Photo by Kent Tupas on Unsplash The Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament say they “reject the false and harmful” claim made by Georgian Prime Minister, Irakli Garibashvili, who said in a Georgian TV interview on Sunday that the European Parliament wishes to “drag Georgia into the Russian war against Ukraine.” At the request of the S&D…
Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash President Emmanuel Macron’s stand-off with France’s trade unions over his pension reform plans are widely reported as a peculiarly French issue. That should read ‘wrongly’ reported because pensions are a looming crisis of disastrous proportions for the whole of Europe, writes Giles Merrit. Most EU countries’ state pension schemes are unaffordable, private…
Photo by Nick Fewings on Unsplash Exactly 100 years ago, university students across Germany burnt over 25,000 books which the Nazi regime considered ‘degenerate’. Joseph Goebbels, aptly-titled Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, harangued the crowd at the Opernplatz in Berlin saying: “No to decadence and moral corruption: Yes to decency and morality in family and state!” The…
Photo by forzaalisherka on Unsplash Preparations for the Majilis and Maslikhat elections, which will be held on 19 March, are under way in Kazakhstan. These represent an important step forward in the political modernisation of the country. More than 12 out of the 19 million population of Kazakhstan are included in the voter lists for the elections to…
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash A top level Socialist delegation to the United States has concluded with a warning that centre-right MEPs are “abandoning the centre to engage with the extreme right.” That is the claim from S&D leader Iratxe García and vice-president Pedro Marques. They have just finished their visit to the United States, wrapping up…
Photo by Matt Brown on Unsplash In recent weeks the British Government has been deluged with noise about the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed with the EU following the UK’s departure, well before the text of any new agreement was revealed, writes Philip Bushill-Matthews. None of the noise came from European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, who remained diplomatically silent about the…
The post-Soviet states one by one are shedding Moscow’s influence. Moldova has recently announced that it is ready to denounce several agreements signed within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In the foreseeable future, the country may withdraw from the CIS altogether, as Georgia and Ukraine have done in the past. The…
Photo by Nikolay Vorobyev on Unsplash In the much anticipated presidential address to the Russian Federal Assembly today, 21 February, there had been expectations of sharp and momentous statements, but in the end there were none. The event was broadcast live on BBC News, for the first time in history. Vladimir Putin began his speech by mentioning the…
Photo by Kenrick Mills on Unsplash It is exactly ten years since the death of nine-year old Ella Kissi-Debrah. She was the first person in the world to have the cause of death defined as air pollution. It happened in London, writes Philip Bushill-Matthews. The European Environment Agency in its 2021 report claimed that overall in 2018 air…
Photo by ekrem osmanoglu on Unsplash Special elections to the Majilis, the lower house of the Kazakhstan Parliament, will be held on March 19. The country’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, is determined to modernise Kazakhstan’s political system, and these elections form part of that process Tokayev is trying to create a balanced system of government, which is intended to…
