In spite of a ban, illegal ivory trading is still flourishing in the European Union, as traders use a loophole allowing for the exchange of very old pieces, an Oxford University study sponsored by a campaign group found.

European law allows ivory obtained prior to 1947 to be traded freely. Ivory obtained after 1947 but before 1990 can be sold with a government certificate, while selling ivory obtained after the global ivory trade was banned is illegal.

Campaign organization Avaaz purchased more than 100 pieces of ivory from 10 different EU countries to undergo carbon testing at Oxford University. Scientists concluded 75 percent of the ivory was from after 1947 and 20 percent was ivory that had been obtained since 1989.

Many traders use the provision which allows the free trade of old ivory to illegally trade newer ivory, fueling the market and incentivizing the killing of elephants, Avaaz said.

While the European Union banned the export of raw ivory in 2017, domestic trading, which is banned in the United States, China and Hong Kong, is still allowed in the EU.

Last month, the European Parliament called for a complete ban on domestic ivory trading.

“Illegally poached ivory often gets into the legal market, making the elephants a lucrative target for poachers,” Parliament said in a statement.

The European Commission said that addressing poaching and ivory trafficking was a cornerstone of an EU action plan against wildlife trafficking and that the Commission was now discussing the next steps.
…

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has described his latest talks with North Korean officials as productive. He met with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts in Tokyo on Sunday before proceeding to Vietnam. Pyongyang was the first stop on Pompeo’s first around-the-world trip as America’s top diplomat. After Asia, he travels to the United Arab Emirates before heading to Belgium, where he will accompany U.S. President Donald Trump at the NATO summit in Brussels. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke reports.
…

Germany plans to use public money to support companies that invest in Africa, part of a new “Marshall Plan” with which it hopes to tackle the roots of the refugee crisis that has convulsed European politics since 2015.

The aim was to reintroduce a scheme from the 1980s that made it easier for companies to write off losses on investments in Africa in order to moderate initial investment risks, Development Minister Gerd Mueller told Handelsblatt newspaper.

“I am also going to push for provisions made for African investments to get more favorable tax treatment,” he said Sunday of the plan being developed by his department, along with the finance and economy ministries.

Few details so far

The “Marshall Plan for Africa,” named after the U.S. aid package that kick-started Western Europe’s recovery after World War II, is the centerpiece of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s scheme to reduce refugee flows by better sharing the costs of humanitarian issues between Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Few details have been made public concerning the program, which Merkel has argued is essential if Europe is to win African countries’ support for any policies aimed at stemming migration.

Since 2015, when Merkel, faced with unprecedented migrant flows, opened Germany’s borders to more than a million refugees from civil war and poverty, the migration question has dominated European politics, fueling the rise of far-right parties.

Under pressure from her own allies, Merkel conceded tighter border controls last week, but has continued to insist that Europe can only deal with refugee flows multilaterally, in cooperation with its African and Middle Eastern neighbors.

Deals with North Africa

The EU is currently trying to sign deals with North African countries mirroring one signed with Turkey in 2016, under which Ankara was paid to take back many refugees who failed to win asylum in Europe.
…

Britain’s Brexit minister David Davis has resigned two days after the cabinet approved a plan to retain strong alignment with the European Union even after leaving the bloc, British media reported on Sunday.

The resignation will be a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May, who is trying to win over Brexit hardliners in her own Conservative Party ahead of a fresh round of negotiations with Brussels this month.

A long-time euroskeptic, Davis was appointed two years ago to head up the newly-created Department for Exiting the European Union after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a historic referendum.

He became the face of Brexit, leading the British delegation in talks with Brussels, although his role was overshadowed in recent months as May and her aides took an increasingly key role in the negotiations.

The 69-year-old had reportedly threatened to quit several times over a perceived lack of firmness in Britain’s negotiating stance but had remained strictly loyal to the prime minister in public.

The resignation comes just hours before May was due in parliament to explain her plan for Britain to adopt EU rules on goods after Brexit, amid anger from MPs in her own party who want a cleaner break.

Conservative MP Peter Bone said Davis had “done the right thing,” adding: “The PM’s proposals for a Brexit in name only are not acceptable.”

Labor Party chairman Ian Lavery said: “This is absolute chaos and Theresa May has no authority left.”

May’s plan would create a free trade area with the EU for goods, to protect supply chains in areas such as manufacturing, while maintaining flexibility for Britain’s dominant service sector.

It is unclear whether Brussels will accept this, after repeatedly warning Britain it cannot “cherry-pick” bits of its single market.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter, was widely reported to have described the plan as a “turd” before agreeing to support it.

Special forces training

Davis, a sharp operator and a gut-instinct politician, was a “Leave” campaigner in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership.

He was well acquainted with the Brussels beat: he was Europe minister between 1994 and 1997 as the European issue tore apart then Conservative prime minister John Major’s government.

Born to a single mother and brought up on a public housing estate in London, Davis went on to study molecular and computer sciences at Warwick University in central England.

From there, he took a higher degree in business at the London Business School, attending the advanced management program at elite U.S. university Harvard while pursuing a career on the board of sugar giant Tate and Lyle.

Davis also served as a reservist in the Special Air Service, the British army’s elite special force unit.

Noted for his love of climbing and flying, his ascent in politics began in 1987 when he was elected to parliament, representing a seat in northern England.

He became a government whip ensuring party discipline and later, as Major’s Europe minister, delighted in the nickname “Monsieur Non”.

Davis then chaired the powerful public accounts committee in the lower House of Commons from 1997 to 2001.

He ran for the Conservative leadership in 2001 and came fourth, but was made party chairman.

Davis was the front-runner in the 2005 Conservative Party leadership contest, but lost out to David Cameron, shedding momentum after a party conference speech fell flat.

He stayed on as the party’s home affairs spokesman, but dramatically resigned his seat to force a by-election in protest at the Labor government’s erosion of civil liberties.

He won the seat back but the move cost him his place in Cameron’s top team.

 
…

Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda when a summit between that country and the European Union takes place Monday in Brussels.

In May, the EU agreed to a $1.2 billion financial assistance package for Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund and EU are demanding deeper reforms to governance and the judiciary in return for the money; however, reforms to the court system have stalled, says Andrew Wilson, professor of Ukrainian studies at University College London.

“You have what’s called the National Anti-Corruption Bureau. It’s totally separate from the corrupt police. It can do its job well. It’s independent. But it can’t actually put bad guys in jail without reform to the courts. They do their work, the courts just let the bad guys go.”

“Ukraine is being asked to set up a separate anti-corruption court. It’s kind of set up a fake version that nobody believes would be independent. So that’s the key stumbling block,” Wilson told VOA in an interview.

WATCH: EU Demands Deep Reforms Ahead of Summit, Some Ukrainians Question Benefits

​Focus on elections

That stumbling block to a closer relationship between Ukraine and the EU may be difficult to overcome in coming months, says Anastasia Voronkova of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

“With the main preoccupation of the Ukrainian government right now being the forthcoming 2019 elections, it’s very unclear how all the challenges will be met,” she said.

Nearly a year ago, the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement was signed after repeated delays. For many Ukrainians, it offered the hope of economic opportunity and the rule of law, after decades of slow growth and corruption.

“The early signs are that exports to the EU are beginning to expand, but not enough really to float the economy off the rocks. So, there are some signs of disillusion because Ukraine hasn’t got more,” Wilson said.

​Crimea on agenda

The EU will use the summit to reaffirm its backing for Ukraine’s territorial integrity after the grouping extended sanctions against Russia last week.

“External pressure can help, in particular perhaps to prevent a strong escalation of the conflict. But it won’t on its own be sufficient to really do anything meaningful to resolve the conflict,” Voronkova said.

The White House this week said there is no change in U.S. policy on Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. The United States has provided Kyiv with $350 million in lethal and non-lethal military aid this year, including so-called “Javelin” anti-tank missiles.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are scheduled to meet in Helsinki July 16, with Ukraine likely a key subject of the talks.
…

Corruption and the conflict with Russian-backed rebels in Ukraine’s east will top the agenda at a European Union summit with Ukraine on Monday in Brussels. As Henry Ridgwell reports, the EU is pressuring Kyiv to make deeper reforms, but it is also facing disillusionment among some Ukrainians over the perceived benefits of closer ties with Europe.
…

Turkey’s government Sunday issued an emergency decree dismissing thousands of public servants for alleged links to terror groups.

The decree, published in the Official Gazette, sacked 18,632 civil servants, including nearly 9,000 police officers, some 6,000 members of the military and hundreds of teachers and academics. Their passports will be canceled.

Turkey has been under a state of emergency for nearly two years, declared after a failed coup attempt in July 2016. The government blames a U.S.-based cleric for orchestrating the coup and has sacked or arrested people suspected of links to him. The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, denies the allegations. But the purge has broadened to include other “terror groups,” with more than 130,000 people dismissed.

The decree is expected to be the last of a series of emergency laws as Turkey’s ruling system will fully transform into an executive presidency Monday, following last month’s elections. The Cabinet and administrative structure will be completely revamped, coming under the authority of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Sunday’s decree also reinstated 148 people previously sacked through emergency decrees, while annulling the ranks of some 1,500 retired military and police officers, depriving them of their pensions and passports.

Twelve nongovernmental organizations, three newspapers and one television station were also shuttered through the 461-page ruling.

More than 75,000 people have been arrested for alleged links to Gulen.

The current state of emergency ends on July 18, unless extended for another term by the president and approved by parliament. Erdogan has hinted it may be lifted.
…

French air accident investigators say that a rapidly spreading fire probably caused the crash of an EgyptAir flight from Paris to Cairo in 2016, casting doubt on Egyptian authorities’ claims that traces of explosives were found.

French investigation agency BEA said in a statement late Friday that “the most likely hypothesis is that a fire broke out in the cockpit and “spread rapidly, resulting in loss of control.”

Authorities at Cairo airport declined to comment, saying only that state prosecutors were investigating the case. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief journalists on the matter.

Egyptian authorities are carrying out a criminal investigation amid suspicions that explosives were involved.

The BEA has also investigated the crash alongside Egyptian and American experts. In its statement, the French agency cited its “difference of opinion” with the Egyptian conclusions based on evidence collected so far, including the BEA’s advanced repair work on flight recorders found in the Mediterranean depths.

The BEA urged Egyptian prosecutors to investigate the possibility it was an accidental fire, to prevent such accidents in the future. BEA officials met this May with the Egyptian attorney general to urge further work on the debris and recorded data, but were told that since Egyptian authorities believe a “malicious act” brought down the plane, the investigation is “within the sole jurisdiction of the judicial authorities.”

All 66 people aboard were killed when EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 en route from Paris to Cairo, plunged into the Mediterranean. The pilots made no distress call and no militant group claimed to have brought the aircraft down.

The tragedy came about seven months after a Russian airliner crashed in the Sinai Peninsula shortly after taking off from an Egyptian Red Sea resort, killing all 224 people on board. The incidents have dealt Egypt’s tourism industry, a major pillar for foreign currency which had already been weakened by years of political unrest since a 2011 uprising, a severe blow.
…

The U.N. refugee agency says it has had a permanent presence in Libya this year, providing humanitarian assistance and medical aid to refugees and migrants in detention centers. The UNHCR works with Libyan authorities to obtain the release of vulnerable refugees and their evacuation from Libya.

The U.N. is expected to open a new transit center in Tripoli this month, which will have a capacity for 1,000 people. From this gathering and departure facility, candidates for asylum will be evacuated to a U.N. center in Niamey in Niger to complete their applications, which will allow them to be transferred to resettlement nations.

Speaking Friday in Rome, the UNHCR representative in Libya, Roberto Mignone, said more than 1,500 migrants and refugees already have made the trip to Niger this year, and 200 have been accepted for asylum in countries like France, Switzerland, Sweden and Germany.

Mignone said European countries have offered to take 4,000 refugees, but the process of re-settling must be accelerated. It is a mechanism that works, he added, but European nations need to accept refugees at a quicker pace. 

Mignone said the UNHCR has the capability at present to evacuate more than 1,000 people a month from Libya to Niger, but then these other refugees must leave the center in Niger or a bottleneck is created.

Mignone added that if more offers from European countries are forthcoming, other centers could be opened in the region. He said talks are underway with Chad, Burkina Faso and Sudan.

Italy’s new populist government recently intensified a crackdown on humanitarian rescue boats operating off Libya, refusing to give them docking permission in Italian ports and forcing them to sail hundreds of miles to Spain.

U.N. officials say the impact of the crackdown and the Libyan coast guard’s ineffectiveness at carrying out the rescue of migrants has caused the number of deaths at sea to soar, along with an increase in the number of people being held in Libyan detention centers.

More than 10,000 migrants have been intercepted by the Libyan coast guard this year and taken to 17 active detention centers in the country. Mignone said “overcrowding in Libyan centers is a serious problem and abuses on migrants cannot be ruled out.”

Despite fewer crossings, more than 1,000 people have drowned this year alone. Carlotta Sami, the UNHCR’s spokesperson in Rome, called June’s mortality rate in the central Mediterranean “dramatic and exceptional.”

Sami said that in 2017, on average, only one in every 38 migrants attempting the crossing died. Today that number is one in every seven.

The United Nations has urged Italy to end its campaign against humanitarian rescue boats in the Mediterranean, but Italy’s Interior minister, Matteo Salvini, shows no sign of wanting to back down, and he has said his aim is that”not one more person arrives by boat” on Italian shores.

 
…

The Head of the UN Migration Agency, William Lacy Swing, is appealing to Libyan authorities to stop detaining migrants intercepted or rescued at sea by the Coast Guard after trying to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

The International Organization for Migration praises Libya’s dramatically stepped up anti-smuggler operations.  With European Union support, it notes the number of migrants rescued in Libya’s territorial waters and brought back to shore has greatly increased.

IOM Spokesman, Leonard Doyle, says in the past month alone, the Libyan coast guard has intercepted nearly 4,000 migrants.

“Despite occasional, from what we understand, rogue issues, there generally seems to be a desire by the coast guard personnel to save lives, to get their country back on a regular footing and to avoid having indiscriminate, irregular migration where the only people profiting are the smugglers,” said Doyle.

IOM Chief Swing recently returned from a two-day visit to Libya where he appealed to the authorities to end the cruel policy of locking up migrants who already have suffered so much trying to reach European shores.  Doyle says there are some signs the authorities are willing to consider this.

“They will probably do that by trying to speed up repatriation.  So we support them in voluntary repatriation, voluntary return, humanitarian return from Libya,” said Doyle. “It sometimes takes a while because they do not have papers, they do not have documents.  The only embassies in the country really full-time are African embassies and even they are at very low capacity.”   

Doyle says once the documentation and bureaucratic process is completed, it will be relatively simple to repatriate the migrants.  He says IOM has a charter flight leaving for an African destination practically every day, taking people who voluntarily want to return home.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May secured a cabinet agreement on Friday for her plans to leave the European Union, overcoming rifts among her ministers to win support for “a business-friendly” proposal aimed at spurring stalled Brexit talks.

After an hours-long meeting at her Chequers country residence, May seemed to have persuaded the most vocal Brexit campaigners in the cabinet to back her plan to press for “a free trade area for goods” with the EU and maintain close trade tie.

The agreed proposal — which also says Britain’s large services sector will not have the current levels of access to EU markets — will not come soon enough for Brussels, which has been pressing May to come up with a detailed vision for future ties. But the hard-won compromise may yet fall flat with EU negotiators.

By also committing to ending free movement of people, the supremacy of the European court and “vast” payments to the bloc, May could be accused of “cherry-picking” the best bits of the EU by Brussels officials, who are determined to send a strong signal to other countries not to follow Britain out of the door.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier welcomed the agreement but added on Twitter: “We will assess proposals to see if they are workable and realistic.”

For now, May, who has been written off by critics regularly since losing her Conservative Party’s parliamentary majority in an ill-judged election last year, will be buoyed by the hard-won agreement.

“Today in detailed discussions the cabinet has agreed our collective position for the future of our negotiations with the EU,” May said in a statement. “Now we must all move at pace to negotiate our proposal with the EU to deliver the prosperous and secure future all our people deserve.”

In a document outlining the government’s position, ministers said they had agreed that an earlier proposal made to the EU “needed to evolve in order to provide a precise, responsible and credible basis for progressing negotiations.”

Instead, they had agreed to negotiate for a “free trade area for goods,” one that would see Britain having a “common rulebook for all goods” in a combined customs territory. This would allow Britain to set its own import tariffs and seal new free trade deals.

They also agreed that parliament would have the power to decide whether to follow EU rules and regulations in the future, and the government would step up preparations for the eventuality of a ‘no deal’ exit.

But for both sides of the Brexit debate — the hardline eurosceptics and the staunch EU supporters — the agreed negotiating position was not enough.

John Longworth, a chairman of campaign group Leave Means Leave, accused May of personally deceiving Brexit campaigners.

“May’s Brexit means BRINO — ‘Brexit In Name Only’ — a fake Brexit.”

Pro-EU Labour lawmaker Chuka Ummuna described it as “yet another behind-closed-doors stitch up that would leave us all worse off.”

The Times newspaper said, without citing sources, that May was taking a hard line and had promised senior allies that she would sack foreign minister Boris Johnson, a Brexit supporter, if he tried “to undermine the peace deal.”

Trade deals 

With nine months before Britain leaves and just over three before the EU says it wants a deal, May has been under intense pressure from the bloc and from many businesses to show her negotiating position.

As she held the crisis talks with her ministers, the chief executive of European planemaker Airbus, Tom Enders, accused the government of having “no clue or at least consensus on how to execute Brexit without severe harm.”

May was cautious on whether she will win the support of the EU, saying only that she had “been talking to European leaders over the last week or so.”

“This is a proposal that I believe will be good for the UK and good for the EU and I look forward to it being received positively,” she told reporters.

But she has at least cleared yet another domestic hurdle. She seems to have reassured pro-Brexit ministers that under the new negotiating position Britain will still be able to seek trade deals with the rest of the world, easing fears that mirroring EU rules for goods would rule that out.

They may also have been reassured by May reiterating her belief that any agreement with the EU should end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, although British courts would still have to “pay due regard” to its rulings.

And the agreed negotiating position also hands a big role for parliament to decide whether Britain should continue to follow EU rules and regulations, recognizing that any rejection of them “would have consequences.”

“This is a further step, an important further step, in our negotiations with the European Union,” she said. “But of course we still have work to do with the EU in ensuring that we get to that end point in October. But this is good.”
…

So is this what a trade war looks like?

The Trump administration and China’s leadership have imposed tens of billions of dollars in tariffs on each other’s goods. President Donald Trump has proposed slapping duties on, all told, up to $550 billion if China keeps retaliating and doesn’t cave in to U.S. demands to scale back its aggressive industrial policies.

Until the past couple of years, tariffs had been losing favor as a tool of national trade policy. They were largely a relic of 19th and early 20th centuries that most experts viewed as mutually harmful to all nations involved. But Trump has restored tariffs to a prominent place in his self-described America First approach.

Trump enraged such U.S. allies as Canada, Mexico and the European Union this spring by slapping tariffs on their steel and aluminum shipments to the United States. The tariffs have been in place on most other countries since March.

The president has also asked the U.S. Commerce Department to look into imposing tariffs on imported cars, trucks and auto parts, arguing that they pose a threat to U.S. national security.

Here is a look at what tariffs are, how they work, how they’ve been used in the past and what to expect now: 

Are we in a trade war?

Economists have no set definition of a trade war. But with the world’s two largest economies now slapping potentially punishing tariffs on each other, it looks as if a trade war has arrived. The value of goods that Trump has threatened to hit with tariffs exceeds the $506 billion in goods that China exported to the United States last year. 

It’s not uncommon for countries, even close allies, to fight over trade in specific products. The United States and Canada, for example, have squabbled for decades over softwood lumber. 

But the U.S. and China are fighting over much broader issues, like China’s requirements that American companies share advanced technology to access China’s market, and the overall U.S. trade deficit with China. So far, neither side has shown any sign of bending.

​So what are tariffs?

Tariffs are a tax on imports. They’re typically charged as a percentage of the transaction price that a buyer pays a foreign seller. Say an American retailer buys 100 garden umbrellas from China for $5 apiece, or $500. The U.S. tariff rate for the umbrellas is 6.5 percent. The retailer would have to pay a $32.50 tariff on the shipment, raising the total price from $500 to $532.50.

In the United States, tariffs — also called duties or levies — are collected by Customs and Border Protection agents at 328 ports of entry across the country. Proceeds go to the Treasury. The tariff rates are published by the U.S. International Trade Commission in the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, which lists U.S. tariffs on everything from dried plantains (1.4 percent) to parachutes (3 percent).

Sometimes, the U.S. will impose additional duties on foreign imports that it determines are being sold at unfairly low prices or are being supported by foreign government subsidies. 

Do other countries have higher tariffs than the United States?

Most key U.S. trading partners do not have significantly higher average tariffs. According to an analysis by Greg Daco at Oxford Economics, U.S. tariffs on imported goods, adjusted for trade volumes, average 2.4 percent, above Japan’s 2 percent and just below the 3 percent for the European Union and 3.1 percent for Canada.

The comparable figures for Mexico and China are higher. Both have higher duties that top 4 percent.

Trump has complained about the 270 percent duty that Canada imposes on dairy products. But the United States has its own ultra-high tariffs — 168 percent on peanuts and 350 percent on tobacco.

​What are tariffs supposed to accomplish?

Two things: Raise government revenue and protect domestic industries from foreign competition. Before the establishment of the federal income tax in 1913, tariffs were a big money-raiser for the U.S. government. From 1790 to 1860, for example, they produced 90 percent of federal revenue, according to Clashing Over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy by Douglas Irwin, an economist at Dartmouth College. By contrast, last year tariffs accounted for only about 1 percent of federal revenue.

In the fiscal year that ended last September 30, the U.S. government collected $34.6 billion in customs duties and fees. The White House Office of Management and Budget expects tariffs to fetch $40.4 billion this year.

Tariffs also are meant to increase the price of imports or to punish foreign countries for committing unfair trade practices, like subsidizing their exporters and dumping their products at unfairly low prices. Tariffs discourage imports by making them more expensive. They also reduce competitive pressure on domestic competitors and can allow them to raise prices.

Tariffs fell out of favor as global trade expanded after World War II.

The formation of the World Trade Organization and the advent of trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement among the U.S., Mexico and Canada reduced or eliminated tariffs. 

​Why are tariffs making a comeback?

After years of trade agreements that bound the countries of the world more closely and erased restrictions on trade, a populist backlash has grown against globalization. This was evident in Trump’s 2016 election and the British vote that year to leave the European Union — both surprise setbacks for the free-trade establishment.

Critics note that big corporations in rich countries exploited looser rules to move factories to China and other low-wage countries, then shipped goods back to their wealthy home countries while paying low tariffs or none at all. Since China joined the WTO in 2001, the United States has shed 3.1 million factory jobs, though many economists attribute much of that loss not just to trade but to robots and other technologies that replace human workers.

Trump campaigned on a pledge to rewrite trade agreements and crack down on China, Mexico and other countries. He blames what he calls their abusive trade policies for America’s persistent trade deficits — $566 billion last year. Most economists, by contrast, say the deficit simply reflects the reality that the United States spends more than it saves. By imposing tariffs, he is beginning to turn his hard-line campaign rhetoric into action.

Are tariffs wise?

Most economists — Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro is a notable exception — say no. The tariffs drive up the cost of imports. And by reducing competitive pressure, they give U.S. producers leeway to raise their prices, too. That’s good for those producers, but bad for almost everyone else.

Rising costs especially hurt consumers and companies that rely on imported components. Some U.S. companies that buy steel are complaining that Trump’s tariffs put them at a competitive disadvantage. Their foreign rivals can buy steel more cheaply and offer their products at lower prices.

More broadly, economists say trade restrictions make the economy less efficient. Facing less competition from abroad, domestic companies lose the incentive to increase efficiency or to focus on what they do best. 
…

Russia is denying any role in the poisoning of a British couple who British authorities insist are the latest victims of Novichok — allegedly a Russian-made military-grade nerve agent first implicated in an assassination attempt on a former Russian spy and his daughter on British soil last March.

The initial attack left former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, hospitalized in serious condition for several weeks before their ultimate recovery. The incident set off an international crisis that Kremlin officials seemed less than eager to repeat in the face of renewed allegations. 

“Of course we’re concerned that these substances have been used repeatedly in Europe,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. “However, on the other hand, we have no information about which substances were used or how they were used.”

British nationals Dawn Sturgess, 44, and Charlie Rowley, 45, both fell ill in Amesbury — less than 16 kilometers (10 miles) from Salisbury — showing symptoms British medical personnel have described as consistent with those in the Skripals’ poisoning.

Russia has angrily denied any involvement in the incidents, arguing Moscow never possessed Novichok and had nothing to gain politically from an attack on a former double agent seemingly in retirement.

Yet, in the wake of the Amesbury incident, Russian officials have concentrated their frustration on British authorities’ continued refusal to allow Russian investigators to participate in a joint investigation.

“It is regrettable that U.K. officials try to link a second poisoning with Russia without having produced any credible results of the investigation of the first one,” the Russian Embassy in Britain said in a statement. “Instead of genuine cooperation, London is doing everything possible to muddy the waters, to confuse and frighten its own citizens.”

“There is a need for thorough and professional work, and the efforts of British security services will not be enough,” added Vladimir Shamanov, chairman of the defense committee in Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma.

“Russia should be involved, among others,” he added.

The revival of the Novichok issue presents an additional challenge to East-West relations just days ahead of a July 16 summit in Helsinki between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that both sides say is much needed to thaw existing tensions.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is all but certain to raise the subject when Trump visits London for talks prior to the Helsinki summit.

In the wake of the March attack against the Skripals, the U.S. joined with Britain in marshaling the largest mass expulsion of Russian diplomats by Western allies since the days of the Cold War. 

At the time, British authorities argued, and U.S. officials concurred, that it was “highly likely” Moscow was either behind the attack or had lost control of its chemical weapons stores. 

Renewed focus on the poisonings serves as an unwelcome distraction from Russia’s continued hosting of World Cup 2018, which visiting soccer fans have overwhelmingly lauded as a success. 

The event has helped burnish Russia’s international image following years in which the Kremlin argues it has been unfairly demonized over everything from its policies in Ukraine and Syria to cyber-meddling in elections and what Washington has described as general “malign activities.”

Speaking at a meeting with leaders of the world governing body FIFA in Moscow on Friday, Putin praised the tournament and world soccer fans for helping to destroy “so many stereotypes about Russia.”

“People have seen that Russia is a hospitable country, a friendly one for those who come here,” said Putin.

Yet Sergei Zheleznyak, deputy speaker of the Duma, argued it was Russia’s very success as World Cup host that explained the sudden return of the Novichok scandal to world headlines.

“A huge number of British fans, despite the warnings from their government, came to support their team. Their impressions are just destroying everything British propaganda built over the past few years,” said Zhelezhnyak. “To break up this flow of really positive emotions that the British fans are sharing, they had to put something like this in the mass media.”

While British officials and the royal family have boycotted the games in protest against the Skripal poisonings, the controversy over Novichok wasn’t the only source of tension between London and Moscow.

Depending on the outcome of their World Cup matches Saturday, Russia and England could square off in the semifinals. 
…

By the time the World Cup is over, 64 matches will have taken place in 12 venues in 11 cities. For many people in Nizhny Novgorod, one of the soccer venues, the monthlong event has been the biggest party in town for decades. VOA’s Mariama Diallo reports.
…

The mayor of London has approved a protester’s request to fly a blimp depicting Donald Trump as an angry, orange diaper-wearing baby during the U.S. president’s visit to the British capital next week. 

The 6-meter tall inflatable will fly over Parliament between 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. local time on July 13 during a scheduled protest. 

“The Mayor supports the right to peaceful protest and understands that this can take many different forms,” Mayor Sadiq Khan’s office said Thursday. 

Leo Murray, the activist behind the blimp dubbed Trump Baby said the mayor’s office originally did not approve of the blimp but “following a huge groundswell of public support for our plan, it looks like City Hall has rediscovered its sense of humor.”

Murray used an online crowdfunding site to raise more than $20,000 asking donors to “make our six-meter high orange, inflatable baby with a malevolent face and tiny hands fly over central London during Trump’s U.K. visit.”

During the three-day visit, Trump will meet with the Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Theresa May. 
…

The parties in Germany’s ruling coalition on Thursday reached agreement on a package of measures to deal with asylum-seekers who have already registered in other European Union states, and vowed to push ahead with an

immigration law before year’s end.

The two-page agreement, reached after a short meeting at the historic Reichstag building, ends a dispute that had threatened to bring down Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “grand coalition” just months after it took power, and left the four-term leader politically weakened.

But the debate has left lingering resentments in what was already a fragile coalition brokered by Merkel after she failed to forge an alliance with two smaller parties.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), had triggered the crisis when he threatened to defy Merkel and turn back at the German border the small number of asylum-seekers — a maximum of five people a day — who turn up after registering in other EU states.

Speedier returns

The parties agreed to speed up the process of returning migrants who have applied for asylum in other EU states to those countries, as mandated by current EU law, but only if agreements were in place with the country where they first registered.

Full implementation would require signing deals with Italy and other countries that have been unwilling to take back migrants.

Social Democrats hailed the agreement as a win for their party, and criticized conservatives for what Finance Minister Olaf Scholz called the “summer theater” of the last weeks.

While the agreement averts the collapse of Merkel’s government and keeps her conservative bloc from splintering apart, the episode highlighted the fragility of the German government and raised the prospect of further disputes.

Seehofer told reporters he was “extremely satisfied” with the deal despite having to back off his call for border zone transit centers.

The agreement calls for asylum-seekers registered in other countries to be processed within 48 hours in police facilities, not separate transit centers, if they cannot be transported to the Munich airport to be returned to the country where they first applied for asylum.

​No transit centers

Andrea Nahles, leader of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), stressed the agreement would not involve creation of any transit centers or unilateral action by Germany. The SPD had warned such centers could be seen as internment camps.

Nahles told broadcaster ZDF the deal would not require any legal changes, and said it was up to Seehofer’s ministry, which oversees the border police, to accelerate the asylum process.

“I want to be very clear that we did not agree to some kind of a compromise. Instead we drafted a new proposal that includes reasonable solutions, and the CDU/CSU has performed a piece of theater in the last three weeks that was unworthy of this country, our country,” Nahles said.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), said the deal laid the groundwork for a more unified approach on migration.

“With this, the entire coalition has committed to the goal to order, control and limit migration,” she said. “This agreement makes it possible that our migration policy is effective, that it remains humane and that it will succeed.”

As the agreement was reached, a new poll conducted for broadcaster ARD showed broad public frustration over the issue.

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said Seehofer had weakened German conservatives through his brinkmanship, and 78 percent said they were unhappy with the coalition’s work.

Fifty-six percent of Germans felt too much focus was being put on migration, to the detriment of other issues.

Far fewer arrivals

Annual migrant arrivals have dropped sharply after peaking in 2015 at over 1 million people, many of them fleeing Syria’s war and therefore entitled to asylum.

In 2017, 15,414 people applied for asylum at German borders, with 1,740 of those applications made at the German-Austrian border, or around 4.7 per day, according to data from Seehofer’s ministry provided to Left party lawmakers.

Some in the SPD have accused Seehofer of sparking the coalition crisis to corral right-wing voters ahead of the Bavarian state election in October, after hemorrhaging a million voters to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany in the national election last September.

Seehofer and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz met in Vienna on Thursday and said they would discuss with Italy how to shut the migration route into Europe across the Mediterranean.
…

Moscow’s most famous landmarks — Red Square, the Kremlin, and the domes of St. Basil’s Cathedral — are swarmed with World Cup fans doing a bit of sightseeing in between matches. Just upriver, more adventurous tourists will find an anonymous-looking apartment block whose history sheds light on the Soviet Union’s darkest days.

The House of the Embankment embodies the history of revolution and dictatorship in miniature. It lies just upstream from the Kremlin and was completed in 1931 to house the Soviet Union’s governing elite.

“These people living here were the so-called ‘old Bolsheviks’ [revolutionaries]. And they were people close to each other — in their spirit and ideology — as well as their fate,” said Olga Trifonova, who runs the House of the Embankment museum, inside one of the block’s roughly 500 apartments.

The museum displays some of the luxurious fittings and furniture the first residents enjoyed. The block offered in-house theaters and cafeterias, libraries and sports halls.

Soon, however, the ostentatious lifestyles of the residents began to look at odds with the ideals of the revolution.

In the mid-1930s, Soviet leader Josef Stalin began the “Great Purge” to rid the country of those deemed enemies of the working class. A million people were imprisoned and 700,000 executed. The residents of the House of the Embankment — once the elite of the revolution — were among the first in line. Arrests and disappearances created a crushing paranoia.

“The residents of the house stopped paying visits to each other. One stopped having confidence in other people,” Trifonova said.

During the 1930s, 800 of the residents were arrested. Close to half of them were executed.

Olga Trifonova’s late husband, Yuri, grew up in the House of the Embankment. His father was arrested during the purges in June 1937 and never seen again. His mother was sent to a Gulag prison in Kazakhstan. In 1976, Yuri Trifonov wrote a best-selling book about his memories, which gave the apartment block its name. He died in 1981.

“This is a story about the nature of fear. How fear mutilates a human for his entire life,” Trifonova said.

Memories of that fear appear to be fading. An opinion poll last year crowned Stalin as Russia’s most outstanding historical figure.

But the grim history of the House of the Embankment is not forgotten, according to Dmitry Taganov of real estate firm INCOM, which is selling some of the apartments on the block.

“Many buyers are scared off by the gloomy background of this House. Many people undoubtedly know about that, even the ones belonging to the younger generation.”

A younger generation that is forming its own historical image of Stalin and the legacy of Communism.
…

Moscow’s famous landmarks – Red Square and the Kremlin, the domes of St Basil’s Cathedral – are swarmed with World Cup fans doing a bit of sightseeing in between matches. But just upriver, more adventurous tourists will find an anonymous-looking apartment block whose history sheds light on the Soviet Union’s darkest days. As Henry Ridgwell reports from Moscow, that history is once again the subject of fierce debate in modern Russia.
…

Long before Viktor Vekselberg was tied to a scandal over the president and a porn star, the Russian oligarch had been positioning himself to extend his influence in the United States.

Working closely with an American cousin who heads the New York investment management firm Columbus Nova, Vekselberg backed a $1.6 million lobbying campaign to aid Russian interests in Washington. His cousin Andrew Intrater served as CEO of a Vekselberg company on that project, and the two men have collaborated on numerous other investments involving Vekselberg’s extensive holdings.

Now, Intrater’s investment firm is wrestling with the fallout from financial sanctions the U.S. Treasury Department lodged in April against Vekselberg, one of a group of oligarchs tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Columbus Nova has insisted it only managed Vekselberg’s vast assets. But an Associated Press review of legal and securities filings shows that the cousins sometimes collaborated in a more deeply entwined business relationship than was previously known.

Spokesmen for Columbus Nova have told the AP that the firm’s business relationship with Vekselberg has been indefinitely halted by the sanctions, which targeted Russian oligarchs accused by Treasury of playing “a key role in advancing Russia’s malign activities.”

All Vekselberg assets in the U.S. are frozen and U.S. companies forbidden from doing business with him and his entities. The deadline to sever those relationships was June 4, but talks between Columbus Nova and the government are continuing, the firm’s spokesmen said. A Treasury Department spokesman declined to comment.

The Columbus Nova spokesmen said the firm is also seeking permission from Treasury to retrieve any assets entwined with Vekselberg’s Renova Group, which the U.S. firm has called “its biggest client.”

Extricating Columbus Nova’s holdings from Vekselberg’s is not so simple. The sanctions apply to all assets in which Vekselberg has more than a 50 percent stake — including some investment funds managed by Columbus Nova in which the firm has an ownership interest, the spokesmen said. They discussed the matter on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing discussions.

A Russian citizen who has had a U.S. green card and homes in New York and Connecticut, Vekselberg once told an American diplomat he felt “half-American.” Vekselberg heads the Renova Group, a global conglomerate encompassing metals, mining, tech and other assets that is based in Moscow.

He wields an estimated $13 billion fortune that supports Silicon Valley startups, programs at a California state park, a Western-themed resort amid the Joshua trees near Scottsdale, Arizona — and a loan to a Baptist church in Savannah, Georgia.

“I think all along Vekselberg thought a big chunk of his life was going to be anchored here in the United States and he, like other Russia businessmen, has made strategic investments in his philanthropic work to be in better standing here,” said former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

Vekselberg also has cemented tech deals using a Kremlin-funded foundation — raising national security concerns years before special counsel Robert Mueller began probing contacts between Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian intermediaries. His opaque corporate structure, which includes an array of hard-to-trace shell companies, has fallen under Mueller’s scrutiny, according to several media reports.

Vekselberg hired Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen as a consultant in January 2017, just months after Cohen paid off the adult film actress known as Stormy Daniels, who has alleged she had an affair with Trump.

But some experts familiar with Vekselberg’s financial holdings wonder if the government is adequately tracking his U.S. assets, let alone the companies or foundations managing his money under other names.

“Given how hidden these companies are in a network of shell companies, it is entirely possible that Vekselberg has a majority stake in businesses that are still functioning in the United States that the government doesn’t even know about,” said Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert and former deputy assistant secretary at the State Department.

Vekselberg’s spokesman, Andrey Shtorkh, did not detail how the billionaire was addressing the sanctions. Shtorkh stressed that the oligarch did not create or control Columbus Nova and gave up his green card more than a decade ago.

“It quickly became obvious that he had little time for more than brief visits to the United States,” Shtorkh said.

Making Western inroads

Vekselberg was born in what is the modern-day Ukraine, and built his fortune investing in aluminum and oil, taking advantage of the privatization of state companies after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.

The 61-year-old billionaire burnished his reputation in the West in 2010 when he was appointed president of the Skolkovo Foundation, a nonprofit initiative funded by the Russian government and private investors to build a high-technology research hub aimed at luring digital entrepreneurs to Russia.

While Putin and Vekselberg have not always been strongly allied, the project now appears to have the Russian president’s backing. In January, Putin highlighted a Skolkovo effort as the type of “forward-looking projects” that would receive government support. In a June 2017 meeting at the Kremlin, Putin praised Skolkovo’s work.

In June 2010, Vekselberg traveled to Silicon Valley with then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to try to gain a foothold for the Skolkovo Foundation. He signed a deal with Cisco CEO John Chambers for Cisco to invest $1 billion over 10 years in Skolkovo projects and met with Russian expatriates who urged him to set up a Skolkovo office nearby.

Skolkovo appeared to be a family concern. When members of the same expatriate association gathered in Manhattan to promote U.S. venture capital investment in Russia, the featured speakers included Intrater. And in a presentation dated June 2013 on Skolkovo’s website, Columbus Nova was described as one of several corporate venture funds financing Skolkovo participants. The foundation declined to comment, deferring to Shtorkh, who said that Vekselberg did not have control over the foundation’s decisions.

In 2011, an office near Stanford University was established for the Skolkovo Foundation and two sister funds, amid President Barack Obama’s call for a “reset” in Russia relations.

Vekselberg also spawned another foundation to benefit Fort Ross, a California state park that was once a Russian settlement. The foundation and affiliates donated at least $3.2 million to the park’s programs and activities between 2010 and 2017, according to the foundation’s website.

As Obama’s effort to reboot diplomatic relations sputtered, federal officials began raising alarms about the Skolkovo Foundation’s ties to Putin.

The FBI’s Boston division gave tech startups a frank warning in an April 2014 column published in a trade journal.

“The foundation may be a means for the Russian government to access our nation’s sensitive or classified research, development facilities and dual-use technologies,” wrote Lucia Ziobro, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston office.

Spotlight grows 

Media attention zeroed in on Vekselberg and Intrater in May when Michael Avenatti, the attorney for porn actress Stormy Daniels, released a memo claiming the cousins routed about $500,000 through Columbus Nova to a shell company set up by Trump attorney Cohen.

Avenatti claimed that just before the 2016 presidential election, Cohen used the same shell company, Essential Consultants LLC, to pay the adult film star $130,000 to keep silent about her allegation of a one-night stand with Trump a decade earlier.

Eleven days before Trump’s inauguration, Vekselberg and Intrater jointly met with Cohen, one of several meetings between Trump intimates and high-level Russians during the 2016 campaign and transition. During the meeting in Cohen’s office in Trump Tower, Vekselberg and Cohen discussed U.S.-Russia affairs, said a person familiar with the meeting who spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to discuss the session.

According to financial records reviewed by the AP, the meeting occurred the same month that Intrater’s firm began making payments to Cohen’s LLC that totaled $500,000, delivered in eight installments ending in August 2017.

In a statement on its website, Columbus Nova denied that Vekselberg played any role in its payments to Cohen.

Intrater’s firm, which described itself in a company website entry as “a multi-strategy investment firm managing over $15 billion of assets,” has handled Vekselberg’s financial holdings for nearly two decades, company spokesmen say.

But as far back as 2000 — during Columbus Nova’s start up — Intrater also worked for Vekselberg as CEO of a subsidiary of the Russian’s Renova Group conglomerate. Between 2000 and 2004, the New York-based subsidiary, Renova Inc., commissioned a Washington lobbying firm to work for both Vekselberg and Russian interests.

Shtorkh acknowledged Renova Inc. is owned by the billionaire. According to a lobbying contract reviewed by AP and validated by spokesmen for Columbus Nova, Intrater served as Renova Inc.’s CEO for at least three years even as he built up his own investment firm.

The Columbus Nova spokesmen described Renova Inc. as a “rep firm,” a marketing company that represented Vekselberg’s conglomerate in the U.S. They added that Intrater took on his Renova Inc. role as a client service to Vekselberg as part of his asset management role for the Russian.

In April 2001, Intrater signed a contract with Washington lobbying firm Carmen Group Inc., representing the Vekselberg company. The lobbying firm said in congressional filings that it had been hired to “encourage trade and cultural exchanges between the United States and Russia.”

The contract also said the Carmen Group was hired to “organize congressional and other high-level U.S. government delegations to meet with foreign government and business leaders abroad and in the U.S.” Columbus Nova spokesmen said no U.S. delegations were brought to Russia.

Carmen Group was paid $1.58 million; a spokeswoman for the lobbying firm declined to detail its work.

While the Columbus Nova spokesmen acknowledged Intrater has served on advisory boards of several companies where Vekselberg owed majority stakes, they said Intrater took those positions because of his role managing assets for Columbus Nova.

Intrater joined the board of one such firm in the mid-2000s, becoming a director — and briefly, chairman — of an American cable company that transformed into a Moscow-based firm after a Vekselberg-financed takeover. Between 2004 and 2007, the cousins teamed up in the acquisition of Moscow CableCom Corp., a U.S.-based cable company once known as the Andersen Group that now serves several Russian cities.

Intrater joined the board after Columbus Nova routed $51 million from the New York firm’s investors to Moscow Cablecom the cable firm in 2004. That same year, Vekselberg’s Renova Group took a stake. By July 2007, Vekselberg’s company had financed the cable firm’s acquisition in an estimated $152 million deal.

Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission list both Vekselberg and Intrater as key figures in the cable firm acquisition. But Columbus Nova representatives said that some filings made by the now-defunct Moscow CableCom Corp contained errors, including overstating the role of a Columbus Nova corporate entity in one round of investments.

Winding down assets

Vekselberg’s unfettered access to the U.S. withered when his assets in America were frozen under sanctions April 6, causing him nearly $1 billion in losses, Forbes estimated.

The Treasury Department included a Russia-based corporate entity owned or controlled by Vekselberg in its sanctions, but warned that the list shouldn’t be viewed as a complete inventory of companies linked to the oligarch.

Two of Vekselberg’s largest companies — Renova Management AG and the engineering firm Sulzer, both based in Switzerland — swiftly and publicly corrected course to lessen his control or financial interests.

Some entities associated with the oligarch in the United States have been less forthcoming.

Shtorkh said Vekselberg is an investor in a venture fund called Maxfield Capital, which lists a San Francisco office on its website. A Maxfield Capital representative in Russia said the fund was taking steps to fully comply with sanctions requirements, but offered no specifics.

“Vekselberg’s money directly or indirectly represents quite a hefty chunk of all assets under management,” said Michael Minkevich, who managed deals for the fund in Silicon Valley until January. “They definitely need to find some way to cut any ties.”

Shtorkh said Vekselberg had a limited partnership interest in the Cayman Islands-based fund and did not have control over Maxfield Capital.

As for Vekselberg’s park foundation, its director did not respond to emails or voicemails.

Sarah Sweedler, president of another nonprofit that received funding from Vekselberg’s foundation to run programming at Fort Ross, said her group has no outstanding business with the foundation and has not communicated with its staff since the sanctions hit.

Vekselberg also has ties to two other foundations operating in the U.S. The Link of Times Foundation USA Inc. did not respond to voicemails or emails seeking comment, and the administrator of the Mariinsky Foundation of America Inc. said Vekselberg was removed from the board of directors last year.

The Skolkovo Foundation’s activities have not been disrupted by U.S. sanctions, Shtorkh added.

Sean Kane, a former senior official with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said it was unusual but not unprecedented for a sanctioned person to have such extensive personal and business relationships inside the United States.

OFAC regulations require companies to do their own checking to ensure they aren’t doing business with sanctioned entities. But Kane said that problems sometimes surface years later because it is so difficult to unravel complex corporate structures.

Kane, who now is in private practice in Washington, said that “nobody has the time or resources to be tracking how these people are moving their money 24/7. Any entanglements that U.S. foundations and companies have with sanctioned individuals such as Vekselberg will need to be looked at very carefully.”
…

A rescue ship carrying 60 migrants picked up from rubber boats in the Mediterranean Sea arrived in a Spanish port Wednesday, after being refused entry by Italy and Malta. Tens of thousands of migrants have reached European shores this year so far, and southern European countries are refusing entry to the latest arrivals unless their burden is shared. VOA’s Zlatica Hoke has more.
…

Emboldened by its success in the June 24 elections, Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish HDP Party is looking to broaden its support beyond its traditional ethnic base — a move that could redraw the country’s entrenched political borders. 

Narrowly passing the 10 percent electoral threshold to enter parliament, the HDP’s success was tinged by some political fallout: Many of its officials were jailed, including nine parliamentary deputies, on terrorism charges alone. HDP also claims there was a media blackout on its campaign and it was a victim of voter suppression by the government. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling AKP Party claim the HDP is a terrorist organization affiliated to the Kurdish insurgent group the PKK — a charge the party denies.

While the HDP’s support remained largely unchanged in its traditional electoral stronghold in Turkey’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, its votes increased in large cities in the West inhabited mainly by Turks. 

The HDP’s increase in votes is attributed in part to tactical voting by Turkish voters opposed to Erdogan’s ruling AKP. If the HDP had failed to enter parliament, its more than 60 seats would have been transferred to the AKP, which is its chief electoral rival.

HDP Honorary President Ertugrul Kurkcu, speaking in an exclusive interview with VOA, suggests the party’s success in broadening its support could become permanent. 

“I believe this section of voters are going to stay with HDP if we can develop a more coherent line of opposition by bringing together both aspirations of the Kurdish people, as well as the democratic and left forces as it was in the origins of the Kurdish movement. I am very confident in saying that with the new elements coming we are going to find a new way of thinking,” Kurkcu said.  

Some analysts remain skeptical over the HDP achieving a broader support among Turkish voters, pointing out many remain deeply suspicious over its relationship to the PKK. The decades-long insurgency by the PKK for greater Kurdish rights has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

“The expectations are they [HDP] reject the relations with PKK and condemn the PKK as a terrorist organization,” International Relations professor Huseyin Bagci of Ankara’s Middle East Technical University said.

“If we were to say that we were against everything the PKK is doing this would not be convincing,” countered HDP’s Kurkcu, “the brother of the former chair of our party is up in the mountains (fighting with the PKK). Everything is closely interrelated, it would not be convincing. Kurdish people don’t believe these people are terrorists. Who would believe their martyred son is a terrorist and would they appreciate a party that says he is,” added Kurkcu.

Nearly all of Turkey’s mainstream media regularly refer to the HDP as “terrorist supporters,” echoing President Erdogan’s line. Despite such a relentless campaign, Kurkcu believes the June election result suggests some people are ready to look to the future.

“New voters who voted for HDP did so knowing very well the HDP’s position, HDP’s discourse, but also knowing HDP’s potential,” he said.

Efforts to broaden the HDP’s political appeal comes at a time when some Kurds are calling for a harder line in response to ongoing government crackdown on the Kurdish movement.

“Many people in Kurdistan would love it if the HDP ran a fierce campaign for independence, but this is only 10 percent of our support, which is a reaction to the draconian policies of the government,” Kurkcu said.  “I would not say there are many contradictions in the party over our new approach, but rather among some of our Kurdish audience, we will hear such voices, and we have to address them.”

The political environment facing HDP also remains a challenge. Erdogan has indicated he will ease up on the legal crackdown of the party. 

The interior minister Suleyman Soylu this week declared there is no “HDP,” only the PKK. 

 “There is a political space for HDP’s initiative,” political scientist Cengiz Aktar said. “Whether the regime will allow this sort of opposition to itself, it needs to be seen. There are too many unknown elements.”

 
…

United States Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell reportedly told German auto makers Wednesday the U.S. would back off threats of tariffs on European car imports in exchange for the European Union’s elimination of duties on U.S. cars.

The German newspaper Handelsblatt reported Grenell told BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen executives of the proposal during a meeting Wednesday at the embassy in Berlin.

Daimler and Volkswagen declined to comment and BMW was not immediately available for comment, the report said.

The reported proposal comes after the European Union warned U.S. President Donald Trump last Friday the potential indirect costs of imposing tariffs on cars could amount to $294 billion.

The EU report, submitted to the U.S. Commerce Department, maintained the tariffs would disrupt cross-border supply chains in the automotive industry. The report said the tariffs could possibly trigger higher U.S. industrial costs, raise consumer prices, hurt exports and cost jobs.  

The World Trade Organization said Wednesday trade barriers being set by world economic powers could jeopardize the global economic recovery.

“This continued escalation poses a serious threat to growth and recovery in all countries, and we are beginning to see this reflected in some forward-looking indicators,” WTO Director General Roberto Azevendo said.

Azevendo did not expound on his remarks, but the WTO’s quarter trade outlook indicator in May suggested trade growth in the second quarter would decelerate.

 
…

The French government called for calm Wednesday after the killing of a 22-year-old man by police sparked riots in the western city of Nantes, highlighting the simmering tensions between youths and security forces in deprived urban areas.

Rioters set fire to cars and a medical center in the city on Tuesday night after news spread that an officer had shot dead the 22-year-old, named by local newspaper Ouest France as Bubakar, after stopping his car over an infraction.

Youths clashed with police in the northwestern neighborhood of Breil where the killing took place, lobbing molotov cocktails, before the unrest spread to two other poorer districts with a history of gang violence.

Burned-out cars littered the streets on Wednesday morning.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb condemned the violence, adding that “all the necessary resources are being mobilized” to “calm the situation and prevent any further incidents”.

Local police chief Jean-Christophe Bertrand said the youth had hit a policeman with his car, lightly injuring him, after a squad stopped the vehicle at around 8.30 pm for an alleged infraction and tried to take him to the police station for identification.

“One of his colleagues then fired, hitting the young man who unfortunately died,” Bertrand told reporters.

He was hit in the carotid artery and declared dead on arrival at hospital, police sources said.

Judicial police and a national watchdog which investigates claims of police wrongdoing are investigating to clarify “the facts and determine in what circumstances the policeman used his weapon,” said Pierre Sennes, public prosecutor for Nantes.

He said on Wednesday that the young man had been wanted by police in Creteil, near Paris, for robbery and other offenses.

‘I saw everything burning’

French police have a long history of strained relations with youths in poor, immigrant-heavy suburbs — not least since the death of two teenagers, electrocuted while hiding from officers, sparked nationwide riots in 2005.

The assault of a young black man by police — which led to officers being charged, including for rape after a truncheon was shoved up the youth’s anus — sparked fresh unrest last year.

In January, the government vowed a crackdown on urban violence after shocking video footage emerged of a policewoman being beaten by a crowd of youths in the Paris suburbs on New Year’s Eve.

Breil, the Nantes neighborhood where the young man was shot dead Tuesday, is a socially mixed district home to a large housing estate with a history of gang violence.

Police had boosted their presence in the area after a series of violent incidents on June 28.

Malakoff and Dervallieres, the other neighborhoods hit by riots on Tuesday, have been plagued by drugs and poverty for years.

They fall into a category of problem neighborhoods which are set to receive extra police help from next September under reforms by President Emmanuel Macron.

Steven, 24, who lives in Breil, told an AFP journalist that he had “heard explosions” and headed to investigate.

“I saw everything burning. There were fires in the bins, the cars. They were breaking everything. It lasted ages,” he said.

Neighborhood residents were in shock on Wednesday morning at the young man’s death.

“That guy, he always had a smile on his face,” a young man who gave his name as Chris told Ouest France.

“He was a sweet guy. We have lost a friend, a brother.”

He added: “I knew him well. He was from Paris but he’d lived here for a while, he had family here. For us, he was a kid from the neighborhood.”

Nationally, French police have complained of coming under increasing strain in recent years, with a parliamentary report released Tuesday detailing high suicide rates within the force.
…

British police declared a “major incident” Wednesday after two people were left in critical condition from exposure to an unknown substance a few miles from where a former Russian spy and his daughter were poisoned with a nerve agent.

The Wiltshire Police force said a man and a woman in their 40s were hospitalized after being found unconscious at a residential building in Amesbury, eight miles (13 kilometers) from Salisbury, where Sergei and Yulia Skripal were poisoned on March 4.

Police cordoned off the building and other places the two people visited before falling ill, but health officials said there was not believed to be a wider risk to the public.

The man and woman were hospitalized Saturday at Salisbury District Hospital, where Sergei and Yulia Skripal spent weeks in critical condition after being poisoned in March.

Police said they initially believed the latest victims might have taken a contaminated batch of heroin or crack cocaine.

“However, further testing is now ongoing to establish the substance which led to these patients becoming ill and we are keeping an open mind as to the circumstances surrounding this incident,” police said. “At this stage, it is not yet clear if a crime has been committed.”

A major incident is a designation allowing British authorities to mobilize more than one emergency agency.

Residents in the area, a quiet neighborhood of newly built houses and apartments, said they had received little information from authorities.

“Amesbury’s a lovely place – it’s very quiet, uneventful,” said Rosemary Northing, who lives a couple of hundred yards (meters) away from the cordoned-off building. “So for this to happen, and the media response and the uncertainty, it’s unsettling.”

Neighbors said police cars and fire engines descended on the home late Saturday. Student Chloe Edwards said she saw people in “green suits” – like those worn by forensics officers – and her family was told to stay in their home for several hours.

“We wanted to know what happened and with the Russian attack happening not long ago, and we just assumed the worst,” said Edwards.

Britain accuses Russia of poisoning the Skripals with a nerve agent known as Novichok, a group of chemical weapons developed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Moscow denies the allegation. The poisoning sparked a Cold War-style diplomatic crisis between Russia and the West, including the expulsion of hundreds of diplomats from both sides.

Counter-terrorism teams from London’s Metropolitan Police were called in to help local forces in Wiltshire at the time of the Skripal poisoning. On Wednesday, however, Scotland Yard referred media calls to Wiltshire police.

The statement from Wiltshire Police came only a month after police from 40 departments in England and Wales returned home after months of working on the Skripals’ poisoning. Wiltshire Police spent about 7.5 million pounds ($10 million) dealing with the aftermath of the Skripals’ poisoning and believe that his front door was contaminated with the nerve agent.

Sergei Skripal, 66, is a former Russian intelligence officer who was convicted of spying for Britain before coming to the U.K. as part of a 2010 prisoner swap. He had been living quietly in Salisbury, a cathedral city 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of London, when he was struck down along with his 33-year-old daughter Yulia.

After being found unconscious in the street, the two spent weeks in critical condition at the hospital. Doctors who treated them say they have made a remarkable recovery but they still don’t know what the Skirpals’ long-term prognosis is.

The Skripals have been taken to an undisclosed location for their protection.

 
…

A rescue ship carrying 60 migrants arrived Wednesday in a Spanish port after being refused entry by Italy and Malta, the second time in a month that a humanitarian group has been forced to travel for days to unload people rescued in the central Mediterranean.

The Italian government is blocking private rescue boats that it blames for encouraging human traffickers to launch unseaworthy boats loaded with migrants toward Europe.

But the aid groups deny having any link to smugglers in Libya or elsewhere, and say they are being forced to leave unattended the busy migrant sea transit route where deaths are mounting.

The Open Arms rescue ship completed a four-day journey to Barcelona, in northeastern Spain, after it saved 60 people Saturday from a rubber boat floating in waters north of Libya.

The migrants come from 14 different countries and include five women, a 9-year-old boy and four older teenagers, some of them unaccompanied. The Spanish aid group Proactiva Open Arms said they were generally in good health but some may have fuel burns.

The migrants were going through health checks and identification procedures. Authorities granted them a 30-day permit to apply for residence or asylum in the European Union. Many have relatives in Germany, Belgium and France.

According to the International Organization for Migration, more than 500 people have died trying to cross from Libya since the Aquarius, another charity rescue ship, was blocked from ports in Italy and Malta in early June. The 630 migrants were finally taken in by Spain and France.

Doctors Without Borders blamed the deaths on the European Union’s inaction.

“The EU is abdicating their responsibilities to save lives, blocking search and rescue and condemning people to be trapped in Libya,” the group said in a tweet Wednesday. “Any deaths caused by this are now at their hands.”

In all, IOM says 1,405 people have died in the dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing this year.

The Open Arms docking in Barcelona was followed closely by the Astral, a sister boat run by the same organization where four European Parliament lawmakers witnessed the rescue operation.

Lawmaker Javier Lopez of Spain said the rescue boat’s arrival was a reason “to celebrate life” but deplored the mounting death toll in the Mediterranean.

Lopez said Europe should be able to manage the number of migrants arriving by sea this year — around 50,000 so far into Spain, Italy and Greece.

“Aren’t we, 500 million Europeans, able to manage the arrival of 50,000 people?” he said.
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China is putting pressure on the European Union to issue a strong joint statement against President Donald Trump’s trade policies at a summit

this month, but it’s facing resistance, European officials said.

In meetings in Brussels, Berlin and Beijing, senior Chinese officials, including Vice Premier Liu He and the Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, have proposed an alliance between the two economic powers and offered to open more of the Chinese market in a gesture of goodwill.

One proposal has been for China and the European Union to launch joint action against the United States at the World Trade Organization.

But the European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc, has rejected the idea of allying with Beijing against Washington, five EU officials and diplomats told Reuters, ahead of the Sino-European summit in Beijing on July 16-17.

Instead, the summit is expected to produce a modest communique that affirms the commitment of both sides to the multilateral trading system and promises to set up a working group on modernizing the WTO, EU officials said.

Liu has said privately that China is ready to set out for the first time what sectors it can open to European investment at the annual summit, expected to be attended by President Xi Jinping, China’s Premier Li Keqiang and top EU officials.

Chinese state media have promoted the message that the EU is on China’s side, officials said, putting the bloc in a delicate position. The past two summits, in 2016 and 2017, ended without a statement because of disagreements about the South China Sea and trade.

“China wants the European Union to stand with Beijing against Washington, to take sides,” said one European diplomat. “We won’t do it and we have told them that.”

China’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Beijing’s summit aims.

In a commentary on Wednesday, China’s official Xinhua news agency said China and Europe “should resist trade protectionism hand in hand.”

“China and European countries are natural partners,” it said. “They firmly believe that free trade is a powerful engine for global economic growth.”

China’s moment?

Despite Trump’s tariffs on European metals exports and threats to hit the EU’s automobile industry, Brussels shares Washington’s concern about China’s closed markets and what Western governments say is Beijing’s manipulation of trade to dominate global markets.

“We agree with almost all the complaints the U.S. has against China. It’s just we don’t agree with how the United States is handling it,” another diplomat said.

Still, China’s stance is striking, given Washington’s deep economic and security ties with European nations. It shows the depth of Chinese concern about a trade war with Washington, as Trump is set to impose tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports on Friday.

It also underscores China’s new boldness in trying to seize leadership amid divisions between the United States and its European, Canadian and Japanese allies over issues including free trade, climate change and foreign policy.

“Trump has split the West, and China is seeking to capitalize on that. It was never comfortable with the West being one bloc,” said a European official involved in EU-China diplomacy.

“China now feels it can try to split off the European Union in so many areas — on trade, on human rights,” the official said.

Another official described the dispute between Trump and Western allies at the Group of Seven summit last month as a gift to Beijing because it showed European leaders losing a longtime ally, at least in trade policy.

European envoys say they already sensed a greater urgency from China in 2017 to find like-minded countries willing to stand up against Trump’s “America First” policies.

No ‘systemic change’

An April report by New York-based Rhodium Group, a research consultancy, showed that Chinese restrictions on foreign investment were higher in every single sector save real estate, compared with the European Union, while many of the big Chinese takeovers in the bloc would not have been possible for EU companies in China.

China has promised to open up. But EU officials expect any moves to be more symbolic than substantive.

They say China’s decision in May to lower tariffs on imported cars will make little difference because imports make up such a small part of the market.

China’s plans to move rapidly to electric vehicles mean that any new benefits it offers traditional European carmakers will be fleeting.

“Whenever the train has left the station, we are allowed to enter the platform,” a Beijing-based European executive said.

However, China’s offer at the upcoming summit to open up reflects Beijing’s concern that it is set to face tighter EU controls, and regulators are also blocking Chinese takeover attempts in the United States.

The European Union is seeking to pass legislation to allow greater scrutiny of foreign investments.

“We don’t know if this offer to open up is genuine yet,” a third EU diplomat said. “It’s unlikely to mark a systemic change.”
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Anti-government protests broke out late Tuesday in Warsaw and several other Polish cities in defense of the country’s constitution, judicial independence and the rule of law.

The protests came as a lower retirement age was taking effect for Poland’s Supreme Court justices. The law introduced by the ruling right-wing party is forcing the chief justice and as many as one-third of the court’s sitting judges to step down.

 Thousands of people gathered in front of the Supreme Court building in Warsaw, where they held candles, sang the national anthem and shouted “Free courts!” and “Down with dictatorship!”

There were also protests in Krakow, Lodz, Katowice, Wroclaw and other cities. In Gdansk, the cradle of the anti-communist Solidarity movement of the 1980s, legendary democracy leader Lech Walesa denounced Poland’s current government, saying it is even more “perfidious” than the communists he helped topple. 

The protests come as Supreme Court First President Malgorzata Gersdorf is being forced to resign under the legislation that lowers the mandatory retirement age for justices from 70 to 65, a change that could force one in the court’s every three judges out. 

Gersdorf, 65, vowed to remain on the court, in line with the constitution, and said she planned to show up for work as usual Wednesday. 

“My term as the Supreme Court head is being brutally cut, even though it is written into the constitution,” Gersdorf told law students during a lecture. “We can speak of a crisis of the rule of law in Poland, of a lack of respect for the constitution.”

Pawel Mucha, an aide to Polish President Andrzej Duda who co-authored the new law, said Gersdorf has no choice but to retire even though she says her term runs until 2020 under the country’s constitution.

In a surprise move, Mucha announced that the temporary acting head of the court will be another of its judges, Jozef Iwulski, who is 66.

The Supreme Court shake-up represents the culmination of a comprehensive overhaul of Poland’s justice system that gives the ruling party new powers over the courts. 

The changes began after the Law and Justice party came to power in 2015 and have expanded gradually. The Constitutional Tribunal, the court that determines if legislation passes legal muster, was the first put under the party’s control.

The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal for criminal and civil cases in Poland. Its justices also rule on the validity of elections. 

European Union officials and international human rights groups have expressed alarm, alleging the moves represent an erosion of judicial independence that violates Western standards and a reversal for democracy in Poland.

At the protests, people expressed fears that Law and Justice would use its control of the Supreme Court to falsify elections.

Malgorzata Szuleka, a lawyer with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights in Warsaw, said forcing Gersdorf to retire before the end of her term is a “clear violation of the constitution.”

The European Commission, which polices compliance with EU laws, opened an “infringement procedure” Monday over the Supreme Court law. The action is the commission’s second against Poland over rule of law and could lead to further legal action and fines.

The government insists it is improving Poland’s justice system, saying it was inefficient and controlled by an untouchable “caste” of judges. It argues that putting judges under the control of the legislative and executive branches will makes the courts answerable to the voters, and thus more democratic. 

The lowering of the mandatory retirement age is affecting 27 of the court’s 73 judges. Some of them have asked Duda for extensions of their service. Gersdorf did not, however, arguing that the constitution guaranteed her continued tenure.
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Peace in Berlin — but for how long? 

A last-minute migrant deal secured Monday by beleaguered German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the junior partners in her shaky coalition has averted the collapse of her government for now, say analysts.

But the deal, which will see transit zones established along Germany’s southern border to allow for accelerated deportations of migrants not entitled to seek asylum, also has finally brought to a close Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and revealed the brittleness of her coalition government.

The more restrictive border policy agreed between Merkel and Horst Seehofer, her rebellious interior minister and leader of the Bavarian Christian Social Union, still has to be approved by her other partners, the Social Democrats, in her three-way coalition government. 

They have rejected the proposal before, dubbing the zones as “prison camps,” but appear ready now to accept the broad-outlines of a deal, according to party insiders, if for no other reason than that early elections would likely see the Social Democrats lose even more ground than they did in last year’s polls.  So, there’s peace for now. But few political observers believe the deal has done much more than place a lid on divergent views within the coalition government over migrants. Nor has it done anything to ease the mutual dislike Seehofer and Merkel hold for each other, and they don’t bother to disguise.  

The deal struck Monday after weeks of wrangling followed a dramatic escalation with Seehofer telling a party gathering in Munich that he planned to resign as interior minister, if Merkel blocked him from turning back any migrants at the border who’d been processed already in other European Countries and use Europe’s open borders to head to Germany.

While allowing Merkel to claim the deal has not breached any EU rules nor undermined the search for an EU-wide solution to the migrant crisis roiling the continent and fueling the rise of euro-skeptic nationalist populist parties, it has clearly altered Germany’s migrant policy. It also has shifted the country to adopt  much harsher border policies than Merkel would have liked. 

It means a country that in the past championed more open migrant policies is now shifting to a far more hostile position toward asylum-seekers, say rights groups, adding to a harsher environment for migrants across the continent.

Merkel has put a brave face on Monday’s deal, highlighting the fact it means Germany will not be adopting the complete go-it-alone approach Seehofer favors.

The deal, she says, “preserves the spirit of partnership in the EU while marking a decisive step towards ordering and controlling secondary migration.”

Merkel’s fear was that by slamming the door firmly shut on migrants, other EU countries would do the same, triggering domino-effect border closures and effectively dismantling the bloc’s Schengen system of open borders.

But analysts say it isn’t clear as yet whether the deal will work on a practical level or that it will help to advance a more collective sand unified EU approach. 

Under the plan, migrants who already have been processed elsewhere in Europe in the first EU country they arrived in or were registered in can be swiftly sent back to that country without a prolonged administrative procedure. But they can only be returned to a country Germany has an agreed bilateral return arrangement with. And Merkel’s efforts to draw up such return agreements with more than a dozen EU countries has met with several rebuffs.

Both Italy, the first arrival country in the EU for many of the migrants turning up in Germany, and Austria, a main transit country, have declined entering into return agreements. 

Austrian politicians have greeted the Merkel-Seehofer deal with skepticism and anger.

“We can’t accept this,” said former Austrian defense minister Hans Peter Doskozil.

Austria’s government warned Tuesday it may introduce “measures to protect.” In a statement, the Austrian government said if the Merkel-Seehofer agreement is approved by the German government as a whole, “we will be obliged to take measures to avoid disadvantages for Austria and its people.”

Among the measures, Austrian officials said, would be closing the country’s borders with Italy and Slovenia, blocking migrants from entering Austria with the goal of reaching Germany. Austrian officials say they fear the Merkel-Seehofer deal will end up with Austria being forced to house the migrants that Germany has rejected.

“We are now waiting for a rapid clarification of the German position at a federal level,” said the statement, signed by Austria’s conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and his allies of the far-right Freedom party, Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache and Interior Minister Herbert Kickl.

Disputes over the deal now threaten to upend the highly fragile migrant deal European leaders claimed they struck last week after a marathon session in Brussels. 

Under that deal migrants rescued at sea would be sent to “control centers” across the bloc — at locations still to be decided — to be rapidly processed with economic migrants being deported speedily.  

The leaders also agreed to tighten the EU’s external border; to give more money to countries such as Turkey and Morocco to help prevent migrants setting off for Europe; and to set up processing centers in countries across North Africa to deter migrants, and to sort out war refugees from economic migrants. But no African country has so agreed to house EU-run processing centers.
…

A U.N. agency tapped to run new migrant centers around the Mediterranean says the plan won’t solve the European Union’s immigration challenge.

Irregular migration across the sea has been dramatically reduced; only about 45,000 people have made it to Europe that way this year. But the hot-button issue is driving the EU’s political agenda.

Last week, EU states agreed to tighten their external borders and spend more in the Middle East and North Africa to bring down the number of arrivals.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, trying to save her coalition, on Monday agreed to set up migrant camps on the German border, highlighting how the EU is unable to agree on joint migration policies and how governments increasingly go it alone.

One thing EU leaders have agreed is to look at setting up “disembarkation platforms” to handle those rescued from the dangerous crossing. Most are brought ashore in Italy, but more than 1,300 people perished this year.

‘Responsibility to govern’

“The Mediterranean is a shared space, north-south. We have a joint responsibility to govern what happens in that space, including avoiding that people drown,” Eugenio Ambrosi, the head of the International Organization for Migration’s EU mission, told Reuters.

The IOM and its sister U.N. agency for refugees, the UNHCR, would run the new sites.

Ambrosi said 10 existing migrant centers in Greece and Italy could first be beefed up and new ones could then be added in Malta. But opening others on the southern rim of the Mediterranean, as some EU states want, would take time.

“Before going outside of Europe, asking other countries to help, we have to make sure that enough European countries help each other,” Ambrosi said in an interview.

Eventually, depending on where in the Mediterranean they were rescued, people would be taken to EU or African centers. 

The much-publicized idea of Mediterranean camps would work only if more legal ways to get to Europe from non-EU countries are opened up, Ambrosi said.

Some deny admission

EU states would have to share legitimate asylum-seekers from the centers, an idea that has divided them bitterly since 2015. As more than a million people entered the EU in 2015, overwhelming Italy, Greece and Germany, eastern nations led by Poland and Hungary refused to help by taking in a share.

With this internal dispute still festering, the EU will turn to Tunisia and Morocco to host new sites. The African countries have a good opportunity to bargain hard.

Ambrosi said he opposed locating migrant centers in strife-torn Libya and said populists in the EU had failed to recognize how far the number of arrivals had dropped since 2015.

“It’s not a migration issue, it’s a political and functioning-of-the-EU issue,” he said. “There is no quick fix — there has never been.”
…

Poland braced for protests on Tuesday against the conservative government’s makeover of the judiciary that takes effect at midnight despite strong opposition at home and legal action against the changes by the European Union.

Through legislation and personnel changes, the Law and Justice (PiS) party has taken de facto control of the entire judicial system, including the constitutional tribunal and prosecutors, who now report to the justice minister.

Its most divisive measure will force more than a third of Supreme Court judges to retire on Wednesday unless they are granted an extension by President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally.

Duda announced on Tuesday that Supreme Court president Malgorzata Gersdorf, a staunch critic of the reforms, had not asked for an extension and therefore would retire in line with rules introduced by PiS.

Underscoring tensions, the Supreme Court’s spokesman said, however, that Gersdorf would come to work anyway on July 4.

“Plans have not changed here, Mrs Gersdorf intends to come to work tomorrow. What happens next … I don’t know,” spokesman Michal Laskowski said.

The European Commission opened a fresh legal case against Poland over the Supreme Court changes on Monday, saying that they undermine judicial independence in the largest formerly communist member of the EU.

The Warsaw government says the reforms are necessary to improve the accountability of a system that dates back to communist times.

The euroskeptic PiS’s standing in polls has held steady at around 40 percent throughout the dispute, well above any single rival party.

Opposition protests

Poland’s three biggest opposition parties were to hold a protest in front of the Supreme Court building in Warsaw from 1900 GMT on Tuesday, they said in a joint statement.

Demonstrations “in defense of the Supreme Court” were expected in other cities, according to organizers Komitet Obrony Demokracji (KOD).

“Today we will be in many Polish towns to show that there is no agreement for a takeover of another independent institution,” said Borys Budka, a Civic Platform lawmaker, said in the statement. More protests are expected on Wednesday.

“There will be a purge conducted in the Supreme Court tomorrow under the pretext of the retrospective change in retirement age,” Gersdorf told students in Warsaw at a lecture, according to state-run news agency PAP.

Gersdorf asked Duda during a last-minute meeting on Tuesday to appoint another judge on the panel to serve as a deputy chief in case of her absence, Laskowski said.

Among those who said they would protest was Lech Walesa, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and former president who is credited with bringing down communism as Solidarity trade union chief.

“If in any way the current ruling team attack the Supreme Court, then … I’m going to Warsaw. It’s enough to destroy Poland,” Walesa said on his Facebook account.

He also said he was ready to “lead a physical removal of the main perpetrator of all misfortune”, referring to PiS leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

Gersdorf, who had condemned the PiS’s alleged campaign to politicize the judiciary and media, said that under Poland’s constitution she should remain in her post until 2020.
…