Author: staff

What’s more, it is not clear that any of those plans will be ready to be signed off when the 27 leaders next meet in Brussels at the end of October. Questions still hang over each of the policies and there was insufficient time to work through them, said the three diplomats and officials. European Council President António Costa, who chaired the meeting, said that the session had been urgently needed “to prepare decisions for the security of our continent” and that leaders needed be ready to agree them in just three weeks. Officials immediately played down the chances of…

The two crew members, the captain and his deputy, were arrested on charges of refusing to obey a summons and failing to justify the ship’s nationality, according to the prosecutor’s office. Discussions between EU leaders in Copenhagen Oct. 1 were dominated by Russia drone incursions against EU countries and a proposal by the European Commission to create a “drone wall” on its eastern frontier in response to the sightings. Speaking after the arrests, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said she couldn’t comment on “specific investigations” but noted that countries were “facing lots of problems with the shadow fleet in the…

While von der Leyen has made many proposals to boost EU defense, this remains a core part of national governments’ individual powers. The bloc’s biggest countries don’t want the Commission to take away their authority. Smaller countries are more sanguine, particularly those in the East, because they feel more vulnerable to the Russian threat. Costa wanted to show that he, too, could play a leadership part, two diplomats said. Up until now he’s played mainly a supporting role, leaving von der Leyen to bask in the spotlight. As a center-left chief presiding over a group of leaders, most of whom…

EU leaders gathered in Copenhagen on Wednesday gave “broad support” to proposals to ramp up the development of drone and anti-drone technology and to use immobilised Russian assets to loan money to Ukraine. “Leaders broadly supported initial priority flagship projects that will strengthen Europe’s security, including the European drone wall and the Eastern Flank Watch,” European Council President Antonio Costa told reporters at the end of the informal gathering in the Danish capital. Ahead of the meeting, which came after a series of airspace violations in Poland, Estonia, Romania, and Denmark, the European Commission had released a so-called Scoping Paper…

Three men were arrested in Berlin on Wednesday on suspicion of procuring firearms for the Hamas militant group to carry out attacks against Israeli or Jewish targets in Germany, federal prosecutors said. The suspects — identified under local privacy laws as German nationals Abed Al G. and Ahmad I., and Lebanese-born Wael F. M. — are accused of acting as “foreign operators” for Hamas, according to the prosecutors. They face charges of membership in a foreign terrorist organization and preparing a serious act of violence endangering the state. Hamas is banned in Germany and is classified as a terrorist organization.

The flotilla, made up of more than 50 boats, set sail in August and has pro-Palestine activists from around the world on board, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and MEPs. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Tuesday that the flotilla’s actions could throw U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza into jeopardy. “With the Middle East peace plan proposed by U.S. President Donald Trump, there is finally hope for an agreement to end the war and the suffering of the Palestinian civilian population and stabilize the region,” Meloni wrote on social platform X. “This hope rests on a fragile…

Asked about the possibility of further defections, Badenoch sounded a defiant note: “Some people just jump wherever they think the wind is blowing. We need MPs who are going to stay the course and stay true to our values, not just people who want to be MPs.” Speaking for the first time after Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage traded blows over immigration during Labour’s conference week, the Conservative leader said: “I think that they are both as bad as each other. They are both squabbling like children; the country needs the grown-ups back in the room. We are the grown-ups.”…

“I think it’s important to look at the overall work that a senator has done,” said the pope, a Chicago-area native. “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion,’ but is in favor of the death penalty is not really pro-life,” he added. “Someone who says, ‘I’m against abortion but I’m in agreement with the inhuman treatment of immigrants in the United States,’ I don’t know if that’s pro-life.” The pope was speaking on Wednesday at a conference commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Laudato Si, a 2015 formal doctrinal letter issued by his predecessor, Pope Francis, that called for the protection of…

France has launched an investigation into a Russian-linked oil tanker for “serious offences,” President Emmanuel Macron said on Wednesday. Authorities have opened a probe into the Benin-flagged Boracay vessel, which is named on a list of shadow fleet ships and subject to EU sanctions. “There were some very serious offences committed by this crew, which justify the current judicial procedure,” Macron said at an EU leaders’ defence summit in Denmark. Part of the investigation will look into whether the Boracay was used as a launchpad for a drone incursion into Denmark’s airspace last week which forced the closure of its airports.…

“The allegedly sighted drones were of different types and sizes. The state police were on-site and documented these sightings, which are currently being evaluated by the State Criminal Police Office.”  Sütterlin-Waack added that several of the sightings were later determined not to have been illegal drone overflights. Some, however, including those over critical infrastructure, remain unexplained. “The recent incidents in our neighboring country Denmark as well as in other European countries primarily aim to unsettle the public and destabilize the situation in Europe,” the minister said. In the past few weeks, drones have violated Polish, Romanian, Norwegian and Danish airspace,…