European Union

After a man stabbed two people to death and injured two others in an attack in London on Friday, terrorism has become the number one topic in the election campaign. The suspect had already been convicted of terrorist crimes in 2012 and spent six years in prison before being released on probation in 2018. Now the Labour Party and Tories are piling blame on each other. Europe's media find other reasons for the terror.

The prime minister of Malta, Joseph Muscat, has announced that he will resign in January. Prior to the announcement Muscat's chief of staff and two ministers had already either resigned or suspended themselves from duty. Muscat's government has come under growing pressure over its alleged involvement in the murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Muscat's step was overdue, Europe's press writes.

Libya and Turkey have signed an agreement on maritime borders. According to Ankara the deal protects Turkish rights in the eastern part of the Mediterranean, including access to resources such as natural gas. Greece says the deal violates international maritime law because among other things it ignores the island of Crete's jurisdiction. The Greek and Greek Cypriot press are also incensed.

A labour dispute over the inadequate payment of postal workers has culminated in a political crisis in Finland. The bone of contention is whether the government knew about the plans of the state postal service to reduce the salaries of more than 700 package sorters. After the postal workers went on strike for several weeks the responsible minister resigned. Should the PM go too?

The 10th anniversary of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights was marked on 1 December. Here are five facts you should know about it:

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

The 10th anniversary of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights will be marked on 1 December. Here are five facts you should know about it:

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

The latest European Defence Matters magazine (N°18) is now available, with a special focus on the state of implementation of the new EU defence initiatives (CARD, PESCO, EDF). The magazine also features exclusive articles by the new Head of EDA, High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the Union and Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, as well as the new Chair of the European Parliament’s subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE), Nathalie Loiseau.  You can read the magazine in PDF here or in digital format here.  

In the magazine’s cover story, we review and analyse the impressive work done so far on the Coordinated Annual Review on Defence (CARD), the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) and the European Defence Fund (EDF), and assesse the main first lessons learned for each of them during their initial implementation phase. 

We also sat down with representatives from three EDA Member States – Austria’s Defence Political Director General Major Johann Frank, France’s National Capability Director Major General Eric Charpentier, and Greece’s National Armament Director Vice Admiral Kyriakos Kyriakidis - to hear what impact the EU defence initiatives have already had on their national defence planning.

Finally, Dr Gustav Lindstrom, the Director of the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS), shares with us his analysis on what is needed to make the best out the new EU defence tools in the future.

The ongoing debate about the EU’s ambition of moving towards ‘strategic autonomy’ in the security and defence domain, stated in the 2016 Global Strategy, is analysed in an article by EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq who argues that the topic is too important to be flogged to death in endless theoretical talk on its end-goal. What counts, he says, are practical steps allowing the EU to move closer towards this goal.

The magazine also puts a spotlight on several collaborative projects run by EDA on such diversified topics as the Cooperative Financial Mechanism (CFM), Cyber Defence and military diving standards. 

Have a look immediately – and enjoy!
 

More information:

• EDM Magazine N°18 (PDF)
• Digital version of EDM Magazine 

 

Leaders of the 29 nation-strong North Atlantic Alliance gather in London this week to mark its 70th anniversary to examine the emerging security challenges that it will face in the forthcoming days.

About 200 heads of government and state and more than 25,000 delegates from all over the world, will gather at the UN climate conference (COP25) on Monday to negotiate on a carbon market system and establish a common time frame.