Europe and Africa “need each other more than ever before” in a global economy that is becoming “more confrontational,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday.
Speaking at the European Union-African Union summit in the Angolan capital of Luanda, von der Leyen said the two continents must deepen economic cooperation in an era of trade barriers, global overcapacity and export restrictions.
Von der Leyen said she sees the potential for the expansion of existing trade relations, even though a third of African exports already go to Europe.
She also pointed to the EU’s Global Gateway agenda, which she called “more than an infrastructure development programme,” highlighting the example of the Lobito Corridor in southern Africa.
At the last EU-African Union summit three years ago, a goal was agreed to invest a total of €150 billion ($173 billion) in Africa by 2027, von der Leyen said.
More than €120 billion has already been mobilized, she said, arguing that “at a time when other major investors are rethinking their global engagement, Europe’s commitment to Africa is here to stay.”
“The case for Africa and Europe to join forces is overwhelming,” the European Commission president said. “Let us find new ways of doing so. Let us walk this path together.”
Leaders from the two blocs are convening in Luanda amid a whirlwind of international diplomacy in southern Africa on the heels of a G20 summit in Johannesburg, the first such meeting on African soil.
The talks have arguably been overshadowed by frantic discussions on the controversial US peace plan for Ukraine, with EU leaders including German Chancellor Friedrich Merz holding a meeting on the proposal in Luanda on Monday.
On the first day of the summit, officials were set to cover a range of issues, including peace, security and multilateral cooperation, migration, mobility and prosperity, before a joint declaration is released on Tuesday.
The EU currently deploys 12 civilian and military missions and operations on the continent, including in Libya, Mali, Somalia and the Central African Republic, most of which are aimed at supporting counterterrorism efforts, increasing stability and conflict prevention.
But both sides are also looking to further increase cooperation across other areas, 25 years since the first EU-AU summit was held in Cairo in 2000.
President of the European Council Antonio Costa (L) and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen make a statement after the informal talks between EU heads of government on Ukraine at the EU-Africa Summit. Dati Bendo/European Commission/dpa
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia has added message board Reddit and livestreaming service Kick to its list of social media platforms that must ban children younger than 16 from holding accounts.
The platforms join Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, X and YouTube in facing a world-first legal obligation to shut the accounts of younger Australian children from Dec. 10, Communications Minister Anika Wells said on Wednesday.
Platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to exclude children younger than 16 could be punished with a fine of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million).
“We have met with several of the social media platforms in the past month so that they understand there is no excuse for failure to implement this law,” Wells told reporters in Canberra.
“Online platforms use technology to target children with chilling control. We are merely asking that they use that same technology to keep children safe online,” Wells added.
Australia’s eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who will enforce the social media ban, said the list of age-restricted platforms would evolve with new technologies.
The nine platforms currently age-restricted meet the key requirement that their “sole or significant purpose is to enable online social interaction,” a government statement said.
Inman Grant said she would work with academics to evaluate the impacts of the ban, including whether children sleep or interact more or become more physically active.
“We’ll also look for unintended consequences and we’ll be gathering evidence” so that others could learn from Australia’s achievements, Inman Grant said.
Australia’s move is being closely watched by countries that share concerns about social media impacts on young children.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a United Nations forum in New York in September that she was “inspired” by Australia’s “common sense” move to legislate the age restriction.
Critics of the legislation fear that banning young children from social media will impact the privacy of all users, who must establish they are older than 16.
Wells recently said the government seeks to keep platform users’ data as private as possible.
More than 140 Australian and international academics with expertise in fields related to technology and child welfare signed an open letter to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year opposing a social media age limit as “too blunt an instrument to address risks effectively.”
Germany is to set out its position on proposed EU sanctions against Israel before a European Union meeting in October, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Thursday, during his first visit to Madrid since taking office in May.
Merz told a press conference with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that the Cabinet will discuss European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal next week, ahead of an EU summit in Copenhagen.
“I expect we will have a position at the informal council on October 1 in Copenhagen that is supported by the entire federal government,” Merz said.
Von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed several punitive measures aimed at pressuring Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to change course. The sanctions would see free trade benefits withdrawn and sanctions imposed on extremist Israeli ministers.
From the European Commission’s perspective, Israel is violating human rights and international humanitarian law with its military offensive.
Sánchez expressed support for the EU sanctions, saying Spain has long called for suspending the EU-Israel strategic partnership agreement.
Merz was due to discuss cooperation with Spain, European political issues and security policies in the Spanish capital. While relations between Germany and Spain are considered good, there are differences on their stance on Israel.
Merz, like Sánchez, sharply criticizes the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, but Berlin has so far rejected imposing sanctions on Israel, apart from restricting arms exports.
In contrast, Spain took measures early in the Gaza conflict. In 2024, it became the first EU member to join South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
At the beginning of September, Sánchez announced a complete arms embargo and a travel ban for those “directly involved in the genocide, human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is due to travel to Madrid on Thursday for his inaugural visit to discuss cooperation between the two countries, European political issues and security policy with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Although the relations between Germany and Spain are generally considered good, there are significant differences on one particular issue – their stance on Israel.
While Merz, like Sánchez, sharply criticizes the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip, Germany has so far rejected imposing sanctions on Israel, apart from restricting arms exports.
In contrast, Spain took concrete measures early in the Gaza conflict. In 2024, it became the first EU member to join South Africa’s genocide lawsuit against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
At the beginning of September, Sánchez announced a complete arms embargo and a travel ban “for all those individuals directly involved in the genocide, human rights violations and war crimes in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen clarified her proposals for sanctions targeting Israel.
Free trade benefits should be revoked, and punitive measures should be taken against extremist Israeli ministers and settlers, von der Leyen said.
From the European Commission’s perspective, the country is violating human rights and international humanitarian law with its military offensive and the resulting humanitarian catastrophe.
Merz has not yet taken a position on the proposals.
Europe says it’s investing $7 billion into Ukraine’s increasingly famed drone industry.
It comes after Ukraine’s defense minister estimated that Kyiv needs $6 billion to cover drone costs.
It’s paid by interest on frozen Russian assets, so it’s not clear if all $7 billion is now available.
Europe is poised to inject $7 billion into Ukraine’s drone industry, hoping to supercharge mass production for the country’s increasingly renowned low-cost weapons.
The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday that the European Union would “frontload 6 billion euros,” or roughly $7 billion, for Ukrainian drones.
“Ukraine has the ingenuity. What it needs now is scale,” von der Leyen said in her State of the European Union address.
The announced $7 billion would be the biggest official tranche of funding to Ukraine’s drone industry so far.
It’s close to the $6 billion that Ukraine’s defense minister, Denys Shmyhal, has said Kyiv needs to cover this year’s production of first-person-view drones, interceptors, long-range drones, and missiles.
While new, Ukraine’s drone industry has increasingly been in the spotlight for producing cheap but effective weapons regularly being used to destroy Russian loitering munitions, armor, artillery, and production facilities.
Importantly, they also allow Kyiv’s troops to harass and halt Russian ground assaults from afar, meaning additional or improved drones could further stifle Moscow’s ability to advance or attrit Ukrainian forces.
The local drone industry is now seen as a globally leading force, driven by a wide range of domestic manufacturers and individual military units. Many of these firms and troops are often strapped for cash, partially relying on volunteer donations and crowdfunding to update their drones or stay afloat.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy estimated in June that his country had the capacity to make 8 million drones a year, but lacked the funding to do so.
In her speech, von der Leyen said that Ukrainian drones were responsible for at least 23% of Russian equipment losses. Ukrainian officials have said that at least 70% of all reported hits in the war were caused by drones.
She also spoke of Ukraine’s need to fight Russia’s growing Shahed waves, indicating that the money could be used to fund the production of interceptor drones.
“So we can use our industrial strength to support Ukraine to counter this drone warfare,” von der Leyen said.
Per von der Leyen, the funding will come from interest on frozen Russian assets.
However, it’s not immediately clear how much of the $7 billion is now ready to be used in Ukraine. Europe estimates that frozen Russian assets can, at most, generate interest of roughly $3.5 billion a year.
Nor has the European Commission publicly detailed plans on how the money will be disbursed or monitored.
Spokespersons for the European Commission did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
Von der Leyen said that since 2022, Europe has contributed close to $200 billion in financial and military aid to Ukraine.
While drones are often associated with the first-person-view, or FPV, propeller platforms used to fly into enemy targets with explosives, Ukraine has also been experimenting with a range of uncrewed aerial, naval, and ground systems in combat.
More recently, it’s been codifying more ground-based robots to relieve human soldiers from dangerous frontline combat tasks.
Some of Kyiv’s long-range munitions are also drones, such as the winged platforms it’s been using to strike Russia’s production facilities hundreds of miles from the border.
German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul has said Berlin has “taken note” of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s decision to halt EU payments to Israel over the country’s conduct in Gaza and Qatar.
The German minister, speaking alongside his Dutch counterpart in Berlin, refrained from commenting further, but only said that his government was awaiting further details on the step as promised by the EU chief.
Germany and the commission shared the common position “that Israel’s conduct of war in Gaza is unacceptable and that threats of annexation cannot remain the answer.”
It comes after von der Leyen said in the European Parliament in Strasbourg that the EU would stop all relevant payments because of Israel’s actions.
Israel criticized the decision, saying it was based in part on Hamas propaganda.
Germany is one of Israel’s most vocal backers and has been very hesitant in condemning the military’s actions in Gaza. On Tuesday, Israel hit Hamas leadership in Qatar.
The plane landed safely in Plovdiv airport and von der Leyen will continue her planned tour of the European Union’s nations bordering Russia and Belarus, said the commission’s spokesperson Arianna Podestà.
“We can indeed confirm that there was GPS jamming,” said Podestà. “We have received information from the Bulgarian authority that they suspect that this was due to blatant interference by Russia.”
Von der Leyen, a fierce critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow’s war in Ukraine, is on a four-day tour of the EU nations bordering Russia and its ally Belarus.
“This incident actually underlines the urgency of the mission that the president is carrying out in the front-line member states,” Podestà said.
She said that von der Leyen has seen “firsthand the everyday challenges of threats coming from Russia and its proxies.”
“And, of course, the EU will continue to invest into defense spending and in Europe’s readiness even more after this incident,” she said.
Bulgaria issued a statement saying that “the satellite signal used for the aircraft’s GPS navigation was disrupted. As the aircraft approached Plovdiv Airport, the GPS signal was lost.”
Von der Leyen was scheduled to address a news conference at 1430 GMT in Romania.
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Friday praised the Serbian president for meeting her and other European Union leaders instead of attending a Russia-organized summit of developing economies held earlier this week.
Serbia has close ties to Russia and has refused to join international sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine. In a telephone conversation Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin, populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said EU candidate Serbia would maintain its stance on sanctions, notwithstanding EU and other Western pressure.
However, despite Putin’s invitation, Vucic did not attend a three-day summit of the BRICS group of nations, led by Russia and China, which took place in the Russian city of Kazan earlier this week. Leaders or representatives of 36 countries took part in the summit, highlighting the failure of U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia over its actions in Ukraine.
Vucic sent a high-level delegation to the meeting, but said he could not attend himself because he had scheduled meetings with von der Leyen and Polish and Greek leaders. There are fears in the West that Putin is plotting trouble in the volatile Balkans in part to shift some of the attention from its invasion of Ukraine.
“What I see is that the president of the Republic of Serbia is hosting me here today and just has hosted the prime minister of Greece and the prime minister of Poland. That speaks for itself, I think,” von der Leyen said at a joint press conference with Vucic.
“And for my part, I want to say that my presence here today, in the context of my now fourth trip to the Balkan region since I took office, is a very clear sign that I believe that Serbia’s future is in the European Union,” she said.
Vucic said he knows what the EU is demanding for eventual membership — including compliance with foreign policy goals — but did not pledge further coordination.
“Of course, Ursula asked for much greater compliance with EU’s foreign policy declaration,” he said. “We clearly know what the demands are, what the expectations are.”
Von der Leyen was in Serbia as part of a trip this week to aspiring EU member states in the Western Balkans to assure them that EU enlargement remains a priority for the 27-nation bloc. From Serbia, von der Leyen will travel to neighboring Kosovo and Montenegro.
Serbian media reported that von der Leyen refused to meet with Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic because of his talks Friday with a high-level Russian economic delegation, which was in Belgrade to discuss deepening ties with Serbia. Vucic will meet the Russian officials on Saturday.
In Bosnia on Friday, von der Leyen promised support for the deeply split Balkan country which is struggling with the reforms needed to advance toward EU membership.
The Western Balkan countries — Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia — are at different stages in their applications for EU membership. The countries have been frustrated by the slow pace of the process, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has propelled European leaders to push the six to join the bloc.
Bosnia gained candidate status in 2022. EU leaders in March agreed in principle to open membership negotiations, though Bosnia must still do a lot of work.
“We share the same vision for the future, a future where Bosnia-Herzegovina is a full-fledged member of the European Union,” said von der Leyen at a joint press conference with Bosnian Prime Minister Bojana Kristo. “So, I would say, let’s continue working on that. We’ve gone a long way already, we still have a way ahead of us, but I am confident that you’ll make it.”
Last year EU officials offered a 6-billion-euro (about $6.5 billion) growth plan to the Western Balkan countries in an effort to double the region’s economy over the next decade and accelerate their efforts to join the bloc. That aid is contingent on reforms that would bring their economies in line with EU rules.
The Commission on Wednesday approved the reform agendas of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia following a green light from EU member states. That was a key step to allow payments under the growth plan upon completion of agreed reform steps.
However, Bosnia’s reform agenda has still not been signed off by the Commission.
“The accession process is, as you know, merit-based … we do not look at a rigid data but we look at the merits, the progress that a country is making,” said von der Leyen. “The important thing is that we have an ambitious reform agenda, like the other five Western Balkan countries also have. We stand ready to help you to move forward.”
Long after a 1992-95 ethnic war that killed more than 100,000 people and left millions homeless, Bosnia remains ethnically divided and politically deadlocked. An ethnic Serb entity — one of Bosnia’s two equal parts joined by a common government — has sought to gain as much independence as possible.
Upon arrival in Bosnia, von der Leyen on Thursday first went to Donja Jablanica, a village in central Bosnia that was devastated in recent floods and landslides. The disaster in early October claimed 27 lives and the small village was virtually buried in rocks from a quarry located on a hill above.
Von der Leyen said the EU is sending an immediate aid package of 20 million euros ($21 million) and will also provide support for reconstruction later on.
On the anniversary of Putin’s aggression, however, uncertainty and irritation were undisguised in Kyiv. Ukrainians wanted to know why Western sanctions on Russia are not working, and why Moscow keeps getting components for its missiles from Western companies. Why Ukrainians have to keep asking for weapons; and why the U.S. is not pushing through the crucial new aid package for Ukraine.
“We are very grateful for the support of the United States, but unfortunately, when I turn to the Democrats for support, they tell me to go to the Republicans. And the Republicans say to go to the Democrats,” Ukrainian MP Oleksandra Ustinova said at a separate Kyiv conference on Saturday. “We are grateful for the European support, but we cannot win without the USA. We need the supply of anti-aircraft defenses and continued assistance.”
“Why don’t you give us what we ask for? Our priorities are air defense and missiles. We need long-range missiles,” Ustinova added.
U.S. Congressman Jim Costa explained to the conference that Americans, and even members of Congress, still need to be educated on how the war in Ukraine affects them and why a Ukrainian victory is in America’s best interests.
“I believe that we must, and that is why we will decide on an additional aid package for Ukraine. It is difficult and unattractive. But I believe that over the next few weeks, the US response will be a beacon to protect our security and democratic values,” Costa said.
The West is afraid of Russia, Oleksiy Danilov, Ukraine’s security and defense council secretary, told the Saturday conference.
“The West does not know what to do with Russia and therefore it does not allow us to win. Russians constantly blackmail and intimidate the West. However, if you are afraid of a dog, it will bite you,” he said.
“And now you are losing not only to autocratic Russia but also to the rest of the autocracies in the world,” Danilov added.
BRUSSELS — One of Europe’s most senior politicians recounted how former U.S. President Donald Trump privately warned that America would not come to the EU’s aid if it was attacked militarily.
“You need to understand that if Europe is under attack we will never come to help you and to support you,” Trump told European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in 2020, according to French European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was also present at a meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
“By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO,” Trump also said, according to Breton. “And he added, ‘and by the way, you owe me $400 billion, because you didn’t pay, you Germans, what you had to pay for defense,'” Breton said about the tense meeting, where the EU’s then-trade chief Phil Hogan was also present.
Breton told the anecdote at an event in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, just days before the Republican Party holds its January 15 caucus in Iowa, the opening contest in Trump’s bid to win the Republican nomination for a run at returning to the White House. Party members will cast their votes for candidates including Trump, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, who both trail way behind the ex-president in opinion polls.
Brussels is rife with fear about the possibility Trump will return to the U.S. presidency.
As the commissioner in charge of the EU’s industrial policy and defense agenda, Breton has pushed for the EU to boost its own self-defense capabilities amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, and on Tuesday floated a €100 billion fund to ramp up arms production in the bloc.
“That was a big wake-up call and he may come back,” Breton said about Trump. “So now more than ever, we know that we are on our own, of course. We are a member of NATO, almost all of us, of course we have allies, but we have no other options but to increase drastically this pillar in order to be ready [for] whatever happens.”
BRUSSELS — Western leaders are grappling with how to handle two era-defining wars in the Middle East and in Ukraine. But there’s another issue, one far closer to home, that’s derailing governments in Europe and America: migration.
In recent days, U.S. President Joe Biden, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak all hit trouble amid intense domestic pressure to tackle immigration; all three emerged weakened as a result. The stakes are high as American, British and European voters head to the polls in 2024.
“There is a temptation to hunt for quick fixes,” said Rashmin Sagoo, director of the international law program at the Chatham House think tank in London. “But irregular migration is a hugely challenging issue. And solving it requires long-term policy thinking beyond national boundaries.”
With election campaigning already under way, long-term plans may be hard to find. Far-right, anti-migrant populists promising sharp answers are gaining support in many Western democracies, leaving mainstream parties to count the costs. Less than a month ago in the Netherlands, pragmatic Dutch centrists lost to an anti-migrant radical.
Who will be next?
Rishi Sunak, United Kingdom
In Britain, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure from members of his own ruling Conservative party who fear voters will punish them over the government’s failure to get a grip on migration.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks during a press conference in Dover on June 5, 2023 in Dover, England | Pool photo by Yui Mok/WPA via Getty Images
Seven years ago, voters backed Brexit because euroskeptic campaigners promised to “Take Back Control” of the U.K.’s borders. Instead, the picture is now more chaotic than ever. The U.K. chalked up record net migration figures last month, and the government has failed so far to stop small boats packed with asylum seekers crossing the English Channel.
Sunak is now in the firing line. He made a pledge to “Stop the Boats” central to his premiership. In the process, he ignited a war in his already divided party about just how far Britain should go.
Under Sunak’s deal with Rwanda, the central African nation agreed to resettle asylum seekers who arrived on British shores in small boats. The PM says the policy will deter migrants from making sea crossings to the U.K. in the first place. But the plan was struck down by the Supreme Court in London, and Sunak’s Tories now can’t agree on what to do next.
Having survived what threatened to be a catastrophic rebellion in parliament on Tuesday, the British premier still faces a brutal battle in the legislature over his proposed Rwanda law early next year.
Time is running out for Sunak to find a fix. An election is expected next fall.
Emmanuel Macron, France
The French president suffered an unexpected body blow when the lower house of parliament rejected his flagship immigration bill this week.
French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace in Paris, on June 21, 2023 | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
After losing parliamentary elections last year, getting legislation through the National Assembly has been a fraught process for Macron. He has been forced to rely on votes from the right-wing Les Républicains party on more than one occasion.
Macron’s draft law on immigration was meant to please both the conservatives and the center-left with a carefully designed mix of repressive and liberal measures. But in a dramatic upset, the National Assembly, which is split between centrists, the left and the far right, voted against the legislation on day one of debates.
Now Macron is searching for a compromise. The government has tasked a joint committee of senators and MPs with seeking a deal. But it’s likely their text will be harsher than the initial draft, given that the Senate is dominated by the centre right — and this will be a problem for Macron’s left-leaning lawmakers.
If a compromise is not found, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally will be able to capitalize on Macron’s failure ahead of the European Parliament elections next June.
But even if the French president does manage to muddle through, the episode is likely to mark the end of his “neither left nor right” political offer. It also raises serious doubts about his ability to legislate on controversial topics.
Joe Biden, United States
The immigration crisis is one of the most vexing and longest-running domestic challenges for President Joe Biden. He came into office vowing to reverse the policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump, and build a “fair and humane” system, only to see Congress sit on his plan for comprehensive immigration reform.
U.S. President Joe Biden pauses as he gives a speech in Des Moines, Iowa on July 15, 2019 | Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The White House has seen a deluge of migrants at the nation’s southern border, strained by a decades-old system unable to handle modern migration patterns.
Ahead of next year’s presidential election, Republicans have seized on the issue. GOP state leaders have filed lawsuits against the administration and sent busloads of migrants to Democrat-led cities, while in Washington, Republicans in Congress have tied foreign aid to sweeping changes to border policy, putting the White House in a tight spot as Biden officials now consider a slate of policies they once forcefully rejected.
The political pressure has spilled into the other aisle. States and cities, particularly ones led by Democrats, are pressuring Washington leaders to do more in terms of providing additional federal aid and revamping southern border policies to limit the flow of asylum seekers into the United States.
New York City has had more than 150,000 new arrivals over the past year and a half — forcing cuts to new police recruits, cutting library hours and limiting sanitation duties. Similar problems are playing out in cities like Chicago, which had migrants sleeping in buses or police stations.
The pressure from Democrats is straining their relationship with the White House. New York City Mayor Eric Adams runs the largest city in the nation, but hasn’t spoken with Biden in nearly a year. “We just need help, and we’re not getting that help,” Adams told reporters Tuesday.
Olaf Scholz, Germany
Migration has been at the top of the political agenda in Germany for months, with asylum applications rising to their highest levels since the 2015 refugee crisis triggered by Syria’s civil war.
The latest influx has posed a daunting challenge to national and local governments alike, which have struggled to find housing and other services for the migrants, not to mention the necessary funds.
The inability to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure | Michele Tantussi/Getty Images
The inability — in a country that ranks among the most coveted destinations for asylum seekers — to limit the number of refugees has put German Chancellor Olaf Scholz under immense pressure. In the hope of stemming the flow, Germany recently reinstated border checks with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, hoping to turn back the refugees before they hit German soil.
Even with border controls, refugee numbers remain high, which has been a boon to the far right. Germany’s anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party has reached record support in national polls.
Since overtaking Scholz’s Social Democrats in June, the AfD has widened its lead further, recording 22 percent in recent polls, second only to the center-right Christian Democrats.
The AfD is expected to sweep three state elections next September in eastern Germany, where support for the party and its reactionary anti-foreigner policies is particularly strong.
The center-right, meanwhile, is hardening its position on migration and turning its back on the open-border policies championed by former Chancellor Angela Merkel. Among the new priorities is a plan to follow the U.K.’s Rwanda model for processing refugees in third countries.
Karl Nehammer, Austria
Like Scholz, the Austrian leader’s approval ratings have taken a nosedive thanks to concerns over migration. Austria has taken steps to tighten controls at its southern and eastern borders.
Though the tactic has led to a drop in arrivals by asylum seekers, it also means Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades.
Austria has effectively suspended the EU’s borderless travel regime, which has been a boon to the regional economy for decades | Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images
The far-right Freedom Party has had a commanding lead for more than a year, topping the ruling center-right in polls by 10 points. That puts the party in a position to win national elections scheduled for next fall, which would mark an unprecedented rightward tilt in a country whose politics have been dominated by the center since World War II.
Giorgia Meloni, Italy
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni made her name in opposition, campaigning on a radical far-right agenda. Since winning power in last year’s election, she has shifted to more moderate positions on Ukraine and Europe.
Meloni now needs to appease her base on migration, a topic that has dominated Italian debate for years. Instead, however, she has been forced to grant visas to hundreds of thousands of legal migrants to cover labor shortages. Complicating matters, boat landings in Italy are up by about 50 per cent year-on-year despite some headline-grabbling policies and deals to stop arrivals.
While Meloni has ordered the construction of detention centers where migrants will be held pending repatriation, in reality local conditions in African countries and a lack of repatriation agreements present serious impediments.
Italy’s Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni at a press conference on March 9, 2023 | Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images
Although she won the support of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for her cause, a potential EU naval mission to block departures from Africa would risk breaching international law.
Meloni has tried other options, including a deal with Tunisia to help stop migrant smuggling, but the plan fell apart before it began. A deal with Albania to offshore some migrant detention centers also ran into trouble.
Now Meloni is in a bind. The migration issue has brought her into conflict with France and Germany as she attempts to create a reputation as a moderate conservative.
If she fails to get to grips with the issue, she is likely to lose political ground. Her coalition partner Matteo Salvini is known as a hardliner on migration, and while they’re officially allies for now, they will be rivals again later.
Geert Wilders, the Netherlands
The government of long-serving Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte was toppled over migration talks in July, after which he announced his exit from politics. In subsequent elections, in which different parties vied to fill Rutte’s void, far-right firebrand Geert Wilders secured a shock win. On election night he promised to curb the “asylum tsunami.”
Wilders is now seeking to prop up a center-right coalition with three other parties that have urged getting migration under control. One of them is Rutte’s old group, now led by Dilan Yeşilgöz.
Geert Wilders attends a meeting in the Dutch parliament with party leaders to discuss the formation of a coalition government, on November 24, 2023 | Carl Court/Getty Images
A former refugee, Yeşilgöz turned migration into one of the main topics of her campaign. She was criticized after the elections for paving the way for Wilders to win — not only by focusing on migration, but also by opening the door to potentially governing with Wilders.
Now, though, coalition talks are stuck, and it could take months to form a new cabinet. If Wilders, who clearly has a mandate from voters, can stitch a coalition together, the political trajectory of the Netherlands — generally known as a pragmatic nation — will shift significantly to the right. A crackdown on migration is as certain as anything can be.
Leo Varadkar, Ireland
Even in Ireland, an economically open country long used to exporting its own people worldwide, an immigration-friendly and pro-business government has been forced by rising anti-foreigner sentiment to introduce new migration deterrence measures that would have been unthinkable even a year ago.
Ireland’s hardening policies reflect both a chronic housing crisis and the growing reluctance of some property owners to keep providing state-funded emergency shelter in the wake of November riots in Dublin triggered by a North African immigrant’s stabbing of young schoolchildren.
A nation already housing more than 100,000 newcomers, mostly from Ukraine, Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia, according to the most recent Department of Integration statistics.
Ireland has stopped guaranteeing housing to new asylum seekers if they are single men, chiefly from Nigeria, Algeria, Afghanistan, Georgia and Somalia | Jorge Guerrero/AFP via Getty Images
Even newly arrived families face an increasing risk of being kept in military-style tents despite winter temperatures.
Ukrainians, who since Russia’s 2022 invasion of their country have received much stronger welfare support than other refugees, will see that welcome mat partially retracted in draft legislation approved this week by the three-party coalition government of Prime Minister Leo Varadkar.
Once enacted by parliament next month, the law will limit new Ukrainian arrivals to three months of state-paid housing, while welfare payments – currently among the most generous in Europe for people fleeing Russia’s war – will be slashed for all those in state-paid housing.
Justin Trudeau, Canada
A pessimistic public mood dragged down by cost-of-living woes has made immigration a multidimensional challenge for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
A housing crunch felt across the country has cooled support for immigration, with people looking for scapegoats for affordability pains. The situation has fueled antipathy for Trudeau and his re-election campaign.
Trudeau has treated immigration as a multipurpose solution for Canada’s aging population and slowing economy. And while today’s record-high population growth reflects well on Canada’s reputation as a desirable place to relocate, political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals.
Political challenges linked to migration have arisen in unpredictable ways for Trudeau’s Liberals | Andrej Ivanov/AFP
Since Trudeau came to power eight years ago, at least 1.3 million people have immigrated to Canada, mostly from India, the Philippines, China and Syria. Handling diaspora politics — and foreign interference — has become more consequential, as seen by Trudeau’s clash with India and Canada’s recent break with Israel.
Canada will double its 40 million population in 25 years if the current growth rate holds, enlarging the political challenges of leading what Trudeau calls the world’s “first postnational state”.
Pedro Sánchez, Spain
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe from the south: Once they make it across the land border, the Continent can easily be accessed by ferry.
Transit via the land border that separates the European territory from Morocco is normally kept in check with security measures like high, razor-topped fences, with border control officers from both countries working together to keep undocumented migrants out.
Spain’s autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, in Northern Africa, are favored by migrants seeking to enter Europe | Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP
But in recent years authorities in Morocco have expressed displeasure with their Spanish counterparts by standing down their officers and allowing hundreds of migrants to pass, overwhelming border stations and forcing Spanish officers to repel the migrants, with scores dying in the process.
The headaches caused by these incidents are believed to be a major factor in Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s decision to change the Spanish government’s position on the disputed Western Sahara territory and express support for Rabat’s plan to formalize its nearly 50-year occupation of the area.
The pivot angered Sánchez’s leftist allies and worsened Spain’s relationship with Algeria, a long-standing champion of Western Saharan independence. But the measures have stopped the flow of migrants — for now.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece
Greece has been at the forefront of Europe’s migration crisis since 2015, when hundreds of thousands of people entered Europe via the Aegean islands. Migration and border security have been key issues in the country’s political debate.
Human rights organizations, as well as the European Parliament and the European Commission, have accused the Greek conservative government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis of illegal “pushbacks” of migrants who have made it to Greek territory — and of deporting migrants without due process. Greece’s government denies those accusations, arguing that independent investigations haven’t found any proof.
Mitsotakis insists that Greece follows a “tough but fair” policy, but the numerous in-depth investigations belie the moderate profile the conservative leader wants to maintain.
In June, a migrant boat sank in what some called “the worst tragedy ever” in the Mediterranean Sea. Hundreds lost their lives, refocusing Europe’s attention on the issue. Official investigations have yet to discover whether failures by Greek authorities contributed to the shipwreck, according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In the meantime, Greece is in desperate need of thousands of workers to buttress the country’s understaffed agriculture, tourism and construction sectors. Despite pledges by the migration and agriculture ministers of imminent legislation bringing migrants to tackle the labor shortage, the government was forced to retreat amid pressure from within its own ranks.
Nikos Christodoulides, Cyprus
Cyprus is braced for an increase in migrant arrivals on its shores amid renewed conflict in the Middle East. Earlier in December, Greece sent humanitarian aid to the island to deal with an anticipated increase in flows.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management, and is contending with a surge in violence against migrants in Cyprus. Analysts blame xenophobia, which has become mainstream in Cypriot politics and media, as well as state mismanagement of migration flows. Last year the country recorded the EU’s highest proportion of first-time asylum seekers relative to its population.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides has called for extra EU funding for migration management | Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images
Legal and staffing challenges have delayed efforts to create a deputy ministry for migration, deemed an important step in helping Cyprus to deal with the surge in arrivals.
The island’s geography — it’s close to both Lebanon and Turkey — makes it a prime target for migrants wanting to enter EU territory from the Middle East. Its complex history as a divided country also makes it harder to regulate migrant inflows.
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Tim Ross, Annabelle Dickson, Clea Caulcutt, Myah Ward, Matthew Karnitschnig, Hannah Roberts, Pieter Haeck, Shawn Pogatchnik, Zi-Ann Lum, Aitor Hernández-Morales and Nektaria Stamouli
A majority of voters across seven Western countries, including the United States, France and the United Kingdom, believe their democracy is in worse shape than it was five years ago, according to a poll whose results were seen by POLITICO.
Nearly seven in 10 American respondents said the state of democracy had declined in recent years, while 73 percent of poll takers shared the same opinion in France. In the United Kingdom, more than six out of 10 respondents said that democracy was working less well than five years ago, according to the poll which was carried out by Ipsos in September.
The results reveal widespread angst about the state of democracy ahead of major votes in the United States, the U.K, and the European Union in the year ahead — as well as mixed views of the 27-member union.
In all but one of the countries — which also included Croatia, Italy, Poland and Sweden — about half of voters reported being “dissatisfied” with the way democracy was working, while majorities agreed with the statement that the system is “rigged” in favor of the rich and powerful, and that “radical change” was needed.
Only in Sweden did a clear majority, 58 percent, say they were satisfied with how the system of government was working.
Among EU countries, the survey revealed deeply contrasting views on the state of the Union. A majority of respondents in the countries surveyed said they were in favor of the EU, but a plurality in all the countries said they were dissatisfied with the state of democracy at the EU level, while only tiny minorities reported feeling they had any influence over EU decisions.
Those views were offset by higher levels of satisfaction at the way democracy worked at the local level.
Only in Croatia was satisfaction with democracy at the EU level, at 26 percent, higher than it was for democracy at the national level, at 21 percent.
The results of the survey will give EU leaders food for thought as they gear up for European Parliament elections. While voters elect the Parliament directly, the choice of who gets the top jobs — such as president of the European Commission, the bloc’s executive branch, or the head of the EU Council, which gathers heads of state and government — is indirect. National leaders pick their nominees, which are then submitted to the Parliament for conformation.
In recent years, EU-level political parties have been trying to make the process more democratic by asking leaders to give top jobs to the lead candidates, or Spitzenkandidaten, from the party that wins the most votes in the election. But that system was ignored by leaders after the last election, when they rejected the lead candidate of the conservative European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, in favor of current Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
While all the major parties say they are committed to proposing lead candidates ahead of the next EP election, leaders haven’t publicly committed to follow the system.
“These findings suggest that a key challenge for the EU ahead of the 2024 European Parliament elections will be to leverage continuing support for the EU project to help restore positive perceptions of EU institutions, agencies and bodies,” Christine Tresignie, managing director of Ipsos European public affairs, said in a statement.
The poll was carried out September 21-30 via an online random probability survey. Respondents aged 16 and over were questioned in Croatia, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, while in the United States adults aged 18 and over were polled.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán regularly pushes the EU to the cliff edge, but diplomats are panicking that his hostility to Ukraine is now about to finally kick the bloc over the precipice.
A brewing political crisis is set to boil over at a summit in mid-December when EU leaders are due to make a historic decision on bringing Ukraine into the 27-nation club and seal a key budget deal to throw a €50 billion lifeline to Kyiv’s flailing war economy. The meeting is supposed to signal to the U.S. that, despite the political distraction over the war in the Middle East, the EU is fully committed to Ukraine.
Those hopes look likely to be knocked off course by Orbán, a strongman who cultivates close ties with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and who is widely seen as having undermined democracy and rule of law at home. He is demanding the whole political and financial process should be put on ice until leaders agree to a wholesale review of EU support for Kyiv.
That gives EU leaders a massive headache. Although Hungary only represents 2 percent of the EU population, Orbán can hold the bloc hostage as it is supposed to act unanimously on big strategic decisions — and they hardly come bigger than initiating accession talks with Ukraine.
It’s far from the first time Orbán is throwing a spanner in the works of the EU’s sausage making machine. Indeed, he has been the most vocal opponent of sanctions against Russia ever since Putin’s annexation of Crimea in 2014. But this time is different, EU diplomats and officials said.
“We are heading toward a major crisis,” one EU official said, who was granted anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations. One senior EU diplomat warned this could become “one of the most difficult European Councils.”
Orbán is playing the long game, said Péter Krekó, director of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute. “Orbán has been waiting for Europe to realize that it’s not possible to win the war in Ukraine and that Kyiv has to make concessions. (…) Now, he feels his time is coming because Ukraine fatigue is going up in public opinion in many EU countries.”
In theory, there is a nuclear option on the table — one that would cut Hungary out of EU political decisions — but countries feel that emergency cord is toxic because of the precedent it would deliver on EU disunity and fragmentation. For now, the European leaders seem to be taking to their usual approach of fawning courtship of the EU’s bad boy to try to coax out a compromise.
European Council President Charles Michel, whose job it is to forge deals between the 27 leaders, is leading the softly-softly pursuit of a compromise. He travelled to Budapest earlier this week for an intense two hour discussion with Orbán. While the meeting did not reach an immediate break-through, it was useful to understand Orbán’s concerns, another EU official said.
It’s all about the money
Some EU diplomats interpret Orbán’s threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission, which is holding back €13 billion in EU funds for Hungary over concerns that the country is falling foul of the EU’s standards on rule of law.
Others however said it’s a mistake not to look beyond the immediate transactional tactics. Orbán has long been questioning the EU’s Ukraine strategy, but was largely ignored or portrayed as a puppet for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“We were watching it, amazed, but maybe we didn’t take enough time to actually listen,” a second senior EU diplomat acknowledged.
Some EU diplomats interpret Orbán’s threats as a strategy to raise pressure on the European Commission | Peter Kohalmi/AFP via Getty Images
Increasingly, the leader of the Fidesz party has been isolated in Brussels. Previous peacemakers such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or other Orbán-whisperers from the so-called Visegrád Four — Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — are no longer there. The expected comeback of Donald Tusk for Poland, a pro-EU and anti-Russian leader, will only heighten Orbán’s status as the lonely, defiant hold-out.
“There is no one left to talk sense into Orbán,” a third EU official said. “He is now undermining the EU from within.”
Guns on the table
As frustration grows, the EU is weighing how to deal with the Hungarian threats.
In theory, Brussels could come out with the big guns and use the EU’s so-called Article 7 procedure against Hungary, used when a country is considered at risk of breaching the bloc’s core values. The procedure is sometimes called the EU’s “nuclear option” as it provides for the most serious political sanction the bloc can impose on a member country — the suspension of the right to vote on EU decisions.
Because of those far-reaching consequences, there is reticence to roll out this option against Hungary. When EU leaders brought in “diplomatic sanctions” against Austria in 2000, the day after the party of Austrian far-right leader Jörg Haider entered the coalition, it backfired. Many Austrians were angry at EU interference and anti-EU sentiment soared. Sanctions were lifted later that year.
There is now a widespread feeling in Brussels that Article 7 could create a similar backlash in Budapest, fueling populism and in the longer term potentially even trigger a snowball effect leading to an unintended Hungarian exit of the bloc.
Given those fears, diplomats are doubling down on ways to work around a Hungarian veto.
One option is to split the €50 billion from 2024 to 2027 for Ukraine into smaller amounts on an annual basis, three officials said. But critics warn this option would fall short in the goal of offering greater predictability and certainty to Ukraine’s struggling public finances. It would also send a bad political signal: if the EU can’t make a long term commitment to Ukraine, then how can it ask the U.S. to do the same?
The same dilemma goes for the EU’s planned military aid. EU countries could use bilateral deals rather than EU structures such as the European Peace Facility to send military aid to Ukraine — effectively freezing out Budapest. Yet this would mean that the EU as such plays no role in providing weapons, an admission of impotence that is hard to swallow and hurts EU unity toward Kyiv.
It’s “obvious” that concern is growing about EU political support for Ukraine, Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told POLITICO. “At first it’s Hungary, now, more countries are doubtful whether there’s a path.”
Asked about Hungary’s objections, Ruslan Stefanchuk, the chairman of Ukraine’s parliament, told POLITICO: “Ukraine is going to the European Union and Ukraine has followed all the recommendations (…) I want to make sure that all member states respect the progress that Ukraine has demonstrated.”
The long game
That leaves one other default option, and it’s an EU classic: kicking the can down the road and pushing key decisions on Ukraine policy to early next year. Apart from Hungary, Berlin is also struggling with the consequences of Germany’s top court wiping out €60 billion from a climate fund — thus creating a huge hole in its budget.
Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán, center, during a summit in Brussels | Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga via AFP/Getty Images
Such a delay would also lead to stories about fractured EU unity, said another EU diplomat. But “in the real world it wouldn’t be a problem because the Ukraine budget is fine until March 2024.”
But for others, buying time is tricky. Europe is heading to the polls in June next year, which makes sensitive decision-making harder. “Getting closer to the elections will not make things easier,” the second EU official said, while stressing that fast decisions are key for Ukraine. “For Zelenskyy, this is existential to keep up morale on the battlefield.”
Both, like another official quoted in this story, were granted anonymity to speak freely.
Increasingly, Brussels is also worried about Orbán’s long game.
There is a constant stream of attacks coming from Budapest against Brussels, on issues ranging from democratic deficit to culture wars over the EU’s migration policy. The latest example is an aggressive euroskeptic advertising campaign featuring posters targeting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen herself. The posters show von der Leyen next to Alexander Soros, the son of George Soros, chair of the Open Society Foundations, with the line: “Let’s not dance to the tune they whistle!”
“Nobody feels comfortable given what’s going on in Hungary,” Budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn told reporters on Thursday. “It’s very difficult to digest given the campaign that he’s leading against the EU and against the president. When he’s asking his people many things, he’s not asking if the Union is so much worse than USSR why is he not leaving?”
But Orbán seems more eager to hijack the EU from within rather than jump ship, as the U.K. did. Increasingly, he also feels the wind is blowing his way after the recent election results in Slovakia and the Netherlands, said Krekó, where the winners are on the same page as him when it comes to Ukraine, migration or gender issues.
Hungary’s prime minister was quick to congratulate the winner of the Dutch election, the vehemently anti-EU Geert Wilders, saying that “the winds of change are here.”
“Orbán plays the long game,” the third EU official said. “With Wilders, one or two more far-right leaders in Europe and a potential return of Trump he could soon be less isolated than we all think.”
Gregorio Sorgi, Nicolas Camut, Stuart Lau and Jakob Hanke Vela contributed reporting.
CORRECTION: This story has been amended to correct a quote on Ukraine’s budget.
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Barbara Moens, Nicholas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi
DUBAI — The war in Gaza crashed into the United Nations climate summit on Friday, as furious sideline diplomacy, blunt censures of violence and an Iranian boycott shoved global warming to the side.
It was a sharp change in tone from the COP28 opening on Thursday, which ended on an upbeat note as countries promised to support climate-stricken communities. The mood darkened the following day as news broke that the week-old truce between Israel and Hamas was collapsing.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog spent much of the morning in meetings telling fellow leaders about “how Hamas blatantly violates the ceasefire agreements,” according to a post on his X account. He ended up skipping a speech he was meant to give during Friday’s parade of world leaders.
There were other conspicuous no-shows. Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was absent, despite being listed as an early speaker. And Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, also disappeared from the final speakers’ list after initially being scheduled to talk just a few slots after Herzog.
Then, shortly after leaders posed for a group photo in the Dubai venue on Friday, the Iranian delegation announced it was walking out. The reason, Iran’s energy minister told his country’s official news agency: The “political, biased and irrelevant presence of the fake Zionist regime” — referring to Israel.
By Friday afternoon, the Iranian pavilion had emptied out.
The backroom drama played out even as leader after leader took the stage in the vast Expo City campus to make allotted three-minute statements on their efforts to stop the planet from boiling. The World Meteorological Organization said Thursday that 2023 was almost certain to be the hottest year ever recorded.
U.N. climate talks are often buffeted by outside events. This is the second such meetingheld after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. That war provoked some public barbs and backroom discussions at last year’s summit in Egypt, but leaders still maintained their scheduled speaking slots and a veneer of focus on the matter they were supposedly there to discuss.
This year, that veneer cracked.
“There are currently a number of very, very serious crises that are causing great suffering for many people. It was clear that these would also affect the mood at the COP,” a German diplomat, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, told POLITICO.
But that can’t distract officials working on climate change, the diplomat added: “It is also clear that no one on our planet, no country on Earth, can escape the destructive effects of the climate crisis.”
Tell-tale signals
There had been early signs that the conflict would spill over into discussions at the climate summit.
Sameh Shoukry, president of the COP27 climate conference and Egyptian minister of foreign affairs, Sultan Ahmed al-Jaber, president of COP28 | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
At Thursday’s opening ceremony, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry — president of last year’s COP27 summit — asked all delegates to stand for a moment of silence in memory of two climate negotiators who had recently died, “as well as all civilians who have perished during the current conflict in Gaza.”
On Friday, Jordanian King Abdullah II, Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were among the leaders who used their COP28 speeches to draw attention to the war.
“This year’s COP must recognize even more than ever that we cannot talk about climate change in isolation from the humanitarian tragedies unfolding around us,” Abdullah said. “As we speak, the Palestinian people are facing an immediate threat to their lives and wellbeing.”
Ramaphosa went further: “South Africa is appalled at the cruel tragedy that is underway in Gaza. The war against the innocent people of Palestine is a war crime that must be ended now.
But, he added, “we cannot lose momentum in the fight against climate change.”
Asked for comment, an official from the United Arab Emirates, which is overseeing COP28, said the country had invited all parties to the conference and “are pleased with the exceptionally high level of attendance this year.”
The official added: “Climate change is a global issue and as the host for this significant, momentous conference, the UAE welcomes constructive dialogue and continues to work with all international partners and stakeholders across the board to deliver impactful results for COP28.”
The other summit in Dubai
In the back rooms of the conference venue, leaders were holding urgent talks on the war. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken huddled with Herzog on Thursday, according to a post on Herzog’s X account.
“In addition to participating in the COP, I’ll have an opportunity to meet with Arab partners to discuss the conflict in Gaza,” Blinken told reporters Wednesday while in Brussels for a NATO gathering. He didn’t offer further details.
A senior Biden administration official told reporters Vice President Kamala Harris would also be “having discussions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas” during her trip to Dubai.
On his X account, Herzog said he had met with “dozens” of leaders at the summit. His post featured photographs of Britain’s King Charles III, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, India’s Narendra Modi and Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. He also posted about meetings with Blinken and UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed.
Erdoğan met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at COP28 to discuss the war in Gaza, according to a statement by the Turkish communications directorate that made no mention of climate action.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made no secret of the fact that he intended to use some of his brief visit to Dubai to talk about regional security | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
“I’ll be speaking to lots of leaders … not just [about] climate change, but also the situation in the Middle East,” he told reporters on his flight outof the U.K. Thursday night.
The reignited Israel-Hamas conflict came to dominate his time at the summit. Meetings with other leaders were arranged with regional tensions in mind — not climate. Sunak met Israel’s Herzog and Jordan’s Abdullah, as well as Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al Sisi and the emir of Qatar.
“Given the events of this morning in Israel and Gaza, the prime minister has spent most of his bilateral meetings discussing that situation,” Sunak’s spokesperson told reporters in Dubai.
The meetings focused on “what more we can do both to support the innocent civilians in Gaza, to de-escalate tensions, to get more hostages out and more aid in,” the spokesperson said.
Even the U.K.’s ostensibly nonpolitical head of state, King Charles III — in Dubai to give an opening address to world leaders — was deployed to aid the diplomatic effort. Buckingham Palace said the king would “have the opportunity to meet regional leaders to support the U.K.’s efforts to promote peace in the region.”
Separately, French President Emmanuel Macron was planning to meet various leaders on the security situation and then fly on for talks in Qatar, according to an Elysée Palace official.
Meanwhile, three of Europe’s leaders who have been the strongest backers of the Palestinians — Irish leader Leo Varadkar, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez — held talks on the fringes of COP on Friday morning.
Earlier on Friday, Israel withdrew its ambassador to Spain, blasting what it called Sánchez’s “shameful remarks” on the situation.
Brazil’s Lula, whose country will host a major COP conference in 2025, lamented that just as more joint action is needed to prevent climate catastrophe, war and violence were cleaving the world apart.
“We are facing what may be the greatest challenge that humanity has faced till now,” he said. “Instead of uniting forces, the world is going to wars. It feeds divisions and deepens poverty and inequalities.”
Zia Weise, Suzanne Lynch and Charlie Cooper reported from Dubai. Karl Mathiesen reported from London.
Clea Calcutt contributed reporting from Paris. Nahal Toosi contributed reporting from Washington, D.C.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A torrent of pollution-slashing pledges from governments and major oil companies sparked cries of “greenwashing” on Saturday, even before world leaders had boarded their flights home from this year’s global climate conference.
After leaders wrapped two days of speeches filled with high-flying rhetoric and impassioned pleas for action, the Emirati presidency of the COP28 climate talks unleashed a series of initiatives aimed at cleaning up the world’s energy sector, the largest source of planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
The announcement, made at an hours-long event Saturday afternoon featuring U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, contained two main planks — a pledge by oil and gas companies to reduce emissions, and a commitment by 118 countries to triple the world’s renewable energy capacity and double energy savings efforts.
It was, on its face, an impressive and ambitious reveal.
COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, the oil executive helming the talks, crowed that the package “aligns more countries and companies around the North Star of keeping 1.5 degrees Celsius within reach than ever before,” referring to the Paris Agreement target for limiting global warming.
But many climate-vulnerable countries and non-government groups instantly cast an arched eyebrow toward the whole endeavor.
“The rapid acceleration of clean energy is needed, and we’ve called for the tripling of renewables. But it is only half the solution,” said Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands. “The pledge can’t greenwash countries that are simultaneously expanding fossil fuel production.”
Carroll Muffett, president of the nonprofit Center for International Environmental Law, said: “The only way to ‘decarbonize’ carbon-based oil and gas is to stop producing it. … Anything short of this is just more industry greenwash.”
The divided reaction illustrates the fine line negotiators are trying to walk. The European Union has campaigned for months to win converts to the pledge on renewables and energy efficiency the U.S. and others signed up to on Saturday, even offering €2.3 billion to help. And the COP28 presidency has been on board.
But Brussels, in theory, also wants these efforts to go hand in hand with a fossil fuel phaseout — a tough proposition for countries pulling in millions from the sector. The EU rhetoric often goes slightly beyond the U.S., even though the two allies officially support the end of “unabated” fossil fuel use, language that leaves the door open for continued oil and gas use as long as the emissions are captured — though such technology remains largely unproven.
Von der Leyen was seen trying to thread that needle on Saturday. She omitted fossil fuels altogether from her speech to leaders before slipping in a mention in a press release published hours later: “We are united by our common belief that to respect the 1.5°C goal … we need to phase out fossil fuels.”
Harris on Saturday said the world “cannot afford to be incremental. We need transformative change and exponential impact.”
But she did not mention phasing out fossil fuels in her speech, either. The U.S., the world’s top oil producer, has not made the goal a central pillar of its COP28 strategy.
Flurry of pledges
The EU and the UAE said 118 countries had signed up to the global energy goals.
The new fossil fuels agreement has been branded the “Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter” and earned the signatures of 50 companies. The COP28 presidency said it had “launched” the deal with Saudi Arabia — the world’s largest oil exporter and one of the main obstacles to progress on international climate action.
Among the signatories was Saudi state energy company, Aramco, the world’s biggest energy firm — and second-biggest company of any sort, by revenue. Other global giants like ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies also signed.
They have committed to eliminate methane emissions by 2030, to end the routine flaring of gas by the same date, and to achieve net-zero emissions from their production operations by 2050. Adnan Amin, CEO of COP28, singled out the fact that, among the 50 firms, 29 are national oil companies.
“That in itself is highly significant because you have not seen national oil companies so evident in these discussions before,” he told reporters.
The COP28 presidency could not disguise its glee at the flurry of announcements from the opening weekend of the conference.
“It already feels like an awful lot that we have delivered, but I am proud to say that this is just the beginning,” Majid al-Suwaidi, the COP28 director general, told reporters.
Fred Krupp, president of the U.S.-based Environmental Defense Fund, predicted: “This will be the single most impactful day I’ve seen at any COP in 30 years in terms of slowing the rate of warming.”
But other observers said the oil and gas commitments did not go far beyond commitments many companies already make. Research firm Zero Carbon Analytics noted the deal is “voluntary and broadly repeats previous pledges.”
Melanie Robinson, global climate program director at the World Resources Institute, said it was “encouraging that some national oil companies have set methane reduction targets for the first time.”
But she added: “Most global oil and gas companies already have stringent requirements to cut methane emissions. … This charter is proof that voluntary commitments from the oil and gas industry will never foster the level of ambition necessary to tackle the climate crisis.”
Some critics theorized that the COP28 presidency had deliberately launched the renewables and energy efficiency targets together with the oil and gas pledge.
The combination, said David Tong, global industry campaign manager at advocacy group Oil Change International, “appears to be a calculated move to distract from the weakness of this industry pledge.”
The charter, he added, “is a trojan horse for Big Oil and Gas greenwash.”
Beyond voluntary moves
A push to speed up the phaseout of coal power garnered less attention — with French President Emmanuel Macron separately unveiling a new initiative and the United States joining a growing alliance of countries pledging to zero out coal emissions.
Macron’s “coal transition accelerator” focuses on ending private financing for coal, helping coal-dependent communities and scaling up clean energy. And Washington’s new commitment confirms its path to end all coal-fired power generation unless the emissions are first captured through technology. U.S. use of coal for power generation has already plummeted in the past decade.
The U.S. pledge will put pressure on China, the world’s largest consumer and producer of coal, as well as countries like Japan, Turkey and Australia to give up on the high-polluting fuel, said Leo Roberts, program lead on fossil fuel transitions at think tank E3G.
“It’s symbolic, the world’s biggest economy getting behind the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel, coal. And it’s sending a signal to … others who haven’t made the same commitment,” he said.
The U.S. also unveiled new restrictions on methane emissions for its oil and gas sector on Saturday — a central plank of the Biden administration’s climate plans — and several leaders called for greater efforts to curb the potent greenhouse gas in their speeches.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a “global methane agreement” at COP28, warning that voluntary efforts hadn’t worked out. Von der Leyen, meanwhile, urged negotiators to enshrine the renewables and energy efficiency targets in the final summit text.
Mohamed Adow, director of the think tank Power Shift Africa, warned delegates not to get distracted by nonbinding pledges.
“We need to remember COP28 is not a trade show and a press conference,” he cautioned. “The talks are why we are here and getting an agreed fossil fuel phaseout date remains the biggest step countries need to take here in Dubai over the remaining days of the summit.”
When the EU and Canada meet for talks this week, their encounter will be calm, pleasant and even, in the words of one EU diplomat, “just plain boring.” But both sides will be contending with a looming problem — Donald J. Trump.
The prospect of another Trump presidency in the U.S. is spooking both Brussels and Ottawa as leaders plan to meet in St. John’s, a remote Canadian harbor city symbolic of their bilateral relationship: historically rooted, pleasant and friendly.
The U.S. is key to the economies of both sides. As the EU, especially, struggles to cope with the trade legacy of the previous Trump term, the unpredictability of another Trump presidency is sending shivers through Brussels. POLITICO spoke to several officials briefed on the summit who said next year’s U.S. elections will overshadow the talks.
After the recent visit of EU leaders to the White House, the bloc’s relationship with the U.S. will be discussed with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to officials briefed on the summit. Another four years of antagonism under a Trump White House would be a grave blow to the EU and Canada; both also fear that U.S. military and financial support for Ukraine will disintegrate with a Trump presidency.
For now, the talks should provide the participants with a breakafter weeks of navigating both the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war.
European Council President Charles Michel met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv earlier this week, while Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has travelled to the Middle East following initial criticism of her response to the war between Israel and Hamas — geopolitical challenges on which the EU and Canada are cooperating at “unrivaled historic levels,” according to an EU official. In early December, both European leaders are set to travel to Beijing for their EU-China summit, from which they risk returning empty-handed.
Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval ratings have been in free-fall since the summer. Court rulings and the politics of affordability have dented his record on the climate, casting uncertainty on timelines for major projects. Fallout from the Israel-Hamas war has also hurt morale within his Liberal Party.
In St. John’s, at least, leaders will be able to reaffirm their bilateral relationship and underscore their “shared commitment to democratic values, multilateralism and the international rules-based order,” which elsewhere are falling apart. The two sides are set to double down on their bilateral commitments in new policy fields with an “impressive list of deliverables,” according to the EU official, including a green alliance, more cooperation on raw materials, and a digital partnership.
Another EU diplomat said that while there are no mutual irritants, “a few irritants could be a welcome challenge to dynamize the relationship.”
But while the EU remains on a good footing with Canada, it has struggled with the current U.S. administration of President Joe Biden, most notably with Washington’s Inflation Reduction Act, which will also be discussed on the sidelines of the St. John’s summit. The EU had worried that the $369 billion IRA would hollow out the bloc’s economy as firms decamped across the Atlantic to take advantage of its massive subsidies. Brussels and Washington continue to negotiate a high-stakes agreement on critical minerals to allow electric vehicle batteries made by European companies to qualify for the IRA’s consumer tax credits.
EU Ambassador to Canada Melita Gabrič told POLITICO that Ottawa’s relationship with the bloc is “closer than it has ever been.” She declined, however, to say if she saw Trump’s potential return as a catalyst for even closer ties in the year ahead.
“We will see what happens, but certainly we put a premium on our transatlantic relations,” she said, referring to both the U.S. and Canada.
Barbara Moens reported from Brussels. Zi-Ann Lum reported from Ottawa. Camille Gijs contributed reporting from Brussels.
BRUSSELS — When EU digital chief Věra Jourová sat down in Beijing with a senior Chinese official in September, her complaint list was as long as the 11-course dinner her host had prepared.
Sore points included Beijing’s disinformation campaigns, electoral interference, state control over Artificial Intelligence development, and ties with Russia.
Predictably, Jourová didn’t get many straight answers from her counterpart, Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing. It’s a nail-biting time to be a politician in China, as major figures such as Qin Gang and Li Shangfu have recently been purged as foreign and defense ministers, and no one wants to be accused of making big concessions to the West.
Then, in a sudden surprise initiative, Zhang said he was ready to offer a goodie to European businesses facing an increasingly hostile political environment in President Xi Jinping’s China. He explained Beijing was willing to move on data flows — a sphere where China has been trying to curb the ability of foreign companies to export data generated within the country. All that data is a goldmine for European business, but China guards it zealously.
A deal on data flows was a big call from Zhang, but can be explained by China’s growing fears about its precarious economy. While security is front-and-center to Chinese policymakers, they also know they have to offer some big carrots to keep foreign investors onside.
“You could feel that something clicked on the spot,” said an EU official with knowledge of the discussion, recalling the heated debates on data over Chinese delicacies like beef in lotus leaves and dim sum.
Although the dinner happened in September, three officials with knowledge of China’s switching tack have only now explained how the change of heart in Beijing came about.
“The vice-premier told her he understood the proposal makes sense, and asked the relevant authorities to take the matter forward,” the first official said. Zhang immediately turned to his junior colleagues from the Cyberspace Administration of China and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. “You had a feeling that that was the moment the big guy gave the go-ahead.”
According to another official, when Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis visited Beijing shortly after Jourová, he received the final confirmation of the changes to the data laws from his counterpart, Vice Premier He Lifeng, an influential economic aide to President Xi Jinping.
Shortly afterward, China agreed to reverse the burden of proof under the relevant laws, allowing most data stored in China to be transferred out of the country unless expressly excluded by the authorities. EU officials, though, cautioned that they’ll still wait to see how Chinese authorities at all levels implement the new provision.
Special gift to Europe
Even though U.S., Japanese and other companies had also been pushing for this kind of measure from Beijing on data, China offered the diplomatic win to the EU.
The European Union Chamber of Commerce, among the first to be notified when Beijing made the legal revision, sent Jourová a congratulatory letter, seen by POLITICO.
China’s Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing | Lintao Zhang/Getty Images
“Make no mistake, China is merely fixing a problem of its own making,” the second official noted. “It’s not an act of benevolence. It’s an act of self-correction.”
Still, that self-correction is far from a given under a nationalistic government facing stiff competition from the U.S.
Increasingly, China’s uncompromising ideological focus is forcing many companies to adjust their business strategies, including by taking their new investments out of China. Indeed, the EU and the rest of the G7 rich democracies are calling on their companies to “de-risk,” as Russia’s war against Ukraine prompts concerns about a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
According to a report issued Wednesday by Penta, a business research group, one in five EU policymakers considers China to be the most pressing issue facing the bloc — while only 16 percent of people say they’re open to working with companies from China, bottom of the list.
It’s against this backdrop that Beijing wants — and needs — to throw some bones to the EU.
“For sure there’s a lot of self-interest for China [to give EU the data deal], where there’s a sharp drop of foreign direct investment which China desperately needs,” the first official said.
European Council President Charles Michel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
Over the past three months, Beijing has welcomed a long line of EU officials in a thaw from the 2021 low point where China’s sanctions on EU politicians and intellectuals were followed by an indefinite freeze of a massive EU-China trade deal, which remains unratified.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her European Council counterpart Charles Michel are expected to attend an EU-China Summit in December and meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.
EU officials should use China’s underperforming economy — most specifically in the real estate sector — as leverage, according to Luisa Santos, deputy director of BusinessEurope, a Brussels-based lobby group, who is currently visiting China.
Speaking before her trip, Santos described the Chinese economy as “not in a great situation,” adding that EU officials should seize this opportunity to convince Beijing to open up further.
“China needs to recognize that what is happening in our bilateral relationship is something that is not sustainable,” she said.
Germany has floated that the United Nations could take control in Gaza once the Israel-Hamas war is over, according to a document seen by POLITICO.
However, both the Palestinians and some EU diplomats have serious doubts about the feasibility of the idea, with a senior Palestinian figure in Europe calling it “unacceptable.”
Israel has been striking the densely populated Gaza Strip in reaction to an attack by Hamas on October 7, during which the militant group killed around 1,200 Israelis. According to data from the Palestinian Authority, the Israeli strikes have killed more than 11,000 Palestinians.
Discussions are ongoing about how to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza and how to stop the fighting. But there are also increasing discussions on scenarios for after the war.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” should ultimately govern Gaza but offered no indications on how to make it “effective” or overcome Israeli opposition. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had stated earlier that his country would take “overall security responsibility” for Gaza “for an indefinite period.”
That is a no-go for the EU and the United States.
The EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, on Monday stressed that Israel cannot stay in Gaza after the war, when he presented his vision for what happens post conflict ahead of a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Healsosaid, “we believe that a Palestinian authority must return to Gaza,” stressing he meant “one Palestinian authority, not the Palestinian Authority.”
Blinken has also warned that Israel cannot reoccupy Gaza after its war with Hamas ends.
The German proposal — a two-page, nonofficial document (or non-paper in EU-speak) — is dated October 21, so before Israel’s decision to launch the second phase of its military operation against Gaza at the end of October.
Berlin, one of Israel’s staunchest allies within the EU, writes that “Israel’s goal is a goal we share: never again should Hamas be in a position to terrorize Israel and its citizens.” Yet at the same time, “it is clear that these goals are hard to achieve with military means only … Its radical ideology and agenda cannot be fought by military means.”
It floats five different scenarios about the future of the Gaza Strip, including Israeli re-occupation of Gaza, and either the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Egypt taking control.
The U.N scenario is also on the list. In Berlin’s words, the scenario means an “internationalization of Gaza under the umbrella of the United Nations (and regional partners)” with “a carefully organized transition” toward Palestinian self-administration, “ideally” through elections “and in combination with an international coalition that provides necessary security.”
The document described this scenario as one that “could offer a political perspective since neither the PA nor Egypt are willing or able to take over and a return to the status quo ante or an Israeli re-occupation are politically not desirable.”
But Berlin also warned that “this scenario would require significant investment of political capital and financing as well as an international coalition to engage on security issues alongside the U.N.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last month that an “effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority” should ultimately govern Gaza but offered no indications on how to make it “effective” or overcome Israeli opposition | Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images
The document says that “the EU should take over a pro-active role in shaping this [the post-war] discussion” and it ends by emphasizing that the situation in the Gaza Strip “can only be sustainably stabilized through a relaunch of the Middle East Peace Process.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen echoed the U.N.idea in her speech last week to EU ambassadors, saying that after the conflict the world has to ensure Gaza is no longer a safe haven for terrorists. To ensure that, von der Leyen said “different ideas are being discussed on how this can be ensured, including an international peace force under U.N. mandate.”
But several diplomats — granted, like others in this article, anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject — said that theGerman suggestion didn’t go far enough. It came in the very early stages of the conflict, it was not circulated among all member countries and was not intended to be discussed by foreign ministers.
When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated Berlin’s line more recently, she said that “Gaza must not be occupied, but ideally be placed under international protection” without explicitly mentioning a U.N. role.
One EU diplomat described the document as “stillborn.”
Palestinian no-go
The German suggestion has angered Palestinian officials, already unhappy at EU statements that don’t mention a cease-fire in Gaza.
When German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stated Berlin’s line more recently, she said that “Gaza must not be occupied, but ideally be placed under international protection” without explicitly mentioning a U.N. role | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
That feeling extends across Muslim countries. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) — which has 57 Muslim countries as members — held a press conference in Brussels on Monday morning, at the same time as EU foreign ministers were meeting, to argue that they don’t want to talk about the future of the Gaza Strip as long as there’s no cease-fire.
The 27 EU member countries have agreed on a call for “humanitarian corridors and pauses” but there’s no unanimity on a cease-fire, which is being pushed by Spain but objected to by the likes of Germany and Austria for several reasons, including that it could put Israel and Hamas on the same level, as the former is a country and the latter classed as a terrorist organization by the bloc.
For Abdalrahim Alfarra, the head of the Palestinian Mission to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg, the U.N taking control of Gaza would be “unacceptable.”
He told POLITICO that a U.N role in providing international protection at the borders — like the blue helmets in the south of Lebanon — to protect the frontier between two future countries, Israel and Palestine, is “what we need.”
The problem with the German document is that it doesn’t talk about U.N protection at the borders but rather about U.N “control of Gaza,” he said.
Alfarra said that the Palestinian Authority has not been consulted about the document and also criticized it for not mentioning any form of cease-fire before addressing the future of the region.
“They didn’t talk about how we’re going to protect the men and women now. Right away: the future of Gaza,” he said.
The Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip opened on Saturday morning, letting trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the blockaded enclave, which has been under siege from the Israeli military for almost two weeks.
The first of 200 trucks loaded with about 3,000 tons of aid, which have been blocked near the Rafah crossing for days, started moving toward Gaza early Saturday, the Associated Press reported.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Joe Biden said Egypt had agreed to open the border and let 20 trucks enter the Palestinian enclave, while Israel said it would allow the delivery of food, water or medicine — but no fuel — from Egypt, provided they were limited to civilians in the southern part of Gaza and would not go to Hamas militants.
European leaders were quick to welcome the border’s opening. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media that the crossing’s opening was “an important first step that will alleviate the suffering of innocent people.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “good and important that the first humanitarian aid is now coming to the people in Gaza.”
“They need water, food and medicine – we won’t leave them alone,” Scholz said.
The Gaza Strip has been besieged by Israeli forces since October 9, when Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallan moved to restrict all access to food, water and energy in the enclave in retaliation for a surprise incursion from the Hamas militant group that killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.
The U.N. has called on Israel to reverse course, with a spokesperson saying an evacuation in Gaza “could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”
The news of the border crossing’s opening comes as leaders of a dozen countries — including top officials from Germany, France, Turkey and Qatar — are set to meet in Cairo on Saturday at the invitation of Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in an attempt to prevent the conflict from escalating into a broader regional war.
Meanwhile, Israel asked its citizens living in neighboring Jordan and Egypt to leave those countries “as soon as possible” and to “avoid staying in all the Middle East/Arab countries,” according to a joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday reiterated her strongly pro-Israeli stance despite growing criticism from within her own staff, while also harshly criticizing Iran for seeking to sow “violence and chaos” in the Middle East.
Some 800 EU staff took the unusual step of writing to von der Leyen at the end of last week to protest against what they see as unjustifiable bias toward Israel in the Israel-Hamas war. The protest came after the president neglected to mention the EU’s support for Palestinian statehood in a speech on Thursday in Washington — despite a two-state solution being a core part of the position of European countries.
Yet on Sunday von der Leyen doubled down on her previous stance during a speech to the youth organization of her German center-right CDU/CSU political group.
While she stressed that any Israeli defense against the Hamas terrorist group must be “in accordance with international law,” she again did not mention Palestinian statehood and instead just referred to necessary humanitarian aid, saying: “There is no contradiction in standing in solidarity with Israel and providing humanitarian aid in Gaza.”
“All these conflicts have one thing in common: they are about the struggle between those who seek peace, balance, freedom and cooperation — and those who do not want any of this because they profit from the chaos and disorder,” von der Leyen said in her speech at the CDU/CSU youth wing congress in Braunschweig, Germany.
Her remarks can be seen as controversial because, even though Israel is undeniably defending itself following a brutal aggression by Hamas terrorists, the country’s at times very complicated and highly criticized settlement policy may not exactly qualify as balanced or in the interest of peace and cooperation.
Human Rights Watch has criticized Israel for “committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution against millions of Palestinians.”
Von der Leyen also took a very critical position toward Iran, saying that Tehran stood “behind Hamas.” She added: “Iran has no interest whatsoever in this region coming to peace. On the contrary, Iran wants to foment violence and chaos because that secures its influence.”
