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BBC NEWS | Europe | Czech MPs oust government in vote - 0 views

  • The Czech Republic's centre-right minority government has lost a vote of no-confidence midway through the country's six-month EU presidency. Four rebel MPs voted with the opposition Social Democrats and Communists against PM Mirek Topolanek.
  • Social Democrat leader Jiri Paroubek said ahead of the vote that the government could "complete the Czech EU presidency or its substantial part". However, Mr Topolanek has ruled out the idea of a caretaker government until June, when the EU presidency passes to Sweden. According to the constitution, Czech President Vaclav Klaus must decide who to choose to form a new administration. If three attempts to do so fail, early elections will be called.
  • The BBC's Rob Cameron in Prague says this surprise result, which threw observers completely off guard, could have far-reaching consequences beyond the country's borders. In addition to chairing the European Council, the Czech Republic is also in the middle of ratifying the Lisbon Treaty and is in talks with the United States on placing a radar base on Czech soil. All these important foreign policy initiatives are now thrown into doubt, our correspondent adds.
Argos Media

After Topolanek: Will Europe Be Held Hostage in Prague Castle? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News ... - 0 views

  • Mirek Topolanek, from the far east of the Czech Republic, likes to say that he's a "guy with balls" -- and he acts accordingly. He once shouted "I'll kill you" at a journalist and he's raised his middle finger at political opponents. He has referred to the EU's Lisbon Treaty as "a pile of crap."
  • But since becoming prime minister two years ago, the tough guy seemed to have gotten himself under control. He deftly hammered out a coalition and steered his Civic Democratic Party (ODS) -- middle class and traditionally critical of the EU -- on a Brussels-friendly course. And since January, Topolanek has even proved to be a passable statesman as his country holds the European Union's rotating presidency.
  • Then last week, he relapsed. Topolanek declared in front of the European Parliament that United States President Barack Obama's multi-billion-dollar stimulus package was "a road to hell" -- and this just as Prague is set to host Obama at the US-EU summit later this week.
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  • Topolanek already pushed Lisbon Treaty through the parliament, the legislature's lower house, in February, against the wishes of President Václav Klaus. However, it still needs to be pass through the country's senate before it can be ratified, and how the 81-member upper house will vote is anything but predictable. One thing is sure -- it's going to come down to the 35 votes held by Topolanek's ODS.
  • Pessimists like Deputy Prime Minister Alexandr Vondra say it's now going to be difficult to get the fractious senate to commit to an EU-friendly position. Optimists, meanwhile, hope that ODS representatives will take their cue from the general population's mood, since senators are directly elected by the people. And the EU is in good standing with Czechs at the moment, with polls showing up to 60 percent in support of the Lisbon Treaty. "In these times of economic crisis," says Robert Schuster at the Prague Institute of International Relations, "there's a feeling that it's better to belong to a large community."
  • it was two fellow members of his ODS party who helped oust Topolanek. Both voted against the prime minister, supposedly because they were unable to reconcile their political conscience with participation in a government that wants to implement the Lisbon Treaty.
  • That, however, is hardly the whole truth. The party is still deeply split between supporters of the president and those of the defeated prime minister. Topolanek is not the only one convinced that Klaus was behind the vote that brought him down -- the president has never made a secret of his animosity toward his rival. Klaus appears determined not to let Topolanek remain provisionally in office as a caretaker prime minister until the end of the Czech Republic's EU presidency. On Sunday Topolanek said that he was open to a deal with political rivals on an interim government, possibly led by someone else.
  • Even when the corruption grows too conspicuous to ignore, it often goes unpunished. Such was the case with Jiri Cunek, Topolanek's former deputy prime minister, who came under suspicion of having taken bribes. The investigation made no headway, the attorney in charge of the investigation was changed, and the case was eventually filed away. Cunek remains the Christian Democrats' party leader.
  • "There's a judicial mafia at work," says former Justice Minister Marie Benesova, explaining that in the Czech Republic the highest prosecutor works directly under the justice minister. That, she says, means the executive branch of the government can directly influence the judicial system.
  • The Social Democrats, who called the recent no-confidence vote in parliament, have also had their share of scandals. Former Prime Minister Stanislav Gross, for example, had to step down four years ago when he proved unable to explain how he had financed his luxury apartment in Prague.
  • The so-called "opposition agreement" has also had a disastrous effect on Czech politics. After elections in 1998 left a stalemate between the Social Democrats and the ODS, Social Democrat Milos Zeman and then-leader of the ODS Vaclav Klaus came to an agreement: The Social Democrats would be allowed to govern, but the ODS, as the opposition, could take part in decision-making. Zeman had to negotiate every decision in advance and the conservatives were rewarded with various concessions for their consent. And politics began to move behind closed doors.
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Czech Parliament Vote Clouds U.S. Antimissile Plan - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The Czech government lost a parliamentary vote of no confidence on Tuesday, suffering an embarrassing defeat midway through its presidency of the European Union and casting doubt on the country’s ability to shepherd the world’s biggest trading bloc during a time of economic crisis.
  • the Czech government of Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek seemed to be collapsing more as a result of political infighting.
  • Mr. Topolanek said Tuesday that he would resign after the motion passed, 101 to 96, in the 200-seat lower house.
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  • Analysts said that under the Czech Constitution, the vote would not lead immediately to early elections and Mr. Topolanek and his top ministers could stay on for months until President Vaclav Klaus appoints a new prime minister who can gain the support of a majority in Parliament. But the analysts noted that until a new government was convened, the vote meant the European Union presidency would be held by a country in which the Parliament did not have faith in the government.
  • Jiri Paroubek, the Social Democratic leader who called the vote of no confidence, said he wanted the cabinet to stay on until June to avoid disrupting the team running the European Union presidency. He said a government of nonpartisan experts could then take over until early elections in the fall or next spring.
  • Even if the cabinet remains, analysts said the government’s collapse would undermine principal foreign policy aims of Mr. Topolanek’s coalition, including plans for construction of a United States missile defense installation in the country, which is already under review by Washington. This month, the Czech government temporarily withdrew treaties on the installation from the parliamentary ratification agenda in the face of an opposition threat to vote them down.
  • Political analysts said one of the greatest beneficiaries of the crisis could prove to be Mr. Klaus, an outspoken economic liberal, who is skeptical of the European Union. He founded the Civic Democratic Party of Mr. Topolanek, but in recent months he has criticized the prime minister for being too fervent an advocate of greater European integration, and he recently resigned as honorary chairman of the party. Under the Constitution, as president he has to designate a new prime minister, making him the new kingmaker in Czech politics.
Pedro Gonçalves

Skeptic on the Inside Undercuts European Union - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • When the European Union and Russia held their most recent summit meeting in May, the Czech president, Vaclav Klaus, stunned European diplomats when he passed out copies of his book denouncing the fight against global warming — a central policy of the 27-nation bloc he was supposed to lead.
  • He declined to display its gold-starred flag in his office during his nation’s presidential term.
  • In November, Mr. Klaus set the stage for the Czech presidency when he visited Ireland’s leading activist against the Lisbon Treaty. He praised him as a “dissident” akin to Czechoslovak rebels like Vaclav Havel who had languished in prison during the communist era.
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  • In early January, a spokesman for the Czech presidency described the Israeli offensive in Gaza as more defensive than offensive, taking a position that was anathema to most big European nations, including France, which had strongly condemned Israel’s action. That prompted the Czechs to revoke their comments, which they said had been misunderstood.
  • Likewise, the Czechs apologized to several countries for a public artwork they commissioned in Brussels to celebrate their presidency. The art installation consisted of an avowedly satirical map of Europe that depicted Bulgaria as a Turkish toilet and Germany as a highway resembling a swastika, among other offenses.
  • Ahead of Mr. Obama’s first presidential trip to Europe, Mr. Topolanek called the American fiscal stimulus package “a road to hell” in a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France.
  • With Mr. Topolanek a lame duck, the signature event of the Czech presidency — a May meeting to engage with the European Union’s eastern neighbors, including Georgia, Moldova and Belarus — was snubbed by leaders of the main European players, including France, Britain and Italy.
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Klaus vetoes Czech approval of Lisbon Treaty - Europe, World - The Independent - 0 views

  • The Czech President Vaclav Klaus said he would not ratify the Lisbon Treaty after it was approved by the senate yesterday, raising a new obstacle to plans to reform the EU. Mr Klaus explained that he would not sign the treaty because of its rejection by Irish voters last year and an expected court challenge in the Czech Republic. "The Lisbon Treaty is dead for this moment," said President Klaus. "It is dead because it was rejected in a referendum in one member state. Therefore, a decision on ratification of this treaty is not on the agenda at this point."
  • Ireland plans to hold a new vote later this year on the EU's charter for reform. Yesterday the Czech senate voted 54-20 to ratify the treaty
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As Jobs Die, Europe's Migrants Head Home - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Mr. Mituletu, who is planning to return to Romania next month, is one of millions of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Africa who have flocked to fast-growing places like Spain, Ireland and Britain in the past decade, drawn by low unemployment and liberal immigration policies.
  • But in a marked sign of how quickly the economies of Western Europe have deteriorated, workers like Mr. Mituletu are now heading home, hoping to find better job prospects, or at least lower costs of living, in their native lands.
  • While unemployment is also rising in the Czech Republic, “it is much easier to be at home with family and with friends and not to have a job,” she said, “than to be here and not to have a job.”
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  • In Spain, where the growth has been the most explosive, the foreign population rose to 5.2 million last year out of a total of 45 million people from 750,000 in 1999, according to the National Statistics Institute. Ireland’s population, now 4.1 million, was also transformed, with the percentage of foreign-born residents rising to 11 percent in 2006 from 7 percent in 2002.
  • Alcalá, a Madrid bedroom community and the birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes, is home to so many Romanian immigrants — 20,000 by some estimates — that Romania’s president, Traian Basescu, campaigned here for parliamentary elections last fall.
  • But signs of the reverse migration of Romanians are already evident. “Slowly, slowly, they’re disappearing,” said Gheorghe Gainar, the president of a Romanian cultural association in Alcalá. “When you look for them, you don’t find them. Sometimes you ask a relative, and they say they’ve gone back.”
  • The reverse exodus from more prosperous countries in Western Europe is likely to add to the economic pressures already buffeting Central and Eastern Europe, where migrants from developing countries are in turn being encouraged to leave. The Czech government announced in February that it would pay 500 euros, or about $660, and provide one-way plane tickets to each foreigner who has lost his job and wants to go home. And in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, workers from China have been camped out in freezing weather in front of the Chinese Embassy for two months, essentially stranded after their construction jobs disappeared.
  • Like the Czech Republic, Spain is offering financial incentives to leave. A new program aimed at legal immigrants from South America allows them to take their unemployment payments in a lump sum if they agree to leave and not return for at least three years. The Spanish government says only around 3,000 people have taken advantage of the plan, but many others are leaving of their own accord.
  • Airlines in Spain are offering deals on one-way tickets to Latin America, and they say demand has increased significantly. Every day, Barajas airport in Madrid is the setting for emotional departures, as families send their jobless loved ones back home.
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Obama Seizes on Missile Launch in Seeking Nuclear Cuts - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Mr. Obama said that his administration would “reduce the role of nuclear weapons” in its national security strategy, and would urge other countries to do the same. He pointed to the agreement he reached last week with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia to begin negotiations on reducing warheads and stockpiles, and said the two countries would try to reach an agreement by the end of the year. He also promised to aggressively pursue American ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which in the past has faced strong opposition in Congress.
  • “We think that what was launched is not the issue; the fact that there was a launch using ballistic missile technology is itself a clear violation,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador.
  • China left its position ambiguous, although diplomats said that at the initial meeting it stressed that the North Koreans had a right like any other country to launch satellites. “Our position is that all countries concerned should show restraint and refrain from taking actions that might lead to increased tensions,” Yesui Zhang, the Chinese ambassador, told reporters.
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  • Igor N. Schcherbak, the Russian envoy, said that his country did not think it was a violation of the previous resolutions banning ballistic missiles, but he left some wriggle room by saying that Russia was studying the matter.
  • In his speech, Mr. Obama said he still planned to continue with missile defense, but he tied the need for such a system to any Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons. Russia opposes locating a defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, as current plans call for, and Mr. Obama has responded by pushing the Russians to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
  • “Let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies,” Mr. Obama said. “The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we will go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven.”
Pedro Gonçalves

BBC News - Husband of Ukraine's Tymoshenko wins Czech asylum - 0 views

  • Last year, the country granted asylum to Bohdan Danylyshyn, a former economy minister in Tymoshenko's cabinet. A row ensued in which Ukraine expelled two Czech diplomats for alleged espionage. Mr Tymoshenko has a stake in the Czech company International Industrial Projects.
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New government may face EU sanctions over two-state solution - Haaretz - Israel News - 0 views

  • At a closed-door dinner of European Union diplomats held Friday in the Czech Republic, several senior officials said Israel must be required to present an explicit commitment accepting the principle of "two states for two peoples," and if it fails, the process of upgrading Israel-EU relations should be frozen.
  • At least 10 communiques from Israeli embassies in Europe arrived at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem in recent days painting a difficult picture of the level of trust felt in Europe towards the Netanyahu government, particularly on diplomatic matters. Advertisement The dispatches all had the same message: The diplomats present at the dinner criticized Israel on its handling of negotiations with the Palestinians, settlement building, the destruction of homes in East Jerusalem and the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
  • Among those expressing criticism were those generally viewed as supportive of Israel, including host Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg of the Czech Republic, whose country is the current EU president. Schwarzenberg summarized the meeting by saying, "There won't be any progress in relations between Israel and the European Union until the Israeli government clarifies its stance on the creation of a Palestinian state."
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  • After the dinner he told a Czech newspaper that a decision had been made to cancel a summit between the Israeli prime minister and EU leaders planned for late May or early June.
  • One communique expressed the impression of one guest at the dinner, who spoke of an atmosphere of "ganging up on Israel," and that terms were imposed "on a government that had not yet been formed."
  • The message also indicated that several ministers spoke of the "need to teach Israel a lesson about its treatment of the Palestinians."
  • The central issue discussed at the dinner was the future of Israel-EU relations. Many ministers demanded that Israel be presented with an ultimatum stating that an upgrade of those relations be carried out only with an Israeli government explicitly committing itself to the two-state solution.
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France 24 | EU offers partnership to former Soviet states | France 24 - 0 views

  • European Union nations gathered for landmark talks Thursday with six former Soviet states, aiming to foster stability without angering Moscow or offering anyone the hope of eventual EU membership.     The main goal of the new Eastern Partnership is to "accelerate political association and further economic integration" between the 27 EU nations and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, according to a draft summit statement.
  • Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday warned against the creation of "new dividing lines" in Europe.     However EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana assured in Prague that the Eastern partnership "is not against Russia with whom we also have a partnership".
  • Brussels says the new scheme is designed to foster stability in the region and is not handing out the carrot of eventual EU partnership.     "This is not about building spheres of influence, this is not about building competition, this is a language that belongs to the past," EU commission spokesman Amadeu Altafaj Tardio said.
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  • The project was the initiative of the Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency till the end of next month.
  • Prague was unable to convince key EU leaders to attend -- with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Italian counterpart Silvio Berlusconi among the no-shows.
  • Overall the meeting was turned into something of a semi-summit, with just over half of the 27 EU nations represented by their heads of state or government.     A senior European Commission official said the absences increase the danger of "policy for the East made by countries from the East (of the EU), and a policy for the Mediterranean made by Mediterranean countries".
  • The draft shows some of the tensions over the eastward rapprochement, with subtle but key text changes in the final version reflecting the wishes of western Europe -- France, Germany and the Benelux countries in particular -- not to go too far with the project.     The six partner nations are clearly referred to as "Eastern European Partners" whereas the Czechs wanted to drop the "Eastern" tag.
  • The reference "long-term goal" was also added to a paragraph on visa liberalisation.
  • No mention of EU membership goals for the six is made, with several EU nations feeling they have enough on their hands with the European aspirations of the Balkan nations.
  • The Eastern Partnership was promoted by Czech, Polish and Swedish concerns that the EU's political focus had moved to areas where it had little real influence rather than stay on more "European" states.
Pedro Gonçalves

Misery for social democrats as voters take a turn to the right | Politics | The Guardian - 0 views

  • Europe's mainstream centre-left parties suffered humiliation last night when four days of voting in the EU's biggest-ever election concluded with disastrous results for social democrats.
  • In Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Hungary and the Czech Republic, the centre right won the elections, with stunning defeats for the left in certain cases.
  • In the EU's biggest country, Germany, returning 99 of the parliament's 736 seats, the Social Democrats (SPD), the junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's grand coalition, sunk to an all-time low, with 21% of the vote.
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  • Less than four months before Germany's general election, last night's outcome augured well for Merkel's hopes of ditching her grand coalition in favour of a centre-right alliance with the small Free Democrats, who made the biggest gains, from six to more than 10%.
  • Next door in Austria, the chancellor and leader of the Social Democrats, Werner Faymann, led his party to its worst ever election result, just over 23%.In both countries, the Christian democrats won comfortably, but Merkel's Christian Democrats and her Bavarian CSU allies were six points down, on 38%.
  • France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, claimed triumph with 28% for his UMP party to the Socialists 17%, the first time a sitting French president has won a European election since the vote began 30 years ago.
  • In Italy, the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi also did well, despite his marital breakdown and scandals over parties at his Sardinian villa, while in Spain the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero also lost the election to conservatives.
  • With the social democrats licking their wounds and the centre-right scoring ­victories whether in power or in opposition, the other signal trend of the ballot was the breakthroughs achieved by extreme right-wing nationalists and xenophobes.
  • Following on from the triumph of Geert Wilders, the anti-Islam campaigner, who came second with 17% in the Netherlands on Thursday, the hard-right and neo­fascists chalked up further victories .
  • The anti-Gypsy extremists in Hungary, Jobbik, took three of the country's 22 seats; in Austria two far-right parties mustered 18%, and extreme Slovak nationalists gained their first seat in the European parliament.
  • Anti-Brussels candidates and Eurosceptics also won more seats in Denmark, Finland, Austria, and the Czech Republic.
  • With the jobless numbers soaring amid the worst economic crisis in the lifetimes of European voters, the centre left is clearly failing to benefit politically in circumstances that might be expected to boost its support.
  • Estimates of the new balance of power in the 736-seat assembly suggest that the centre right will have around 270 seats to the socialists' 160, a much wider margin than predicted.
  • Hans-Gert Pöttering, the outgoing president, or speaker, of the European parliament, stressed that Europeans "want" the parliament, but conceded that that desire would not be reflected in the turnout.
  • The damning popular verdict on that assertion, however, was the lowest turnout in 30 years. It was estimated at around 43%, compared with 45% last time, and 62% in Europe's first election in 1979.
Pedro Gonçalves

Declining Support for Nationalists: Hard Times for Eastern Europe's EU Haters - SPIEGEL... - 0 views

  • Today, opinion polls put support for Self-Defense at just three percent in the upcoming European parliamentary elections.
  • Five years on from the EU's big eastward expansion, there's not a single new member state where fierce critics of Brussels can expect good results in the EU election. In fact, they will be lucky to win enough votes to cross the five percent threshold needed to get seats in the EU parliament in Strasbourg.
  • In addition to Lepper, Poland's League of Polish Families has also slipped under the five percent mark in opinion polls.
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  • hings have quieted down at Prague Castle, Klaus's seat of office. The liberal-conservative Civic Democratic Party (ODS) he co-founded has broken ranks and recently voted in favor of the reform treaty. The president's euro-skepticism has pushed him to the periphery of the country's political scene.
  • His newly founded right-wing Party of Free Citizens (SSO) is expected to fare even worse in the European elections than Lepper's Self Defense.
  • Opinion polls have registered increasing enthusiasm for the EU in the new member states. According to a Eurobarometer survey, a majority of citizens in Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Slovakia, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania believe that accession to the EU brought their countries economic growth and democratic progress.
  • Poland's farmers -- Lepper's clientele -- used to be the problem children of the EU, but are now regarded as a source of stability. In 2007, 14.7 percent of Poles still worked in the farming sector, compared to just two percent in Germany. A few years ago the vast majority of them were vehemently opposed to the EU and feared that large swathes of Polish farmland would be bought up by Germans. But by 2008, three quarters of farmers already believed that Poland's agricultural sector had benefited from EU membership.
  • The EU cut €220 million in payments to Bulgaria and froze a further €340 million because Bulgaria was incapable of putting the money to effective use as a result of endemic corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. But surprisingly, the ensuing public anger wasn't directed at Brussels but against their own politicians, who had led the country into the EU but weren't able to tap the EU's financial resources.
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As Economic Turmoil Mounts, So Do Attacks on Hungary's Gypsies - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Over the past year, at least seven Roma have been killed in Hungary, and Roma leaders have counted some 30 Molotov cocktail attacks against Roma homes, often accompanied by sprays of gunfire.
  • Experts on Roma issues describe an ever more aggressive atmosphere toward Roma in Hungary and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, led by extreme right-wing parties, whose leaders are playing on old stereotypes of Roma as petty criminals and drains on social welfare systems at a time of rising economic and political turmoil. As unemployment rises, officials and Roma experts fear the attacks will only intensify.
  • In the Czech Republic, where radical right-wing demonstrators have clashed with the police as they tried to march through Roma neighborhoods, a small child and her parents were severely burned after assailants firebombed their home in the town of Vitkov this month. The police in Slovakia were caught on video recently tormenting six Roma boys they had arrested, forcing them to undress, hit and kiss one another.
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  • But nowhere has the violence reached the level it has in Hungary, spreading fear and intimidation through a Roma population of roughly 600,000. (Estimates vary widely in part because Roma say they are afraid to identify themselves in surveys.)
  • “In the past five years, attitudes toward Roma in many parts of Eastern Europe have hardened, and new extremists have started to use the Roma issue in a way that either they didn’t dare to or didn’t get an airing before,” said Michael Stewart, coordinator of the Europe-wide Roma Research Network.
  • The extreme-right party Jobbik has used the issue of what its leaders call “Gypsy crime” to rise in the polls to near the 5 percent threshold for seats in Hungary’s Parliament in next year’s election, which would be a first for the party. Opponents accuse the Hungarian Guard, the paramilitary group associated with the party, of staging marches and public meetings to stir up anti-Roma sentiment and to intimidate the local Roma population.
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Veterans of U.S. Diplomacy Try to Revive Nuclear Arms Talks With Russia - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Three former American secretaries of state and a former secretary of defense were in Moscow on Thursday for informal meetings with top Russian officials in an attempt to pull relations between the United States and Russia out of a tailspin before the countries’ presidents meet for the first time next month. The flurry of so-called track two diplomacy by figures outside government was another gesture of outreach to Russia. A month ago, the Obama administration sent a letter proposing a dialogue on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions that could diminish American needs for a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.
  • Henry A. Kissinger, who is now 85, the architect of the original détente policy with the Soviet Union in the 1970s, led one group of three former American officials on a visit to the Russian capital. They are advocating a new round of international arms-reductions talks intended to eliminate all nuclear weapons. Separately, James A. Baker III, who was secretary of state when the Berlin Wall fell, was in Moscow for a conference on the politics of Caspian Sea oil and natural gas riches that both Russia and the West are maneuvering to obtain access to.
  • The visits by the former warhorses of American diplomacy toward Russia were seen as testing the waters for President Obama’s intention to, as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. put it, “press the reset button” on bilateral relations.
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  • Russia has declared a sphere of privileged interest over Ukraine and Georgia, former Soviet states America would like to see admitted to NATO. Russia is considering opening long-range bomber bases in Venezuela. That, in turn, is seen as a response to American plans to position antimissile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.
  • No replacement has been negotiated for Start I, and Russia’s support for Iran’s civilian nuclear industry is thwarting Western efforts to dissuade that country from enriching uranium that could also be used in a bomb.
  • Along with Mr. Kissinger, former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William Perry and Sam Nunn, a retired Democratic senator from Georgia, were scheduled to meet the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, on Friday.
  • Mr. Baker said the United States should show a new humility in international relations.“We ought to be big enough on both sides to admit that blame can be directed at both countries for this deterioration in Russian-U.S. relations,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with doing whatever we can to get this relationship back on the track it was on up until the last few years.”
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BBC NEWS | Americas | Chavez courts Russian influence - 0 views

  • Russian warships, led by the nuclear cruiser Peter the Great, are in the Caribbean Sea for the first time since the end of the Cold War to begin manoeuvres with the Venezuelan navy.
  • The exercises coincide with a visit to Caracas by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, who is due in Venezuela on Wednesday, and are illustration of how close military ties between the two countries have grown in recent years.
  • While the Russian government has been playing down any political dimension to the training, the Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez, has been doing just the opposite. In recent speeches, he has referred to Venezuela's "strategic partnership" with Russia and said the military ties were part of building a more "multi-polar world".
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  • But the Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergei Riabkov, said suggestions in the media that the naval exercises signal a return to Cold War politics in Latin America were misguided. "There is no geo-political connotation whatsoever," he told the BBC.
  • Between 2005 and 2007, Venezuela spent around $4bn (£2.6bn) on military equipment - most of it from Russia.
  • Ties between the two superpowers have become strained because of Washington's plan for a missile defence system in Poland and the Czech Republic - something Moscow is firmly opposed to. Indeed President Medvedev, has said he will deploy missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, between Poland and Lithuania, if the US initiative goes ahead in its present form.
  • Mr Chavez recently took a delegation of Russian top brass to inaugurate a gas platform in the Gulf of Venezuela, co-owned by their respective state-run energy companies - PDVSA and Gazprom.
  • During the trip, the Russian government also signed joint agreements on issues as diverse as gold and bauxite mining, ceramics and fishing. It is a combination Russian technology and know-how coupled with Venezuela's resources and manpower.
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Clinton urges Nato to bring Russia back in from the cold | World news | guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • The Obama administration moved today to resume high-level relations with Moscow when Hillary Clinton led a western push to revive contacts between Russia and Nato.Making her European debut as secretary of state, Clinton told a meeting of Nato foreign ministers that Washington wanted "a fresh start" in relations with Moscow.
  • "I don't think you punish Russia by stopping conversation with them," she said, adding that there could be benefits to the better relationship. "We not only can but must co-operate with Russia."
  • The meeting in Brussels agreed to reinstate the work of the Nato-Russia council, a consultative body that was frozen last year in protest at Moscow's invasion and partition of Georgia.
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  • Diplomats said the accord and the talks in Geneva tomorrow could pave the way for the Obama administration to press ahead with a common agenda with Russia which would entail talks on nuclear arms control and on Russian co-operation with US policy on Afghanistan and Iran.The new White House team are clearly hoping to bypass the prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, and focus its diplomacy on President Dmitry Medvedev.
  • For any big shifts in the Russian-­American relationship, Moscow would insist on the shelving of the Pentagon's missile shield project in Poland and the Czech Republic and a freeze in the ­prospects for Ukraine and Georgia joining Nato.
  • The US and Germany tabled a joint proposal for yesterday's Nato meeting, leaving the contentious issue of Ukraine's and Georgia's membership chances open and urging greater co-operation with Russia "as equal partners in areas of common interest". It went on: "These include: Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, counter-piracy, counter-narcotics, non-proliferation, arms control and other issues."
  • "Russia is a global player. Not talking to them is not an option," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato secretary-general.
  • In the first big foreign policy speech from the Obama administration, in Munich last month, the vice-president, Joe Biden, said the White House wanted to "press the reset button" in relations with Moscow after years of dangerous drift.
  • The agreement today was held up for several hours by Lithuania, which strongly opposed the resumption of dialogue with the Kremlin.France and Germany, keen to develop close links with Moscow, threatened in turn to cancel scheduled meetings last night between Nato and Ukraine and Georgia if "the opening with Russia" was not given a green light, diplomats said.
Argos Media

General Wesley Clark on NATO's Future | Newsweek International Edition | Newsweek.com - 0 views

  • Among all other international organizations, there are none stronger than the relationships of NATO.
  • It's also a major force for stabilizing Eastern Europe, which is still dominated by fears—some founded, some unfounded—of inappropriate influence by Russia.
  • You've got to share information and coordinate action. Though there are also bilateral relationships, which are preferred by the intelligence community. There are some NATO partners who don't get the same level of candor and detail as others.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Is Eastern European security still a worry of NATO's? Is its mission outdated?I hosted the Russian chief of defense in Bosnia in 1997, and talks were candid. Those exchanges were shut down by the resurgence of the traditional power ministries and men like Yevgeny Primakov, who reestablished the grip of the intelligence services on the military. It became impossible for me to call my Russian counterpart. Since then we've seen threats to Eastern Europe and the action in Georgia. In the Czech Republic, our allies are very worried about what it might mean to "reset" relations with Russia. I heard from Condi Rice in 2000 that the Clinton administration had somehow destroyed relations with Russia and that the new team would make things better. Now we're [talking about "resetting"] relations again.
Argos Media

EU seeks greater links with ex-Soviet states - The Irish Times - Fri, May 08, 2009 - 0 views

  • THE EU has invited six former Soviet republics to join an eastern partnership initiative promising closer ties amid growing fears of serious economic and political upheaval in the region.
  • At a summit yesterday, the union offered the prospect of free trade, additional economic aid, a gradual relaxation in visa restrictions and integration into the European single market. But the initiative stops short of offering the prospect of future EU membership to any of the participants and commits them to respect human rights and democracy.
  • “If we don’t export stability to this region, we will import instability,” said Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt who, along with Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, co-developed the eastern partnership plan in an attempt to stabilise eastern Europe.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and the 27 EU states signed up to a declaration promising a “more ambitious partnership”. The EU is also planning to boost the amount of aid it provides to the region to about €600 billion and provide technical assistance to the six states.
  • Moscow rejects European accusations of meddling in the region and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov criticised the proposed partnership when he met his European counterparts, telling them it should “not get in the way of the post-Soviet era”.
  • EU diplomats attempted to soothe Russian concerns to prevent tensions between Nato and Russia worsening. “This is not anti-Russian,” said Czech deputy prime minister Alexandr Vondra, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. “They are our close eastern neighbours and we have a vital interest in their stability and prosperity. This is an offer, not an EU projection of force.”
  • However, the commitment of EU states to the eastern partnership initiative came under question, with several high-profile EU leaders staying away. British prime minister Gordon Brown, French prime minister Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spanish prime minister José Luís Zapatero did not attend.
  • Polish hopes that the partnership may be used to give countries such as Ukraine the chance to apply for EU membership face opposition from Germany and the Netherlands. Diplomats from both states insisted on watering down the declaration, which initially referred to the states as “European countries”. Instead, they were described as “partners” and promises of fast-track visa liberalisation were deleted.
Pedro Gonçalves

US has 'scrapped plan for missile shield in eastern Europe' - Americas, Wor... - 0 views

  • Moving to avoid a rift with Moscow, Barack Obama has "all but abandoned" plans to locate parts of a controversial US missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, a leading Polish newspaper claimed yesterday. The Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza said that the Pentagon has been asked to explore switching planned interceptor rocket sites from the two east European states to Israel, Turkey, the Balkans or to mobile launchers on warships
  • Controversy erupted earlier this year when rumours surfaced of a secret letter written by Mr Obama to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev allegedly hinting that the White House would back away if Russia offered help on reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions.
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