European Union

Presentation by Shingo Yamagami, Director General, Japan Institute of International Affairs
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Other than David Cameron’s deal renegotiating Britain’s relationship with the EU, the only major decision taken at last week’s Brussels summit was to hold yet another emergency summit on Europe’s burgeoning refugee crisis. With a regularly-scheduled summit already on the calendar for March 17, why would leaders need to reassemble again in the first week of March? According to several EU diplomats, the new gathering will be held at the request of Chancellor Angela Merkel because of a major political event happening in the interim: March 13 regional elections in three large German states.

Increasingly, those elections – in wealthy Baden-Württemberg; neighbouring Rhineland-Pfalz; and eastern Saxony-Anhalt – are being seen as referenda on Ms Merkel’s migration policy. And with UN figures showing refugee arrivals in Greece back up above 3,000 per day, there’s a good reason for the chancellor to be in a bit of a panic. Recent polls show the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party making significant gains in all three länder, particularly in Saxony-Anhalt, where a survey published yesterday by the mass-market Bild newspaper had AfD at a stunning 17 per cent, ahead of the centre-left Social Democrats. In Baden-Württemberg, whose capital of Stuttgart is home to automaker Daimler, Ms Merkel’s Christian Democrats – who have dominated the state’s politics for decades – fell behind the Greens in the same poll. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung says “it looks bleak” for the CDU in the region. In Rhineland-Pfalz, AfD has risen from nothing in the 2011 elections to 8.5 per cent.

The atmospherics have not been helped by events on the ground, which appear to be further radicalising the electorate. Last week, videos emerged of an anti-immigrant mob besieging a bus filled with migrants in the small town of Clausnitz, near the Czech border. That was compounded by another video showing police dragging a frightened boy off the bus as the mob raged outside. Just days later in Bautzen, another small town near the Czech border, onlookers cheered as a building meant to house asylum seekers burned to the ground. Much like the new year’s attacks in Cologne, the incidents have set off another round of German soul searching over just how welcome the country is to immigrants.

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Presentation by General Ramirez and General Pfrengle, Eurocorps
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Les 181 essais nucléaires menés en Polynésie française entre 1966-1996 ont eu un « impact environnemental » et « provoqué des conséquences sanitaires », a admis le président François Hollande, lors de son déplacement à Papeete, lundi 22 février. Cette reconnaissance était une revendication ancienne des associations de défense des victimes et des élus locaux. Le chef de l’Etat a annoncé une révision du traitement des demandes d’indemnisation des victimes des tests. La loi du 5 janvier 2010, dite loi Morin, du nom de l’ancien ministre de la défense, a apporté des « avancées », mais seule « une vingtaine » de dossiers − sur un millier − ont abouti, a-t-il justifié.
Les Polynésiens considèrent que les essais sont la cause de nombreux cancers dans l’archipel. François Hollande s’est engagé à ce que l’Etat accompagne le développement du service d’oncologie au centre hospitalier de Tahiti.

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La « dette nucléaire » ou « milliard Chirac » (en francs, soit l’équivalent de 150 millions d’euros aujourd’hui), une dotation annuelle qui visait à compenser la perte d’activité économique engendrée par la cessation des tests en 1996, « sera sanctuarisée ». « Son niveau sera dès 2017 rétabli à plus de 90 millions d’euros », a aussi promis M. Hollande, répondant, là encore, à une demande pressante des élus locaux.
« Les conséquences environnementales devront également être traitées » sur les atolls qui accueillaient les installations nucléaires, a-t-il poursuivi. L’Etat achèvera notamment « le démantèlement des [infrastructures] et la dépollution de l’atoll de Hao ». Ceux de Moruroa et Fangataufa feront l’objet d’une « vigilance méticuleuse ».
Plus généralement, le chef de l’Etat a reconnu « solennellement » la contribution de la Polynésie à la force de dissuasion nucléaire du pays.

Parmi les 181 essais qui ont donné lieu à une explosion, deux en 1968 ont eu pour but de tester des bombes soixante fois plus puissantes que celle larguée sur Hiroshima le 6 août 1945 : plus de 1 000 kilotonnes, contre environ 15 kilotonnes pour la bombe américaine « Little Boy ». Jusqu’en 1974, les essais étaient « aériens », autrement dit menés à l’air libre : ainsi, quarante et un ont été effectués soit d’une barge, soit d’un ballon, ou largués des avions. Passé 1975, ils n’ont plus été que « souterrains », d’un puit creusé dans l’atoll, ou directement sous le lagon. L’armée a reconnu qu’au moins un tir, celui du 17 juillet 1974, avait produit des retombées sur l’île de Tahiti. Mais il n’est pas impossible que les quarante précédents aient fait pareil, d’autant que ce tir en particulier n’était « que » de 20 kilotonnes (pour équivalent en kilotonnes de TNT). Pourtant, à ce jour, seules dix-neuf victimes ont été indemnisées par le ministère de la défense ou le Comité d’indemnisation des victimes des essais nucléaires (Civen) sur 1 024 dossiers déposés.
La loi Morin adoptée en 2010, qui encadre les indemnisations, était très attendue en Polynésie, mais n’a pas atteint ses objectifs : « La loi ne fonctionne pas », écrivaient les sénateurs dans un rapport en 2013. Les projections sur les indemnisations réalisées faisaient « état de dizaines de milliers de demandes », et « de 2 000 à 5 000 dossiers indemnisables », selon les sénateurs. Elles sont loin d’être atteintes.

Source

Tag: François Hollandenucléaire

The UK’s renegotiation of its EU membership concluded on Friday at the European Council in Brussels. The text of the settlement is contained in the Council conclusions. We also now know that the EU referendum will take place on Thursday 23 June 2016. Some comments on the renegotiation and referendum:

David Cameron EU Statement – Feb 2016, Georgina Coupe (Crown Copyright), CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

1. This is an historic agreement. It is the first time that a Member State has unilaterally sought (and achieved) a renegotiation of its own terms of EU membership. This process has been entirely centred on the UK. In practice, however, many elements of the deal will impact the other Member States and the EU more generally. More to the point, how long before the next country seeks its own deal? The future of European integration, which inherently depends upon a high degree of policy harmony and/or unity, could be put into question in the months and years ahead.

2. The deal combines symbols and substance. Stating that the EU is a ‘multi-currency Union’, opting the UK out of ‘ever closer union’ and reiterating that states are responsible for its own national security are highly symbolic. The new ‘red card’ on subsidiarity for national parliaments is interesting, but it is unlikely to be used often. Parliaments would need to work together to exercise this right and, for different reasons, they may well not be interested in doing so. The restrictions on the free movement of workers (ie access to in-work benefits) represent a fundamental change in how the EU has functioned. The measures are relatively modest and unlikely to reduce the movement of EU citizens into the UK, which is ostensibly their objective. However, the precedent that non-discrimination on the basis of nationality can be made flexible in this way is a significant concession on the part of the other Member States.

3. Its impact on the campaign will be mixed. The content of the deal may not exert substantial influence on (undecided) voters. Most of it is technical and legalistic. The principles which the agreement is meant to amend are also not particularly well known amongst the UK public. However, that is not to say that the deal is unimportant. The fact of simply having a deal (whatever it contains) plays into the narrative that the EU has been ‘reformed’ and is therefore now more acceptable. Instrumentalisation of the deal could sway voters one way or the other.

4. The referendum date has broader implications. The decision by the UK government on the June date raises questions about the impact on the devolved institutions and local government. Devolved elections in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and local elections in England and Wales are scheduled for Thursday 5 May 2016. That leaves just under seven weeks (48 days) between the elections and the referendum. It is possible that the campaigns will become conflated with each other. The emergence of ‘Europe’ as a central issue in the May elections could also alter the dynamics of the respective campaigns. More broadly, the four months between the announcement of the date and the referendum is not a particularly long time to campaign (compared for instance to the Scotland independence referendum), although low-level campaigning and preparation have been ongoing for some time.

5. The vote won’t settle the UK’s relationship with the EU. The referendum is only one step in a wider process. If the UK votes to stay in the EU, the status quo of membership will continue, as modified by the changes provided for in the settlement. Arguments around EU membership will continue and opponents are likely to seek a second referendum in the future. If the UK votes to leave the EU, years-long discussions will take place to determine the new arrangements for UK-EU relations. This new relationship will presumably need to be legitimised in some way, perhaps through a vote in Parliament or even another referendum. In any case, the debate will continue, at varying intensities, for the foreseeable future. The next four months are likely to be particularly intense indeed.

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Shortened link: britainseurope.uk/19

How to cite this article:

Salamone, A (2016) ‘Five Comments on Britain’s EU Settlement’, Britain’s Europe (Ideas on Europe), 22 Feb 2016, britainseurope.uk/19

The post Five Comments on Britain’s EU Settlement appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

For several weeks, the Sudanese army led a deadly offensive to people in Darfur. And, until now, in general indifference. The Sudanese warplanes bombed continuously the mountainous plateau Jebbel Marra, causing many civilian casualties. The military strategy remain the same: once the bombs from the sky hit the villagers, the militias of the regime kill, rape, plunder and the survivors or neighboring villagers flee en masse. In a few days, according to the head of humanitarian affairs in Sudan Marta Ruedas, 34 000 people have been forcibly displaced. Several villages have been attacked, burned, destroyed.

The violence in Darfur erupted again in 2013, moving about a half million people, bombings and attacks continue without international echo. In February 2015, HRW alleged that 221 women and girls were raped by Sudanese forces during an organized attack in October 2014 against the city of Tabit, North Darfur. The activity of UNAMID staff on site (15 784 people in January 2015) is contested, the mission "spend more time to protect itself against attacks from pro-government militias, as acting with civilians. "

Nowadays the results of the EU support the AMIS mission, (one of the firts EU missions) are completly annulated. Read the CERPESC Analysis on Darfur in French (soon in English). This report has kept its relevance

See our book on the first EU missions in Africa here
Second, updated edition coming soon!

Tag: Darfur

The mayor of one of the world’s most pro EU capital cities has announced that he wants Britain to leave the European Union.

Boris Johnson, MP and London’s Mayor, made his announcement after apparently agonising over the decision for hours and following the pleas of Prime Minister, David Cameron, for him not to abandon the government’s position for Britain to remain in the EU.

Boris’s view is apparently clear: in the event of Britain leaving the EU, he will be in ‘pole position’ to see-off David Cameron and rival, Chancellor George Osborne, and grab his long coveted job of Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

From his comments today, it seems that his strategy on a ‘Leave’ victory in the referendum would then be to negotiate a new and ‘better’ deal with the European Union.

My view? It’s an enormous gamble by Mr Johnson and one he may live to regret for the rest of his life.

Over the next four months, Britain and Britons are going to be exposed for the first time to fuller facts about the European Union, and all the hype and misinformation that we’ve been fed for years will be robustly challenged and corrected.

The country will go from blissful ignorance about the functioning and benefits of the European Union, to becoming global experts.

We’ve seen from past referenda campaigns in other European countries that such increased knowledge usually results in the populace becoming much more in favour of EU membership.

The bookies currently foresee a referendum victory for Britain to ‘remain’ in the EU – and unlike pollsters, bookmakers are more usually accurate at predictions.

It seems Boris has backed the wrong side. No doubt he’ll be able to brush that off with his usual bluster and buffoonery when the referendum results are announced on 24 June that Britain has voted to ‘Remain’ in the EU.

But just say Britain votes to ‘Leave’ the EU, and Boris cycles over to 10 Downing Street to take up his new position as Prime Minister. If he then tries to negotiate a ‘new deal’ with the EU, he will almost certainly be sent back home with a severe haircut.

Contrary to the view of Brexiters, EU leaders are not so desperate to keep Britain in the European club, otherwise they would have given Mr Cameron everything he demanded. They didn’t.

The foundational principles of the EU are much more important than the vexatious demands of one recalcitrant EU member, let alone an ex-member.

And if Britain leaves the European Union, what will happen to our Union of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?

Almost certainly, Scotland would immediately demand a referendum to leave the United Kingdom and apply to join the European Union as an independent state. It’s quite possible that Wales and Northern Ireland, which are both much more pro-EU than England, could follow.

Then Boris would be Prime Minister only of Little England. Yes, he might ‘get his country back’, but it could be only one country out of four. He’d be ‘king’ of a much smaller castle; no longer an island state and leading EU member, but surrounded and sandwiched by EU member-states over which he’d have no say or influence.

So the referendum exercise – if ‘Leave’ wins as Boris Johnson hopes – could result in not ‘getting our country back’ but instead losing our United Kingdom of countries.

The European Union would still exist, without England, but possibly with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as EU members.

Such a scenario is not beyond the realms of possibility. Boris could become leader of a country – and a Tory party – literally cut in half.

Boris has blundered. He should have shown loyalty to his Prime Minister and backed the ‘Remain’ campaign, in the unselfish interests of his party, the countries of the United Kingdom, and the capital city which he represents as Mayor.

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Other stories by Jon Danzig:

• Proud to be British and European
• A reminder: What has the EU done for us?
• EU migrants are NOT ‘bleeding dry the NHS’
• List of the latest articles by Jon Danzig

To follow my stories please like my Facebook page: Jon Danzig Writes

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The @MayorofLondon @BorisJohnson has made a big mistake backing #LeaveEU. My blog explains: https://t.co/YVEAglDwqc pic.twitter.com/EqnnMeVcHy

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 22, 2016

 

#EUReferendum: Boris’s big blunder – does he wants #UK to #LeaveEU so he can lead UK? Blog: https://t.co/KyALcBqgXU pic.twitter.com/l9RFCs6y2k

— Jon Danzig (@Jon_Danzig) February 22, 2016

The post Boris Johnson’s big blunder appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

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Ukrainians have chosen a Crimean Tatar singer and her song recalling how Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the mass deportation of her entire nation to Central Asia in 1944.

Singer Jamala won the national quarterfinal competition with her song 1944, receiving the highest scores both from the judges and from the text-message voting — even though the vast majority of Crimean Tatars were unable to cast ballots because they live in Crimea. (Ukrainian telecom companies were kicked out of the region following the Russian takeover, and now their equipment is being used there by Russian firms.)

Her song “1944” refers to the year in which Stalin uprooted Tatars from their homeland and shipped them in badly overcrowded trains to Central Asia; thousands died during the journey or starved to death on the barren steppes after they arrived. They were not allowed to return to Crimea until the 1980s; Jamaladinova was born in Kyrgyzstan.

The song is a peculiar combination of a mid-tempo pop confection and anguished lyrics. “When strangers are coming, they come to your house, they kill you all and say ‘We’re not guilty’,” the song begins.

“That terrible year changed forever the life of one fragile woman, my great-grandmother Nazylkhan. Her life was never the same,” Jamaladinova told The Associated Press before the Sunday broadcast.

The song lyrics do not touch on Russia’s annexation of Crimea two years ago, but entering the singer in the hugely popular song contest could raise the issue by implication. Crimean Tatars, who are a Turkic and mostly Muslim ethnic group, say oppression against them has increased since Russia annexed the peninsula.

With English lyrics and a chorus in Crimean Tatar, 1944 evokes the Soviet Red Army’s deportation of nearly 250,000 Crimean Tatars in May of that year. The Soviet government had accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the Germans while the Nazis occupied the peninsula, so the nation was forcibly resettled to Central Asia and remote regions of Russia.

“There is no mention there about occupation or other outrages that the occupants are doing in our motherland; nevertheless it touches on the issue of indigenous people who have undergone horrible iniquities,” said Mustafa Jamilev, leader of the Crimean Tatars.

Eurovision rules prohibit songs with lyrics seen as having political content. In 2009, less than a year after Georgia and Russia fought a brief war, the competition disallowed Georgia’s proposed entrant because the group’s song lampooned Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ukraine’s 2005 entrant Green Jolly was told to rework the lyrics of its song “Razom Nas Bahato,” which was an anthem of the previous year’s Orange Revolution protests.

The Eurovision final round with competitors from around the continent takes place in May in Stockholm.

The post Crimean Tatar to represent Ukraine at Eurovision appeared first on New Europe.

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More brutal terrorists attack took place in war-torn Syria, as members of the so-called Islamic State (IS) hit the capital of Syria, Damascus and the city of Homs.

The British based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which supports the Syrian rebels who fight against the Syrian regime, reported that at least 59 people were killed and 100 others wounded in twin car bomb blasts that hit Homs and at least another 96 people were killed in a triple suicide attack, including a car bombing, near the Shiite shrine of Sayyida Zeinab south of Damascus. Both of Sunday’s attacks targeted Shia-majority areas and unfortunately the death toll may be even higher.

The situation in Syria is extremely complicated and the IS members are taking advantage of the political gap in the oil-rich country.

The Syrian regime, supported by Russia and led by the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, is on war against the Syrian rebels who are supported by the West and many Sunni-majority Arab States. At the same time both of the opposing sides need to face the IS, a common enemy, which started as an opposition force against the Syrian regime and later on raged a war against the rest of the rebels, demanding the establishment of a fundamentalist state in Syria.

Moreover, Turkey which is a member of the Anti-IS coalition led by the United States, has started a war against the YPG Syrian Kurds, which are accused from the rest of the rebels of holding good ties with the Syrian regime, despite being one of the most successful military groups in the fight against the IS.

Qatar based Al Jazeera, reported that one day before the IS attacks, US and Russia reached a “provisional agreement” on a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement between the Syrian regime forces and the Syria rebels to end the ongoing war and finally deal with the IS.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, spoke in Amman alongside Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s foreign minister, and said that he had spoken earlier that morning with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, about the agreement.

Washington and Moscow are in negotiations to promote a UN Security Council resolution, which would end the fighting between the two sides, and at the same time recognize the need for military operations against organizations “recognized as terrorist by UN Security Council.”

However, even if UN resolution is issued, Moscow and Washington need to spent a lot of energy to persuade the various sides of the conflict to stop the fighting between them.

According to the independent Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR) close to 470,000 Syrian people lost their live in the catastrophic war started in 2011. The country has been destroyed and the fragmentation of the Syrian society is deep. Now, regardless of who is going to win the war, the experts would surely talk about a pyrrhic victory.

The post Fatal IS attacks in Syria, more than 150 people dead appeared first on New Europe.

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Croatia’s latest ideological debate is about a black hat with a shiny U sewn onto it. It’s a symbol of the Ustasha regime, which allied with Nazi Germany during World War Two to commit crimes against Serbs, Jews and Roma.

As reported by Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster, the controversial cap in question appeared in an old photo on the head of a young Zlatko Hasanbegovic, now Croatia’s culture minister. The picture had originally been published in the 1990s by the right-wing magazine Independent State of Croatia. In several articles for the magazine, Hasanbegovic paid tribute to members of the Ustasha, calling them heroes and martyrs.The picture was republished in the weekly newspaper Novosti, whose editor is on the National Council for the Serb minority in Croatia. High-ranking officials in the government, led by the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), have already accused the council of insulting the nation. However, Croatia’s centre-left has always seen Hasanbegovic as a Nazi sympathiser. DW reported that intellectuals see his appointment as culture minister as proof that Croatia’s new right-wing government wants to settle the score with anyone who is less nationalist than the ruling politicians.

“Hasanbegovic is a message,” the left-wing author and historian Dragan Markovina told DW. He believes that the culture minister was appointed for his nationalist ideology. The governing party has been attempting to court Croatia’s far-right, Markovina said: “HDZ is trying to prevent any positive interpretations of the Socialist era. That is why it wants bring culture under governmental control”. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) lost the government to the HDZ in November.

According to DW, the culture minister had initially tried to dismiss the incriminating picture as a malicious collage. But when his youthful hymns of praise for the Ustasha regime became public, Hasanbegovic, now 42, decided to go on attack mode, saying that “using 20-year-old statements from my youth and student days is political manipulation”. He claims that he, his party and the government are true to democracy and anti-fascism.

Crnoja’s idea led to protests. Thousands of citizens voluntarily signed a satirical “traitor list”.

The post Calls for resignation of Croatia’s culture minister over hat controversy appeared first on New Europe.

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At least 10 people in India were killed and more than 150 others injured in protests by rural Jat caste calling for greater access to government jobs. The water supply to Delhi was also severed, forcing local schools and factories to close.

As reported by the Guardian, India has deployed thousands of troops to quell protests. Rioting and looting in Haryana, north India, by Jats, a rural caste, is symptomatic of increasingly fierce competition for government jobs and education in India, whose growing population is set to overtake China’s within a decade.

The federal government deployed 4,000 troops and 5,000 paramilitaries on February 21 and ordered an end to the protests by the evening. The home minister, Rajnath Singh, met Jat leaders and offered to meet their demands.

“We are here to die,” said Rajendra Ahlavat, a 59-year-old farmer and protest leader. “We will keep going until the government bows to our pressure. There is no way we will take back our demands.”

As reported by the Financial Times, the destructive spree — in a business-friendly state housing the corporate offices and factories of many multinational companies — is a warning sign of the risks to India’s political and social stability from restive youth, struggling to realise their aspirations for a better life in an economy that is failing to create enough jobs for the estimated 1m people entering the work force each month.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no direct statement on the unrest.

The post A water crisis? India sends troops to Haryana appeared first on New Europe.

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Up to 5,000 EU citizens, trained in Syria and Iraq by the Islamic State (IS), have returned in Europe, Europol chief Rob Wainwright said in an interview with Germany’s Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung newspaper.

On 20 February, Wainwright told the German daily that “Europe is currently facing the highest terror threat in more than 10 years.” He said that the EU Member States can expect by the so-called Islamic State (IS) or other religious terror groups to stage an attack somewhere in Europe “with the aim of achieving mass casualties among the civilian population.” Wainwright added that the estimated thousands of returned jihadists “presents EU member states with completely new challenges.”

Many are trying to link the current European refugee crisis with the return of many jihadists, saying that the halt of the refugee influx will result in the better protection of the EU citizen. Wainwright, dismissed the claims and underlined that “there is no concrete evidence terrorists are systematically using the flow of refugees to infiltrate Europe.”

However, Russian website RT, reported that in January, former UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox expressed concern that jihadists could sneak into the EU among asylum-seekers. The national authorities “have no idea whether these people are genuine refugees or asylum seekers, or economic migrants, or terrorists operating under the cover of either,” he had said then.

Moreover, on late January, French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve also said that the IS acquired blank passports and established a fake passports industry. “Daesh (the Arabic name for the IS) has managed to seize passports in Iraq, Syria and Libya and to set up a true industry of fake passports.”

Then the French Interior Minister advised his European fellow Minister that the EU must establish special task forces and sent them to Greece to assist the identification of fake or stolen passports.

 

The post 5,000 jihadists could be at large in Europe appeared first on New Europe.

Parliament's women's rights committee adopted a report on Thursday calling on the European Commission to encourage EU countries to take initiatives to protect the rights of domestic workers and care staff in the EU. "If we regulate this profession, we will be able to reduce trafficking and the abuse of women," said report author Kostadinka Kuneva, a Greek member of the GUE group. MEPs will vote on the report during the April plenary. Read our interview with her to find out more.
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Parliament's women's rights committee adopted a report on Thursday calling on the European Commission to encourage EU countries to take initiatives to protect the rights of domestic workers and care staff in the EU. "If we regulate this profession, we will be able to reduce trafficking and the abuse of women," said report author Kostadinka Kuneva, a Greek member of the GUE group. MEPs will vote on the report during the April plenary. Read our interview with her to find out more.
Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

Welcome to Monday’s edition of our new Brussels Briefing. To receive it every morning in your email in-box, sign up here.

“Let me tell you where I’ve got to, which is, um, I am, um….I’ve made up my mind.”

With these words, Boris Johnson bounded into the Brexit camp on Sunday, jolting Britain’s EU referendum campaign into life. A summit-weary David Cameron had barely caught up on his sleep on Saturday morning when the Mayor of London emailed to let his old pal know he would take the opposite side. There was no reply. Less than 10 minutes before going public, Mr Johnson sent the British prime minister a ‘courtesy’ text. The two men enjoy one of the most cut-throat, competitive personal rivalries in British politics (they have literally wrestled on the floor of Downing Street). That rivalry is now set to engross Britain’s June 23 referendum on EU membership. Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister, tweeted “the country’s future had been reduced to uni chums arguing”. “Blond Bombshell” cried The Sun’s frontpage; “Boris Goes In for the Kill” said the Daily Mail; and “Out for Himself” declared the Independent.

Old Brussels hands know what it is to be trolled by Boris Johnson.

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Important NATO Members are not willing to support Turkey in a possible big war with Russia, according to a report by the German magazine Der Spiegel.

Last week the Turkish government decided to start a war against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Northern Syria, saying that the YPG has ties with the outlawed Kurdistan’s Workers Party (PKK) being a terrorist organization and posing a threat to Turkey.

The international community asked from the Turkish government to stop the operations against the Syrian Kurds, who are one of the most successful groups in the war against the so-called Islamic State (IS), who performed serious war crimes in Syria.

Despite the calls of the EU and the US to stop the operations, Turkish officials say that Turkey has the right to perform military operations on foreign ground, and days ago a Syrian Kurd representative warned that a “big war” between Turkey and Russia is not out of the question in case Turkey violate Syrian sovereignty. Russia supports the Syrian Kurds fighters and the Syria regime, led by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Two days ago, Spiegel reported that Ankara’s aggression seems partially based on the assumption that, should conflict erupt between Turkey and Russia, then Turkey will be supported by its NATO allies.

However, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel: “NATO cannot allow itself to be pulled into a military escalation with Russia as a result of the recent tensions between Russia and Turkey.” Asked about NATO’s article 5, which oblige the Member States to support a fellow Member State under attack, Asselborn stressed that the support “is only valid when a member state is clearly attacked.” However, the Russian government has said that it may defend the Syrian ground and not perform military operations in Turkish soil.

According to Spiegel, a German diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity also supported Asselborn’s comments clarifying that Germany will not “pay the price for a war started by the Turks.”

When the Turkish government decided to fire down a Russian warplane last year, because it entered Turkish airspace for tens of seconds, NATO backed the right of Turkey to defend it sovereignty but later on it asked from both Moscow and Ankara to avoid any further escalation. After the downing of the plane the relations between the two counties worsen, and now Russia says that Ankara has no right to violate Syria’s sovereignty.

Nikolai Kovalyov, a former head of the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, said that Russian jets would bomb Turkish troops if they enter Syria. Moreover, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also said that any foreign incursion into Syria would be “illegal” and the Russian response would depend on the situation.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande stressed the need to prevent conflict between Moscow and Ankara. “There is a risk of war between Turkey and Russia,” he said in an interview with France Inter radio.

Today, Turkish daily, Hurriyet reported that two days ago the US President, Barack Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about the dangerous situation in Northern Syria.

After the end of the talks, Erdogan spoke at an UNESCO event and said that Turkey has the right to conduct operations not only in Syria but also any other place in which there are terrorist organizations that target Turkey.

“Turkey has every right to conduct operations in Syria and the places where terror organizations are nested with regards to the struggle against the threats that Turkey faces,” Erdogan said on February 20. Moreover, the Turkish President said that Turkey’s war in Northern Syria has “absolutely nothing to do with the sovereignty rights of the states that cannot take control of their territorial integrity.”

“On the contrary, this has to do with the will Turkey shows to protect its sovereignty rights,” he said. “We except attitudes to prevent our country’s right [to self-defense] directly as an initiative against Turkey’s entity – no matter where it comes from.”

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Balkan states have been invited to a meeting on migration in Vienna by Austrian leaders following the country’s move to limit asylum applicants to 80 per day.

Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner and Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz sent invitations to Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Croatia, FYROM, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia, Mikl-Leiter’s office said in a statement.

The meeting, to include Defence Minister Peter Doskozil, is planned on February 24 in advance of a separate European Union conference of interior ministers, planned for February 25.

As reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP), Austria announced on February 21 that it is beefing up the army at its borders to deal with the inflow of migrants, with 450 more troops and military police on standby in case of trouble.

The increase to 1,450 soldiers and reservists comes after Austria drew criticism last week for saying it would only accept 80 asylum seekers and let 3,200 migrants pass through the country per day.

Austria last year took in 90,000 asylum seekers, making it one of the highest recipients in Europe on a per-capita basis, while almost 10 times as many passed through, mostly heading to Germany and Sweden, reported AFP.

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The razor wire fence built by Hungary to stop migrants and refugees from crossing the border from neighbouring Serbia is not impenetrable. Police arrested 550 people getting through in January and more than 1,200 were caught in the first three weeks of February.

As reported by the BBC, Hungary caused controversy with the barrier, completed in September. While the number of people crossing from Serbia dropped after Hungary built the fence along the 175km border, police say migrants are cutting through or climbing over the barrier.

Many are from Pakistan, Iran and Morocco, who are no longer admitted through other routes, reported the BBC. But the majority of migrants and refugees have headed for countries like Germany and Sweden via Hungary and Austria after crossing from Turkey to Greece. Many are fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Meanwhile, Hungary is planning a second fence. Janos Lazar, the Hungarian prime minister’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying: “Migration will restart in the spring, possibly putting pressure on our borders. We have to prepare for that and for the building of a fence on the border with Romania”.

EU leaders have announced a summit in early March in Turkey to try to seek a fresh solution to the brewing crisis.

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