Europe

EU High Level Group (established by EU commission) recommends forcing all devices in the EU to be sold with ”integrated Law Enforcement access” (page 21, recommendation 25) and sanctioning non-EU approved messaging services (recommendation 33)

Archived version

Op-ed by Elena Davlikanova, Democracy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis.

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On May 9, European foreign ministers convened ... to approve the establishment of a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine ... Following a formal request from [Ukrainian] President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Council of Europe's Secretary General Alain Berset was tasked with leading the process.

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The tribunal will not replace the International Criminal Court, which already issued an arrest warrant for Putin for the deportation of Ukrainian children. Instead, it aims to fill a gap that the ICC cannot fill because its current legal infrastructure is insufficient for prosecuting sitting heads of state for violating the UN Charter with the crime of aggression.

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While much of the discussion around the tribunal has focused on accountability, deterrence and an attempt to restore respect for international law, its implications for Russia may prove to be just as important.

Prosecuting the Russian leadership is not simply about punishment. It may offer the country a chance to break from a cycle of impunity that has shaped its modern history. Without addressing the political culture that enables wars of conquest, repression and myth-making, Russia is likely to reproduce the same patterns, with new victims at home and abroad.

The human rights organization Memorial — now banned in Russia but still active abroad — has already acknowledged one of its own historical blind spots: not calling for perpetrators of Soviet-era atrocities to be held accountable after 1991 for their crimes. That omission, Memorial argued, helped allow for the return of authoritarianism and state violence in the post-Soviet era.

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A tribunal would not only document crimes but also shape public discourse inside Russia and beyond. The Nuremberg Trials did not eliminate fascism in Germany. But they helped discredit it. A tribunal for the crime of aggression could initiate similar debates in Russia around the costs of empire, the role of political leaders and the meaning of national responsibility.

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For Russia’s future, examining its past matters. A society that never discusses how wars begin or are allowed to continue is a society doomed to repeat a cycle of violence. Bringing senior officials to justice for launching the war in Ukraine may serve not just as a warning to future aggressors, but as a protective mechanism for Russia itself. It would help dismantle the idea that greatness is measured in destruction, oppression, and reassert the principle that power must answer to law.

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The tribunal may not only contribute to saving Ukraine. It may help save Russia, too.

EU lawmakers demand release of Tibetan religious leader whom Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared in 1995 at the age of six, call for stronger stance on human rights issues regarding China

Seven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) across four political factions submitted inquiries to Kaja Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs.

China should "immediately and unconditionally" release the 11th Panchen Lama Gendun Choki Nyima and his parents, whom Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared on May 17, 1995, and who have not been seen for 30 years.

The MEPs condemned the government in Beijing, saying that "the enforced disappearance of the 11th Panchen Lama is one of the most troubling cases of religious and cultural repression in Asia in recent decades."

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Archived version of Yle article (archive.li)

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64476794

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64477374

"The Israeli Government's denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law," a joint statement said.

"We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank ... We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions."

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64477715

Le Scouarnec admitted in March to sexually abusing all 299 victims, many while they were under anaesthesia or waking up after operations between 1989 and 2014.

The former doctor is already in prison after being sentenced in December 2020 to 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting four children, including two of his nieces.

European leaders have agreed to increase pressure on Russia through further sanctions after Donald Trump briefed them on his call with Vladimir Putin, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said late on Monday. “Europe will increase the pressure on Moscow through sanctions. This is what we agreed upon with [Trump] after his conversation with Putin,” Merz posted on X, saying “Europe and America are very united on this”. After speaking with Putin, Trump held calls with the leaders of the European Union, France, Italy, Germany and Finland.

Archived version

Big Tech’s battle with European regulators may ultimately be overshadowed by the Trump administration’s destabilization of the broader Europe-U.S. security relationship. President Trump’s threat of using tariffs as retaliation for EU tech regulatory policy is not happening in a vacuum. His questioning of NATO’s value, ambiguity over Ukraine, threats to reduce U.S. troop strength in Europe, warming relations with Vladimir Putin, and castigation of Europe’s commitment to its own defense have also created a new ambiguity about America’s commitment to European security.

These [European] security concerns are spilling over into the tech sector. In early March the Dutch parliament passed eight resolutions with broad support urging the government to replace American-made software and hardware. If there is no stability in our security and trade relationships with the United States, the argument goes, is it still possible to rely on American companies for essential digital services?

The threat of Vladimir Putin and the unpredictability of Donald Trump have converged to redefine European security. “Naturally, Russia’s neighbors are most concerned by Russia,” European Council president Antonio Costa recently explained, “But what is essential is for everyone to understand that this is a collective threat.”

To provide some related points not contained in the linked article:

The full potential of the European (Digital) Single Market remains largely untapped: intra-EU trade in digital services represent a mere 8% of the bloc’s GDP, which is in stark contrast to the intra-EU trade of manufactured goods that is beyond 25%.

Currently, 80% of the technologies and digital services within the EU are designed and manufactured in third countries, according to CERRE, the Centre on Regulation in Europe (link opens pdf).

At the same time, European digital companies struggle to capture a significant share of the global market value, with a percentage share somewhere in low or mid-single digits. Measured by market capitalization, just two European companies make it to the top-20 ICT firms in the world (Germany’s SAP and Dutch ASML), and only 10 European digital champions make it to the global top-100.

The European Union’s Digital Decade policy programme 2030 has made some progress, but so far fell short, as the Commission itself admitted referring to its 2024 State of the Digital Decade report:

Over the last 5 years, the EU has strategically pivoted toward a more assertive digital policy framework, recognising the urgent need to shape the digital space with targeted investments and robust regulatory mechanisms when necessary. This approach marks a significant disruption, propelling the EU to the forefront of global digital governance and policy innovation.

But says that past experience

reveals two significant concerns: insufficient progress in reaching the objectives and targets and significant fragmentation across Member States. This highlights the need for more significant efforts by Member States to ensure the EU’s control over its future.

The question is now whether Mr. Donald Trump could push EU members to a better coordination of their policies, thus helping indeed to make European tech great again?

publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.world/post/29840994

European “green” funds holding more than $33bn of investments in major oil and gas companies have been revealed by an investigation, despite fossil fuels being the root cause of the climate crisis. Some of these investment funds used branding such as Sustainable Global Stars and Europe Climate Pathway.

Over $18bn was invested in the five biggest polluters: TotalEnergies, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and BP. These topped a 2023 Carbon Majors ranking for oil and gas production among shareholder-owned firms. Other investments by funds following EU sustainable finance disclosure regulations (SFDR) included those in US fracking company Devon Energy and Canadian tar sands company Suncor, the investigation by Voxeurop and the Guardian found.

This documentary is some months old, but still relevant. Turn on the subtitles, the English ones are human made.

Ziarul de Gardă once again penetrated Ilan Shor’s network. For three months we have documented from the inside with the help of a hidden camera how money circulates and how people working for Ilan Shor are recruited and lured to serve Moscow. The stakes – hijacking the country’s European course by compromising the October 20 referendum and the organized vote for a Shor-backed candidate to be announced just one day before the elections.

For three months, an undercover ZdG reporter, acting under a false identity, attended events organized by Shor’s people: so-called protests before or after court hearings of Shor’s corrupt politicians, electoral meetings with one of Shor’s candidates, whom the oligarch’s people believe will be eliminated from the race, and even handed out leaflets with false information about the European Union and the Eurasian Union.

The Shor network opened an account for the ZdG reporter in a Russian state bank using personal data that does NOT exist in reality. With the help of ZdG’s technical team, an identity card with made-up data was “cloned”, and in September, after almost two months in the service of Shor and Moscow, the ZdG reporter received the promised “iablociki”, i.e. 15 thousand Russian roubles, equivalent to about 2.7 thousand MDL (140 Eur). After all, the reporter ended up with less money for her “work” after being charged several fees along the way, both by the banks involved in the transactions and by the individuals who coordinated it. In October, another 15 thousand Russian rubles were transferred to the same account. Throughout this period, the ZdG reporter received several phone calls “from Moscow” thanking her for her work.

The scheme operated even on the day when the police and prosecutor’s office announced that they had dismantled a national bribing network. They had discovered that around 130 thousand Moldovans had been bribed for their vote on October 20, however this scheme was still in effect after the law enforcement bodies had uncovered it.

Two years after the publication of the investigation “Protesters to rent”, in which we showed that the participants in the protests organized by the former “Shor” party were paid, ZdG has penetrated again into Ilan Shor’s network. We found a similar reality, where money dictates and fuels any protest movement and spirit. But the differences are at the level of organization and circulation of money.

The new endorsements bring the total number of supporters—including France—to 36.

The UN Open Source Principles, recently adopted by the UN Chief Executive Board's Digital Technology Network (DTN)Opens a new window provide guidelines to promote collaboration and the adoption of open-source technologies within the UN and globally. Open Source United, a community of practice established by the DTN, works to advance open source technologies across UN agencies, funds and programmes. It encourages collaboration and scalable solutions to support delivery of UN mandates.

The UN Open Source Principles consist of eight guidelines that offer a framework for the use, development, and sharing of Open Source software across the organization.

In their quest to have a child via fertility treatment, couples often travel to EU countries. The laws there are more liberal and the obstacles fewer. For single women, however, the story remains quite different.

Sumar and Podemos will defend together this Tuesday in the Plenary of Congress their bill to shield the embargo on the purchase and sale of military equipment with Israel. Both formations claim the PSOE to support the admission of the initiative as a moral obligation to the “genocide” suffered by the Palestinian people.

Its debate in the Lower House takes place just when the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has affirmed that he aspires to the total takeover of Gaza while this weekend the bombings in Gaza have intensified.

The text proposes to prohibit any resource that serves to strengthen the Hebrew army in its offensive against the Palestinian people, even if it is riot control material or military fuel, through a reform of the current regulations on the control of foreign trade in defense and dual-use material.

In addition, it incorporates a specific protocol for the Government to deploy the inspection of the cargo of ships and aircraft passing through Spain bound for Israel and to enable the seizure of any military material they may be carrying.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Archived

In occupied Crimea, corrupt notaries are helping transfer ownership of Ukrainians’ apartments to Russian military personnel. It’s just one of several schemes the Kremlin-installed authorities are using to strip Ukrainians of their property — especially those who refused to take Russian citizenship.

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The dispossession of property has become one of Russia’s tools for pushing Ukrainians out of Crimea. The Kremlin has led a sweeping campaign of so-called “nationalization,” which spiked in 2014–2015 and has since expanded in scope following Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“In 2022, they added a new category — citizens of so-called ‘unfriendly countries,’” said Mykyta Petrovets, a legal expert at Ukraine’s Regional Center for Human Rights. “That includes basically all European nations — and of course, Ukraine. If you oppose Russian aggression or support sanctions, your property can be confiscated on that basis alone.”

People on a beach in the Black Sea resort city of Yevpatoria, Crimea. April 29, 2025.

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‘Erasing Ukrainian presence’

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In March 2020, Vladimir Putin signed a decree designating nearly the entire [Crimean] peninsula as a so-called “border territory” of the Russian Federation — a move that banned “foreigners” from owning land in Crimea. According to legal expert Mykyta Petrovets, the decree became yet another tool for property dispossession.

“They gave landowners about a year to sell or transfer their property,” Petrovets said. “After that, the process became essentially forced sales through the courts. Now, many of these plots are being auctioned off.”

Under Ukrainian law, nothing has changed — Ukrainian citizens still legally own their land. But the Russian-installed authorities in Crimea have begun publishing lists of addresses and cadastral numbers for properties they intend to confiscate. According to documentation collected by the Regional Center for Human Rights, over the past three years, the number of Crimean land parcels registered to so-called “foreign nationals” has dropped by 50 percent — from over 11,000 to just 5,000.

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After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Ukraine’s Justice Ministry filed an inter-state lawsuit with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), accusing Russia of systematic human rights violations in the occupied territory — including the illegal seizure of property. In June 2024, the court ruled in Ukraine’s favor. It declared Russia’s actions unlawful, including the imposition of Russian law in Crimea.

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Meanwhile, Russian officials continue to publicize their efforts to seize and redistribute property in Crimea. Larisa Kulinich, the Russian-installed minister for property and land relations in Crimea, recently announced that 900 properties were “nationalized” in 2024. The sale of those assets, she claimed, brought 2.8 billion rubles ($34.9 million) into the regional budget. Many of the confiscated properties are now being offered as rewards to Russian soldiers fighting against Ukraine.

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Belgian prosecutors have asked the European Parliament to lift several MEPs’ immunity amid a probe into alleged Huawei bribes, in the latest sign that the scandal is intensifying.

Archived

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Authorities suspect the Chinese telecoms giant of using football tickets, gifts, luxury trips, and possibly cash, to buy influence in Brussels. The sweeping probe has further eroded the credibility of a parliament still reeling from the 'Qatargate' bribery scandal that erupted in 2022.

All of the politicians in question, as well as Huawei, deny any wrongdoing.

EPP lawmaker Salvatore De Meo confirmed to Euractiv that he is among the MEPs targeted by a Belgian request to lift immunity as part of a probe into alleged covert payments.

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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64434221

Pedro Sánchez noted Russia has been banned from the contest since 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine, and said there should not be "double standards".

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64448364

https://archive.is/myOFu

Education secretary says top-up support for subjects including media must be scaled back because of ‘extremely challenging’ fiscal environment

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson told the sector regulator on Monday that capital spending would be almost halved in 2025-26 to £84mn from a multiyear settlement equivalent to an annual allocation of £150mn.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64432646

https://archive.is/HQeRB

The conclusions of the parliamentary investigative commission on bottled water, revealed by Le Monde and Radio France, show how the French government toned down a report highlighting the contamination of Perrier sources at the request of the Swiss giant.

namely, the use of prohibited filters to purify water contaminated by pesticides and fecal bacteria

geteilt von: https://sh.itjust.works/post/38301389

To try to tackle this, the Welsh Labour government, alongside Plaid Cymru, introduced measures to curb second-home ownership. This included giving councils the ability to push council tax on second homes to 300% the usual rate. They also closed a loophole whereby second-home owners could register as a business in order to pay the much lower business rates.

Gwynedd council used these powers to hike council tax to 150% in April 2023. By the end of 2024, house prices had fallen by 12.4% as second-home owners tried to sell up. In Pembrokeshire, house prices fell by 8.9% after the council increased the council tax to 200% on second homes (though this was reduced to 150% recently).

When Copenhagen signed a new defence agreement giving the US “unhindered access” to Danish airbases in December 2023, the idea of granting sweeping powers to US forces on Danish soil was quite a different proposition to what it is today.

The US, then under the Biden administration, was an unwavering Nato ally that Denmark had followed into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway had similar agreements with the US.

But then Donald Trump returned to power, making an unprecedented push to acquire or seize Greenland, a strategically vital part of the Danish kingdom. He has refused to rule out using military force to take over the island, and US intelligence agencies have reportedly been ordered to increase espionage in the territory.

Now, little more than a year on, as Denmark prepares to adopt the agreement next month after a vote in parliament on 11 June, when it is expected to be approved, fears are growing about its potential implications.

The deal means US soldiers will be in Denmark under US jurisdiction, meaning that if they were to commit a crime anywhere in Denmark they would in the first instance be punished under the US, not Danish, legal system.