight, according to a new study. And now the government has launched a health drive among its clerics.

A new study revealed that 48% of the country’s monks are obese and face numerous physiological problems as a result.

An academic directing the health-awareness campaign told the Bangkok Post that about 10% of the clergy suffer from diabetes, while 23% have high blood pressure and 42% show excessive levels of cholesterol.

“Obesity in our monks is a ticking time bomb,” Jongjit Angkatavanich, the academic from the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, told the Post.

The monks are often given foods laden with high fat and sugar content by devotees, which they are reportedly forbidden from refusing.

Meanwhile, the Thai government, which pays the monks’ medical expenses, reportedly spent in excess of $8.5m on them in 2012 alone.

According to The Telegraph, the obesity epidemic in Thailand seems to contradict the requirements of the monastic lifestyle. They’re supposed to live strict, plain lives, reject materialism and excess, and spend their time in meditation. But in Thailand, Buddhism isn’t without scandal. Several financial, sexual, and lifestyle controversies have befallen senior clerics and its former spiritual leader (they’re currently lacking one) has been accused of tax evasion.

The post Thailand’s Buddhist monks eating their way to obesity, taking big bites out of state health budget appeared first on New Europe.

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A Russian MP prepares a law that criminalizes any comment perceived as an insult against the Russian Presidency.

The draft law is being prepared by Russian MP Roman Khudyakov, member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR). The maximum penalty would be up to six years in jail. Khudyakov said the draft law was in response to several YouTube videos purportedly criticizing the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

According to Newsweek, Khudyakov told national daily newspaper Izvestia that he started preparing the bill after citizens from his Tambov region alerted him to the videos mocking Putin. “They asked me how such videos can exist for the public to access,” Khudyakov said and added, “when I watched it I was outraged to the depths of my soul.”

The Russian MP said that he had decided to model the new bill on the 1990 law “On the protection of the honor and dignity of the president of the USSR.” Russian website, RT, reported that according to the current Russian law, insults against the Russian president can be qualified as insulting a state official, which is a criminal offense punishable by up to one year of hard labor.

The deputy head of the Russian Parliament’s Committee for Criminal Law, Sergey Fabrichnyi of the parliamentary majority United Russia party, said that he saw no obstructions to discussing Khudyakov’s proposal.

A similar law is in force in Turkey, and the Turkish authorities have used it numerous times for persecuting citizens who insulted, Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The post Russian MP prepares law against insulting the President appeared first on New Europe.

The public hearing "The crisis in Syria and the role of international and regional actors: security implications for Europe" was be held on 16 March with researchers closely working on the issue and a representative from the EEAS. The hearing provided a better understanding of the situation on the ground, a vital requirement for bringing the conflict to an end.
Location : Altiero Spinelli 3G-2
Programme
Programme
Presentation
Presentation by Michael Benhamou
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : If you use Facebook and Google your personal data such as photos and email are usually stored in US data centres. Sending Europeans' data across the Atlantic is legal provided American companies commit themselves to respecting EU privacy standards. On Thursday, MEPs discussed a new mechanism for transferring data across the Atlantic with experts. Read on to find out why it was created and watch the interview with Max Schrems who was responsible for getting the previous arrangement scrapped.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

General : If you use Facebook and Google your personal data such as photos and email are usually stored in US data centres. Sending Europeans' data across the Atlantic is legal provided American companies commit themselves to respecting EU privacy standards. On Thursday, MEPs discussed a new mechanism for transferring data across the Atlantic with experts. Read on to find out why it was created and watch the interview with Max Schrems who was responsible for getting the previous arrangement scrapped.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Committee meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Every individual or country that criticizes Turkey over democracy and rule of law and doesn’t suport the war launched by the Turkish govenrment against terrorism is an enemy, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

German news agency, dpa, reported that on Wednesday Erdogan slammed all the organizations and individuals criticizing Turkey over values like “democracy, freedom and rule of law.” During a speech he gave in Ankara to local district leaders, Erdogan said that for the Turkish government “these phrases have absolutely no value any longer,” and only “those who stand on our side in the fight against terrorism are our friend. Those on the opposite side, are our enemy,” he said. According to dpa, Erdogan’s speech was punctuated with standing ovations and regular applause.

Turkish daily Hurriyet also reported that Erdogan pledged to “annihilate all terrorists,” on March 17, hosting a ceremony for the veterans and families of soldiers killed in the fight against the outlawed Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK). “Sooner or later, we will annihilate all terrorists in this country with God’s permission,” the Turkish President said.

“Since last July, more than 300 of our soldiers and police officers have been martyred. But do you know what we gained? We have shown both our friends and our enemies that these lands are our homeland,” Erdogan added.

Aggressive rhetoric and actions

On March 16, the Turkish president also strongly pressed parliament to lift the legal immunities of deputies of the Kurdish problem-focused Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), which he repeatedly has accused of holding ties with PKK.

HDP is in favor of promoting a peaceful solution between the two sides and it has distanced itself from the use of violence deriving from both fronts. However, Erdogan said on March 16: “Believe me, if these [HDP deputies] get away with it, the resentment of our brothers who are currently fighting in the southeast and our brothers who have been martyred there would ruin us.”

When HDP entered the Turkish Parliament in summer, Erdogan stopped the peace talks with PKK and blamed the left-center party for the PKK terrorist’s actions in Turkey. Because of HDP’s entrance, Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) lost its single-party majority and the Turkish President was unable to change the Turkish political system.

In the second elections in November, AKP secured a comfortable win but HDP managed to remain in the Parliament, despite the aggresive critic by the government.

Now, Erdogan has broadened the definition of terrorism and stressed on March 14 that a terrorist, according to the Turkish state, is not only the person who pulls the trigger, but the “one who made that possible.” The Turkish President added that “their titles as an MP, an academic, an author, a journalist do not change the fact that they are actually terrorists.”

A number of academics and journalists are now accused of being Turkey’s enemies.

The post Erdogan: War against terrorism outweighs democracy and freedom appeared first on New Europe.

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More than 60,000 minors have fled warzones to arrive in Germany during the refugee influx. And each one has his or her story to tell.

The reasons behind their flight to Europe and why they are at it alone are many, according to Niels Espenhorst of the Federal Association for Unaccompanied Minor Refugees. He spoke to Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster.

As reported by DW, some were sent by their families to escape conscription enforced by the army or militias. Others were separated from their families along the way. Often children leave home because members of their family have joined a militia and there is a danger that they will be drawn into the fighting.

For 16-year-old Fahad, who is currently living in a home for unaccompanied refugee minors in Berlin, it took him nearly a month to reach Europe from Damascus, passing through seven countries. According to DW, his first few weeks in the German capital were spent sleeping in a park across the street from Berlin’s Health and Social Services Office, which serves as a registration point for the refugees. After speaking to several officials, Fahad was put up in a hostel. Once again, he was left to his own devices.

There are currently some 2,000 other youths still waiting for their appointment to meet with the Social Services Office for Minors. They are without healthcare, a guardian or the possibility of attending school.

As for Fahad, he is fortunate to be preparing for his school leaving exams. “My future is the only motivation I have,” Fahad was quoted as saying.

His goal: “To one day have people look at me and ask, ‘Who is that?’ I want to be somebody”.

The post Refugee minors on their own in Germany appeared first on New Europe.

This is Friday’s edition of our daily Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu speaks to reporters upon arrival at the EU summit Friday morning

Turkey’s prime minister arrived in Brussels last night for what is expected to be an extremely difficult final round of negotiations with EU leaders on a deal that would allow Greece to return of thousands of refugees arriving on its shores to Turkey. The talks are due to begin this morning between Ahmet Davutoglu and three EU leaders – the European Commission and European Council presidents as well as Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister who holds the EU’s rotating presidency – but diplomats last night said they remained unsure whether Ankara would agree to the EU’s terms.

After five hours of talks in a summit last night, the EU’s 28 leaders agreed a common negotiating line that was not much different from a proposal tabled by Donald Tusk, the European Council president, the day before. But those terms include potential poison pills that Ankara has indicated are unacceptable. Foremost among those are measures Turkey would have to implement to completely overhaul its asylum system – including widening the nationalities that received protected status. Currently, only Syrians are given protections similar to those required under the Geneva Conventions, and the new EU negotiating line, seen by the FT, insists all migrants returned to Turkey be treated in compliance with “international standards”. Ankara has signaled it is unwilling to be lectured by Brussels on how it treats refugees.

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Statistics concerning judicial activity in 2015: new records in terms of productivity and cases brought for the Court of Justice of the European Union

Tag: migrationOperation Sovereign Border

Karl-May-Verlag v OHMI - Constantin Film Produktion (WINNETOU)
Intellectual and industrial property
The General Court upholds publisher Karl-May’s action against the EU Trademark Office’s decision to annul the Community trade mark WINNETOU

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Earth Hour, a global World Wildlife Fund (WWF) initiative to raise awareness about climate change, will be marked by the European Parliament. All lights in its buildings will be switched off between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on March 19.

“Following the COP21 agreement, this year’s Earth Hour has a particular significance,” said European Parliament President Martin Schulz. “Thanks to the agreement reached in Paris we have to move from pledges to actions, from mapping the route for the future to walking on that route. Everyone has to commit to stop global warming and saving the planet – every individual, every organisation and every institution. That’s why the European Parliament is proud to take part in the Earth Hour.”

WWF is calling on everyone – individuals, businesses, governments and communities – to participate in Earth Hour by turning off their lights for one hour on March 19.

Last year, 172 countries and territories participated in Earth Hour and more than 10,000 landmarks and monuments switched off their lights. In Europe, these included the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, the Acropolis in Athens, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, the Colosseum in Rome, the Alhambra in Granada and the Houses of Parliament in London.

The post European Parliament to go dark for Earth Hour appeared first on New Europe.

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Italian officials blame the good weather for a sudden increase in immigration crossings from Libya, with ships picking up 3,100 migrants over the past three days.

As reported by The Associated Press (AP), some 712 migrants were picked up March 17 on top of 2,400 the two previous days, all grouped in small, flimsy rubber dinghies in international waters near Libya. Three bodies were found during rescues by mostly Italian ships on March 15.

“In these days there has been a window of weather that has been good for transiting this section of sea,” Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said.

Meanwhile, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) says 9,800 migrants have arrived in Italy this year through March 16, compared with 7,400 in the same period last year. Spokeswoman Barbara Molinario said that it was too early to speak of trends and this kind of concentration in short periods is not unprecedented — even if periods of calm seas in the winter are limited.

Most of the arrivals this year are migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Molinario said, a flow that indicates that the closures along the route from Greece have not led to a shift of the people in that area toward Libya.

“They are the same that transited Libya last year, and not the Syrians, Afghan and Iraqis who go through Greece There is no sign of a change of route, although we don’t exclude that there can be one.”

The post From Libya to Italy, thousands of refugees arrive in rubber dinghies appeared first on New Europe.

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British MPs and an MEP wrote a letter to US President Barack Obama asking him to stay out of Britain’s referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union (EU).

The letter, was the initiative of Leave.EU and the Grassroots Out Brexit campaigns, and carries the signatures of Peter Bone (Conservative), Kate Hoey (Labor), Kelvin Hopkins (Labor), Tom Pursglove (Conservative), Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party), and UKIP leader and member of the European Parliament, Nigel Farage.

The letter states: “With so much at stake, it is imperative that the question of exiting the European Union is not one answered by foreign politicians or outside interests, but rather by the British people who must ultimately live with change or the status quo.

The British politicians declare: “issues of national sovereignty must be decided exclusively by the people of the United Kingdom”. They state: “even a passive diplomatic recommendation in the matter of our national decision will receive the opposite of the intended effect.”

“The referendum vote is an act of democracy in its most direct form, and the question of whether or not to leave the EU is a rare political topic that is not owned by any one political party. This is a chance for the British people to choose the path of their country. Interfering in our debate over national sovereignty would be an unfortunate milestone at the end of your term as President.”

Kate Hoey MP said of the warning: “We felt it is important the President of the United States is aware that feelings will run high in the UK if he chooses to make an intervention. We have chosen to respectfully request he recognizes matters of sovereignty are best left to the citizens directly affected. We would certainly never think of visiting the United States and telling the US public how to vote in an election or the amendment of their constitution.”

Peter Bone MP added: “Whatever the President perceives the interests of the US to be it would be better for the relationship between our countries and his reputation with the British people if he kept his counsel to himself.”

British daily, The Independent, reported that Obama is expected to travel to the UK in April and use his power to persuade the Britons to remain in the EU. A governmental source told the Independent: “Barack Obama is coming over at around that time. You wouldn’t look stupid saying that [the President is going to tell British voters to stay in the EU]. It would be pretty shocking if he didn’t ask voters to stay in the EU.”

Bob Corker, the chairman of the US Senate foreign relations committee, said in February, that Obama was planning “a big, public reach-out” to convince the British citizens about the positives deriving from the EU Membership.

Tim Farron, leader of the pro-EU Liberal Democrats, told the British daily that the visit of the US President was “welcome”. He added: “This is a reminder that if Britain wants to be a big player on the world stage, then being in the EU is one of the ways we achieve it.

“Sometimes our friends from outside have a clear picture on where we stand. People often refer to the fact that we’re the fifth biggest economy in the world, but they forget we were only the seventh biggest economy when we joined the European Community [in 1973]. Our political relevance is enhanced by the EU,” Farron stressed.

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