Europe

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Laying out key priorities for the EU's upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets.

Alongside a quicker roll-out of renewable energy facilitated by “further exemptions from [environmental impact] assessments,” Giegold outlined several other German priorities for the EU’s upcoming strategy.

Based on the 2030 renewable energy targets, the EU should also set up a 2040 framework, complemented by new, more ambitious targets for energy efficiency, he said.

“It should include new heating standards, a heat pump action plan and a renovation initiative,” he explained, noting a heat pump action plan was last shelved in 2023.

Hydrogen, made from renewables, should be governed by a “a pragmatic framework,” the German politician stressed, reiterating calls from his boss, Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), to delay strict production rules into the late 2030s.

Non-full membership in the Schengen area costs Bulgaria more than EUR 834 million per year. Romania loses EUR 2.32 billion in annual revenues from not participating fully in Europe’s border-free regime, with losses for its transport operators amounting to another 90 million annually due to delays at the country’s land borders.

The figures were presented at the conference The cost of non-membership of Schengen for the Single Market – impact on Bulgaria and Romania, which took place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 24 September. The event was jointly organised by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)and the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA).

[...] For an increasing number of critics, Ireland being home to Chinese firms links the country to the human rights abuse allegations levelled against some such companies. These include Chinese clothing firm Shein, which since May 2023 has had its European headquarters in Dublin.

[...]

In May, Ireland’s Minister of State for Trade Promotion, Dara Calleary, welcomed a report celebrating how Huawei was contributing €800m ($889m; £668m) per year to the Irish economy. The firm has three research and development centres in Ireland.

This is the same Huawei whose telecoms network equipment the US has banned since 2022 due to concerns over national security. The UK has moved in the same direction, ordering phone networks to remove Huawei components. And mobile phone networks in many Western nations, including Ireland, no longer offer Huawei handsets.

Meanwhile, WuXi has, since 2018, invested more than €1bn in a facility in Dundalk, near the border with Northern Ireland.

Earlier this month the US House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict US firms’ ability to work with WuXi, again citing national security concerns. The bill now has to go to the US Senate.

[...]

Prominent critics of Ireland rolling out a “green carpet” to Chinse firms include Barry Andrews, one of Ireland's members of the European Parliament. “Human rights and environmental abuses should not be allowed in Irish shopping baskets,” says the Fianna Fáil MEP.

He points to a US Congress report from last year, which said there was “an extremely high risk that Temu’s supply chains are contaminated with forced labour”.

Temu had told the investigation that it had a “zero-tolerance policy” towards the practice.

“One person’s bargain is another’s back-breaking work for poverty wages,” adds Mr Andrews, whose party is part of the current Irish government coalition.

[...]

Some leading economists question whether Ireland even needs the few thousand jobs that the Chinese firms provide.

“Ireland’s economy has been running at near full employment for the best part of a decade," says Dan O'Brien, chief economist at Ireland's Institute of International and European Affairs.

[...]

Mr O’Brien says that Ireland’s level of FDI was already too high without the Chinese investment on top. “Given we are already overly dependent on FDI in a world that is at risk of deglobalisation, we don’t need another major source of FDI on top of that from the United States.”

He adds EU rules should be “actively used to discourage Chinese FDI” in Ireland.

[...]

Things must be hard if the EU can't keep a single Mastodon server up.

> Two countries agree to modifications beneath Matterhorn peak, one of Europe’s highest summits

> France's new Prime Minister Michel Barnier is considering a temporary increase in corporate tax on the country's biggest companies as well as a tax on share buybacks as part of efforts to plug a gaping hole in public finances, Le Monde newspaper reported on Sunday.

> A senior government minister urged Moldovans on Sunday to shun "thieves, fugitives and bandits" after an exiled pro-Russian business magnate pledged to pay voters to vote "no" in a referendum on joining the European Union.

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Estonia's Climate Minister Yoko Alender and Finland's Minister of the Environment and Climate Kai Mykkänen signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday to ensure the resilience and security of critical undersea infrastructure, including through enhancing surveillance capabilities.

The purpose of the memorandum of understanding is to outline the structures within which Finland and Estonia can develop their cooperation on the monitoring and repair of underwater energy connections.

[...]

The Balticconnector gas pipeline damaged in October 2023 has been repaired. There are also two submarine power cables between the countries, Estlink 1 and Estlink 2, on the bottom of the Gulf of Finland. These transmission connections are an essential part of the energy markets and security of energy supply in Finland and Estonia. They also even out price fluctuations.

[...]

> Following the parliamentary election in Austria, the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) will be the strongest faction in the parliament, beating the conservative ÖVP for the first time in history.

> PARIS (AP) — France’s new government is set to take a hardline approach to migration issues as key officials have pledged to significantly reduce the number of people entering and staying illegally in the country.

> ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis wrapped up a troubled visit to Belgium on Sunday by doubling down on his traditional views on women and abortion and demanding that Catholic bishops stop covering up for predator priests — a scandal that has devastated the church’s credibility around the globe. > > Francis revisited the key thorny topics of his trip to Belgium during his in-flight press conference coming home, praising Belgium’s late King Baudouin as a “saint” for having abdicated for a day in 1990 rather than sign legislation legalizing abortion.

> BRUSSELS (AP) — As the war in Ukraine enters a critical period, the European Union has decided it must take responsibility for what it sees as a security threat in its own neighborhood, and it’s preparing to tackle some of the financial burden, perhaps even without the United States.

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Openly defending one’s decision not to have children will be prosecuted in Russia. The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, is preparing a bill under which authorities will impose fines of up to €50,000 ($55,580) for supporting “the refusal to have children.” The measure affects all areas of life — from casual conversation to films and books — and is a serious threat to the Russian feminist movement.

The crackdown on what the Kremlin calls the “childfree” movement will result in fines of up to 400,000 rubles for individuals (around $4,300), 800,000 rubles for civil servants ($8,600), and up to five million rubles ($55,580) for companies or other legal entities. Foreigners will also be deported.

There are thousands of reasons why a person may decide not to have children, but the Cabinet of ministers has asked the State Duma to make only three exceptions to the law: religious reasons, medical reasons or in the case of rape. It also alleges that there is a mass-organized childfree movement, even though the websites on this subject are little more than a curiosity; Russian newspapers cite the existence of groups on VKontakte, the Russian Facebook, which barely have 5,000 members.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43507472

A majority of EU Member States agreed to adopt the European Commission's proposal to downgrade the protection status of the wolf under the Bern Convention. This shift opens the door to wolf culling as a false solution to livestock depredation, which runs counter to Europe’s commitment to safeguard and restore biodiversity. The decision which cannot be scientifically justified went through after Germany changed its position from abstention to support.

With this decision, Member States have chosen to ignore the call of over 300 civil society organisations, among others EuroNatur, and more than 300,000 people urging them to follow scientific recommendations and step up efforts to foster coexistence with large carnivores through preventive measures.

[...]

Wolves are strictly protected under both the Bern Convention and the EU Habitats Directive, serving as a keystone species vital for healthy ecosystems and biodiversity across Europe. Weakening their protection will hinder the ongoing recovery of wolf populations.

‘The EU's decision will not only destabilise the still fragile wolf populations in large parts of Europe, but also undermine the significant progress made towards a coexistence of humans and wolves,’ says Antje Henkelmann, project manager and wolf expert at EuroNatur. ‘Only efficient herd protection can prevent livestock kills. Instead, the EU is focussing on symbolic but inefficient culls. With her turnaround, the Federal Environment Minister is not only weakening wolf protection, but also giving in to populist demands that are of little use to livestock farmers,’’ says the biologist.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43413713

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On Saturday [September 21], Tibetan activists convened outside the Musée Guimet in Paris to protest the museum’s decision to replace exhibition materials that identify certain artifacts as Tibetan by replacing it with the Chinese name for the region. Activists claim the change to the language is problematic for deferring to a Chinese political narrative that’s historically aimed to erase Tibetan cultural identity from public spaces.

The mass protest, which some sources estimate attracted 800 demonstrators, followed a report in the French newspaper Le Monde alleging that Musée Guimet and the Musée du quai Branly, two prominent Parisian museums that house collections of Asian art, altered their exhibition materials cataloging Tibetan artifacts as deriving instead from then Chinese term “Xizang Autonomous Region.” According to the same report, the Musée Guimet renamed its Tibetan art galleries as deriving from the “Himalayan world.”

A handful of Tibetan cultural advocacy groups based in France penned letters to both museums, requesting formal meetings to discuss the reasons behind and implications of the terminology changes, a request that activists say was accepted by Musée du quai Branly, but not it’s peer Musée Guimet.

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Instead of spearheading China’s liberalisation, Western universities that benefit from Chinese money are increasingly vulnerable to pressure from its government.

[...]

Through a combination of pressure tactics – including a global censorship regime, the weaponisation of informal Chinese networks, questionable party-state funding, and dependencies on “official China” – students and researchers are silenced, and higher education institutions are influenced.

Within many universities outside China, academic freedom has been compromised by Chinese funding. Dependent on the large funds that have been allocated to them, they are more inclined to do research in line with the CCP’s programme. More recently, the much publicised Hong Kong National Security Law allows anyone to be charged who challenges China’s national unity, regardless of nationality or territory. The Hong Kong National Security Law purports to have extraterritorial effect and therefore it is not limited to Chinese citizens or even those physically in Hong Kong. This inevitably contributes to a climate of self-censorship among academics.

[...]

Unfortunately, rising authoritarianism, if not actual totalitarianism, in China has turned the tables on Western universities. Instead of spearheading the liberalisation of China, they have become vulnerable to Chinese pressure in the opposite direction. Their partnerships with Chinese universities have turned into potential liabilities as professors come under fire for not properly declaring Chinese funding, research grants are linked to human rights abuses in Xinjiang, and universities’ technology breakthroughs are being used to improve China’s system of mass surveillance.

[...]

The Irish Centre for Human Rights and the University of Galway showed courage in accepting this gift of memory to [Chinese human rights activist] Liu. Statements of support by the university’s president and the director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights are significant. It is our hope that this example will encourage other universities to resist the pressure from Chinese money that might compromise their academic freedom.

[...]

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Romania has once again scrambled fighter jets last night after Russian forces attacked several targets in Ukraine.

A drone reportedly briefly entered Romanian airspace near the Ukrainian border.

The attack last night targeted the town of Izmail in the southern Odesa region, where three people were killed and at least 11, including a child, were injured, according to Governor Oleh Kiper quoted by Kiev Independent.

The Ukrainian Air Forces confirm that a Russian drone "strayed" into Romanian territory. In total, 32 drones were launched last night, of which 24 were intercepted, according to the Ukrainians.

"For monitoring the situation, two F-16 aircraft of the Romanian Air Forces took off from the 86th Air Base in Borcea starting at 1:52 am and, later, starting at 3:22 am, two F-18 aircraft of the Spanish Air Forces from the Extended Air Policing Service at the 57th Air Base in Mihail Kogălniceanu."

[Edit typo.]

https://archive.is/rUjJw

Dame Maggie Smith, star of the Harry Potter films and Downton Abbey, has died at the age of 89

A statement from Dame Maggie's sons says she died peacefully in hospital on Friday morning

Fellow Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville says she was a "true legend of her generation" with a "sharp eye, sharp wit and formidable talent"

A legend of British stage and screen, Dame Maggie won two Oscars during her career - for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie in 1970 and California Suite in 1979

The supermarket can’t pretend it’s offering a discount if it raises prices just to cut them back, the judges ruled in a case brought by consumer activists from Baden-Württemberg.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/43413835 > https://archive.is/g9pfT

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The nomination of Olivér Várhelyi, an ally of Hungary’s nationalist ruling party, to the health portfolio in the bloc’s new executive commission last week cast a harsh spotlight on the country’s own much-criticised public health system.

“If the goal is to help the member states of the European Union with ideas to destroy the health sector, to ransack it… then it was a great idea” to nominate Várhelyi, Zoltan Tarr, an EU lawmaker from Hungary’s opposition, told local media.

Hungary’s public health system has been under scrutiny since opposition leader Péter Magyar — a former ally turned critic of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — started touring hospitals this summer to denounce their “deplorable” conditions.

Magyar accuses Orbán of “systematically underfunding and dismantling public healthcare” by getting rid of the health ministry to save money shortly after he returned to power in 2010.

Hungary spent only 4.4% of its GDP on health in 2022, a smaller share than any other EU country, Eurostat figures show.

“Unfortunately… successive governments have not treated health as a priority,” the head of the country’s Hospital Association, Gyorgy Velkey, told AFP.

No water, no air con

Surveys show the quality of healthcare is one of the Hungarian public’s biggest concerns. Complaints from patients proliferate on social media.

From the lack of basic sanitary items to crumbling facilities, the list of complaints is almost as long as the notorious waiting lists for specialist care.

In one Facebook post from last month, a father deplored the state of the hospital in which his son, in his 30s, died of thrombosis.

“There was no air conditioning in the ICU. We had no light in the bathroom outside the ICU, and we were using our phone to get some light. There was no toilet seat and no water,” Laszlo, who asked not to be identified by his full name, told AFP.

Many patients say they turn to private providers to get better and faster medical care.

Szilvia, 32, who did not want to be identified by her full name, paid the equivalent of 3,000 euros ($3,350) to give birth to her second child in a private hospital after a “traumatic birth experience” with her first-born.

[...]

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A Chinese teacher-researcher has been prevented from taking up a post at the prestigious French engineering school, the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Arts et Métiers (ENSAM) in Paris, where he had been due to give lectures and pursue his research work in a restricted access laboratory. The researcher, who already had a contract in Israel, applied for a long-stay "talent" visa of the kind normally granted to researchers at the French consulate general in Jerusalem.

His application was initially refused on 5 June. He appealed against the decision to the specialised visa appeals body in Nantes in western France, which has yet to give its decision, but also took his case to the Nantes administrative court, asking it to suspend the consulate's decision and order the French authorities to grant him the visa he had applied for.

Wrong link. https://archive.is/ZwF79

Correct link. https://archive.is/2ujHV

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Balázs Orbán, the Hungarian Prime Minister's political director (who is not related to PM Viktor Orbán) gave an interview to the pro-government Mandiner, in which he discussed current public issues, [political opponent] Péter Magyar, the Draghi report, the US presidential election and US Ambassador David Pressman, which was caught by 444. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 comes up at the 14th minute of the conversation, when the journalist argues that at the time, the Americans did not seem to have viewed Hungary as a country worth helping.

"I think that the fact that there was no substantial American help for Hungary in '56 takes '56 out of the mouth of the United States. And from that point on, I don't think they can use it as an argument for anything," Mátyás Kohán said, to which Balázs Orbán replied:

>“Based precisely on '56, we probably would not have done what President Zelensky did 2.5 years ago, because it is irresponsible, because one can see that he took his country into a war of defense. So many people have died, so much territory was lost, and I'll say again, it is their right, it is their sovereign decision, they could choose to do it, but if they had asked us, we would not have recommended it, because of what happened in '56. Because we have learned that one has to be cautious here, and one has to treat the very precious Hungarian lives with great care. They cannot simply be thrown before others.”

The Prime Minister's Political Director then said that he believes provocation is counter-productive, and added that 80-90 percent of the Hungarian people agree with the Hungarian government's policy on the Russian-Ukrainian war. When the journalist asked what would have happened if the United States had helped Hungary in 1956, Balázs Orbán replied that he believes it would have led to World War III.

"Maybe we would have won, maybe we wouldn't have won, maybe the neighbouring countries would have sided with us, maybe they would have been against us," he said.

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Estonian officials have again refuted suggestions that the rupture of the Balticconnector gas pipeline and two data cables in the Baltic Sea by the Chinese cargo ship, NewNew Polar Bear, in October 2023 was an accident.

“You would need to find a very stupid captain” for the incident to have been an accident, Jüri Saska, commander of the Estonian Navy (Merevägi), stated. Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur pointed out that the length of the furrow (180 km) that the Chinese ship’s anchor made on the seabed made it hard to believe that the incident was accidental. When the ship struck the gas pipeline, its speed dropped suddenly from 11 knots to 6 knots, which must have made a very loud noise throughout the ship’s hull, Saska noted.

Nevertheless, the ship’s crew insisted that it had no need for assistance. China has yet to respond to Estonia’s and Finland’s request for legal assistance in the investigation.

By the time the Newnew Polar Bear moved out of Estonia's area of responsibility, on October 11, a criminal case had already been initiated on both sides of the Gulf of Finland.

Finland is investigating the case as an act of sabotage, as damage to Estonian infrastructure. In the aftermath of the incident, the two countries jointly submitted to China a request for legal assistance, but 11 months and two weeks later had not received an official response.

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• Russia establishes drone factory in China
• Russian arms firm develops UAVs for use in Ukraine
• China-made drones have been delivered to Russia
• Chinese government says it is not aware of such a project

Russia has established a weapons programme in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to two sources from a European intelligence agency and documents.

IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned weapons company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested a new drone model called Garpiya-3 (G3) in China with the help of local specialists, according to one of the documents, a report that Kupol sent to the Russian defence ministry earlier this year outlining its work.

[...]

Fabian Hinz, a research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based defence think-tank, said the delivery of UAVs from China to Russia, if confirmed, would be a significant development.

"If you look at what China is known to have delivered so far, it was mostly dual-use goods - it was components, sub-components, that could be used in weapon systems," he [said]. "This is what has been reported so far. But what we haven't really seen, at least in the open source, are documented transfers of whole weapon systems."

[...]

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security research group and has conducted extensive work on Chinese and Russian cooperation on drone production, told Reuters that Kupol could skirt Western sanctions on Russia by setting up a production facility in China where it could access advanced chips and expertise.

[...]

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his military had received around 140,000 drones in 2023 and that Moscow planned to increase this number tenfold this year.

"Whoever reacts faster to demands on the battlefield wins," he told a meeting in St Petersburg about drone production.

Publication croisé avec : https://peculiar.florist/notes/9ymyi5j3ibbdeh59

> [EU] [abortion] My Voice, My Choice: For Safe And Accessible Abortion > > @europe > eci.ec.europa.eu/044/public/#/screen/home > > Objectives > > The “My Voice, My Choice” campaign offers the people of Europe the chance to make women's lives freer, safer, and better; wherever they live in our union, whatever conditions they may find themselves in. > > The lack of access to abortion in many parts of Europe not only puts women at risk of physical harm but also puts undue economic and mental stress on women and families, often on the margins of society that can afford it the least. > > It has been well documented that treating reproductive care as a luxury does not reduce abortions, it simply drives women to seek unsafe abortions. > > To change this we are asking the European Commission to - in the spirit of solidarity - submit a proposal for financial support to Member States that would be able to perform safe termination of pregnancies for anyone in Europe who still lacks access to safe and legal abortion. > > Countless lives and livelihoods are ended, disrupted, and lost because of lack of access to safe abortion. This must stop. With this European Citizens' Initiative, we will move to a more just policy that expresses our European values more compassionately and concretely. > > \#EU #MyVoiceMyChoice #Abortion

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