The Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are demanding an explanation from Beijing after China’s top envoy to France questioned the independence of former Soviet countries like Ukraine.
Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, said in an interview on Friday with French television network LCI that former Soviet countries have no “effective status” in international law.
Asked whether Crimea belongs to Ukraine, Lu said that “it depends how you perceive the problem,” arguing that it was historically part of Russia and offered to Ukraine by former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
“In international law, even these ex-Soviet Union countries do not have the status, the effective [status] in international law, because there is no international agreement to materialize their status as a sovereign country,” he said.
The comments sparked outrage among Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia — three former Soviet countries.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said in a tweet that his ministry summoned “the authorized chargé d’affaires of the Chinese embassy in Riga on Monday to provide explanations. This step is coordinated with Lithuania and Estonia.”
He called the comments “completely unacceptable,” adding: “We expect explanation from the Chinese side and complete retraction of this statement.”
Margus Tsahkna, Estonia’s foreign minister, called the comments “false” and “a misinterpretation of history.”
Gabrielius Landsbergis, Lithuania’s foreign minister, shared the interview on Twitter with the comment: “If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic States don’t trust China to “broker peace in Ukraine,” here’s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries’ borders have no legal basis.”
Kyiv also pushed back strongly against the ambassador’s comments.
“It is strange to hear an absurd version of the ‘history of Crimea’ from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its thousand-year history,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office, said in a tweet on Sunday. “If you want to be a major political player, do not parrot the propaganda of Russian outsiders.”
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called the remarks “unacceptable” in a tweet on Sunday. “The EU can only suppose these declarations do not represent China’s official policy,” Borrell said.
France in a statement on Sunday stated its “full solidarity” with all the allied countries affected, which it said had acquired their independence “after decades of oppression,” according to Reuters. “On Ukraine specifically, it was internationally recognized within borders including Crimea in 1991 by the entire international community, including China,” a foreign ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The foreign ministry spokesperson also called on China to clarify whether the ambassador’s statement reflects its position or not.
The row comes ahead of a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg on Monday, where relations with China are on the agenda.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
Hyderabad: Lithunia opened a honorary consulate at Gachibowli, Hyderabad on Sunday. Telangana-based businessman, Kiran Satchandra Divi has been appointed as Lithuania’s first Honorary Consul for the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.
Besides the Lithuanian Embassy in New Delhi, honorary consulates in Mumbai, Kolkata, and Bengaluru, Lithuania added new honorary consulate office in Hyderabad.
Vice-minister of Economy and Innovation of Lithuania, Karolis Žemaitis, speaking at the event noted, “Honorary Consulate in Hyderabad will increase Lithuania‘s visibility in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in many fields of economy, such as biotechnology, life sciences, ICT, digital solutions. Lithuania therefore sees partnerships with India in these high-tech fields. What is more, Lithuanian cultural, scientific initiatives will be promoted here more vocally whereas Lithuanian citizens residing here will feel safer knowing that support in many cases could be provided.”
Kiran Divi expressed a will that his appointment will open a new chapter of Lithuania‘s presence in one of the most technologically advanced part of India and he is honored to become a part of Lithuania‘s success story makers in India.
India and Lithuania established diplomatic relations in 1992. The Lithuanian resident mission in New Delhi opened in 2008. In 2023, India will open embassies in Vilnius, Lithuania for promotion of bilateral ties.
The Baltic states and Poland want to make it easier to sanction the family members and entourage of Russia’s richest men and women but are facing resistance from Hungary, several EU diplomats told POLITICO.
Under its current rules, the EU can freeze the assets and impose visa bans on “leading businesspersons operating in Russia.” Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland now want to expand this definition, according to their proposal seen by POLITICO, to include “their immediate family members, or other natural persons, benefitting from them.”
The EU has sanctioned more than 1,400 people in relation to Russia’s activities in Ukraine, many of who are Russian oligarchs. An additional 96 people could be added to the EU’s next sanctions package, draft documents seen by POLITICO indicate. Including oligarchs’ family members and other associates of oligarchs would make it possible to sanctions thousands more people without having to prove that they are directly involved in the war in Ukraine or acting in the economic interest of the Russian state.
This could, for example, apply to the ex-wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, whose daughters have been sanctioned but has not been herself, and other members of the oligarchs’ entourage.
While some countries had doubts, legal experts are on board, said one of the diplomats.
Yet, in a meeting on Tuesday, at which EU ambassadors discussed the bloc’s next round of sanctions, Hungary resisted such plans, the diplomats said. Budapest argued that this is not part of the 10th sanctions package, said one of the diplomats. Hungary has long been skeptical of including too many names on the list.
Hungary also pushed to strike four people out the already existing sanctions list, two of the diplomats said.
It was not immediately possible to learn the identity of the four individuals.
That request is igniting tensions, and will be likely subject to another heated debate during a meeting of EU ambassadors on Wednesday. During that meeting, they will not only discuss the new package of sanctions against Russia, but also the so-called rollover of the 1,400-plus names already on the list to keep them sanctioned.
That’s because the regime is subject to a six-month review, which has hitherto been more or less a formality. Now, Hungary is using this extension review as leverage by insisting that four specific people have to be struck from the EU’s existing sanctions list before it will agree to the rollover. If Hungary blocks the rollover and refuses to compromise, all 1,400 people would be de-listed, the two diplomats warned.
One of the diplomats didn’t hide his frustration: “It shows Hungary’s disregard for unity and European values that they are willing to risk this in the week where we commemorate one year since the Russian invasion,” he said.
And those aren’t the only measure that Hungary takes issue with. It also is chiefly against sanctioning personnel working in the nuclear sector.
But a Hungarian official poured water on this last point, saying that “the only open issue for Hungary is with the length of the rollover and not with the listings.”
On the oligarchs issue and the proposal of the Baltics and Poland, the same Hungarian official said that this is not part of the 10th package.
As all EU countries have to agree to the proposal, any country could veto the move even if all other 26 EU countries were in favor. Time is running out, with the EU wanting to adopt the 10th sanctions package before the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Friday.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
In the packed meeting rooms and hallways of Munich’s Hotel Bayerischer Hof last weekend, back-slapping allies pushed an agenda with the kind of forward-looking determination NATO had long sought to portray but just as often struggled to achieve. They pledged more aid for Ukraine. They revamped plans for their own collective defense.
Two days later in Moscow, Vladimir Putin stood alone, rigidly ticking through another speech full of resentment and lonely nationalism, pausing only to allow his audience of grim-faced government functionaries to struggle to their feet in a series of mandatory ovations in a cold, cavernous hall.
With the war in Ukraine now one year old, and no clear path to peace at hand, a newly unified NATO is on the verge of making a series of seismic decisions beginning this summer to revolutionize how it defends itself while forcing slower members of the alliance into action.
The decisions in front of NATO will place the alliance — which protects 1 billion people — on a path to one the most sweeping transformations in its 74-year history. Plans set to be solidified at a summit in Lithuania this summer promise to revamp everything from allies’ annual budgets to new troop deployments to integrating defense industries across Europe.
The goal: Build an alliance that Putin wouldn’t dare directly challenge.
Yet the biggest obstacle could be the alliance itself, a lumbering collection of squabbling nations with parochial interests and a bureaucracy that has often promised way more than it has delivered. Now it has to seize the momentum of the past year to cut through red tape and crank up peacetime procurement strategies to meet an unpredictable, and likely increasingly belligerent Russia.
It’s “a massive undertaking,” said Benedetta Berti, head of policy planning at the NATO secretary-general’s office. The group has spent “decades of focusing our attention elsewhere,” she said. Terrorism, immigration — all took priority over Russia.
“It’s really a quite significant historic shift for the alliance,” she said.
For now, individual nations are making the right noises. But the proof will come later this year when they’re asked to open up their wallets, and defense firms are approached with plans to partner with rivals.
To hear alliance leaders and heads of state tell it, they’re ready to do it.
“Ukraine has to win this,” Adm. Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s military committee, said on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. “We cannot allow Russia to win, and for a good reason — because the ambitions of Russia are much larger than Ukraine.”
All eyes on Vilnius
The big change will come In July, when NATO allies gather in Vilnius, Lithuania, for their big annual summit.
Gen. Chris Cavoli will reveal how personnel across the alliance will be called to help on short notice | Henrik Montgomery/TT News Agency/AFP via Getty Images
NATO’s top military leader will lay out a new plan for how the alliance will put more troops and equipment along the eastern front. And Gen. Chris Cavoli, supreme allied commander for Europe, will also reveal how personnel across the alliance will be called to help on short notice.
The changes will amount to a “reengineering” of how Europe is defended, one senior NATO official said.
The plans will be based on geographic regions, with NATO asking countries to take responsibility for different security areas, from space to ground and maritime forces.
“Allies will know even more clearly what their jobs will be in the defense of Europe,” the official said.
NATO leaders have also pledged to reinforce the alliance’s eastern defenses and make 300,000 troops ready to rush to help allies on short notice, should the need arise.Under the current NATO Response Force, the alliance can make available 40,000 troops in less than 15 days. Under the new force model, 100,000 troops could be activated in up to 10 days, with a further 200,000 ready to go in up to 30 days.
But a good plan can only get allies so far.
NATO’s aspirations represent a departure from the alliance’s previous focus on short-term crisis management. Essentially, the alliance is “going in the other direction and focusing more on collective security and deterrence and defense,” said a second NATO official, who like the first, requested anonymity to discuss ongoing planning.
Chief among NATO’s challenges: Getting everyone’s armed forces to cooperate. Countries such as Germany, which has underfunded its military modernization programs for years, will likely struggle to get up to speed. And Sweden and Finland — on the cusp of joining NATO — are working to integrate their forces into the alliance.
Others simply have to expand their ranks for NATO to meet its stated quotas.
“NATO needs the ability to add speed, put large formations in the field — much larger than they used to,” said Bastian Giegerich, director of defense and military analysis and the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
East vs. West
An east-west ideological fissure is also simmering within NATO.
Countries on the alliance’s eastern front have long been frustrated, at times publicly, with the slower pace of change many in Western Europe and the United States are advocating — even after Russia’s invasion.
Joe Biden traveled to Warsaw for a major speech last week that helped alleviate some of the tensions and perceived slights | Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
“We started to change and for western partners, it’s been kind of a delay,” Polish Armed Forces Gen. Rajmund Andrzejczak said during a visit to Washington this month.
Those concerns on the eastern front are being heard, tentatively.
Last summer, NATO branded Russia as its most direct threat — a significant shift from post-Cold War efforts to build a partnership with Moscow. U.S. President Joe Biden has also conducted his own charm offensive, traveling to Warsaw for a major speech last week that helped alleviate some of the tensions and perceived slights.
Still, NATO’s eastern front, which is within striking distance of Russia, is imploring its western neighbors to move faster to help fill in the gaps along the alliance’s edges and to buttress reinforcement plans.
It is important to “fix the slots — which countries are going to deliver which units,” said Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu, adding that he hopes the U.S. “will take a significant part.”
Officials and experts agree that these changes are needed for the long haul.
“If Ukraine manages to win, then Ukraine and Europe and NATO are going to have a very disgruntled Russia on its doorstep, rearming, mobilizing, ready to go again,” said Sean Monaghan, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“If Ukraine loses and Russia wins,” he noted, the West would have “an emboldened Russia on our doorstep — so either way, NATO has a big Russia problem.”
Wakeup call from Russia
The rush across the Continent to rearm as weapons and equipment flows from long-dormant stockpiles into Ukraine has been as sudden as the invasion itself.
After years of flat defense budgets and Soviet-era equipment lingering in the motor pools across the eastern front, calls for more money and more Western equipment threaten to overwhelm defense firms without the capacity to fill those orders in the near term. That could create a readiness crisis in ammunition, tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and anti-armor weapons.
A damaged Russian tank near Kyiv on February 14, 2023 | Sergei Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE
NATO actually recognized this problem a decade ago but lacked the ability to do much about it. The first attempt to nudge member states into shaking off the post-Cold War doldrums started slowly in the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
After Moscow took Crimea and parts of the Donbas in 2014, the alliance signed the “Wales pledge” to spend 2 percent of economic output on defense by 2024.
The vast majority of countries politely ignored the vow, giving then-President Donald Trump a major talking point as he demanded Europe step up and stop relying on Washington to provide a security umbrella.
But nothing focuses attention like danger, and the sight of Russian tanks rumbling toward Kyiv as Putin ranted about Western depravity and Russian destiny jolted Europe into action. One year on, the bills from those early promises to do more are coming due.
“We are in this for the long haul” in Ukraine, said Bauer, the head of NATO’s Military Committee, a body comprising allies’ uniformed defense chiefs. But sustaining the pipeline funneling weapons and ammunition to Ukraine will take not only the will of individual governments but also a deep collaboration between the defense industries in Europe and North America. Those commitments are still a work in progress.
Part of that effort, Bauer said, is working to get countries to collaborate on building equipment that partners can use. It’s a job he thinks the European Union countries are well-suited to lead.
That’s a touchy subject for the EU, a self-proclaimed peace project that by definition can’t use its budget to buy weapons. But it can serve as a convener. And it agreed to do just that last week, pledging with NATO and Ukraine to jointly establish a more effective arms procurement system for Kyiv.
Talk, of course, is one thing. Traditionally NATO and the EU have been great at promising change, and forming committees and working groups to make that change, only to watch it get bogged down in domestic politics and big alliance in-fighting. And many countries have long fretted about the EU encroaching on NATO’s military turf.
But this time, there is a sense that things have to move, that western countries can’t let Putin win his big bet — that history would repeat itself, and that Europe and the U.S. would be frozen by an inability to agree.
“People need to be aware that this is a long fight. They also need to be brutally aware that this is a war,” the second NATO official said. “This is not a crisis. This is not some small incident somewhere that can be managed. This is an all-out war. And it’s treated that way now by politicians all across Europe and across the alliance, and that’s absolutely appropriate.”
Paul McLeary and Lili Bayer also contributed reporting from Munich.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
MUNICH — NATO’s eastern flank has found its voice — but Joe Biden’s visit is a reminder that Western capitals still have the weight.
After Russia bombed its way into Ukraine, the military alliance’s eastern members won praise for their prescient warnings (not to mention a few apologies). They garnered respect for quickly emptying their weapons stockpiles for Kyiv and boosting defense spending to new heights. Now, they’re driving the conversation on how to deal with Russia.
In short, eastern countries suddenly have the ear of traditional Western powers — and they are trying to move the needle.
“We draw the red line, then we waste the time, then we cross this red line,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said over the weekend at the Munich Security Conference, describing a now-familiar cycle of debates among Ukraine’s partners as eastern capitals push others to move faster.
The region’s sudden prominence will be on full display as U.S. President Joe Biden travels to Poland this week, where he will sit down with leaders of the so-called Bucharest Nine — Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.
The choice is both symbolic and practical. Washington is keen to show its eastern partners it wants their input — and to remind Vladimir Putin of the consequences should the Kremlin leader spread his war into NATO territory.
Yet when it comes to allies’ most contentious decisions, like what arms to place where, the eastern leaders ultimately still have to defer to leaders like Biden — and his colleagues in Western powers like Germany. They are the ones holding the largest quantities of modern tanks, fighter jets and long-range missiles, after all.
“My job,” Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in Munich, is “to move the pendulum of imagination of my partners in western Europe.”
“Our region has risen in relevance,” added Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský in an interview. But Western countries are still “much stronger” on the economic and military front, he added. “They are still the backbone.”
They’re listening … now
When Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece entered politics over a decade ago, she recalled the skepticism that greeted her and like-minded countries when they discussed Russia on the global stage.
“They didn’t understand us,” she said in an interview earlier this month. People saw the region as “escalating the picture,” she added.
Latvian Defense Minister Ināra Mūrniece | Gints Ivuskans/AFP via Getty Images
February 24, 2022, changed things. The images of Russia rolling tanks and troops into Ukraine shocked many Westerners — and started changing minds. The Russian atrocities that came shortly after in places like Bucha and Irpin were “another turning point,” Mūrniece said.
Now, the eastern flank plays a key role in defining the alliance’s narrative — and its understanding of Russia.
“Our voice is now louder and more heard,” said Romanian Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu.
The Bucharest Nine — an informal format that brings together the region for dialogue with the U.S. and occasionally other partners — is one of the vehicles regional governments are using to showcase their interests.
“It has become an authoritative voice in terms of assessment of the security situation, in terms of assessment of needs,” Aurescu said in an interview in Munich. NATO is listening to the group for a simple reason, he noted: “The security threats are coming from this part of our neighborhood.”
Power shifts … slowly
While the eastern flank has prodded its western partners to send once-unthinkable weapons to Ukraine, the power balance has not completely flipped. Far from it.
Washington officials retain the most sway in the Western alliance. Behind them, several western European capitals take the lead.
“Without the Germans things don’t move — without the Americans things don’t move for sure,” said one senior western European diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
And at this stage of the war, as Ukraine pushes for donations of the most modern weapons — fighter jets, advanced tanks, longer-range missile systems — it’s the alliance’s largest economies and populations that are in focus.
“It’s very easy for me to say that, ‘Of course, give fighter jets’ — I don’t have them,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told reporters earlier this month.
Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” | Omar Marques/Getty Images
“So it’s up to those countries to say who have,” she said. “If I would have, I would give — but I don’t.”
And even some eastern countries who have jets don’t want to move without their Western counterparts.
Asked if his country would supply Kyiv with F-16 fighter jets, Morawiecki conceded in Munich, “we have not too many of them.” He did say, however, that Poland could offer older jets — if the allies could pull together a coalition, that is.
Another challenge for advocates of a powerful eastern voice within NATO is that the eastern flank itself is diverse.
Priorities vary even among like-minded countries based on their geographies. And, notably, there are some Russia-friendly outliers.
Hungary, for example, does not provide any weapons assistance to Ukraine and continues to maintain a relationship with the Kremlin. In fact, Budapest has become so isolated in Western policy circles that no Hungarian government officials attended the Munich Security Conference.
“I think the biggest problem in Hungary is the rhetoric of leadership, which sometimes really crosses the red line,” said the Czech Republic’s Lipavský, who was cautious to add that Budapest does fulfill NATO obligations, participating in alliance defense efforts.
Just for now?
There are also questions about whether the east’s moment in the limelight is a permanent fixture or product of the moment. After all, China, not Russia, may be seizing western attention in the future.
“It’s obvious that their voice is becoming louder, but that’s also a consequence of the geopolitical situation we’re in,” said the senior western European diplomat. “I’m not sure if it’s sustainable in the long run.”
A second senior western European diplomat, who also spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal alliance dynamics, said that the eastern flank countries sometimes take a tough tone “because of the fear of the pivot to China.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank | Johannes Simon/Getty Images
Asked if the war has changed the balance of influence within the alliance, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna said: “Yes and no.”
“We have to defend our territories, it is as simple as that,” she told POLITICO in Munich. “In order to do so we had to reinforce the eastern flank — Russia is on that part of the continent.”
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has also reiterated that western alliance members play a role in defending the eastern flank.
Asked whether NATO’s center of gravity is shifting east, he said on a panel in Munich that “what has shifted east is NATO’s presence.”
But, he added, “of course many of those troops come from the western part of the alliance — so this demonstrates how NATO is together and how we support each other.”
And in western Europe, there is a sense that the east does deserve attention at the moment.
“They might not have all the might,” said the second senior western European diplomat. “But they deserve solidarity.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
With war raging in Europe, the race to find NATO’s next chief is on.
Jens Stoltenberg was a steady hand as Western capitals rushed to help Ukraine push back invading Russian troops. But as his term expires in September, speculation is growing over who might succeed him.
Could it be a woman? Someone from Eastern Europe?
Moscow’s war greatly complicates the decision, which requires consensus among the leaders of NATO’s 30 member countries.
The next secretary-general must play a tough balancing act in encouraging capitals to continue supplying weapons to Ukraine and building up NATO’s own defenses — all while formally staying out of the conflict. Few pass muster for this highly sensitive role.
The “overall feeling,” said one senior NATO diplomat, is that it is “time for fresh air.”
But the allies may end up playing it safe after all, and sticking with Stoltenberg.
The Stoltenberg card
A senior European diplomat summed up the buzz around names in three tiers, ranked by intensity of chatter.
An extension of Stoltenberg’s term is the most-mentioned option.
A second tier includes Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace.
A third group of less frequently mentioned names, the diplomat said, consists of Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė, Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of Germany.
Jens Stoltenberg was a steady hand as Western capitals rushed to help Ukraine push back invading Russian troops. But as his term expires in September, speculation is growing over who might succeed him | Valeria Mongell/AFP via Getty Images
Since all of NATO’s secretaries-general have thus far been male, there is pressure within the ranks to appoint a woman.
“Time for a female Sec Gen,” said the senior NATO diplomat. “If men try to hold their positions forever, fair representation of women will never have a chance.”
And some allies have pushed for more regional diversity. Stoltenberg, who has held the job since 2014, is a former Norwegian prime minister. His most recent predecessors were Danish, Dutch and British.
The current secretary-general’s term was quickly extended last March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many officials now believe that another extension for Stoltenberg, even if short, is a serious possibility.
The longtime leader is seen as a safe pair of hands. Despite some delegations preferring to see a fresh face soon, Stoltenberg is still perceived as a rare senior official who can keep his cool — and stick to the script — in even the gravest of crises.
“Stoltenberg wants to stay,” said the senior NATO diplomat.
But giving Stoltenberg a short extension could make a future replacement decision collide with the EU’s own top jobs competition in 2024, not to mention the upcoming U.S. presidential election — an outcome some allies would prefer to avoid.
A NATO spokesperson declined to elaborate on Stoltenberg’s future aspirations. Asked in December about the issue, the current secretary-general told the BBC: “My focus now is on my responsibilities.”
“I don’t speculate,” he added, “about what will happen after my tenure.”
The eastern front
Some see candidates from Eastern Europe as particularly suitable.
Already before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there was momentum for the alliance to select a secretary-general from the east. Some officials in the region argue that the war has since strengthened the case for someone from a country like Estonia or Lithuania.
Slovakia’s Zuzana Čaputová ticks both boxes as a female eastern candidate, though her name is mentioned less often in alliance circles | Pool photo by Adrian Dennis/Getty Images
“For years, the countries of the eastern flank have been warning about Russia’s threat,” said an official from the Baltics.
The region’s countries, the Baltic official said, were front-runners in boosting military spending and pushing the alliance to improve its defenses.
“It would be very logical and sobering,” the official continued, “to have someone who is experienced in dealing with Russia and who understands Russia’s logic and mentality, to lead the North Atlantic Alliance.”
Slovakia’s Čaputová ticks both boxes as a female eastern candidate, though her name is mentioned less often in alliance circles.
A spokesperson for Čaputová said she was focused on her current job, but said the possibility of a Slovak being floated for the NATO post was “a strong reflection of our foreign and security decisions.”
Some western capitals, however, would not support such candidates at the moment, seeing the alliance’s east — and the Baltic states in particular — as too hawkish when war is raging next door.
Estonia’s Kallas herself has played down expectations, telling local media in November that “the likelihood of an offer like this being made” is “extremely low.”
The Western option
Western NATO countries are for some allies a reliable fallback source for possible leadership.
Wallace, Britain’s defense secretary, is well respected and has previously said that NATO would be a “nice job.” However, numerous European capitals — in particular Paris — are expected to object to a London name and insist on an EU candidate.
One possible compromise being floated in Brussels is yet another secretary-general from the Netherlands. Dutch politicians have traditionally been a popular choice for the role, previously holding the post for three terms covering 21 years in the past six decades.
The Dutch are seen as serious on defense but not as hawkish as the Baltics — and the names of current Prime Minister Rutte, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Sigrid Kaag and Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren are all circulating as possible candidates.
Asked about the speculation, Rutte said he wanted to “leave politics altogether and do something completely different.” The two Dutch ministers did not express interest in the job.
Commission President von der Leyen, a former German defense minister, is a female candidate who could gain support from western capitals nervous about the prospect of a leader from the eastern flank, but it’s unclear whether she is interested in the role. “We never comment on such speculations,” said a Commission spokesperson.
Although her reputation in security circles is mixed, von der Leyen is seen as a strong possible candidate regardless — if the timing aligns and she does not get a second term as European Commission president.
Other female politicians floated include Canada’s widely respected Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland and Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly. Nevertheless, officials say, as the alliance focuses on boosting its defenses, Ottawa’s low defense spending and non-European status mean that a Canadian is unlikely to get the job.
Amid all the speculation, some within the alliance dismiss the breathless names game.
“This is more a basket of names that came to anybody’s mind,” said a second senior European diplomat, adding: “My guess: Stoltenberg.”
Jacopo Barigazzi and Cristina Gallardo contributed reporting.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
In the European bubble in Brussels, diamonds aren’t anyone’s best friend anymore.
The Belgian government’s reluctance to ban imports of Russian diamonds, which would hurt the city of Antwerp, a global hub for the precious stones, has outraged Ukraine and its supporters within the EU.
Ukraine has been pushing to stop the import of Russian rough diamonds because the trade enriches Alrosa, a partially state-owned Russian enterprise.
While such a crackdown wouldn’t inflict the same damage on Vladimir Putin’s economy as a prohibition on all fossil fuels, for example, the continuing flow of Russian diamonds has become a symbol of Western countries putting their national interests above those of Ukraine.
New plans for a fresh round of sanctions against Putin have now reignited the debate over the morality of Europe’s trade in diamonds from Russia.
Belgium is fed up with being scapegoated. According to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Putin’s ability to sell diamonds to all western markets now needs to be shut off.
“Russian diamonds are blood diamonds,” De Croo said in a statement to POLITICO. “The revenue for Russia from diamonds can only stop if the access of Russian diamonds to Western markets is no longer possible. On forging that solid front, Belgium is working with its partners.”
The West’s economic war against Russia has already had an impact. Partly because of U.S. sanctions, the Russian diamond trade in Antwerp has already been severely hit. But those rough Russian diamonds are diverted to other diamond markets, and often find their way back to the West, cut and polished.
That’s why Belgium is working with partners to introduce a “watertight” traceability system for diamonds, a Belgian official said. If it works, this could hurt Moscow more than if Washington or Brussels are flying solo.
“Europe and North America together represent 70 percent of the world market for natural diamonds,” the official said. “Based on this market power, we can ensure the necessary transparency in the global diamond sector and structurally ban blood diamonds from the global market. The war in Ukraine provides for a strong momentum.”
Sanctions at last?
Belgium’s offensive comes just when its position on sanctioning Russian diamonds is under renewed attack — not just from other EU countries and Belgian opposition parties, but also within De Croo’s own government.
According to Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, Putin’s ability to sell diamonds to all western markets now needs to be shut off | Laurie Dieffembacq/Belga Mag/AFP via Getty Images
The EU is preparing a new round of sanctions against Russia ahead of the first anniversary of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Countries such as Poland and Lithuania are again urging the EU to include diamonds. However, one EU diplomat said the discussion is now more an “intra-Belgian fight than a European one.”
De Croo leads a coalition of seven ideologically diverse parties. The greens and socialists within his government are pushing him to actively lobby for hitting diamonds in the next EU sanctions round.
In particular, Vooruit, the Dutch-speaking socialist party, is making a renewed push. Belgian MP Vicky Reynaert will be introducing a new resolution in the Belgian Parliament proposing an import ban.
“It’s becoming impossible to explain that Belgium is not open to blocking Russian diamonds,” Reynaert said. “We want Belgium to actively engage with the European Commission to take action.” Belgian socialist MEP Kathleen Van Brempt is pushing the same idea at the European level.
But the initiative from the socialists isn’t likely to deliver an import ban, or even import quotas, four officials from other Belgian political parties said. De Croo is now set on an international solution instead. No one expects the socialists to destabilize De Croo’s fragile Belgian coalition government over the issue of diamonds.
Even if all seven parties in the Belgian government did agree to hit Russian diamonds, there would be another key obstacle.
In the complicated Belgian political system, the regional governments would have a say as well. The government of the northern region of Flanders is against an import ban. That government is led by the Flemish nationalists, whose party president, Bart De Wever, is also the mayor of Antwerp. “Nothing will change their minds on this,” one of the Belgian officials said of the nationalists’ position.
Blood diamonds
Belgium hopes that by building an international coalition to trace Russia’s “blood diamonds” it will finally stop being seen as a roadblock to action.
The industry agrees. “Sanctions are not the solution,” said Tom Neys of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre. “An international framework of complete transparency, with the same standards of compliance as Antwerp, can be that solution,” he said.
Such a transatlantic plan would have a huge impact, according to Hans Merket, a researcher with the International Peace Information Service, a human rights nonprofit organization. “That would have much more effect than the current U.S. sanctions, which are being circumvented,” said Merket.
But the devil will be in the details. Will Belgium succeed in building a transatlantic coalition? Are consumers willing to pay more for their diamonds, or does it still risk diverting the goods to other markets where traders are less diligent?
One of the Belgian officials was doubtful of Belgium’s chances of success. If the international alliance falters, Belgium and the EU should consider moving ahead on their own to convince the rest of the world to act. “But let’s give De Croo a shot at this,” the official said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
PARIS — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz raised optimism on Sunday that the EU and the U.S. can reach a trade truce in the coming months to prevent discrimination against European companies due to American subsidies.
Speaking at a press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron following a joint Franco-German Cabinet meeting in Paris, Scholz said he was “confident” that the EU and the U.S. could reach an agreement “within the first quarter of this year” to address measures under the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act that Europe fears would siphon investments in key technologies away the Continent.
“My impression is that there is a great understanding in the U.S. [of the concerns raised in the EU],” the chancellor said.
Macron told reporters that he and Scholz supported attempts by the European Commission to negotiate exemptions from the U.S. law to avoid discrimination against EU companies.
The fresh optimism came as both leaders adopted a joint statement in which they called for loosening EU state aid rules to boost home-grown green industries — in a response to the U.S. law. The text said the EU needed “ambitious” measures to increase the bloc’s economic competitiveness, such as “simplified and streamlined procedures for state aid” that would allow pumping more money into strategic industries.
The joint statement also stressed the need to create “sufficient funding.” But in a win for Berlin, which has been reluctant to talk about new EU debt, the text says that the bloc should first make “full use of the available funding and financial instruments.” The statement also includes an unspecific reference about the need to create “solidarity measures.”
EU leaders will meet early next month to discuss Europe’s response to the Inflation Reduction Act, including the Franco-German proposal to soften state aid rules.
The relationship between Scholz and Macron hit a low in recent months when the French president canceled a planned joint Cabinet meeting in October over disagreements on energy, finance and defense. But the two leaders have since found common ground over responding to the green subsidies in Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act. Macron said that Paris and Berlin had worked in recent weeks to “synchronize” their visions for Europe.
“We need the greatest convergence possible to help Europe to move forward,” he said.
But there was little convergence on how to respond to Ukraine’s repeated requests for Germany and France to deliver battle tanks amid fears there could be a renewed Russian offensive in the spring.
Asked whether France would send Leclerc tanks to Ukraine, Macron said the request was being considered and there was work to be done on this issue in the “days and weeks to come.”
Scholz evaded a question on whether Germany would send Leopard 2 tanks, stressing that Berlin had never ceased supporting Ukraine with weapons deliveries and took its decisions in cooperation with its allies.
“We have to fear that this war will go on for a very long time,” the chancellor said.
Reconciliation, for past and present
The German chancellor and his Cabinet were in Paris on Sunday to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Elysée treaty, which marked a reconciliation between France and Germany after World War II. The celebrations, first at the Sorbonne University and later at the Elysée Palace, were also a moment for the two leaders to put their recent disagreements aside.
Paris and Berlin have been at odds in recent months not only over defense, energy and finance policy, but also Scholz’s controversial €200 billion package for energy price relief, which was announced last fall without previously involving the French government. These tensions culminated in Macron snubbing Scholz by canceling, in an unprecedented manner, a planned press conference with the German leader in October.
At the Sorbonne, Scholz admitted relations between the two countries were often turbulent.
“The Franco-German engine isn’t always an engine that purrs softly; it’s also a well-oiled machine that can be noisy when it is looking for compromises,” he said.
Macron said France and Germany needed to show “fresh ambition” at a time when “history is becoming unhinged again,” in a reference to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Because we have cleared a path towards reconciliation, France and Germany must become pioneers for the relaunch of Europe” in areas such as energy, innovation, technology, artificial intelligence and diplomacy, he said.
On defense, Paris and Berlin announced that Franco-German battalions would be deployed to Romania and Lithuania to reinforce NATO’s eastern front.
The leaders also welcomed “with satisfaction” recent progress on their joint fighter jet project, FCAS, and said they wanted to progress on their Franco-German tank project, according to the joint statement.
The joint declaration also said that both countries are open to the long-term project of EU treaty changes, and that in the shorter term they want to overcome “deadlocks” in the Council of the EU by switching to qualified majority voting on foreign policy and taxation.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
