The Ukrainian military shot down a hypersonic Russian missile over Kyiv using the newly acquired Patriot missile defense system, an air force commander confirmed on Saturday.
It’s the first time Ukraine has been known to intercept one of Moscow’s most sophisticated weapons, after receiving the long-sought, American-made defense batteries from the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands.
“Yes, we shot down the ‘unique’ Kinzhal,” Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram, referring to a Kh-47 missile, which flies at 10 times the speed of sound. “It happened during the night time attack on May 4 in the skies of the Kyiv region.”
Ukraine confirmed that two Patriot batteries were operational last month, following training on the system from the U.S. and Germany, according to the Kyiv Independent. The interception of the hypersonic missile also represents a major success for the Patriot technology, in use on the battlefield after 20 years of upgrades.
Kyiv had initially denied that it had shot down the Kinzhal missile.
Ukraine first asked Washington for Patriot systems in 2021, well before Russia’s current war of aggression began in February 2022. The U.S. and Germany have each sent at least one Patriot battery to Ukraine; and the Netherlands said it has provided two.
Separately, a well-known Russian nationalist writer was injured in a car bomb, reported TASS, Russia’s state-owned news service. Zakhar Prilepin was wounded in the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod, in a blast that killed one person, according to the report.
A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman said the blast was the “direct responsibility of the U.S. and Britain,” without providing evidence, according to Reuters.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
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Matthew Karnitschnig is POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent.
BERLIN — Europe’s worst-kept secret is that the Germans ultimately decide everything.
“I’ll never forget how all the other member states held back in anticipation, waiting to see what the Germans would do,” a senior U.K. official, recalling his time in Brussels, recently told a private dinner of MPs and other German officials in Berlin.
The recollection was meant as a compliment, one the official hoped would ingratiate him with the Germans around the table.
Sad thing is it worked.
The second worst-kept secret in Brussels is that for all the “peace project” kumbaya, the Germans actually enjoy dominating the place. That said, even stalwart veterans of the EU bubble were hard-pressed in recent days to cite a more blatant example of toxic Germanity than Berlin’s last-minute intervention to save the internal combustion engine.
To recap: Last week, EU countries were expected to rubber-stamp a package of measures aimed at ridding Europe’s roads of fuel-burning autos. Under the plan, the EU would prohibit new registrations of cars powered by internal combustion engines beginning in 2035. The sweeping deal, the culmination of years of painstaking negotiations in Brussels and European capitals, is a pillar of the EU’s ambitious goal to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Berlin’s 11th-hour intervention on a deal everyone believed was done and dusted not only left the EU’s environmental policy in limbo, it also laid bare the bloc’s power vertical in all its dubious Teutonic glory. The message: Germany is no longer even trying to hide its power.
Enter France.
“For the French, the situation also represents an opportunity and they are never ones to waste a good crisis,” an EU diplomat said. “The more they can contribute to the idea that Germany goes it alone, the more it strengthens the view that the Germans are an unreliable partner in Europe.”
Germany’s unprecedented move has given rise to fears that other countries will try to follow its example and hold EU reforms hostage by threatening a last-minute veto to win concessions, in effect rewriting the rules of engagement.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them.
That’s why the real significance of the standoff has less to do with CO2 emissions than how Brussels works. One big concern among EU insiders is that the coalition Germany has assembled to save the car, which includes the likes of Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, will go rogue as a bloc on other fronts, with or without German support.
Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035 | Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images
It’s easy to mock the circuitous nature of EU decision-making, the push and pull between the European Commission, Parliament and Council, communicated in the opaque dialect of Brussels’ earnest eurocrats.
Boring as it may be, the alchemy produces bona fide results that legitimize and sustain the EU.
That Germany is willing to tinker with this delicate balance betrays either ignorance in the current regime of how the EU works, ambivalence, or both.
One could argue with justification that Germany was never going to kill the golden goose. Invented and perfected in Germany over more than a century by the likes of Mercedes, BMW and Audi, the internal combustion engine has been the wellspring of German pride and prosperity for generations.
The image of a piston-fired Porsche 911 zooming down the autobahn is as core to German identity as sex is to the French.
Take that away, what’s left (aside from beer and bratwurst)?
Indeed, considering that the country’s automakers haven’t proved particularly adept at manufacturing electric cars (or more specifically the batteries at the heart of the vehicles), there was a strong case for Germany to develop low-emission synthetic fuels that would keep the internal combustion engine alive.
Berlin had at least a decade to do so.
Thing is, it didn’t, choosing instead to pour billions into subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles and the infrastructure to recharge them (full disclosure: the author is a beneficiary of such a subsidy).
What’s more, Germany also encouraged other European countries to follow suit. In fact, Berlin’s views on “the future of mobility” were so clear that Mercedes, VW and BMW pledged to shift to all-electric by 2035. The cluster of countries that have served as the workbench for those companies, from Slovakia to Hungary and Austria, all agreed to go along.
That’s why the German insistence this month that the EU carve out an exception to the engine ban for cars powered by synthetic, so-called e-fuels has caught the rest of Europe flat-footed.
Why now? In a word, politics.
Germans may not be known for their finesse, but even so, Berlin’s bare-knuckle tactics to save the engine have not just shocked Brussels veterans, it’s angered them | John Thys/AFP
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats have dropped below 20 percent in a number of recent polls, putting them more than 10 percentage points behind the first-place Christian Democrats.
Scholz’s smallest coalition partner, the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP), are in even worse shape. The party fared miserably in a string of recent regional elections and in national polls, it is teetering perilously close to the 5 percent threshold parties need to surpass for entry into parliament.
Party leader Christian Lindner, who used to drive souped-up Porsches around the storied Nürburgring race track, has vowed to save the engine from the clutches of the Green lobby.
Scholz, keenly aware that his party’s base also remains attached to “das Auto,” has been happy to let him try and has so far not stepped in to intervene.
About 1 million Germans work in the auto industry and many of those jobs — especially at suppliers — would be lost if the engine is killed for the simple reason that electric cars have far fewer (and different) parts than traditional automobiles.
The real mystery is why the Greens, the other party in Germany’s governing triumvirate, have not done more to resolve the crisis. Not only has the environmental party championed the engine ban for years, but it is also the most pro-European party in the government and would normally be at pains to keep Berlin from even appearing to undermine Brussels.
Yet Green Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has largely been silent on the issue. Far from the fray in Europe, he was last spotted in the Amazon having his face painted by an indigenous girl during a swing through the region.
In a bid to defuse the standoff ahead of next week’s EU leaders’ summit, the German government sent a letter to the Commission on Wednesday, spelling out what it wants in return for lifting its blockade. Its chief demand — a broad exception for e-fuels — was already rejected by the Parliament and other institutions during the original negotiations over the package.
Reversing that would require the deal to be reopened.
The French are sure to cry foul.
And then Germany will push ahead anyway.
Joshua Posaner contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
LONDON — Britain was rebuffed by the Biden administration after multiple requests to develop an advanced trade and technology dialogue similar to structures the U.S. set up with the European Union.
On visits to Washington as a Cabinet minister over the past two years, Liz Truss urged U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and senior Biden administration officials to intensify talks with the U.K. to build clean technology supply chains and boost collaboration on artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors.
After Truss became prime minister in fall 2022, the idea was floated again when Raimondo visited London last October, people familiar with the conversations told POLITICO. But fear of angering the U.S.’s European partners and the U.K.’s diminished status outside the EU post-Brexit have posed barriers to influencing Washington.
Businesses, lawmakers and experts worry the U.K. is being left on the sidelines.
“We tried many times,” said a former senior Downing Street official, of the British government’s efforts to set up a U.K. equivalent to the U.S.-E.U. Trade and Technology Council (TTC), noting Truss’ overtures began as trade chief in July 2021. They requested anonymity to speak on sensitive issues.
“We did speak to Gina Raimondo about that, saying ‘we think it would be a good opportunity,’” said the former official — not necessarily to join the EU-U.S. talks directly, “but to increase trilateral cooperation.”
Set up in June 2021, the TTC forum co-chaired by Raimondo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. trade chief Katherine Tai gives their EU counterparts, Margrethe Vestager and Valdis Dombrovskis, a direct line to shape tech and trade policy.
The U.S. is pushing forward with export controls on advanced semiconductors to China; forging new secure tech supply chains away from Beijing; and spurring innovation through subsidies for cutting-edge green technology and microprocessors.
The TTC’s 10 working groups with the EU, Raimondo said in an interview late last year, “set the standards,” though Brussels has rebuffed Washington’s efforts to use the transatlantic body to go directly after Beijing.
But the U.K. “is missing the boat on not being completely engaged in that dialogue,” said a U.S.-based representative of a major business group. “There has been some discussion about the U.K. perhaps joining the TTC,” they confirmed, and “it was kind of mooted, at least in private” with Raimondo by the Truss administration on her visit to London last October.
The response from the U.S. had been ‘’let’s work with what we’ve got at the moment,’” said the former Downing Street official.
Even if the U.S. does want to talk, “they don’t want to irritate the Europeans,” the same former official added. Right now the U.K.’s conversations with the U.S. on these issues are “ad hoc” under the new Atlantic Charter Boris Johnson and Joe Biden signed around the G7 summit in 2021, they said, and “nothing institutional.”
Last October, Washington and London held the first meeting of the data and tech forum Johnson and Biden set up | Pool photo by Olivier Matthys/AFP via Getty Images
Securing British access to the U.S.-EU tech forum or an equivalent was also discussed when CBI chief Tony Danker was in Washington last July, said people familiar with conversations during his visit.
The U.K.’s science and tech secretary, Michelle Donelan, confirmed the British government had discussed establishing a more regular channel for tech and trade discussions with the U.S., both last October and more recently. “My officials have just been out [to the U.S.],” she told POLITICO. “They’ve had very productive conversations.”
A U.K. government spokesperson said: “The U.K. remains committed to working closely with the U.S. and EU to further our shared trade and technology objectives, through the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the U.S.-U.K. Future of Atlantic Trade dialogues, and the U.K.-U.S. technology partnership.
“We will continue to advance U.K. interests in trade and technology and explore further areas of cooperation with partners where it is mutually beneficial.”
Britain the rule-taker?
Last October, Washington and London held the first meeting of the data and tech forum Johnson and Biden set up. Senior officials hoped to get a deal securing the free flow of data between the U.S. and U.K. across the line and addressed similar issues as the TTC.
They couldn’t secure the data deal. The U.K. is expected to join a U.S.-led effort to expand data transfer rules baked into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation trading agreement as soon as this year, according to a former and a current British official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The next formal meeting between the U.K. and U.S. is penciled in for January 2024.
Ongoing dialogue “is vital to secure an overarching agreement on U.K.-U.S. data flows, without which modern day business cannot function,” said William Bain, head of trade policy at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). “It would also provide an opportunity to set the ground rules around a host of other technological developments.”
In contrast, the U.S. and EU are always at work, with TTC officials in constant contact with the operation — though questions have been raised about how long-term the transatlantic cooperation is likely to prove, ahead of next year’s U.S. presidential election.
“Unless you have a structured system or setup, often overseen by ministers, you don’t really get the drive to actually get things done,” said the former Downing Street official.
Right now cooperation with the U.S. on tech issues is not as intense or structured as desired, the same former official said, and is “not really brought together” in one central forum.
Britain has yet to publish a formal semiconductor strategy | Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images
“This initiative [the TTC] between the world’s two regulatory powerhouses risks sidelining the U.K.,” warned lawmakers on the UK parliament’s foreign affairs committee in a report last October. Britain may become “a rule-taker rather than a rule-maker,” MPs noted, citing the government’s “ambiguous” position on technology standards. Britain has yet to publish a formal semiconductor strategy, and others on critical minerals — like those used in EV batteries — or AI are also missing.
Over the last two years, U.S. trade chief Tai has “spoken regularly to her three successive U.K. counterparts to identify and tackle shared economic and trade priorities,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representative, adding “we intend to continue strengthening this partnership in the years to come.”
All eyes on Europe
For its part, the EU has to date shown little interest in closer cooperation with the U.K.
Three European Commission officials disregarded the likelihood of Britain joining the club, though one of those officials said that London may be asked to join — alongside other like-minded countries — for specific discussions related to ongoing export bans against Russia.
Even with last week’s breakthrough over the Northern Ireland protocol calming friction between London and Brussels, the U.K. was not a priority country for involvement in the TTC, added another of the EU officials.
“The U.K. was extremely keen to be part of a dialogue of some sort of equivalent of TTC,” said a senior business representative in London, who requested anonymity to speak about sensitive issues.
U.K. firms see “the Holy Grail” as Britain, the U.S. and EU working together on this, they said. “We’re very keen to see a triangular dialogue at some point.”
The U.K.’s haggling with the EU over the details of the Northern Ireland protocol governing trade in the region has posed “a political obstacle” to realizing that vision, they suggested.
Yet with a solution to the dispute announced in late February, the same business figure said, “there will be a more prominent push to work together with the U.K.”
TTC+
Some trade experts think the U.K. would increase its chances of accession to the TTC if it submitted a joint request with other nations.
But prior to that happening, “I think the EU-U.S. TTC will need to first deliver bilaterally,” said Sabina Ciofu, an international tech policy expert at the trade body techUK.
Representatives speak to the media following the Trade and Technology Council Meeting in Maryland | Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
When there is momentum, Ciofu said, the U.K. should join forces with Japan, South Korea and other advanced economies to ask for a TTC+ that could include the G7 or other partners. At the last TTC meeting in December, U.S. and EU officials said they were open to such an expansion around specific topics that had global significance.
But not all trade experts think this is essential. Andy Burwell, director of international trade at the CBI, said he doesn’t “think it necessarily matters” whether the U.K. has a structured conversation with the U.S. like the TTC forum.
Off the back of a soon-to-be-published refresh of the Integrated Review — the U.K.’s national security and foreign policy strategy — Prime Minister Rishi Sunak should instead seize the opportunity, Burwell said, to pinpoint where Britain is “going to own, collaborate and have access to various aspects of the supply chains.”
The G7, Burwell said, “could be the right platform for having some of those conversations.”
Yet the “danger with the ad hoc approach with lots of different people is incoherence,” said the former Downing Street official quoted above.
Too many countries involved in setting the standards can, the former official said, “create difficulty in leveraging what you want — which is all of the countries agreeing together on a certain way forward … especially when you’re dealing with issues that relate to, for example, China.”
Mark Scott, Annabelle Dickson and Tom Bristowcontributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
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Australia was, until recently, an international pariah on climate change and a punchline in Brussels. But a new government in Canberra coupled with Europe’s energy and economic woes mean a better relationship is now emerging — one that could fuel Europe’s transition to a clean economy, while enriching Australia immensely.
“Europe is energy hungry and capital rich, Australia’s energy rich and capital hungry, and that means that there’s a lot that we can do together,” said Australia’s Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen.
A little over a year ago, relations between Australia and the EU were in a parlous state. The government of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had reneged on a nuclear submarine contract — a decision the current government stands by — incensing the French and by extension the EU. Equally as frustrating for many Europeans was Australia’s climate policy, which was viewed as outstandingly meager even in a lackluster global field.
The election of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese — whose father was Italian — last May brought a change in tone, as well as a new climate target and a trickle of policies designed to cut greenhouse gas pollution that heats up the planet.
Those moves were “the entry ticket” to dealings with Europe, Bowen told POLITICO in Brussels, the second-last stop on a European tour. “Australia’s change of climate positioning, climate policy, has changed our position in the world.”
That’s been most notable in progress on talks on a free trade agreement with the EU. Landing that deal would be a “big step forward,” said Bowen. Particularly because when it comes to clean energy, Australia wants to sell and Europe wants to buy.
Using the vast sunny desert in its interior, Australia could be a “renewable energy superpower,” Bowen argued. Solar energy can be tapped to make green hydrogen and shipped to Europe, he said.
European governments are listening closely to the pitch. Bowen was in Rotterdam on Monday, inspecting the potential to use the Netherlands port as an entry for antipodean hydrogen. He signed a provisional deal with the Dutch government to that end. Last week, Bowen announced a series of joint investments with the German government in Australian hydrogen research projects worth €72 million.
It’s not just sun, Australia has tantalum and tungsten and a host of minerals Europe needs for building clean tech, but that it currently imports. In many cases those minerals are refined or otherwise processed in China, a dependency that Brussels is keen to rapidly unwind — not least with its Critical Raw Materials Act, expected in March.
According to a 2022 government report, Australia holds the second-largest global reserves of cobalt and lithium, from which batteries are made, and is No. 1 in zirconium, which is used to line nuclear reactors.
Asked whether Australia can ease Europe’s dependence on China, Bowen said: “We want to be a very strong factor in the supply chains. We’re a trusted, reliable trading partner. We have strong ethical supply chains. We have strong environmental standards.”
But Australia has its own entanglements.
Certain Australian minerals, notably lithium, are largely refined and manufactured in China. Bowen said he was keen on bringing at least some of that resource-intensive, polluting work back to Australia.
While its climate targets are now broadly in line with other rich nations, the rehabilitation of Australia’s climate image jars with its role as one of the biggest fossil fuel sellers on the planet.
Australia’s coal exports, when burned in overseas power plants, generate huge amounts of planet-warming pollution — almost double the amount produced annually by Australians within their borders. Australia is also the third-largest exporter of natural gas, including an increasing flow to the EU. At home, the government is facing calls from the Greens party and centrist climate independents to reject plans formore than 100 coal and gas developments around the country.
But how many of Bowen’s counterparts raised the issue of Australia’s emissions during his travels around Europe? “Nobody,” he said. “We are here to help.”
Antonia Zimmermann contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
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