European Union finance ministers agreed new measures on Tuesday to force accountants and banks to report aggressive tax schemes that help companies shift profits to low-tax countries.

Ministers also added the Bahamas, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Saint Kitts and Nevis to a blacklist of tax havens, while Bahrain, the Marshall Islands and Saint Lucia were delisted, confirming earlier Reuters reports.

Under the rules, proposed by the European Commission in June, accountants, banks and lawyers would be required to inform authorities about “potentially aggressive tax planning arrangements” set up for their clients. The 28 EU states will also share information on harmful tax planning in a bid to discourage the most aggressive tax avoidance schemes.

“It is a new progress for tax justice in the European Union,” EU tax commissioner Pierre Moscovici told ministers after they agreed the overhaul.

Once the new rules are finalized and approved by the European Parliament, tax advisers in the EU will risk fines if they do not report potentially harmful cross-border tax schemes.

Penalties should be “effective, proportionate and dissuasive” but EU states will maintain discretion in setting sanctions or fines at national level.

If there is no intermediary, or the tax adviser is located outside the EU, the company or individual using the arrangement will be obliged to disclose it.

EU governments agreed on a compromise text put forward by the Bulgarian presidency of the EU, which slightly softened the Commission’s original proposal. Tax reforms require unanimity among the 28 member states.

Cross-border tax arrangements set up with jurisdictions that have a zero or “almost zero” corporate rate – such as the Channel Islands, Bahamas, Bahrain and the Cayman Islands – must be reported, despite initial opposition from some governments.

But ministers scrapped a requirement to report tax schemes with jurisdictions whose corporate rate is lower than 35 percent of the statutory average within the EU – which could have forced reporting for schemes involving countries with a tax rate

of around 7 percent.

Some states had argued such a requirement “would cause an administrative burden disproportionate to the objectives” of the new rules, a working document prepared by Bulgarian officials showed.

Smaller EU members like Luxembourg and Malta have in the past opposed stricter rules to prevent tax avoidance, fearing they could harm competitiveness. But their finance ministers gave the green light to the Bulgarian compromise. Some members, including Britain, Ireland and Portugal, have already introduced penalties at a national level for intermediaries helping set up aggressive tax schemes.

EU governments also added Anguilla, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda to a “grey list,” which now includes 62 jurisdictions that do not respect EU anti-tax avoidance standards but have committed to change their practices.

Bulgarian Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov told a news conference after the meeting that commitments made by grey list countries will be made public, a move welcomed by anti-corruption groups because it will increase transparency.

Ministers agreed to move Bahrain, the Marshall Islands and Saint Lucia from the black to the grey list, after they committed to change their tax practices.

American Samoa, Guam, Namibia, Palau, Samoa, and Trinidad and Tobago were already on the blacklist set up in December.

Blacklisted jurisdictions could face reputational damage and stricter controls on their financial transactions with the EU, although no sanctions have been agreed by EU states yet.

 
…

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is backing up British Prime Minister Theresa May’s assertion that Russia is behind the attack on a former Russian spy in England, saying it certainly “will trigger a response.”

“This is a really egregious act. It appears that it clearly came from Russia,” Tillerson said Monday en route to Cape Verde. 

Tillerson spoke with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson over the phone shortly after taking off from Nigeria. Tillerson wrapped up his five-nation trip to Africa on Monday.

May said it is clear that former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with a military-grade nerve agent of a type developed by Russia. She added that  the action amounted to a use of chemical weaponry on British territory.

Russia refuted May’s allegation, saying it is another political campaign based on provocation.  

“There is never a justification for this type of attack — the attempted murder of a private citizen on the soil of a sovereign nation — and we are outraged that Russia appears to have again engaged in such behavior,” said Tillerson in a statement released by the State Department. “From Ukraine to Syria — and now the U.K. — Russia continues to be an irresponsible force of instability in the world, acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens.”

The statement continued: “We agree that those responsible — both those who committed the crime and those who ordered it — must face appropriately serious consequences. We stand in solidarity with our Allies in the United Kingdom and will continue to coordinate closely our responses.”

Tillerson told a small group of reporters, “It’s almost beyond comprehension that a state, an organized state, would do something like that.”
…

Eurozone creditors are expected to disburse new loans to Greece this month and are working on debt relief measures, the head of the bloc’s finance ministers said on Monday, steps that should help underpin its economic recovery.

Greece’s 86-billion-euro bailout program, its third since 2010, is due to end in August and international lenders are debating how to ensure the country makes its exit on a sustainable footing.

Among options under consideration in Brussels are support measures that could run into tens of billions of euros and help ease servicing costs on a public debt pile that, in terms of economic output, is among the biggest in the world.

Greece’s economy expanded by 1.6 percent last year after emerging from a long recession. The European Commission forecast growth of 2.5 percent this year and next, but that rate could slow if reforms stall after strict monitoring by the lenders ceases.

The eurozone bailout fund is expected to pay out a 5.7 billion euro loan later in March, Eurogroup head Mario Centeno told a news conference following the finance ministers’ monthly meeting, after Greece met commitments under the third review of its rescue program.

To successfully exit the program, a fourth review of 88 reform actions must be completed before August. This would allow Greece to access other loans.

“I am confident Greece will implement all remaining deliverables to conclude the program successfully,” Centeno said.

They include new privatizations and reform of the gas and electricity markets, which he said were preconditions to granting Greece new debt relief.

Debt relief

Technical talks are already ongoing on one of the possible measures that would grant Greece additional debt relief after it benefited from extensions of its debt maturities and other short-term aid in past years.

Centeno said that work was under way on linking future eurozone debt relief to the rate of Greek economic growth, with the objective of granting support if growth slowed.

Other more substantial measures will be discussed at the next meeting of finance ministers next month, Centeno said.

Among possible measures are the use of funds that will remain unused after the bailout program ends on August 20.

This could be as mush as 27 billion euros, and could be used to buy out Greek debt falling due in the next five years and replace it with cheaper and longer-term loans from the eurozone bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Another option could involve the return of profits made by the European Central Bank on Greek bonds.

Both measures would come with conditions attached, mostly linked to the implementation of reforms already approved but that would take years to fully execute.

The debate on conditionality is still wide open. Greece could ask for a new credit line after its aid programme ends, but this is likely to be seen in the country as a new wave of austerity, triggering a political backlash.

Alternatives could entail enhanced supervision by EU institutions over Greek reforms after the bailout ends.

Without a financial safety net Greece could face market pressure that would increase debt servicing costs.

Greece is also building a cash buffer, which could reach 20 billion euros, to bolster a full return to debt markets and support sustainable growth.
…

Hungary aims to coordinate more closely on refugee policy with Austria and Italy after elections there boosted anti-migrant parties, broadening an alliance of EU states focused on internal security.

Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that the approach to migration of the Vienna government and the center-right in Italy was very similar to the bloc’s central European member states.

“So it is obvious that we will work together in the future,” he told Reuters in an interview.

“This is not against the western part of Europe, this is against migration, and this is in favor of our interests because we put security first.”

A bitter row over migration policy sparked by the biggest influx of refugees into the European Union since World War II has undermined trust within the bloc and weakened its unity, with its eastern states refusing to sign up to a quota system favored by several richer members to the west and north.

In refusing to accept Muslim refugees, Hungary and its neighbours in the Visegrad group — the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia — have cited security concerns and the desire to preserve the traditional Christian make-up of their societies.

In Austria, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz formed a coalition with the Freedom Party following an election last year dominated by the issue of migration, making the country the only one in western Europe with a far-right grouping in government.

In Italy this month, the governing center-left Democratic Party lost out to anti-establishment and right-wing parties that campaigned hard against immigration in an election that delivered a hung parliament.

‘More efficient’ cooperation

Szijjarto said the Visegrad countries had no plans to enlarge that alliance, but this should not prevent closer ties with like-minded states.

“What we definitely would like to do is to have a closer and more efficient cooperation with Austria and of course hopefully with the upcoming Italian government,” he said.

Kurz said on Friday that Austria planned to use its presidency of the European Union this year to shift the bloc’s focus away from resettling refugees within the EU and towards preventing further waves of arrivals.

He also pledged closer cooperation with Hungary after meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban at the end of January.

Orban has been one of the EU’s hardliners on migration and is campaigning on a fierce anti-immigration agenda ahead of Hungary’s own national election on April 8, when he will seek a third term in office.

Asked about a recent video in which Janos Lazar, the top aide to Orban, blamed immigrants for pushing out “white Christians” in a district of Vienna, Szijjarto said he did not think the comments were unfortunate. Facebook first removed the video then reversed its decision.

“It is an open issue in Austria that the number of Muslim kids to be enrolled in Vienna schools is approaching the number of the Austrian kids to be enrolled. That is an open debate …,” Szijjarto said.

The Social Democrats (SPO), who govern Vienna in coalition with the Greens, said Lazar’s comments were part of a “racist and xenophobic election strategy” by Orban’s Fidesz party ahead of elections.
…

Thousands stood in silent respect in the southern Macedonian city of Bitola Sunday to remember the victims of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during World War II.

Sunday was the 75th anniversary of the deportation of more than 7,100 Macedonian Jews to Nazi death camps in Poland.

“We will never forget the Holocaust. We will not allow for anti-Semitism, hate speech, intolerance, xenophobia or any other phenomena that represent the violation of human rights,” Talat Xhaferi, speaker of the Macedonian parliament, said.

Xhaferi said Macedonia will never allow history to be altered or denied. He pointed to Jewish property stolen by the Nazis and their cohorts were, by law, returned to their rightful owners.

He said the Holocaust memorial in downtown Skopje has a church on one side and a mosque on the other, a sign that all ethnic communities in Macedonia can live free and openly.

“We promote dialogue, tolerance and understanding for the settlement of global, regional and bilateral issues,” Xhaferi said.

German and Israeli visitors also joined Macedonians in a March for Life Sunday.

Macedonia was part of Yugoslavia when the Nazis and their allies occupied the region in 1941.

Backed by Soviet troops, they were driven out by Yugoslav partisans and Bulgarian forces who had been allied with the Germans before switching sides.

All but a handful of Macedonian Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.
…

British health officials said Sunday that traces of a nerve agent used in the suspected attempted murder of a Russian spy in Britain were found in a pub and restaurant he visited, but that the risk to public health remains low.

Health officials said those who visited the Mill pub and Zizzi restaurant in Salisbury, southwest England on March 4 and March 5 should take “simple” precautions, including washing their clothes.

“While there is no immediate health risk to anyone who may have been in either of these locations, it is possible, but unlikely, that any of the substance which has come into contact with clothing or belongings could still be present in minute amounts and therefore contaminate your skin. Over time, repeated skin contact with contaminated items may pose a small risk to health,” a statement released by Public Health England read.

Hospital officials in Salisbury said there is no evidence of a wider attack on the town, aside from three people who have been hospitalized since the attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, both of whom are hospitalized in critical condition.

Police have not publicly talked about the nerve agent that poisoned Skripal or who might have been responsible. But suspicions are pointing to Russia.

British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson said Britain is being “pushed around” by the Kremlin.

Prime Minister Theresa May has promised an “appropriate” response if it is discovered that Russia is responsible for poisoning Skripal, but has urged caution.

Russian officials deny the Kremlin had anything to do with the assassination attempt.

Skripal served in Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, and was exchanged in a spy swap in 2010 on the runway at Vienna’s airport.

After serving four years imprisoned in Russia for spying for Britain’s espionage service, MI6, Skripal was one of four Russian double agents exchanged for 10 Russians expelled from the United States.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May is under pressure to return millions of dollars given by Russian oligarchs and their lobbyists to her ruling Conservative party. One of the biggest donors is the wife of a former Russian deputy finance minister, once nicknamed “Putin’s banker.”

When May took office 18 months ago she promised that Britain’s Conservatives would “sup with a long spoon” and distance themselves from Russian donors, but electoral commission records analyzed by Britain’s Sunday Times newspaper show Russian-linked donations have continued.

Contributions have also been given to the Conservatives by British lobbyists and PR firms working for Russian oligarchs and even the Kremlin. New Century Media, a PR agency contracted by the Russian government to manage a marketing campaign in Britain to present a “positive image” of Russia, has donated more than $200,000 to Britain’s ruling party.

Opposition lawmakers called Sunday for the Conservatives to return the donations, arguing they raise doubts about the government’s determination to retaliate for what the country’s intelligence agencies believe was a Kremlin-approved attempt on March 4 to kill on British soil Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military intelligence officer who spied for the British, and his 33-year-old daughter.

British officials suspect the nerve agent used — likely either modified Sarin or VX — was developed near Moscow at the Yasenevo laboratory run by Russia’s intelligence service the FSB. Russian officials have dismissed the claims of FSB or Kremlin involvement in the assassination bid that has left father and daughter critically ill. They say the allegations are wild and hysterical, part of a Western campaign to demonize Russia.

The donations to the Conservatives “call into question how seriously Theresa May will be willing to challenge Russia’s conduct when her party is literally being bankrolled by some close allies of the Kremlin,” said Nia Griffith, the opposition Labour Party’s defense spokesperson.

In a statement, Britain’s Conservatives said, “All donations are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission.”

The most generous Russian donors to the Tories include Lubov Chernukhin, wife of former Putin finance minister, Vladimir Chernukhin, who has given more than $600,000 to the Conservatives since 2010. She bid successfully at a party fundraising auction to play tennis with former Prime Minister David Cameron and Britain’s foreign secretary, Boris Johnson. Her bid was $200,000.

Conservative officials say that Chernukhin, now a British citizen, is not a “Putin crony”, arguing her husband fell out with Russian leader Vladimir Putin after being dismissed from his job running a state-owned bank.

On Monday, Britain’s National Security Council is due to meet to discuss the latest findings of the Skripal investigation and to consider what retaliatory measures to take against Russia.

Party insiders say Johnson and Defense Minister Gavin Williamson are expected to demand tough retaliation. Both privately have expressed frustration with Theresa May’s order to ministers not to rush judgment and to avoid pre-judging the investigation’s conclusions.

They will join Home Secretary Amber Rudd in calling for the introduction of a new law to target Russian officials. They want a British version of America’s so-called “Magnitsky Act,” a law passed by the U.S. Congress in 2012 that targets Russians deemed by Washington to be complicit in human rights abuses, including extra-judicial killings and torture. Specific sanctions would include visa bans and asset freezes.

Retaliation by Britain would almost certainly trigger a response by the Kremlin, say officials. When the U.S. Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, Russia banned American couples from adopting Russian children.

In an interview Saturday with VOA, Bill Browder, the American-born financier who was instrumental in persuading Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, said he expected a major Russian-funded lobbying effort in Britain to try to persuade the British government not to retaliate. “You can bet that anyone who is making money off Russia is doing their best to keep things calm here in Britain and to stop a reaction,” he said.

Browder, who ran one of the most successful investment funds in Russia before his expulsion in 2005 when his business was expropriated, lobbied hard for U.S. sanctions to be introduced after his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was arrested and died in Russian custody.

He worries the British will be limp in response to the attempted assassination, pointing out the cautious May has opposed past retaliation against Russia because of the risk of disruption to British business.

Browder says he has no doubt the Russian government was behind the assassination attempt on Skripal, dismissing suggestions it may have been a rogue operation. “No one would have the guts to go rogue. These operations are approved and planned by the Kremlin,” he says.

Britain does have a way of deterring the Kremlin, he argues. “Britain has gigantic leverage. All the Russians, members of Putin’s regime, come to London. They buy expensive property, they open bank accounts here, they send their kids to private schools, and so the easiest thing to do is seize their properties and ban their travel and that of their family members. That will immediately cause them never to do this again.”

 
…

A new Polish law banning almost all trade on Sundays has taken effect, with large supermarkets and most other retailers closed for the first time since liberal shopping laws were introduced in the 1990s after communism’s collapse.

The change is stirring up a range of emotions in a country where many feel workers are exploited under the liberal regulations of the past years and want workers to have a day of rest. But many Poles experience consumer freedom as one of the most tangible benefits of the free market era and resent the new limit.

In Hungary, another ex-communist country, a ban on Sunday trade imposed in 2015 was so unpopular that authorities repealed it the next year. But elsewhere in Europe, including Germany and Austria, people have long been accustomed to the day of commercial rest and appreciate the push it gives them to escape the compulsion to shop for quality time with family and friends.

The law was introduced by a leading trade union, Solidarity, which has argued that employees should have the chance to rest and spend time with their families. It found the support of the conservative and pro-Catholic ruling party, Law and Justice, whose lawmakers passed the legislation. The influential Catholic church, to which more than 90 percent of Poles belong, has also welcomed the change.

Among the Poles who see it as a good step toward returning a frazzled and overworked society to a more a more traditional lifestyle is 76-year-old Barbara Olszewska, who did some last-minute shopping Saturday evening in Warsaw.

She recalled growing up in the Polish countryside with a mother who was a full-time homemaker and a father who never worked on Sundays.

“A family should be together on Sundays,” Olszewska said after buying some food at a local Biedronka, a large discount supermarket chain.

Olszewska said that before she retired she sold cold cuts in a grocery store, and was grateful that she never had to work Sundays.

The new law at first bans trade two Sundays per month, but steps it up to three Sundays in 2019 and finally all Sundays in 2020, except for seven exceptions before the Easter and Christmas holidays.

Pro-business opposition parties view the change as an attack on commercial freedom and warn that it will lead to a loss of jobs, and in particular hurt students who only have time to work to fund their studies on the weekends.

Poles are among the hardest-working citizens in the European Union and some Poles complain that Sundays are sometimes the only days they have free time to shop. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, only the Greeks put in longer working hours than Poles in the 28-member European Union. According to OECD statistics, the average Polish employee worked 1,928 hours in 2016.

Another last-minute shopper on Saturday evening, Daniel Wycech, 26, saw more drawbacks than benefits.

“It’s not really a problem to do more shopping a day ahead of time, but if something breaks in my kitchen or bathroom on a Sunday, there will be no way to go to the store and fix it,” said Wycech, an accountant loaded down with bottled water, bananas and other groceries.

“I am angry because this law wasn’t prepared properly. It would have been much better to force store employers to make two Sundays per month free for each worker,” Wycech added.

There are some exceptions to the ban. For instance, gas stations, cafes, ice cream parlors, pharmacies and some other businesses are allowed to keep operating Sundays. Stores at airports and train stations will also be allowed to be open, as will small mom-and-pop shops, but only on the condition that only the owners themselves work.

Anyone infringing the new rules faces a fine of up to 100,000 zlotys ($29,500), while repeat offenders may face a prison sentence.

Mateusz Kica, a 29-year-old tram driver in Warsaw, did his weekly shopping early Saturday to avoid the huge crowds he expected later in the day. He complained that the new law only relieves shop employees, but that workers like himself will still have to keep working weekends.

“This law isn’t really just,” Kica said.
…

French President Emmanuel Macron took a jibe Sunday at President Donald Trump for withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement.

Macron did not name Trump while speaking at the first meeting of the International Solar Alliance in New Delhi. But while hailing the “solar mamas,” a group of women trained as solar engineers, he said the women had continued their mission to promote solar energy even after “some countries decided just to leave the floor and leave the Paris agreement.”

Trump announced last June that the U.S. was withdrawing from the Paris accord, which aims to slow the rise in global temperature by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Heads and ministers of dozens of countries are participating in the daylong solar meeting, co-hosted by India and France.

The Alliance is a treaty-based international body for the promotion of efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. It was launched by India and France on the sidelines of the 2015 Paris Climate Conference.

“Today is a big change,” Macron told the meeting. “Our solar mamas, who we just listened to, didn’t wait for us. They started to act and to deliver concrete results. They didn’t wait and they didn’t stop because some countries decided just to leave the floor and leave the Paris agreement.”

“Because they decided it was good for them, for their children, their grandchildren. They decided to act and keep acting, and that’s why we are here, in order to act very concretely,” Macron said.

India and France called for affordable solar technology and concessional finance for promoting solar energy.

The meeting will discuss framing regulations and standards, credit mechanisms, crowd funding and sharing of technological breakthroughs to promote solar energy in 121 countries associated with the Alliance. The member countries are fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a unified effort for promoting solar energy and said the Alliance would help to achieve greater global energy security.

“Promoting its development and use can bring prosperity for all and can help reduce the carbon footprint on Earth,” Modi told the conference. “If we want the welfare of planet Earth and of the whole humanity, I am confident that we can come out of our personal confines and like a family, bring unity in our aims and efforts [to promote solar energy].”

 
…

France’s far-right National Front party has definitively severed its ties to firebrand founder Jean-Marie Le Pen as it tries to revive its fortunes.

The party also re-elected his daughter, Marine Le Pen, to a new term as president at party congress where she was its only candidate for the post. A new 100-member governing council was also named.

The party tweeted Sunday that more than 79 percent of members who participated in a vote approved new party statutes that included abolishing Jean-Marie Le Pen’s position of party president for life.

The party expelled him in 2015 over anti-Semitic remarks but he kept the honorary position. Sunday’s vote is a crushing blow for the 89-year-old, who founded the party in 1972 and was runner-up in the 2002 French presidential election.

 
…

Former White House adviser Steve Bannon’s surprise address Saturday at a key far right party meeting in France gives a boost to its struggling leader, Marine Le Pen. While other European far-right movements are surging on anti-immigrant platforms, France’s National Front is weakened and divided. Le Pen hopes to rally supporters around a new party name – and possibly a new direction.

Far-right parties in Austria and Italy may be celebrating recent polls, but France’s National Front shows how fast politics can change. Less than a year ago, National Front leader Marine Le Pen came in second in France’s presidential election against current leader Emmanuel Macron, capturing a record one-third of the vote.

But today, the National Front is in disarray. Some of its top officials have quit. Some members have not paid their dues – and the new head of the more mainstream Les Republicains party is tilting rightward to lure others away. A recent poll shows the majority of French don’t want Le Pen to run for president again.

But Le Pen is betting this weekend’s meeting in the northern city of Lille will be a turnaround – partly by rebranding a party founded by her father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the 1970s. National Front members get to vote on a new name for the party, which will be announced on Sunday.

“The National Front has grown up,” Le Pen told French TV Friday night. “It has gone from a party of protest in its youth, to a party of opposition and now a governing party. Changing its name is one way to show this,” she said.

The rebranding is part of a long effort by Le Pen to give the National Front a softer, more mainstream image since taking over leadership from her father seven years ago. The two have since fallen out, and the elder Le Pen was expelled from the party in 2015 over inflammatory remarks. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen hopes to strike alliances with other nationalist parties before European Parliament elections next year.

Some are not convinced her strategy will work.

Critics include Le Pen’s former right-hand man, Florian Philippot, who quit the National Front last year to form his own party. In a TV interview, he said nobody believes in the National Front anymore – not even Marine Le Pen. He said the party has abandoned its social fight and anti-Europe values.

But analysts believe the anti-immigrant, anti-globalization platforms that resonate in Europe today will continue to give the National Front meaning and votes – under whatever name it adopts.

 
…

British government security ministers are holding an emergency meeting to discuss the investigation into the poisoning in England of a Russian who spied for Britain.

The meeting Home Secretary Amber Rudd is leading on Saturday will cover the latest police and intelligence reports from Salisbury, where a military-supported investigation is underway.

Police are looking for clues to the mysterious attack on former Russian military intelligence officer Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia.

They were found unconscious on a bench near the River Avon in Salisbury on Sunday. They remain in critical condition in a local hospital, poisoned with what authorities say is a rare nerve agent

Police are searching for clues at the gravesites of Skripal’s wife and son, and at Skripal’s house. A restaurant and pub have also been searched.

 
…

Turkey’s president has criticized NATO for not supporting the country’s ongoing military operation against Syrian Kurdish fighters in Syria.

Speaking to supporters Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan asked, “Hey NATO, where are you?” and accused the alliance of double standards. Erdogan said Turkey sent troops to conflict zones when requested, but did not receive support in return.

Turkey launched a solo military offensive against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units or YPG on January 20 to clear them from Afrin in northwestern Syria. The country considers the YPG a terror organization but its NATO ally, the United States, backs the fighters to combat the Islamic State group.

Erdogan urged NATO to come to the aid of Turkey, saying its borders are “under threat right now.”
…

A Turkish court ruled on Friday that two journalists should be released for the duration of their trial for subversion, a lawyer at the courthouse said.

Murat Sabuncu, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Cumhuriyet, and writer Ahmet Sik were ordered released, the lawyer said.

However, Cumhuriyet said that its attorney, Akin Atalay, was remanded in custody until the next hearing, on March 16.

Prosecutors charge that Cumhuriyet was effectively taken over by supporters of Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based cleric blamed by the government for a 2016 failed coup. The newspaper and staff deny the charges and say they are being targeted to silence critics of President Tayyip Erdogan.

Prosecutors are seeking up to 43 years in jail for the newspaper staff, who stand accused of targeting Erdogan through “asymmetric war methods.”

Social media posts made up most of evidence in the indictment, along with allegations that staff had been in contact with users of Bylock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by Gulen’s followers.

Rights group Amnesty International said on Twitter that the ruling was “long overdue” and called for the release of all jailed journalists in Turkey.

Speaking after his release, Sabuncu said their release was not a reason to be happy, since several journalists remained in prison.

“We should not be happy that we have been released because our release does not mean things have changed in Turkey regarding freedom of speech,” Sabuncu told reporters.

Sik reiterated Sabuncu’s comments, saying he would rather see anger than happiness.

“I am not happy in any way. I don’t want you to be happy while Akin Atalay is still inside. I would prefer if you were angry, for anger will keep us standing,” Sik said.

“Today is not a day for us to be happy, but there will come a day when we will be happy in this country,” he said.

Around 150 media outlets have been shut down and 160 journalists have been jailed, the Turkish Journalists Association says.

Earlier on Friday, Turkey’s highest court overturned a five-year jail sentence for Cumhuriyet’s former editor-in-chief, Can Dundar, saying he should face up to 20 years in prison on espionage charges, the state-run news agency Anadolu said.

Since the July 2016 coup attempt, more than 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from their jobs in Turkey, and another 50,000 have been arrested over alleged links to Gulen’s network.

Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile in the United States since 1999, has denied involvement in the abortive putsch, in which more than 240 people were killed.
…

A respected Russian-language business newspaper is reporting a 12-percent drop in President Vladimir Putin’s popularity in cities with more than 1 million inhabitants between mid-January and mid-February.

Moscow-based Vedomosti, which was once a joint venture between Dow Jones, the Financial Times and the publishers of The Moscow Times, based its report on a survey issued by the state-run Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM).

According to VTsIOM, Putin’s popularity fell from almost 70 percent to slightly above 57 percent in large and mid-size Russian cities whose populations cumulatively represent roughly one quarter of the electorate.

Valery Fyodorov, director of VTsIOM, was quick to deny the legitimacy of the survey findings his organization published in late February, which revealed the dip in Putin’s popularity.

A VTsIOM follow-up survey conducted from March 2-4, Fyodorov said, showed Putin’s 12-percent plunge was an “insignificant and temporary decrease.”

“On January 10, Putin’s popularity rose to almost 70 percent, and on February 18, it fell to 57.1 percent,” he said. “Now [Putin], in Moscow and St. Petersburg, has an approval rating of 63 percent.”

According to Meduza, a Latvia-based Russian language news outlet, “polls show the same trend” of a 12-percent drop “in cities with populations between 100,000 and 500,000 people.”

“Putin’s candidate rating has remained stable only in cities with populations between 500,000 and 950,000 people, and in smaller towns and villages,” the Meduza report says, adding that VTsIOM also shows an increasing number of undecided voters and people who endorse Pavel Grudinin, the Communist Party’s candidate, in large cities.

Competing ‘with himself’

In some independent Russian media such as Znak.com, where election 2018 is often called the “re-election of Vladimir Putin,” Kremlin officials are already preparing a rally and concert in Putin’s honor on March 18 or 19, when preliminary results of the vote will be announced.

Political scientist Nikolai Petrov of Moscow’s National Research University Higher School of Economics (NRUHSE) says although uneven voter turnout in cities and rural areas may not affect the outcome of the election, severe irregularities would be bad for Putin’s political legacy.

“In this sense, the Kremlin is in a difficult situation,” he told VOA’s Russian Service. “Because the last thing he wants is either a too wide a gap or too low a voter turnout in [Moscow or St. Petersburg], where it is very difficult for him to ensure high turnout.

“Putin is competing not with other presidential candidates, but with himself,” Petrov added, explaining that the aging Russian leader’s last re-election bid was met with massive streets protests in major cities. In this sense, he said, “he must not lose in a significant way in this internal, mental competition” to secure his long-term political and populist legitimacy.

Turnout key

According to NRUHSE social scientist Alexander Kynev, Putin and those tasked with ensuring his re-election walk a fine line when it comes to presenting research about his popular appeal. Excessively high popularity ratings for Putin, he said, risks giving his support base the impression that there is no need to bother going out to the polls.

“In this sense, it may be better to preserve the intrigue and induce the voter, regardless of the fact that the result looks predetermined, to come out and vote on March 18,” Kynev said.

The Kremlin’s preference for a high voter turnout to give a Putin re-election the appearance of democratic legitimacy has been widely reported in international media.

This story originated in VOA’s Russian Service. 
…

Spain’s Supreme Court on Friday turned down a request from a jailed Catalan separatist leader to attend the northeastern region’s parliament session, where lawmakers are due to vote on whether to make him president of Catalonia.

Judge Pablo Llarena wrote in a ruling that there was a risk that Jordi Sanchez would repeat the offenses that have landed him in jail. He ordered Sanchez kept in preventive detention without bail.

Sanchez, a prominent secessionist who was elected to parliament last December, has been held in a prison near Madrid since October. He is being detained while Llarena investigates whether he orchestrated protests that hindered officials trying to stop a court-banned Catalan independence referendum that month.

Catalonia’s parliament wants to vote on Sanchez as leader Monday in the latest confrontation with the Spanish government, which argues that anyone who is facing charges and is unable to be present at the debate and vote can’t be elected by the Catalan parliament. It isn’t clear whether Sanchez would have enough votes to be elected in Barcelona.

The Spanish Constitution says Spain is “indivisible,” but that hasn’t stopped separatists trying to break away despite repeated legal setbacks.

 Carles Puigdemont, Catalonia’s ex-leader who fled to Brussels to escape arrest, announced last week that he was temporarily withdrawing his bid to get his old job back and proposed Sanchez – his No. 2 in the Together for Catalonia party – in his place.

 
…

U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement of new tariffs on steel and aluminum is eliciting strong reactions at home and around the world.

America’s neighbors breathed a sigh of relief at being granted an exemption from the tariffs. Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said despite the concession, Canada would continue to push back.

“In recent days, we have worked energetically with our American counterparts to secure an exemption for Canada from these tariffs,” she said. “This work continues and it will continue until the prospect of these duties is fully and permanently lifted.”

Canada is the largest supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. Freeland ridiculed Trump’s national security justification for the measure, saying: “That Canada could pose any kind of security threat to the United States is inconceivable.”

​Allies combative

Other allies took an equally combative stance. 

“Protectionism, tariffs never really work,” British trade minister Liam Fox said Thursday. “We can deal multilaterally with the overproduction of steel, but this is the wrong way to go about it,” he said.

As did Canada, Fox said it was “doubly absurd” to target Britain with steel tariffs on national security grounds when it only provided the U.S. with 1 percent of its imports and made steel for the American military.

France said it “regrets” Trump’s decision. 

“There are only losers in a trade war. With our EU partners, we will assess consequences on our industries and agree (to an) appropriate response,” Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire tweeted Thursday.

Last week, Le Maire had warned that any such measures by the U.S. would be “unacceptable” and called for a “strong, coordinated, united response from the EU.”

​Negotiate exemptions

During the announcement of the tariffs, the White House said that countries concerned by the tariffs could try to negotiate possible exemptions.

“The EU is a close ally of the U.S. and we continue to think that the EU must be exempted from these measures,” said EU Commissioner for Trade, Cecilia Malmstrom.

“I will demand more clarity on this issue in the days to come,” she said.

Invitation to a trade war

Others also panned the tariffs as an invitation to a trade war. 

“If you put tariffs against your allies, one wonders who the enemies are,” said the president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned, “Choosing a trade war is a mistaken prescription. The outcome will only be harmful. China would have to make a justified and necessary response.”

Brazil also said it planned such negotiations. 

“We will work to exclude Brazil from this measure,” acting Trade Minister Marcos Jorge told Reuters. Brazil is the United States’ No. 2 steel supplier.

​Mixed reactions on Capitol Hill

Many of the reactions around Washington were mixed.

“There are unquestionably bad trade practices by nations like China, but the better approach is targeted enforcement of those bad practices. Our economy and our national security are strengthened by fostering free trade with our allies,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said.

Senator Jeff Flake, R-Arizona, who is not planning to seek re-election, said he will “immediately” draft legislation that attempts to block the tariffs.

“These so-called ‘flexible tariffs’ are a marriage of two lethal poisons to economic growth: protectionism and uncertainty,” Flake said in a statement. “Trade wars are not won, they are only lost.”

But Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virgina said he was “excited” by the idea of tariffs.

“I’m encouraged, I really am, and I think it gives us a chance to basically reboot, get jobs back to West Virginia, back to America,” he said.
…

British Prime Minister Theresa May is promising an “appropriate” response if it is discovered that Russia is responsible for poisoning a former Russian spy and his daughter.

“But let’s give the police the time and space to actually conduct their investigation,” she told ITV news Thursday. “Of course, if action needs to be taken, then the government … will do that properly at the right time and on the basis of the best evidence.”

Home Secretary Amber Rudd told Parliament “the use of a nerve agent on British soil is a brazen and reckless act. This was attempted murder in the most cruel and public way.”

A police official told Britain’s Sky News a total of 21 people were injured by the nerve agent released near a shopping center in the southern city of Salisbury.

Three people are still in the hospital — the apparent intended target, former Russian spy Sergei Skripal; his daughter, Yulia; and British policeman Nick Bailey, who came to their aid after he found the two slumped unconscious on an outdoor bench.

An eyewitness told British reporters Yulia Skripal was passed out, frothing at the mouth with her eyes “wide open, but completely white.” He said, “the man went stiff, his arms stopped moving, but he was still looking dead straight.”

Skripal and his daughter were still unconscious and in critical condition as of late Thursday. Bailey was in serious condition, but awake.

Police have been examining security camera footage of the crime scene and are reportedly focusing their attention on a man and woman spotted nearby.

Police have not publicly talked about the nerve agent that poisoned Skripal or who might have been responsible.

But suspicions are pointing to Russia. 

Skripal served in Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU. He was exchanged in a Cold War-type spy swap in 2010 on the runway at Vienna’s airport.

After serving four years in prison in Russia for spying for Britain’s espionage service, MI6, Skripal was one of four Russian double agents exchanged for 10 Russians expelled from the United States, including Manhattan socialite Anna Chapman.

The incident is drawing comparisons to the case of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian KGB officer-turned-British intelligence agent and a highly public critic of President Vladimir Putin.

Litvinenko died an agonizing death days after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel in 2006. British doctors struggled in that case to identify the substance that killed him.

A British inquiry concluded Putin probably approved the killing. The conclusion was angrily dismissed by the Kremlin as a politically motivated smear.

Russia is also denying any involvement in the Skripal poisoning.
…

Georgian legislators in Tbilisi are mulling an expedited North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) membership strategy following nearly a decade of frustrated efforts to join the military alliance.

NATO leaders pledged in 2008 to secure membership for Georgia and Ukraine but stopped short of granting the former Soviet republics Membership Action Plan (MAP) status, which would speed membership.

Now, Tbilisi lawmakers say they are seriously considering a fast-track approach recently put forward by the Washington-based Heritage Foundation think tank.

“In accordance to our national priorities and by consultations with our strategic partners, we will make every effort to accelerate our integration,” Georgian Parliamentary Speaker Irakli Kobakhidze told VOA, referring to the Heritage proposal to grant membership by temporarily excluding the country’s Russian-occupied territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee.

Article 5 says an attack on one member is considered an attack on all members, which is why Moscow strongly opposes the NATO ambitions of Georgia in particular.

“Many are worried that Georgia’s NATO membership will mean automatic war with Russia over the occupied regions,” said Luke Coffey, the analyst who drafted the proposal for the conservative-leaning think tank. “Georgia can be invited to join NATO by amending Article 6 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty.”

Article 6 defines specific territories within a given nation that would be subject to NATO’s Article 5 security guarantee.

“This amendment can be made with Georgia’s accession protocol as it was in 1951 when Turkey and Greece joined the alliance,” said Coffey, describing his fast-track proposal as a temporary measure that would last until — and if — “Georgia’s full, internationally recognized territory is re-established by peaceful and diplomatic means.”

Although Georgia pledged in 2010 to not use force to try to regain control of the two breakaway regions, Russia never reciprocated and continues to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries. The regions comprise 20 percent of Georgian territory, where Russia has maintained thousands of troops since fighting a five-day war against Tbilisi in 2008.

Coffey says offering Georgia NATO membership with an amended Article 6 would allow Georgia to join NATO more quickly and prevent Moscow from keeping other countries out of NATO by effectively occupying part of their territory.

However a top NATO official, who spoke on condition she not be identified, told VOA that the Brussels-based alliance believes Georgia should be able to enter NATO intact.

“Georgia will not be forced to choose between its territorial integrity and membership in NATO,” she said. “We call upon Russia to reverse its recognition of these territories, to stop the construction of border-like obstacles along the administrative boundary lines and to abide by its international commitments.

“This principle is stated in international agreements including the Helsinki Final Act and the NATO-Russia Founding Act, both signed by Russia,” she added. “No third country has a right to interfere on the issue of NATO membership. We support the right of all our partners to make independent and sovereign choices on foreign and security policy, free from external pressure or coercion.”

NATO-readiness questioned

Critics of Georgia’s NATO accession, such as William Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Georgia, say Tbilisi hasn’t proven that it is ready for membership.

“NATO allies need to be sure that Georgia can accept the financial burden of NATO membership,” Courtney told VOA.

“Currently, Georgia’s per capita gross domestic product is far below NATO average — it’s only one-fourth as high as the Baltic states,” he said, adding that Georgian rule of law and subpar territorial defenses were also impediments to accession. “Once Georgia is ready to go into NATO, Russia will think harder about engaging in aggression against Georgia because Georgia at that point will be stronger in its defense, stronger in its democracy and economy.”

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, however, has said, “Georgia has all the practical tools to become a member.”

Georgia is currently the fourth-largest contributor to NATO’s Resolute Support Mission in Afghanistan, where 870 Georgian military personnel help train, advise and assist Afghan defense and security forces. Georgia was the largest non-NATO troop contributor to the International Security Assistance Force until the program was terminated in 2014.

“NATO [has] accepted countries that were less ready for membership than Georgia is today,” said Mamuka Tsereteli, a senior fellow with the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program for transatlantic research and policy.

This story originated in VOA’s Georgian service.
…

Rallies are being held across the globe Thursday to both celebrate International Women’s Day, and to demand an end to the exploitation, discrimination and violence that women continue to face.

In the Philippine capital of Manila, hundreds of women dressed in pink and purple took to the streets to protest the 4,000 people killed under President Rodrigo Duterte and his heavy-handed crackdown on illicit drugs.

Human rights activists say Duterte’s vow to kill thousands of illicit drug dealers have led police to carry out extrajudicial killings of suspected dealers and users.

In Seoul, women’s groups used the day to boost support for the American-born “Me Too” movement against sexual assault in the workplace. The movement has spread across the Asian economic giant after a female prosecutor revealed in January that she had been assaulted by a colleague several years ago, leading to the downfall of numerous high-profile men, including a provincial governor who was a leading presidential contender before he was accused of raping his secretary.

And women in Spain will walkout from their jobs Thursday as part of a “feminist strike” to highlight the social and economic disparities between men and women, including huge differences in pay. A recent study found that Spanish women on average were paid nearly 13 percent less than their male colleagues.

In the Indian capital, New Delhi, hundreds of women carrying placards and banners that read “United we fight, United we win,” Don’t Rape,” and “My body, My choice,” marched through the streets to protest domestic violence, sexual attacks and discrimination in jobs and wages.

In Myanmar, de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi urged women to build peaceful democracies using their strength in politics, economics and social issues.

In Afghanistan, hundreds of women, who would have been afraid to leave their homes during Taliban rule, gathered in the capital, Kabul, to remind their leaders that plenty of work remains to be done to give Afghan woman a voice, ensure their education and protect them from increasing violence.

And in China, students at Tsinghua University used the occasion to make light of a proposed constitutional amendment to scrap term limits for the country’s president.
…

British Home Secretary Amber Rudd said Thursday will have a plan ready to respond if investigators identify someone responsible for a nerve agent attack against a former Russian double agent.

“There is nothing soft about the UK’s response to any sort of state activity in this country,” she told the BBC. “You may not hear about it all, but when we do see that there is action to be taken, we will take it.”

British counterterrorism police have said Sergei Skripal and his 33-year-old daughter were poisoned by a nerve agent Sunday in the normally quiet town of Salisbury.

A police officer who was part of the initial response to the incident was hospitalized. Rudd said Thursday the officer remained in serious condition but was able to talk.

“This is being treated as a major incident of involving attempted murder by the administration of a nerve agent,” Metropolitan Police counterterrorism chief Mark Rowley said. He would not identify the exact substance used or how it was delivered.

The poisoning is threatening a full-scale security and diplomatic crisis for Britain, with lawmakers demanding the government launch an urgent inquiry into more than a dozen recent suspicious deaths in Britain, all potentially tied to Russian intelligence services.

Skripal, 66, and his daughter, Yulia, are fighting for their lives after being found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping mall. Police have been examining CCTV footage and reportedly have focused their attention on a man and woman spotted nearby.

On Tuesday, Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, prompted sharp Russian rebuttals when he assured British lawmakers the government would get to the bottom of the mystery and threatened the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, if the Kremlin were found to have been responsible. Johnson said while he was not pointing the finger at this stage, he described Russia as “a malign and disruptive force.”

His remarks were characterized by Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova as “wild.” Russian diplomats in London accused Johnson of “demonizing” their country.

Mark Edele, a Russia analyst at the University of Melbourne in Australia, told VOA investigators may never know who was responsible.

“If Russia is behind this, they will certainly deny it. If they’re not behind it, they will also deny it,” Edele said. “And the only way to really find out would be to catch whoever did this, which given the level of professionalism involved is probably unlikely.”

The incident is drawing comparisons to Alexander Litvinenko, a highly public critic of President Putin and a Russian KGB officer-turned-British intelligence agent, who died agonizingly, days after drinking tea laced with radioactive polonium-210 in a London hotel in 2006. British doctors struggled in that case to identify the substance that killed him.

A British inquiry concluded the Russian leader probably approved the killing. The conclusion was dismissed angrily by the Kremlin as a politically motivated smear.

An eyewitness to the discovery of Skripal and his daughter, Jamie Paine, told British reporters the woman was passed out, frothing at the mouth and her eyes “were wide open, but completely white.” He said, “The man went stiff, his arms stopped moving, but he was still looking dead straight.” Adding to alarm, one of the emergency service workers who attended the pair has also been hospitalized.

Skripal, who served in Russia’s military intelligence agency, GRU, was exchanged in a Cold War-type spy swap in 2010 on the runway at Vienna’s airport. After serving four years in prison in Russia for spying for Britain’s espionage service, MI6, he was one of four Russian double agents exchanged for 10 Russian sleeper agents expelled from the United States, including Manhattan socialite and diplomat’s daughter Anna Chapman.

At the time, Putin, a former KGB officer, issued televised threats against those who had betrayed Russia. “Traitors will kick the bucket. Trust me. These people betrayed their friends, their brothers-in-arms. Whatever they got in exchange for it, those 30 pieces of silver they were given, they will choke on them,” he said.

In 2006, a new Russian law was adopted formally permitting extra-judicial killings abroad of people Russian authorities deemed extremist or terrorists, allowing the Russian president alone to order a killing.

.

Skripal had spied for Britain during the 1990s and continued to communicate with MI6 after his retirement in 1999 from the GRU, while working at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Moscow.

Russian prosecutors said Skripal received at least $100,000 for his collaboration with MI6, according to Russian news outlets. At his trial he admitted selling the names, addresses and code names of “several dozen” Russian agents operating in Europe to MI6 over a period of 10 years. British intelligence officials say Skripal identified as many as 300 Russian spies and moles.

A year after the spy swap, he bought a house in Salisbury for $360,000. He lived apparently quietly there with his wife, Lyudmila, until her death from cancer five years ago. But a relative told BBC Russia, “From the first day, he knew it would end badly, and that he would not be left alone,” he said.

As British investigators piece together what happened to Skripal, senior British lawmakers say other suspicious Russia-linked deaths during the past two decades need to be re-examined.

Among them: former oligarch Boris Berezovsky; Scot Young, a businessman impaled on an iron fence after a fall from a window; Badri Patarkatsishvili, a Georgian oligarch who died of an apparent heart attack in 2008; Yuri Golubev, an outspoken Putin critic, and Alexander Perepilichny, who fled Russia for London and gave evidence of high-level corruption to Swiss authorities.

VOA’s Jamie Dettmer, Victor Beattie and Chris Hannas contributed to this report.
…

A number of eastern European states have ramped up their opposition to a new gas pipeline linking Russia with Germany.

The Nord Stream 2 project will bring Russian gas directly to Western Europe, but critics say it will increase dependence on Russia and enrich its state-owned energy firms, at a time when Moscow stands accused of undermining European security.

The $11 billion, 1,225-kilometer pipeline is on schedule for completion next year. It is a private project backed by Russian state-owned Gazprom and five energy companies from Germany, France, Britain and the Netherlands. It also has the strong backing of the German and Russian governments.

“We support the implementation of this project which is undoubtedly, absolutely free from politics. This is a purely economic and moreover purely commercial project,” Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters after meeting the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, last week in Moscow. Kurz also offered his support for the project.

Doing business with Putin

Many eastern states, however, say Europe should not be engaged in big business with President Putin. Some of the most vocal critics have been the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, whose foreign ministers traveled to Washington last week to meet Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“Security these days is increasingly indivisible. There’s no clear division between internal and external security and also geographically,” Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser told reporters in Washington ahead of the meeting.

The United States is opposed to Nord Stream 2, having sanctioned Russian companies over Moscow’s annexation of Crimea, along with foreign companies involved in Russian energy exploration. So far, those sanctions don’t affect the new pipeline.

The European Commission also opposes the project but says there are no legal grounds to prevent the private investment from going ahead.

WATCH: Europe Split on Nord Stream 2 Pipeline as US Warns Against Dependence on Russian Gas

Softening sanctions

Opponents fear any additional revenues for Russia from Nord Stream 2 would soften the impact of sanctions. Many Eastern European states also question whether the new pipeline will benefit them economically, says Noah Gordon, analyst at the Center for European Reform, a London-based research group.

“There could be bottlenecks through central Europe and Eastern Europe, and those places could see prices rise and they might be more exposed to a Russian political gas cutoff. Ukraine would lose about $2 billion a year in transit fees.”

Currently, more than half of Russian gas exports to Europe are routed through Ukraine. Supporters of Nord Stream 2 say it would increase security of supply, citing recent price disputes between Moscow and Kyiv.

The EU hopes to mitigate the risk of increased dependence on Russia by investing in connecting pipelines across European borders.

“The goal is a resilient gas market where gas flows freely across borders,” Gordon said. “For two years, Ukraine hasn’t bought any gas from Russia. Instead they buy gas, Russian gas usually, indirectly from European traders like Germany, like the Dutch. So if the European gas market was in a strong enough state and if Europe was more energy efficient and used less gas, Russian or otherwise, Russia wouldn’t be able to meddle or use gas as a weapon ever again.”

Poland and Lithuania, which vehemently oppose Nord Stream 2, have built terminals for liquefied natural gas, or LNG. The United States wants to boost its LNG exports to Europe.

Both Europe and the U.S. hope that a diversified supply will help reduce Russia’s ability to use gas as a political weapon.
…

Two Democratic senators on Wednesday asked major vendors of U.S. voting equipment whether they have allowed Russian entities to scrutinize their software, saying the practice could allow Moscow to hack into American elections infrastructure.

The letter from Senators Amy Klobuchar and Jeanne Shaheen followed a series of Reuters reports saying that several major global technology providers have allowed Russian authorities to hunt for vulnerabilities in software deeply embedded across the U.S. government.

The senators requested that the three largest election equipment vendors — Election Systems & Software, Dominion Voting Systems and Hart Intercivic — answer whether they have shared source code, or inner workings, or other sensitive data about their technology with any Russian entity.
…

The International Monetary Fund and European leaders pushed back Wednesday against U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, saying it would provoke a calamitous global trade war.

IMF chief Christine Lagarde told a European radio interviewer, “If international trade is called into question by these types of measures, it will be a transmission channel for a drop in growth, a drop in trade and it will be fearsome. In a trade war that will be fed by reciprocal increases of customs tariffs, no one wins.”

Lagarde said the IMF is “anxious” that U.S. tariff increases not be imposed, saying, “We are urging the sides to reach agreements, hold negotiations, consultations.”

Trump boasted last week that trade wars “are good and easy to win” after he announced plans for a 25 percent U.S. tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent levy on aluminum exported to the United States.

The proposal has drawn widespread criticism from his normal Republican colleagues in Congress and U.S. foreign allies, but support from economic nationalists in the United States and a handful of Democratic lawmakers in manufacturing states whose fortunes could be boosted by the tariffs protecting their metal industries.

EU retaliation

European Council President Donald Tusk rebutted Trump’s contention about trade conflicts, saying, “The truth is quite the opposite: Trade wars are bad and easy to lose. For this reason I strongly believe that now is the time for politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to act responsibly.”

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, detailed retaliatory tariffs it plans to impose on prominent U.S. products if Trump carries out his plan to impose the metal tariffs, taxing Harley-Davidson motorcycles, bourbon, blue jeans, cranberries, orange juice and peanut butter.

Trump has claimed the United States needs to impose the steel and aluminum tariffs to protect its national security, but European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem dismissed his rationale.

“We cannot see how the European Union, friends and allies in NATO, can be a threat to international security in the U.S.,” Malmstroem said. “From what we understand, the motivation of the U.S. is an economic safeguard measure in disguise, not a national security measure.”

Denmark Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said if a trade war starts between the United States and the European Union, “at the end of the day, European and American consumers will pay for it. That is the signal we have to send to Trump that it is not a path we should follow.”

Moody’s Investors Service said the planned tariffs “raise the risk of a deterioration in global trade relations.”

Despite the criticism, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump is “on track” to make the formal announcement on the tariffs by the end of the week.

Cutting the trade deficit

Trump said on Twitter that since former President George H.W. Bush was in the White House 30 years ago, “our Country has lost more than 55,000 factories, 6,000,000 manufacturing jobs and accumulated Trade Deficits of more than $12 trillion.”

Trump claimed the United States last year had a trade deficit of “almost $800 billion,” significantly overstating the actual figure of $566 billion, which still was the biggest U.S. trade deficit in nine years. A new report Wednesday said the U.S. trade deficit in January – the amount its imports exceeded its exports – reached $56.6 billion, the highest monthly total since October 2008.

“Bad Policies & Leadership. Must WIN again!” Trump said.

In another tweet, Trump said the United States has asked China “to develop a plan for the year of a One Billion Dollar reduction in their massive Trade Deficit with the United States. Our relationship with China has been a very good one, and we look forward to seeing what ideas they come back with. We must act soon!”

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the planned steel and aluminum tariffs were “thought through. We’re not looking for a trade war.”

He said the Trump administration could take a “surgical approach” to new tariffs, exempting some countries, specifically Canada and Mexico, if revisions are reached in the ongoing negotiations over changes in the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement.

Ross added that it is “not inconceivable that others could be exempted on a similar basis.”

Stocks prices fell in the U.S. markets with the turmoil over the tariffs and the resignation Tuesday of Gary Cohn, Trump’s chief economic adviser, an economic globalist who had opposed the steel and aluminum tariffs, but lost the internal White House debate.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 key stocks dropped a half percentage point in early Wednesday trading and other markets dropped too.

Trump promised to quickly replace Cohn, saying, “Many people wanting the job — will choose wisely!”
…

China and Russia are working to expand their influence across Africa, hoping to outspend or out-compete the United States, U.S. officials warn, describing it as part of a larger effort by both countries to reshape the world order.

For months, top national security officials have been talking about the reemergence of what they describe as a great power competition, calling out China and Russia as the two countries doing the most to counter the United States.

Officials say the efforts by Beijing and Moscow are both regional and global, with both pursuing strategies to deny the U.S. access to conflict zones in times of crisis and to commercial markets in times of peace.

And in Africa, both are trying to portray themselves as viable, if not essential, alternatives to the United States.

On Tuesday, the commander of U.S. forces in Africa told lawmakers it is now critical for African countries to know Washington can and will remain a steadfast partner.

“It’s important that we’re there, that we’re present and that the African people see our commitment,” U.S. Africa Command’s Gen. Thomas Waldhauser told the House Armed Services Committee.

China’s expanding influence

Concerns about China’s ever-expanding reach into Africa are not new. U.S. intelligence warned this past September (2017) that Beijing’s first overseas military base, at Doraleh, in the east African nation of Djibouti, was likely to be the first of many.

“China seeks to build [military bases] around the world, creating new areas of intersecting, and potentially conflicting, security interests between China and the United States,” an intelligence official said at the time.

For U.S. Africa Command, perhaps no situation is as concerning as the one in Djibouti, home to Camp Lemonnier, the only permanent U.S. military installation on the African continent and a hub for U.S. counterterror operations.

Gen. Waldhauser described the Chinese military base at Doraleh as, “right outside our gates.” And despite some efforts to work with the Chinese, in areas like medical aid and training, U.S. defense officials remain wary.

“We are not naïve,” said Waldhauser Tuesday. “We are taking significant steps on the counterintelligence side so that we have all the defenses that we need.”

But China’s military might in Africa, including its approximately 2,500 peacekeepers, is not what has U.S. defense, intelligence and diplomatic officials most concerned.

Rather, they point to the way Beijing relies on economic aid and promises of development to bring countries like Djibouti into its sphere of influence.

“The Chinese there are building facilities. They’re building a shopping mall. They built a soccer stadium,” Waldhauser said. “They built the infrastructure for communications in Djibouti.”

“When we talk about influence and access, this is a classic example,” he added. “We’ll never outspend the Chinese.”

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Tuesday went as far as to accuse China of “encouraging dependency” in its approach to the continent.

WATCH:  Tillerson Touts Africa As Key to Global Security

“Chinese investment does have the potential to address Africa’s infrastructure gap but its approach has led to mounting debt and few, if any, jobs in most countries. When coupled with the political and fiscal pressure, this endangers Africa’s natural resources and its long-term economic, political stability,” noted Tillerson in a speech hours before leaving on a five-country African trip.

Other U.S. officials have also raised concerns about the high levels of debt some nations are incurring as they increasingly accept Chinese loans. By some U.S. estimates, Djibouti, which is home to the U.S. military base, owes more than $1.2 billion to Beijing.

That has sparked fears among some U.S. lawmakers that China could make a play to take control of Djibouti’s key port, the Doraleh Container Terminal.

Djibouti took control of the port citing a contract dispute with the former operator, Dubai-based DP World.

“Reports that I’ve read say that they didn’t seize it for purposes of operating it for profit, but that they actually intend to gift it to China,” Republican Representative Bradley Byrne (from Louisiana) said during Tuesday’s hearing with Africa Command’s Gen. Waldhauser.

“The Chinese aren’t there for purely charitable reasons,” Byrne said. “We all would recognize that.”

U.S. defense officials admit that if China does take over the port and decides to impose any restrictions, the consequences could be significant – impacting the military’s ability to refuel ships and to resupply Camp Lemonnier and other outposts across Africa.

Russia’s focus on Africa

Russia, too, is making Africa more of a focus.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visits Africa this week, starting with a stop in Zimbabwe, where Moscow has been cultivating economic ties, including a $3 billion investment in platinum mining, while also pursuing deeper military ties.

There has also been extensive Russian outreach to northern African nations, particularly countries like Libya which border on the Mediterranean.

“Our concern would be their ability to influence and be on the southern flank of NATO, and also them to kind of squeeze us out, if you will, by them taking a prominent role,” said U.S. Africa Command’s Waldhauser.

Russian officials say they have no plans to back down.

“African countries view the development of cooperation in the military and technical sphere as an instrument of ensuring their sovereignty, independence and countering the pressure of Western countries,” Andrei Kemarksy, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Africa Department told the Tass news agency last month.

“We are training both military and police personnel for peacekeeping operations,” Kemarksy added.

 
…

The European Union is cool to the idea of Britain’s “associate membership” in various agencies of the bloc as proposed by London to make Brexit less disruptive for British business.

Britain started a process to leave the EU last year because it no longer wants to accept the authority of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the free movement of workers, and it does not want to contribute to the EU budget.

But it is keen to keep most of its other links with the EU, especially unfettered access to the EU’s market.

EU officials call this approach “cherry-picking,” where London chooses the areas it wants for closer association but does not accept the obligations linked to it in other areas. 

Last Friday, Prime Minister Theresa May floated the idea of Britain’s remaining an associate member of the European Medicines Agency, the European Chemicals Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency after Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.

She said London understood this meant abiding by the rules of those agencies and financial contributions. But EU officials involved in the negotiations on the terms of Britain’s exit from the bloc and deciding on the future trade relationship were not impressed.

“It is not so much ‘how’ they participate. That’s a technicality. The bigger question is ‘if’ they should participate. Why would we let them in?” one official said.

“The bottom line is that the U.K. approach is cherry-picking.

“The EU has a vast number of agencies, and I think we’d think twice to let the U.K. ‘associate’ itself with a selected number they choose because they have an interest,” the official said.

Brussels officials pointed out that an “associate membership” — a status that does not exist yet and would have to be created especially for Britain — would not give London the kind of access to the EU single market it sought.

“It is not possible to accept ECJ oversight in only some segments of business in the EU and not in others,” a second EU official said. “The single market is not made of bits and pieces you can pick and choose.”

An “associate membership” status would also likely involve complex legal work in the EU to create it.

“The willingness to change regulations in order to accommodate the U.K.’s wishes … is limited because it entails lengthy legislative procedures,” a third official said.

The chairman of EU leaders, Donald Tusk, will present draft guidelines for the EU’s future trade deal with Britain in Luxembourg on Wednesday.

‘Freedom implies responsibility’

The closest to an “associate membership” the EU has now is with countries in the European Economic Area but not EU members — Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland — which can take part in meetings, but they do not have voting rights.

Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said last November that the work of the EU agencies was based on EU laws, which Britain no longer wants to accept and should then go on and build its own.

“The same people who argue for setting the U.K. free also argue that the U.K. should remain in some EU agencies. But freedom implies responsibility for building new U.K. administrative capacity,” Barnier said.

“On our side, the 27 will continue to deepen the work of those agencies, together. They will share the costs for running those agencies. Our businesses will benefit from their expertise. All of their work is firmly based on the EU treaties, which the U.K. decided to leave,” he said.

May argued in her speech last week that every trade agreement, which focused on some aspects of an economy more than on others, was some form of “cherry-picking.”

“With all its neighbors the EU has varying levels of access to the single market, depending on the obligations those neighbors are willing to undertake,” she said.

“What would be cherry-picking would be if we were to seek a deal where our rights and obligations were not held in balance. And I have been categorically clear that is not what we are going to do,” she said.

But EU officials said that Britain would get the trade agreement it sought with the EU only if it agreed to balance the rights and obligations in a way that would not pick apart the EU single market.

The bloc would also have to make sure that the deal is less attractive than EU membership.

“Nobody asked after the EU trade agreement with Canada, or Korea: ‘Why can’t we be like Canada or Korea?’ The point is that also after Brexit, nobody should ask themselves: ‘Why can’t we be like Britain?’ ” the second official said.
…

The Vatican on Tuesday signaled its concern over the results of Italy’s national election, which saw sharp gains for populist and anti-immigrant parties.

The biggest winners were the League — the largest party in a center-right grouping that employed the most fiery anti-migrant rhetoric during the campaign — and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, was asked on the sidelines of a conference on immigration if the Holy See was worried about the results.

“The Holy See has to work in whatever conditions arise. We can’t (always) have the society that we would like to have, or the conditions that we would like to have,” he told the Catholic news agency SIR.

It was the Vatican’s first public reaction to the results and its most authoritative because Parolin, its top diplomat, ranks second only to Pope Francis in the Holy See’s hierarchy.

During the campaign, League leader Matteo Salvini clashed with the pope several times over immigration.

When Francis backed a proposed law that would have granted Italian citizenship to children born in Italy of immigrant parents — something the League vehemently opposed — Salvini said Francis could house the children in the Vatican if he wanted to.

Political squabbling blocked discussion of the law before parliament was dissolved ahead of the elections.

Salvini also criticized the pope for promoting dialogue with Islam. Many of the Africans who made the dangerous crossing of the Mediterranean to reach Italy are Muslim.

Parolin said at the conference that the Vatican realized that the election results meant it would have to continue “a work of education” about the dignity and rights of immigrants.

Surveys show Italians are increasingly uneasy after more than 600,000 migrants reached Italy by boat in four years. Last month, a neo-Nazi wounded six migrants in a shooting spree in central Italy.

“Citizens must feel safe and protected but at the same time we can’t slam doors in the faces of people who are fleeing violence and threats,” Parolin said.

The pope, who was born in Argentina of Italian immigrant stock, has championed the cause of migrants since taking office in 2013.

Last year he called for a radical change of attitude towards immigrants, saying they should be welcomed with dignity and denouncing the “populist rhetoric” he said was fueling fear and selfishness in rich countries.

The center-right has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of migrants if they are able to form a government. 5-Star has also vowed to step up deportations of illegal immigrants.
…

At least 21 Libyan migrants who were trying to make the dangerous Mediterranean Sea journey to Italy late last week are missing and feared drowned. 

The U.N. migration agency said Tuesday that they were part of a large group who had set off from Libya aboard a wooden boat and a rubber dinghy and had to be rescued at sea.

Survivors said there was a panic on one of the vessels and people fell overboard, but the details of what happened were unclear.

The Libyan Coast Guard returned some to Libya while a Cypriot commercial ship picked up others. They arrived at the Italian port of Pozzallo on Tuesday.

The number of migrants trying to reach European Union nations from Libya is down substantially from the same time last year, in part because of an agreement between Libya and Italy to immediately return most of those picked up at sea.

U.N. migration officials said 421 people had died trying to sail to Italy so far this year, compared with 521 at the same time in 2017.

But they said more than 100 had died trying to reach Spain in an equally dangerous western sea journey.
…

As U.S. influence in Islamabad wanes, Pakistan’s former adversary Russia is building military, diplomatic and economic ties that could upend historic alliances in the region and open up a fast-growing gas market for Moscow’s energy companies.

Russia’s embrace of Pakistan comes at a time when relations between the United States and its historical ally are unravelling over the war in Afghanistan, a remarkable turnaround from the 1980s, when Pakistan helped funnel weapons and U.S. spies across the border to aid Afghan fighters battling Soviet troops.

Though the Moscow-Islamabad rapprochement is in its infancy, and it is neighbor China that is filling the growing void left by the United States in Pakistan, a slew of energy deals and growing military cooperation promise to spark life into the Russia-Pakistan relationship that was dead for many decades.

“It is an opening,” Khurram Dastgir Khan, Pakistan’s defense minister, told Reuters. “Both countries have to work through the past to open the door to the future.”

Watching Islamic State

The cosier diplomatic ties have so far focused on Afghanistan, where Russia has cultivated ties to the Afghan Taliban militants who are fighting U.S. troops and have historic links to Islamabad. Moscow says it is encouraging peace negotiations.

Both Russia and Pakistan are also alarmed by the presence of Islamic State (IS) inside Afghanistan, with Moscow concerned the group’s fighters could spread towards central Asia and closer to home. In Pakistan, IS has already carried out major attacks.

“We have common ground on most issues at diplomatic levels,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Reuters. “It’s a relationship that will grow substantially in the future.”

During a trip to Moscow last month by Pakistan’s foreign minister, Khawaja Asif, the two countries announced plans to establish a commission on military cooperation to combat the threat of IS in the region.

They also agreed to continue annual military training exercises that began in 2016 and followed the sale of four Russian attack helicopters to Pakistan, as well as the purchase of Russian engines for the Pakistan Air Force’s JF-17 fighter jets that Pakistan’s military assembles on its own soil.

India voices concern

The detente has been watched with suspicion by Pakistan’s neighbor and arch-foe India, which broadly stood in the Soviet camp during the Cold War era. In the last two decades, the close Russia-India relationship has been underpinned by huge arms sales by Moscow to a country it calls a “strategic partner.”

“If the Russians start backing the Pakistanis in a big way at the political level, then it creates a problem for us,” said Sushant Sareen, a leading expert on India’s relations to Pakistan and Afghanistan with New Delhi-based Observer Research Foundation.

India’s foreign ministry did not respond to a request for comment on Russia’s ties with Pakistan, but has previously said that its own relations with Moscow have stood the test of time, and that the two nations are building up defence and energy relations, including collaboration on nuclear reactors in India.

Pivoting east

Russian overtures to Pakistan offer a badly needed diplomatic lifeline for the South Asian nation as it faces growing friction with Western powers over its alleged links to militants.

At U.S. urging, and with backing from Britain, France and Germany, a global financial watchdog, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), last month decided to place Pakistan back on its watchlist of countries with inadequate terrorist-financing controls, potentially hurting Pakistan’s fragile economy.

The U.S. move, which Islamabad angrily dismissed as an effort to “embarrass” Pakistan, followed Washington’s announcement in January to suspend $2 billion in military assistance.

Asif, Pakistan’s foreign minister, said his nation made a historical error by “tilting 100 percent” to the West and was now eager build alliances closer to home with the likes of China, Russia and Turkey.

“We want to correct the imbalance of our foreign policy over 70 years,” Asif told Reuters. “We are not divorcing that relationship (with the West). But we want to have a balance in our relationships, we want to be closer to our friends in our region.”

Defense minister Khan said Pakistan’s military, which has historically been heavily reliant on U.S. weapons and aircraft, may have no choice but to ramp up purchases from the likes of Russia.

Cooling relationship

The cooling relationship with Washington is already pushing Islamabad closer to China, which is investing about $60 billion in infrastructure in Pakistan. But analysts say Pakistan is wary of becoming overly dependent diplomatically on Beijing.

Pakistan is among several nations that have been courted by Moscow after falling out with Washington, including the Philippines and Qatar, but Russia’s long-term aims for the Pakistan relationship are unclear, according to Petr Topychkanov, a senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

“It’s not very transparent, even in Russia,” he said. “There is no serious public debate, there is no detailed explanation to the Russian public about what Russia wants in Pakistan.”

Russia’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Moscow’s increasingly close relations with Pakistan.

Huge power projects

Russia and Pakistan are negotiating potential energy deals worth in excess of $10 billion, according to Pakistani energy officials.

Asif said four to five huge power projects “will cement our relationship further.”

Russia last month appointed an honorary council in the Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pukhtunkhwa province, where its companies are in talks to build an oil refinery and a power station.

But the biggest deals focus on gas supply and infrastructure to Pakistan, one of the world’s fastest growing liquefied natural gas (LNG) import markets.

“On a strategic basis, Russia is coming in very fast on the energy side,” said a senior Pakistani energy official.

In October, Pakistan and Russia signed an inter-governmental agreement (IGA) on energy, paving the way for Russian state-giant Gazprom to enter negotiations to supply LNG to Pakistan.

The talks are expected to conclude within three months and Gazprom is considered “one of the front-runner” to clinch a long-term supply deal, according to the Pakistani official.

$9 billion deal

Based on two monthly LNG cargo deliveries, that deal would be worth about $9 billion over 15 years, he added.

There is also growing confidence that a gas pipeline due to be built by Russia, stretching 1,100 km (680 miles) from Lahore to the port city of Karachi, will go ahead.

U.S. sanctions against Russian state conglomerate Rostec, as well as a dispute over North-South pipeline transport fees, have held up the $2 billion project since it was signed in 2015.

The North-South pipeline would be the biggest infrastructure deal by Russia since early 1970s, when Soviet engineers constructed the Pakistan Steel Mills industrial complex.

A Russian company, according to defense minister Khan, is eying up a deal to take over the disused Soviet-built steel mills.
…

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday she would work with France to tackle pressing issues such as trade policy, the war in Syria and competition with China after the Social Democrats (SPD) approved joining a coalition with her conservatives.

Merkel welcomed the vote by a clear majority of SPD members that ended more than five months of political deadlock after an inconclusive election, and she said the right-left government must quickly get to work.

“What we’re seeing and hearing every day is that Europe needs to step up and Germany needs to have a strong voice there along with France and other member states [of the European Union],” said Merkel during a brief statement to reporters.

Priorities included international trade policy, on which many jobs in Europe’s largest economy depend, ensuring open competition with China and dealing with the “scary situation” in Syria.

“It is important that we start working as soon as possible,” Merkel said.

U.S. President Donald Trump last week stunned his European allies with plans to put tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, triggering a warning by the European Union that it would retaliate with counter-measures.

Sunday’s SPD vote result brought relief to German businesses and European capitals, which say the euro zone would benefit from Merkel being able to partner with French President Emmanuel Macron on ambitious plans to reform the single currency bloc.

But discord within the coalition could hamper Merkel’s ability to tackle challenges like eurozone reforms, Trump’s protectionist policies, and China’s rising dominance. The war in Syria, which could result in more refugees arriving in Germany, is also a prime concern.

Both Merkel’s conservatives and the SPD are under pressure to appear distinctive to voters in a coalition borne out of necessity rather than choice, making it difficult for Merkel to balance conflicting demands.

More than 6 in 10 Germans said in a poll published Monday they believe the coalition will serve a full four-year term.

And more than 56 percent of Germans believe Merkel will serve the full four years, a separate poll conducted for the Bild newspaper showed.

Former Greens Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer urged the coalition to speed up eurozone reforms and digitalization, saying that Europe risked losing out politically and economically as China accelerated its technology developments.

“I hope they step on the gas pedal, when it comes to Europe. It’s a very un-Green demand, I know, but in this case, it’s warranted,” he told reporters.

‘No opposition in government’

Senior conservative Jens Spahn, seen as one possible successor to Merkel, warned the SPD not to obstruct government policy in a rerun of the coalition that has ruled since 2013.

Spahn, a champion of the right in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), told Deutschlandfunk radio: “The SPD must decide: Either we rule together or some will try to play opposition within the government.”

SPD leaders, under pressure to revive their party after suffering their worst result in September’s election since Germany became a federal republic in 1949, have vowed to fight the conservatives on major issues.

SPD secretary general Lars Klingbeil said his party wants the government, expected to be in place this month, to make social issues such as pensions, education and family policy and strengthening rural areas, its top priority.

But Volker Kauder, parliamentary leader of the conservatives, said his bloc would focus on curbing immigration.

Despite agreeing on broad policy outlines, the two blocs are divided on how to implement policies on immigration, car emissions, labor rules and welfare.

Merkel also faces the challenge of easing tensions within her own conservative bloc, comprising her CDU party and their Christian Social Union (CSU) Bavaria-based partners.

The CSU on Monday spoiled her election pledge to have a cabinet equally split among men and women by naming three male politicians to the transport, development and interior posts.

Deputy SPD leader Malu Dreyer told the RND newspaper chain the CSU move was “disappointing” 100 years after women gained the right to vote.

The CDU have appointed three men and three women to fill their six cabinet posts under the coalition agreement and the SPD are expected to do the same. This means that the 16-strong cabinet, including Merkel, will have seven women and nine men.

Merkel was weakened by her 2015 decision to welcome hundreds of thousands of people seeking asylum, which helped fuel the rise of a far-right party that stole conservative voters.

In power since 2005, she has led Germany and the EU through the financial and debt crises, but her waning authority at home could complicate efforts to deepen integration in the eurozone.
…