Defence giants call for European drone program

Three top European defence firms called Sunday on governments to launch a program to manufacture drones that European countries are currently having to buy from Israel or the United States.

Iran to send 4,000 troops to aid President Assad forces in Syria

Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.

For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.

Eurogendfor: the new EU police force of limitless power / Eurogendfor: la nuova polizia europea dai poteri illimitati

An article orginally written in Italian, with the best available translation to English at the moment, explains a new European police force. This police force by increased cooperation not only further aligns them with the EU, but also takes out the Russian influence within the region.

Among the many projects of international cooperation which Italy is currently involved seems it is appropriate to dwell on what Eurogendfor, or the European Gendarmerie Force. This is an initiative that involves in addition to our other 5 EU countries: France, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Romania, but subsequently acceded to this project.

The purpose of the EGF to strengthen the management capacity of the future international crises and, more importantly, contribute to the common defense and security policy and may in all respects be considered a tool integrated approach to conduct police missions in several theaters, including those destabilized, in support of the European Union, NATO, the UN or any coalitions to create PURPOSE.

Angela Merkel’s advice for Europe’s unemployed: move

Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel has a simple message for the millions young people in the eurozone who are out of work – move.

In an interview, Mrs Merkel said the high levels of youth unemployment in Europe represent a “huge crisis”, comparing the eurozone’s difficulties with post-Communist eastern Germany.

Speaking to the BBC, she said that when unemployment soared after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “many young people … only had jobs because they moved to the south.” Mrs Merkel said: “I think it’s unfair that it is the young people especially who have to pay the bill for something they didn’t do.

Portugal: ‘IMF: Order to kill’

The IMF report on Portugal’s implementation of an EU-brokered bailout plan aims to throw off the country’s constitutional court, says i.

Instead of including reforms in the 2014 state budget, the IMF wants to push directly into structural reforms, which assumes to be the most difficult part of the Portuguese adjustment program.

New geopolitical rivalry between Europe and Russia

In November 2013 Vilnius will host the summit of Eastern Partnership, the EU program on closer cooperation with the post-Soviet countries which is operating since May 2009. The participants of the program are Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. In recent times Belarus has showed active interest to Eastern Partnership. Despite political contradictions, the leadership of the country expects invitation to Vilnius from the EU. 

EU and China waging a subtle trade war

After claiming for years that austerity was “right thing to do”, before eventually admitting growth was in everyone’s best interests, you’d have thought Brussels would have learnt its lesson by now.

Not so … it seems.

For this week eurocrats went a step further and— having already exasperated many of the EU’s own members— they managed to alienate the one of the block’s biggest trading partners too, by slapping tariffs on cut-price Chinese solar panels.

Greece Ousted from Index of ‘Developed’ Countries

Like other countries within the region that are yet to go into full-blown crisis, Greece failed from the beginning, and what’s more is that it was known. A second supporting link can be found here, from Spiegel Online.

The latest setback for Greece: booted the euro-zone member from its index of developed countries.

The decision, announced late Tuesday, is the first time the index provider demoted a country from its “developed” to its “emerging-market” category since the launch of its flagship emerging-markets index in 1987.

It affirms what investors have believed for years. Multiple bailouts by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, a sharp contraction in gross domestic product and a still-large debt burden mean Greece now has more in common with Hungary than France.

Struggle for the Ukraine

BERLIN/KIEV/MOSCOW (Own report) – The struggle between Berlin and Brussels, on the one side, and Moscow, on the other, for the predominating influence in the Ukraine is growing sharper. Since the end of 2012, the German RWE company has been systematically expanding its natural gas deliveries to this East European country. Its objective is to break Kiev’s dependence on Russian natural gas, by reversing the flow in the pipelines already in place, to deliver large quantities of the gas from the West. However, these efforts – also being supported by the German EU Energy Commissioner, Günter Oettinger – are not advancing rapidly enough. According to reports, pro-western circles in the Ukraine are complaining that Slovakia – without whose pipelines, a breakthrough would hardly be possible – is opposing the project. Brussels, therefore, should exert pressure on that country, because time is running out. The Ukrainian government signed a memorandum last week, which is considered an important step toward its integration in the Russian-dominated EurAsian Economic Community, about to be established. In Berlin, Ukrainian participation in this community is perceived as incompatible with Kiev’s integration into EU structures. This conflict, which in principle, has been going on for twenty years, is being fueled by this new accentuation.

Europeans, comply or else…

Following the European Commission decision to tax imports of Chinese solar panels, Beijing has decided to launch a probe on European wine imports. And if the 27 do not get the message, other retaliatory measures will follow, warns the Chinese official newspaper.

China’s decision to launch an anti-dumping and anti-subsidy probe into wine imports from the European Union signals the country will safeguard its major economic interests – and it has ample cards in hand to do so.

Under German Command

BERLIN/THE HAGUE/WARSAW (Own report) – The German Bundeswehr has announced the formation of a permanent military unit of foreigners under German command. Beginning in January 2014, approx. 2,100 soldiers from the Netherlands will be integrated into the “Rapid Reaction Force Division” as a result of a declaration of intent signed in Berlin last week by the defense ministers of both countries. Three dozen projects for closer cooperation between the two armed forces are planned. A second, similar declaration of intent, stipulating closer naval cooperation was also signed between the defense ministers of Germany and Poland. This cooperation includes combat missions. Specialists in military policy have been calling for intensifying military cooperation to increase the Bundeswehr’s military clout. Berlin would be well advised to seek cooperation particularly with the smaller countries, because they, it is said, unlike France or Great Britain, are more pliable allies due to their lesser power potentials.

Merkollande takes the controls

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande want to install a government for the Eurozone. This could change the EU’s structure, according to the press in both countries, but only if the leaders’ understanding is sustainable.

Angela Merkel and François Hollande have made up. The “Franco-German contribution,” announced on May 30, shows that the German Chancellor now supports the French President’s proposals concerning the governance of the Eurozone. French financial daily Les Echos notes that: