Author: Kostas Birakis

Turkey is officially a candidate to join the EU but its accession talks have been frozen since 2018 over rule of law and democratic concerns. Turkish voters will on Sunday go to the polls to vote for their next president in what most see as the most serious challenge to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s leadership since he came to power 20 years ago. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the candidate picked by a united opposition, is currently leading in the polls and said that he will try to restore trust with the EU and the West which is now at a historic low. The EU froze…

Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan Murat Nurtleu paid a working visit to Brussels and held talks with high-ranking representatives of the European Union to discuss the current agenda of bilateral and multilateral cooperation and promising areas for its further development, Tengrinews.kz reports citing the ministry . As noted, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy – Vice President of the European Commission Josep Borrell warmly welcomed the first visit of Murat Nurtleu as head of the Kazakh Foreign Ministry to the EU capital. During the meeting, the diplomats reviewed…

Russia is likely to resume buying foreign currency for its reserves as soon as this month as rising oil earnings stabilize public finances despite US and European efforts to squeeze Kremlin income. With energy revenues now close to exceeding their target level, purchases are possible already in May, according to Bloomberg Economics, which estimates initial volumes could amount to the equivalent of around $200 million in yuan per month. The Chinese currency is the main asset Russia can still use to conduct transactions for its $154 billion wealth fund because of sanctions. An announcement from the Finance Ministry is due…

Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday its forces had carried out missile strikes overnight against Ukrainian military sites, including weapons depots and ammunition factories, and that all its designated targets had been hit. Earlier, Ukrainian officials said the air strikes – the second such wave in three days – had caused a fire in the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, a railway hub behind the southern and eastern fronts, wounding at least 34 people and damaging dozens of homes. “Overnight, Russia’s armed forces launched a group of missile strikes using high-precision long-range air and sea-based weapons against Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities,” the Russian defence…

At the invitation of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev will visit this country on 2-3 May this year, trend reports citing uzdaily . In accordance with the program of stay, bilateral meetings with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz are planned to be held in Berlin. Current issues of further deepening multifaceted relations between Uzbekistan and Germany will be considered, and views on various aspects of the international agenda will be exchanged. The main attention will be paid to the implementation of promising projects…

Germany — Europe’s painful inflation has inched higher, extending the squeeze on households and keeping pressure on the European Central Bank to unleash what could be another large interest rate increase. Consumer prices in the 20 countries using the euro currency jumped 7% in April from a year earlier, just up from the annual rate of 6.9% in March, the European Union statistics agency Eurostat said Tuesday. Food price inflation eased a little, falling to an annual rate of 13.6% from March’s 15.5%, while energy prices rose a more modest 2.5%. Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and fuel, slowed slightly…

The latest project for the economic transformation of the Western Macedonia region in Greece envisages an electrolysis unit of as much as 100 MW for the production of hydrogen. Public Power Corp. (PPC) and Motor Oil are developing it through their joint venture Hellenic Hydrogen. Greek companies are among the most active in Europe when it comes to energy transition planning, with a particular focus on low-carbon and green hydrogen. Hellenic Hydrogen is adding a project to the stack, Energypress reported, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the matter. PPC, controlled by the government through a minority stake, is responsible for running coal-fired power plants…

America certainly won the war and Europe lost, said Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban, Report informs, citing Anadolu. Hungary’s prime minister on Friday said that the European Union’s sanctions on Russia due to the Ukraine war are a mistake and should be ended: “It is certain that America won the war and Europe lost. There’s a debate over whether Russia won or lost.”

Recently, the European Commission announced that it had launched an investigation into the travels of Henrik Hololei, a prominent EU transport official. Several European Commission officials have told Politico that they believe Hololei should resign pending the investigation. Hololei has been criticized for flying Qatar in business class at the expense of the Qatari government on multiple occasions. Recently, Politico reported that Hololei determined that accepting free airline tickets from the Qatari government did not constitute a conflict of interest. The Commission revealed last week that it was investigating Hololei’s trips to Qatar. The European Commission’s Director-General for Mobility and Transport, Henrik Hololei, is under…

NATO countries will discuss their defense spending targets in the coming months as some of them call for turning a 2% target into a minimum figure, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told the German news agency DPA, Report informs referring to Reuters. “Some allies are strongly in favor of turning the current 2% target into a minimum,” DPA quoted Stoltenberg as saying in an interview published on January 3. Stoltenberg said that he would head the negotiations. “We will meet, we will have ministerial meetings, we will have talks in capitals,” he said. He did not say which NATO countries were calling…