European Union

A Russian television crew has been killed in the Central African Republic. The three reporters had travelled to the war-ravaged country to shoot a documentary about a group of Russian mercenaries known as the Wagner group for an online news organisation owned by exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Government-critical Russian media don't believe the official statements issued on the incident.

The retirement age in the Netherlands is to be raised to 67 by 2021. Now a publication put out by the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute has sparked a debate on the subject. According to the report, people with lower qualifications should be able to retire earlier than the more highly educated. Commentators take widely differing views on the subject.

The public prosecutor's office in Estonia has launched an investigation against the Estonian branch of Danske Bank. For several weeks now the bank has faced allegations of having laundered up to nine billion dollars, most of which came from Russia. Journalists are appalled by the authorities' slowness in reacting to the affair.

The Bank of England looks set to raise interest rates on Thursday (2 August) to their highest level since the financial crisis, defying warnings that it is taking a gamble ahead of Brexit, the terms of which remain unclear.

The number of people with foreign origins living in Germany increased by 4.4 percent in 2017, according to figures published Wednesday by the German statistics office. Some 19.3 million are either not born in Germany or have at least one parent who is not a German citizen, a record high. They represent 23.6 percent of Germany's population and 51 percent of them are German citizens.

France's parliament signed into law a controversial asylum and immigration bill on  Wednesday (1 August), despite opposition on the left which decried an effort to limit arrivals while the far right saw the measure as not going far enough.

Brexit negotiations are "heading for no deal by accident," UK foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt warned on Wednesday. A no-deal Brexit would be a "huge geo-strategic mistake," he said during a visit to Vienna, adding it would have "a profound impact" on EU-UK relations "for a generation". Prime minister Theresa May will meet French president Emmanuel Macron on Friday in an attempt to improve the process.

The European Commission says it is ready to boost spending in Morocco when it comes to stop migrant hopefuls from reaching Spain by boat. The money follows demands for help from Madrid as irregular arrival numbers spike in Spain.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is to scale back operations further as it copes with higher than expected staff losses, triggered by the watchdog's forced relocation from London to Amsterdam because of Brexit.

Written by Magdalena Pasikowska-Schnass,

The tragedy of the Holocaust was a crucial consideration in the development of European integration; Simone Veil, the first female President of the European Parliament, described it as the horrible price paid for allowing totalitarian ideologies, racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism take hold on the continent, with the resultant dehumanisation of certain groups of people. Veil also deeply regretted the lack of widespread knowledge of the whole history of the period, including that the memory of the Roma Holocaust was not brought to public attention.

It was only in 1982 that Germany recognised the racial grounds for the deportations, imprisonment and extermination of Roma and Sinti people in Nazi concentration camps in Europe. It was also not until 2001 that the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum devoted a permanent exhibition to Roma and Sinti victims, where Romani and Sinti, armed with sticks and stones, had resisted being removed from barracks in May 1944. On 2 August 1944 the Nazis, fearing the rebellion could spread, sent around 3 000 Roma people from the Gypsy Camp to their death.

This was just one of many events that marked the Roma Holocaust, which took a toll of between 220 000 and 500 000 Roma victims – between one quarter and a half of the Roma and Sinti population of the pre-war period. The exact number is not known, since the victims’ families did not officially report their losses and the perpetrators erased the records of their crimes.

In April 2015, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the occasion of ‘International Roma Day – anti-Gypsyism in Europe and EU recognition of the memorial day of the Roma genocide during World War II’. The general term ‘Roma’ covers various groups, such as Roma, Travellers, Sinti, Manouches, Kalés, Romanichels, Boyash, Ashkalis, Égyptiens, Yéniches, Doms and Loms, with diverse cultures and lifestyles. In the context of growing anti-Gypsyism, anti-Semitism, racism and xenophobia in Europe, the EP called for the establishment of a European day of commemoration of the victims of Roma genocide during World War II ‘The European Roma Holocaust Memorial Day’. This call was reiterated in a further EP resolution adopted in October 2017 ‘Fundamental rights aspects in Roma integration in the EU: fighting anti-gypsyism’, designating 2 August as a Memorial Day, as well as appealing for the inclusion of Roma victims in Holocaust Remembrance Day on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp in January 1945.

The European Parliament commemorated the memory of the Roma and Sinti victims of Nazi extermination on 27 January 2018, inviting representatives of Roma people for the commemoration and hosting an exhibition devoted to Roma genocide.

Holocaust education is crucial to keeping the memory of Roma victims alive. EU funding from the Europe for Citizens programme supports projects related to World War II Roma history. The Roma Genocide Remembrance Initiative is one such project, undertaken and coordinated by the ternYpe International Roma Youth Network, aiming at raising awareness of the Roma Holocaust among educators. Macedonia and Hungary participated in a similar project ‘Roma Genocide – Part of European History‘, and commemorated Roma victims on 2 August 2015 in the Csillagerőd (Star Fortress) in Komárom, from where thousands of Roma were deported to concentration camps.

Sweden’s highest peak, a glacier on the southern tip of the Kebnekaise mountain, is melting due to record hot Arctic temperatures and is no longer the nation’s tallest point, scientists said on Wednesday (1 August).