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Austrian Chancellor Schallenberg stepping down
Kurz to Leave Politics
2 Dec, 2021 16:56
© REUTERS/Lisi Niesner
Alexander Schallenberg has announced he is resigning as chancellor of Austria, just two months after taking office. He said he would remain in the post until his party agrees a new leader in the wake of Sebastian Kurz’s departure.
In a statement on Thursday, Schallenberg said he believes “that both positions – head of government and leader of the Austrian party with the most votes – should soon once again be held by the same person.”
“I am therefore making my post as chancellor available as soon as the relevant course has been set within the party,” he added.
Schallenberg had stepped into the chancellorship after Kurz left office amid corruption allegations in October. Many expected the latter to return, but he announced his retirement from politics completely on Thursday, insisting the move was not an admission of guilt, but rather a personal decision.
The Austrian prosecutor’s office for economic crimes and corruption has opened an investigation into Kurz and a number of his close associates after accusations they manipulated opinion polls alongside misusing public funds to secure favorable media coverage of his policies between 2016 and 2018. Kurz has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.
Karl Nehammer, Austria’s minister of the interior, has been unanimously supported by the ruling conservative party to become the country’s next chancellor.
Macron labels Johnson ‘a clown’ – media
Bojo's a good name for a clown!
2 Dec, 2021 10:53
© Alastair Grant/Pool via REUTERS
The French president has reportedly called British PM Boris Johnson “a clown” and said it was a shame to see such a great country, which France could cooperate with, run by a knucklehead.
According to the weekly satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, French President Emmanuel Macron made some highly controversial and undiplomatic remarks about British Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a meeting in Zagreb in late November.
Le Canard Enchaîné claimed on Wednesday that Macron said Johnson is apologetic for the way he acts in public and his stance on fishing licenses for French trawlers and the submarine deal which saw a French manufacturer lose a $40 billion contract with Australia.
“In private, he tells me he's sorry he acts like he does, conceding he has first and foremost to accommodate public opinion,” Macron stated, adding that Johnson has apparently realised that Brexit is in fact a big mess. According to the journal, Macron points to fuel shortages and empty shelves as evidence, although many people have dismissed Brexit as the cause of the supply chain issues.
Macron apparently described his dealing with the prime minister as “a circus,” noting that they will talk in person, and everything is fine, but then he goes and does something in “an inelegant way.” The comment is seemingly a reference to Johnson’s publication of a letter addressed to Macron on November 25 in which he outlines a plan to deal with the migrant crisis one day after 27 died in a failed English Channel crossing.
Macron concluded that it is “very sad to see a great country, with which we could do a lot of things, led by a clown. A clown or a proud knucklehead? Or both?”
Relations between the UK and France have deteriorated to their worst in decades amid rows over Brexit, fishing and the AUKUS submarine pact.
France reacted to Johnson’s publicized letter last week by withdrawing an invitation to Home Secretary Priti Patel, who was due to meet with her French counterpart in Calais to discuss the migrant crisis. The French move was criticized for being counterproductive.
'Don't undermine Russia' – Finnish President advises West
6 Dec, 2021 12:49
Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. © Sputnik / Ramil Sitdikov
Despite worsening relations between Moscow and the West, Russia’s interests cannot be ignored, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö has said, explaining how his nation has built relations with its much larger neighbor.
“With the Russians, the most important thing is not to undermine relations and not to ignore them,” the Finnish leader explained in an interview published by The Sunday Times over the weekend.
He gave the example of the former mayor of the Finnish city of Turku, who, he said, met with Vladimir Putin several times in the early 1990s (before Putin became President of Russia). According to Niinistö, Putin was so charmed by the respect shown to him by the mayor, he continues to invite him on trips to Moscow.
Still, the president added, “One must be firm in one’s position.”
Explaining the potential for military tensions on Russia's vast border, Niinistö said, “Of course, they say they want to guarantee the safety of Murmansk Oblast, that they’re building up and fortifying their defenses. But as we all know, the sea is endless in scale. Where does the defense start and how far does it extend?”
In September, Niinistö called on the governments of Europe to rethink their foreign policy and engage in closer dialogue with Russia. “Instead of attempts at cooperation, we have growing distrust and mutual accusations,” he said. “Our relations with Russia are founded on active, direct dialogue.”
In 2018, Finland hosted a summit for discussions between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, the president of the United States at the time. Last week, Finland announced that it was prepared to host a meeting soon between Putin and current American incumbent Joe Biden. The two leaders are set to have a video call Tuesday, during which they will discuss the status of Ukraine, among other issues.
During the Cold War, Finland was known for its practice of abiding by the Soviet Union’s foreign policy rules while maintaining its national sovereignty and separate political system. This was sometimes referred to pejoratively as “Finlandization.”
NATO risks crossing Russian ‘red lines’ – influential German diplomat
6 Dec, 2021 11:36
By Layla Guest
Ukraine’s hopes to join NATO fly in the face of Russia’s long-declared boundaries, the head of the influential Munich Security Conference has said, amid concerns from officials in Moscow that the bloc is edging further eastwards.
Speaking as part of an interview with German daily Handelsblatt on Saturday, Wolfgang Ischinger claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin “has long been haunted by the fear” that America still wanted to make Ukraine and Georgia members of the organization.
The chair of the overwhelmingly pro-NATO event acknowledged this was a “red line” for Moscow, and suggested it would be better in the long term for Kiev to adopt a strategy whereby it modeled itself on Finland, which is a member of the EU but not of the US-led military bloc. However, he caveated, “We definitely cannot declare that Ukraine and Georgia will never become members.”
Ischinger’s comments come amid escalating tensions between NATO and Moscow. Last Thursday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said “promises” given by the bloc at the end of the Cold War that it would not move “an inch eastwards” had been largely ignored.
Speaking the day before, Putin announced that he would “insist on guarantees being set out” to stop NATO coming ever closer to his country’s borders and “deploying threatening weapons” nearby.
However, ahead of the talks between the two leaders that are due to take place on Tuesday, his American counterpart, Joe Biden, rejected Russia’s “red lines.” “We’ve been aware of Russia’s actions [concerning Ukraine] for a long time and my expectation is we’re going to have a long discussion with Putin,” he said, amid Western-led accusations that Moscow was planning to invade its neighbor, which the Kremlin has repeatedly denied.
In a recent interview with CNN, NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said the bloc had tripled the size of its forces and upped its presence in both the Black Sea and Baltic Sea to counter Russia’s presence there.
Putin has previously stressed that his predecessor, Mikhail Gorbachev, had been given reassurances by Western leaders that the bloc would not push into the space left after the collapse of the USSR. A tranche of documents declassified in 2017, has been widely interpreted as depicting that American, British, and German officials gave assurances to Moscow in the 1990s that NATO would not expand to include Eastern European nations. However, states including Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were subsequently admitted.
NATO countries in Europe
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