Continued support for Ukraine will cost the west less than letting Putin win

Ukraine’s top general has admitted the fightback against Russian aggression has reached a deadlock, and the prospect of “a deep and beautiful breakthrough” is unlikely.

A deadlock is exactly what Russian president Vladimir Putin wants, because it allows him to plant the idea of perpetual stalemate in the minds of western leaders who, staring at a difficult economic outlook for 2024, want a settlement.

Keep your bedbugs, Putin tells the EU

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not worried about Western sanctions — quite the opposite, in fact.

Faced with the prospect of a 12th round of EU sanctions — which could include trade in anything from diamonds to needles — the Russian leader brushed off the plan as ridiculous and took a jab at Europe and its crawling bedbug problem.

Transatlantic blame game: Trump, Merkel, Biden and the danger of Germany’s dependence on Huawei

Four and a half years ago, former President Donald Trump’s crusade to pressure U.S. allies into banning the Chinese tech company Huawei ran into a wall of resistance in Berlin.

Then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed Trump’s warnings that Huawei posed a grave security risk to the West — and defied his threat that the U.S. would curb intelligence sharing with allies who let the Chinese company build their future mobile networks.

Germany will not “exclude a company simply because it’s from a certain country,” Merkel declared at global policy conference in Berlin in March 2019.

Huawei pushes back on the EU calling it ‘high-risk’

Chinese technology giant Huawei has had it with European Union officials calling it a "high-risk" supplier.

The firm, a leading manufacturer of telecoms equipment, filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman office last month after the bloc's industry chief Thierry Breton described Huawei and its smaller Chinese rival ZTE as "high-risk suppliers" at a press conference on June 15.

EU ‘very close’ to finalising Russian diamond ban, says Belgian PM

Western countries are “very close” to finalising a ban on Russian diamonds from retail markets in countries that are already sanctioning Kremlin assets, the Belgian prime minister has said.

In a move that will cut off another vital source of revenue for Vladimir Putin in his war against Ukraine, Alexander de Croo said a year-long attempt by the European Union and G7 countries to reliably trace diamonds coming from Russia was almost complete.

EU proposes €5bn military aid package for Ukraine after ‘historic’ meeting

Ukraine is set to receive billions of euros more in military aid, as well as training for fighter pilots, the EU’s top diplomat has said, after a “historic” meeting of EU foreign ministers in Kyiv.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, said on Monday the 27-nation bloc remained committed to helping Ukraine defeat a “brutal and inhumane” Russia.

EU threatens sales bans to block use of western parts in Russian drones

Brussels has warned European companies and governments that it could ban the sale of certain components to Turkey and other countries from where Iran and Russia are sourcing parts for drones and other weapons striking Ukrainian cities.

The comments from the European Commission follows a leak to the Guardian of a 47-page document in which the Ukrainian government detailed the use of western technology and appealed for long-range missiles to attack drone production sites in Russia, Iran and Syria.

‘Incomprehensible’: How the EU lost control in Ukraine grain fight

BRUSSELS — It's one thing to be dealt a weak hand. It's another to play it badly.

But that's exactly what the European Commission has done in the crisis caused by a glut of Ukrainian grain that has put Kyiv at odds with its European allies and, in particular, left Brussels at the mercy of Polish electoral politics.

The EU's eastern capitals had warned that they would impose their own import bans if EU-wide restrictions expired, as planned, on September 15. Nevertheless, the Commission let them lapse. Ukraine gave notice that it would sue at the World Trade Organization if that happened, and has duly done so.

Erdoğan threatens to ‘part ways’ from EU after critical European Parliament report

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Saturday slammed a report from the European Parliament on the country’s EU accession talks and threatened to “part ways” from the bloc.

Questioned by journalists about the report, Erdoğan said that “the EU is trying to break away from Turkey,” according to Turkish state media Anadolu Agency.

Putin wants more land. The EU is racing to get there first

Vladimir Putin’s warmongering land grab has pushed European Union leaders to make their own plans to expand. Moves are now under way to bring as many as eight new members into the 27-country bloc. 

But the historic drive for enlargement poses its own risks for the EU. 

Adding new states — potentially including the agricultural powerhouse of Ukraine — would open a Pandora’s Box of challenges. Sweeping internal reforms would be required, and that would likely trigger years of toxic infighting between current EU members. 

Ukraine threatens legal action against EU if grain curbs drag on

Ukraine is threatening to take Brussels and EU member countries to the World Trade Organization if they fail to lift restrictions on its agricultural exports to the bloc this month.

The country's grain exports — its main trade commodity — are currently banned from the markets of Poland, Hungary and three other EU countries under a deal struck with the European Commission earlier this year to protect farmers from an influx of cheaper produce from their war-torn neighbor.

As Ukraine and others queue to join, is EU ready for enlargement?

She has extended the invitation multiple times but has yet to set a date for the welcome party. “You are part of our family, your future is in our union, and our union is not complete without you,” Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, last year told Ukraine and the nine other countries queuing patiently for EU membership.

But as the prospect of Ukraine in particular joining the bloc looms closer, EU leaders are asking if the EU is ready for enlargement.

Ukraine cries foul as fuels refined from Russian oil pour into the EU

Diesel, kerosene and other fuels refined from Russian crude are flooding into Europe, prompting Kyiv to call for tightening sanctions against Moscow.

In an interview with POLITICO, Oleg Ustenko, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, appealed for the EU, as well as the U.K. and the U.S., to close the "loophole" that allows third countries like India, China and Turkey to refine crude bought from Moscow's state energy firms into petrol, diesel and other products before selling them on without restrictions.

Will Europe’s centre-right parties accept defeat or sell their souls to the hard right?

There was a time when clear blue water separated Europe’s mainstream centre-right from the Eurosceptic populists and xenophobes of the hard right. A Christian Democrat such as Helmut Kohl or Angela Merkel would have had nothing in common with – and nothing to do with – a nativist such as Marine Le Pen or Geert Wilders.

No longer. In the run-up to the 2024 European Parliament elections, once-sharp lines between pro-European conservative parties and the nationalist far right are blurring as both seek to tap into public anger or anxiety over migration, the cost of living, the green transition and gender diversity.

Why did Russia go after the European Parliament?

David Sassoli did not draft the EU’s sanctions against Russia. He hasn’t set foot in Moscow during his time as European Parliament president. And officials close to him say he wasn’t planning to go there any time soon.

Yet last Friday, Sassoli was banned from entering Russia, included on a list of eight senior European officials that Moscow issued.

Some of the names made sense. European Commission Vice President Věra Jourová, for instance, has led the EU’s campaign against Russian disinformation.

China’s new bogeyman: Europe

Europe's attempt to keep politics and business apart in China is blowing up in its face.

Only three months after China and the EU struck a trade deal to make it easier to do business in each other's markets, Beijing's acid-tongued officials are now training their full ire on the EU and other Western countries. Party officials and celebrities alike are encouraging 1.4 billion consumers to boycott certain European brands. Hundreds if not thousands of shops are closing their doors to European clothes amid a nationwide backlash over Western sanctions imposed last week because of Beijing's crackdown against Muslim Uyghurs.

China’s hardline turn lifts chances of deeper EU-US alliance

By the time Antony Blinken's plane touched down in Brussels on Monday night, America's top diplomat had already acquired an unlikely ally in his push for a deeper transatlantic partnership: China.

Over the past few months, China has sparked more division than consensus between Washington and Europe. While the U.S. has taken a tough line and imposed trade sanctions over the treatment of China's Uyghur Muslim minority, Brussels has taken the opposite approach and in December agreed a landmark trade deal with Beijing that was intended to boost big European investors in China, particularly German car makers. Europe's top leaders like France's Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Angela Merkel gave short shrift to U.S. President Joe Biden's offer to form an alliance of democracies against China.

US and Canada follow EU and UK in sanctioning Chinese officials over Xinjiang

Britain and the EU have taken joint action with the US and Canada to impose parallel sanctions on senior Chinese officials involved in the mass internment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province in the first such western action against Beijing since Joe Biden took office.

The move also marked the first time in three decades that the UK or the EU had punished China for human rights abuses, and both will now be working hard to contain the potential political and economic fallout. China hit back immediately, blacklisting MEPs, European diplomats and thinktanks.

China’s mixed Marxist messages undercut EU trade prospects

Before European leaders agree to a landmark investment accord with Beijing, they want to know what kind of China they’d be striking a deal with.

Is it the internationalist, multilateralist country trumpeted by Beijing’s top diplomats abroad? Or is it the one centered around a more Marxist vision, as presented by President Xi Jinping at home? Suspicions are growing among EU leaders that it’s the latter.

As EU stumbles, Putin and Erdoğan take charge in Libya

The EU can step up or sit back down, but Russia and Turkey have taken charge — at least when it comes to Libya.

Minutes after European Council President Charles Michel vowed Wednesday that the EU would “step up” its efforts to halt “worrying military escalations” in Libya, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced a cease-fire to begin at midnight Sunday.