News: Europe
» 2009
February 27, 2010
Silvio Berlusconi 'avoiding justice', demonstrators say
Ten of thousands of Italians have demonstrated in Rome against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, over what they say are attempts to evade justice. Mr Berlusconi is on trial in two corruption cases. But legislation being discussed in parliament would in effect stop him going to court. The protesters accuse the PM of seeking to undermine the legal system.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 25, 2010
Greece wants Nazi gold returned as 50,000 strikers take to streets
Greece has touched Germany's rawest nerve by accusing the EU powerhouse of not fully compensating it for gold stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War. The incendiary comments came as some 50,000 Greeks took to the streets of Athens to protest over austerity plans aimed at wrenching the country out of a debt crisis that has shaken the eurozone.
Read article in The Scotsman (Scotland/UK)
February 22, 2010
Dutch to pull troops out of Aghanistan following government collapse
Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende said on Sunday (22 February) that his country's troops are likely to be pulled out of Afghanistan by the end of this year, a move he said may prompt other wavering states - including EU members - to think about doing the same. "If nothing else will take its place, then it ends," Mr Balkenende told Buitenhof, a domestic current affairs television programme, reports Reuters. The centre-right leader was speaking a day after his government collapsed over the issue. The Labour Party quit the the coalition on Saturday, saying it could not agree to a Nato request to extend the Dutch mission beyond 2010. The Netherlands is among the top ten contributors to Afghanistan. Twenty-one of its soldiers have been killed there. Currently, there are around 2000 Dutch troops the dangerous Afghan province of Uruzgan. They are due to start leaving the country in August.
Read article at euobserver.com
February 14, 2010
MEP’s spending spree forces paybacks, but the names are being kept secret
Concerns are mounting that the EU could soon face an expenses scandal that could dwarf the ongoing saga of British MPs, that caused widespread public outrage, leading some British lawmakers to go into hiding. It was recently discovered that undisclosed MEPs had repaid more than €3.4 million in “wrongly claimed” expenses. European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek is refusing to disclose the identities of the errant members, according to the Daily Telegraph, who have seen a letter where he says that: “Such delicate and sensitive matters must be treated with the utmost caution – avoiding undue haste that can unnecessarily and unjustly cause irreparable harm to members’ reputations.” It is being asked why the European Parliament, with its commitment to transparency, seeks to shield these members. Mats Persson, the director of the Open Europe think tank, said: “If the European Parliament was serious about cleaning up its act it would name and shame the MEPs who have misused their allowances and conned the taxpayer, just as the UK Parliament is currently doing.”
Read article on the New Europe website
February 10, 2010
EU President's secret bid for economic power
The new President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy, is using the financial crisis sweeping the eurozone to launch an audacious grab for power over national budgets, leaked documents reveal.
Read article in The Independent (UK)
February 10, 2010
Secret papers could contradict Iraq evidence: Chilcot
Tens of thousands of secret documents could contradict evidence given by members of the Blair government to the inquiry into the Iraq war, its chairman, Sir John Chilcot, has suggested as the former prime minister lashed out at the hunt for a ''scandal'' and a ''conspiracy'' over his controversial decision to back the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Sir John disclosed that the panel was examining far more documents than previously thought. He said the papers would form the core of the inquiry and show ''what really went on'' in the build-up to the start of the conflict. He said that the inquiry team would examine the documents ''over the next few months'', adding: ''That will enable us to see where the evidence joins together and where there are gaps.''
Read article in the Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
February 8, 2010
German minister calls for Lisbon treaty EU army
German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle has called for the EU to proceed with plans for a European army under the Lisbon Treaty, which he dubbed “the beginning and not the end” of a common security and defence policy.
Read article in the Irish Times
Comment: The assurance given to Ireland prior to its second vote on the Lisbon Treaty, in October 2009 – that its traditional military neutrality would not be compromised by voting “Yes” – was entirely worthless. For, despite all the claims to the contrary, not one single word of the treaty had been changed since Ireland voted “No” in its first referendum in June 2008. Moreover, any hope for a potential democratic process within the EU about a decision to go to war – or even veto it – are an illusion. The leading export nations of the Oil and Drug Cartel are also the leading military and nuclear powers in Europe. Their governments are committed to defending the interests of the Cartel at any price.
February 7, 2010
Russia should consider joining the EU and NATO, says Medvedev’s institute
According to a paper released on 3 February by the Institute of Contemporary Development (INSOR), a think tank headed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia will join NATO and the EU, reduce its military, reintroduce gubernatorial elections and four-year presidential terms and disband its Interior Ministry and Federal Security Service, news agencies reported.
Read article on the New Europe website
February 6, 2010
Memo 'shows Blair Iraq war deal with Bush'
The leader of Plaid Cymru's MPs has said he has a memo showing Tony Blair and George Bush struck a secret deal to invade Iraq a year before the 2003 war. Elfyn Llwyd told the BBC's Straight Talk he had written to Iraq Inquiry chair Sir John Chilcot to say he would be prepared to hand the document over. He said the memo, which is marked "Top Secret and Confidential" contradicted statements made by Mr Blair. Mr Blair previously told the inquiry he made no "covert" deal with Mr Bush.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 6, 2010
Blix: Straw 'gave incorrect answers' to Iraq inquiry
Former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw gave some incorrect answers to the UK's Iraq war inquiry, former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix has said. Mr Blix told the BBC he was "puzzled" by some of the evidence that Mr Straw gave to the panel. He said that Mr Straw had been incorrect to suggest, in 2002, that UN weapons inspectors were not being allowed access to certain sites.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)
February 5, 2010
Damning report hits out at EP expenditure
A damning report by a member of the European Parliament's own budgetary control committee is set to question the very fundamentals of the institution's budgetary discharge procedure, with its author coming under considerable pressure from the institutions's bureau as a result. Still in the process of being finalised, the report's rapporteur - Belgian Green MEP Bart Staes - told EUobserver the document ultimately asks one simple question: Is it correct that parliament should sign off on its own accounts? While the council of ministers, representing member states, also has to approve parliament's expenditure, a gentleman's agreement means scrutiny is kept to a bare minimum.
Read article at euobserver.com
February 3, 2010
US blames Lisbon Treaty for EU summit fiasco
The US State Department has said that President Barack Obama's decision not to come to an EU summit in Madrid in May is partly due to confusion arising from the Lisbon Treaty. State department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told press in Washington on Tuesday (2 February) that the treaty has made it unclear who the US leader should meet and when. "Up until recently, they [summits] would occur on six-month intervals, as I recall, with one meeting in Europe and one meeting here. And that was part of – the foundation of that was the rotating presidency within the EU. Now you have a new structure regarding not only the rotating EU presidency, you've got an EU Council president, you've got a European Commission president," he said.
Read article at euobserver.com
Comment: As a result of the Lisbon Treaty, the ‘Brussels EU’ now has a total of four presidents: the rotating EU presidency (currently held by Spain); the EU Council president (Herman Van Rompuy); the European Commission president (José Manuel Barroso); and the European Parliament president (Jerzy Buzek). So who’s really in charge? To learn the facts about the ‘Brussels EU’, click here.
February 2, 2010
Iraq to sue U.S., Britain over depleted uranium bombs
Iraq's Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the U.S. over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says. Iraq's Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment. According to the reports, during the first year of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. According to Iraqi military experts, the U.S. and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war. Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq. Iraqi doctors say they' have been struggling to cope with the rise in the number of cancer cases -- especially in cities subjected to heavy U.S. and British bombardment.
Read article in the Tehran Times (Iran)
February 2, 2010
Iraq inquiry: Tony Blair ‘lied’ and misled Parliament, claims Clare Short
Tony Blair 'lied' to his Cabinet and misled Parliament over the war in Iraq, Clare Short, the former international development secretary has said. Giving evidence before the Chilcot Committee into the war, she repeatedly accused the former prime minister of personally “misleading” and “conning” her, and of being “deceitful” with Cabinet, Parliament, and the public. Miss Short claimed that Mr Blair broke the ministerial code by misleading Parliament, and accused Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general who gave the “green light” to war, of failing to tell the Cabinet the truth of his reservations about the legality of an invasion.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
January 30, 2010
Chilcot War Inquiry: Professor to launch 'Nuremberg' war crimes prosecution against Blair
Plans to bring a war crimes prosecution against Tony Blair based on last week’s bombshell evidence to the Chilcot Inquiry have been launched by a leading law professor. The move could see Mr Blair follow former Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic into a dock in The Hague. Professor Bill Bowring says the revelation that the Government rejected Foreign Office warnings not to invade Iraq means there is a good chance Mr Blair can be ‘investigated, at the very least’ for war crimes.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
January 30, 2010
Tony Blair accused of putting war with Iran on the electoral agenda
Former prime minister slammed for trying to shift focus onto threat from Tehran during appearance at Chilcot inquiry
Tony Blair has been accused of warmongering spin for claiming that western powers might be forced to invade Iran because it poses as serious a threat as Saddam Hussein. Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran, accused Blair of trying to make confrontation with Iran an electoral issue after the former prime minister repeatedly singled out its Islamic regime as a global threat in his evidence to the Iraq war inquiry yesterday. Blair said many of the arguments that led him to confront the "profoundly wicked, almost psychopathic" Saddam Hussein seven years ago now applied to the regime in Tehran.
Read article in the Guardian (UK)
January 29, 2010
Ridiculously Generous
MEPs on the European Parliament's Budget Committee voted on Wednesday to award themselves an extra €1,500 and to hire an additional 150 staff. MEPs say they're in desperate need of more money because the Lisbon Treaty is now in force which means more work for them. In total, MEPs can already cash in on some £360,000 year in pay and allowances. For most people this seems like an incredibly generous amount - but not for the MEPs themselves apparently. The increase will cost taxpayers an extra €13.3 million a year and send the EP's total annual budget past the €1.6 billion mark.
Read blog entry on the Open Europe blog at blogspot.com
January 29, 2010
Bush decided UN backing not necessary, says Blair
United Nations backing for the Iraq war would have made "life a lot easier", Tony Blair said today. But the former prime minister said US President George Bush decided the UN Security Council's support "wasn't necessary".
Read article in the Independent (UK)
January 29, 2010
Protesters call for Blair to face war crimes charges
In the shadow of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament and surrounded in all directions by monuments to the British establishment, protesters called Friday for Tony Blair to face war crimes charges as the former prime minister gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry. "Blair lied, thousands died!" and "Tony Blair! War criminal!" chanted the few hundred who had gathered under gray and damp early morning skies, separated from the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre by chain-link fencing and dozens of police officers. Some protesters donned rubber Blair masks and posed behind bars, their hands covered in theatrical blood representing those killed during the war in Iraq. Many said they wanted to see Blair put on trial at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
Read article at cnn.com
January 23, 2010
David Kelly post mortem to be kept secret for 70 years as doctors accuse Lord Hutton of concealing vital information
Vital evidence which could solve the mystery of the death of Government weapons inspector Dr David Kelly will be kept under wraps for up to 70 years. In a draconian – and highly unusual – order, Lord Hutton, the peer who chaired the controversial inquiry into the Dr Kelly scandal, has secretly barred the release of all medical records, including the results of the post mortem, and unpublished evidence. The move, which will stoke fresh speculation about the true circumstances of Dr Kelly’s death, comes just days before Tony Blair appears before the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq War. It is also bound to revive claims of an establishment cover-up and fresh questions about the verdict that Dr Kelly killed himself.
Read article in the Daily Mail (UK)
Comment: Dr David Kelly died days after being exposed as the source of a controversial BBC story on the Iraq war, which alleged that evidence against Iraq had been "sexed up" by the British Government in order to justify the 2003 invasion. Some reports suggest that Dr Kelly, 59, had been writing a book exposing highly damaging government secrets before his mysterious death. Significantly, therefore, convinced that the original verdict of suicide is unsafe and should be overturned, six senior doctors have recently begun legal action in an attempt to force a new inquest into Kelly’s death.
January 21, 2010
EU commission 'embassies' granted new powers
The EU has converted 54 out of the European Commission's 136 foreign delegations into embassy-type missions authorised to speak for the entire union. The move follows the coming into force last year of the Lisbon Treaty, which has the creation of a new EU diplomatic corps as one of its main provisions. All 136 commission delegations were renamed "EU delegations" on 1 January. But only the 54 placements were at the same time quietly given fresh powers in line with their new names.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 21, 2010
Klaus, Kaczynski say Lisbon should not enhance EU centralisation
Prague - The Lisbon Treaty should not open path to radical unification and centralisation of the EU, the Czech and Polish presidents, Vaclav Klaus and Lech Kaczynski, agreed at their meeting in Prague today, they told reporters. They said the EU should remain an association of states, it should not transform into a superstate.
Read article at ceskenoviny.cz (Czech Republic)
January 20, 2010
Kaczynski: Poland, CR should make EU more democratic
Poland and the Czech Republic should strive for the European Union to be more democratic, Polish President Lech Kaczynski told CTK yesterday ahead of his state visit to Prague starting on Thursday. "The aristocratic republic which the European Union is should be a little bit democratised," Kaczynski said. He said mainly Germany and France, which Britain joins from time to time, make decisions on what is going on in the EU 27. "Real decision-making should be further developed," he said.
Read article at praguemonitor.com (Czech Republic)
January 13, 2009
Iraq Inquiry: Lord Goldsmith 'materially' changed legal advice in days before war
Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, "materially" changed his advice on the legality of military action against Saddam Hussein in the final days before the 2003 invasion, the Iraq war Inquiry has been told. Lord Turnbull, who was the Cabinet Secretary at the time, said there were important differences between the final legal opinion Lord Goldsmith presented to the Cabinet and an earlier version he gave privately to Tony Blair.
Read article in the Daily Telegraph (UK)
January 13, 2010
Big tobacco distorted EU treaty, scientists say
One of the biggest tobacco manufacturers in the world led a group of chemical, food, oil, pharmaceutical and other firms in a successful long-term lobbying strategy to shape European Union policy making in their favour, a new study says. After trawling through some 700 internal documents from British American Tobacco (BAT), academics at the University of Bath and University of Edinburgh say they have found evidence that the cigarette giant in the mid-1990s teamed up with the European Policy Centre, the prominent Brussels think-tank, to create a front group to ensure that the EU framework for evaluating policy options emphasised business interests at the expense of public health. According to the study, published in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal and funded by the Smoke-Free Partnership and Cancer Research UK, BAT constructed a policy network of a series of major corporations, including Shell, Zeneca, Tesco, SmithKline Beecham, Bayer and Unilever, to mount a multi-year lobby campaign aiming at shaping the EU's impact assessment system.
Read article at euobserver.com
January 12, 2009
Dutch inquiry says Iraq war had no mandate
An inquiry into the Netherlands' support for the invasion of Iraq says it was not justified by UN resolutions. The Dutch Committee of Inquiry on Iraq said UN Security Council resolutions did not "constitute a mandate for... intervention in 2003". The inquiry was launched after foreign ministry memos were leaked that cast doubt on the legal basis for the war. The Netherlands gave political support to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but has denied having any military role. The report demolishes the Dutch case for supporting the invasion, says the BBC's Europe correspondent Jonny Dymond. It could also be taken to reinforce the international case against the Iraq war, he says.
Read article on the BBC News website (UK)