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Germany's new president Steinmeier vigorously defends democracy and the European Union, in his first major speech after accepting the post of president. He calls for "push back together" against the foes of democracy. Passion and commitment marked the style of president Gauck, says Furstenau of DW.com, and this is true also for Steinmeier. Both also share personal conviction matched with personal experience, Gauck as a pastor in the former GDR looking for alternatives as the GDR crumbled, and Steinmeier is respected for his exceptional work in diplomacy for Germany. Both bring a striaghtforward manner but tremendous sincerity, so that the message is heard with respect from all parts of Germany. Furstenau calls him a German and European patriot. In Gauck's last speech he called for affirming Germany in the EU- "although voices may praise the fool's gold of long outdated nationalism, we will remain Germans- as Europeans, although the uncertainty of our times may be alarming, we will not flee from our responsibility." Steinmeier echoes the same message, backed up with personal conviction and long experience in serving Germany. Gauck called for a "vigilant democracy" that maintains the basic conditions for peace and dialogue, and also shows the willingness to defend the republic and the Basic Law, because " we do not want our country or other European member states to become the playthings of actors who are pursuing entirely different interests." In his acceptance speech Steinmeier called for courage, after Gauck had laid down the theme of Germans "not overlooking the potential within us.... trusting in our own strength and staying calm and composed."   ...

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The European Union is drafting a ban on oil imports from Russia, says this report in the NYT. The European Union now pays Russia about $1 billion every day for oil imports from Russia. Under chancellor Merkel Germany actually increased its dependence on Russian natural gas from 36% during Russian annexation of the Crimea to 55% today. In this way creating some of the conditions that emboldened Russia into its invasion of Ukraine, creating over 4 million refugees and immense destruction. Oil revenues of this magnitude of about $1 billion a day from the European Union help finance and prolong the invasion with enormous cost of human life. The longer the war lasts it affects a grain producing region in Ukraine that would lead to world food scarcity and famine.

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In new developments German chancellor Scholz visits London and European Union president Von der Leyen visits Bucha and Kviv in Ukraine. Von Der Leyen is accompanied by Joseph Borell, the EU commissioner for foreign and security affairs. For the first time the European Union offers membership in the EU to Ukraine. In handing a document with a questionnairre to Ukraine president Zelensky she says- "This is where your path towards the European Union begins." Adding "It will not be, as usual, a matter of years, but rather a matter of weeks" to complete this step. The questionairre forms the basis of an opionion she said that gets passed on to the European Council this summer. Ukraine now becomes the first country in Europe to have fought a war and suffered from millions of refugees just to join the European Union. It also shows how much has changed since Angela Merkel left office with her policies that offered Ukraine no such prospect even as it integrated the German economy with the Russian economy and China's economy during 4 terms in office. Leyen said "Ukraine is marching towards a European future." Chancellor Scholz addressed the German parliament after the invasion and hundreds of thousands of people turned out in Berlin that day.  Europe is voting with its emotions having been completely shaken by this experience. Leyen writes " It was important to start my visit in Bucha. Because in Bucha our humanity was shattered." ...

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Anton Troianovski reports for NYT from Geneva on the talks between Russian foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov and US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman on the Russian proposals for redrawing of the boundaries between Russia and Eastern Europe. Russia has insisted talks take place without the Europeans. The Russian view is that the current borders with strong US presence in Eastern Europe- in Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and other parts of Eastern Europe were a result of the new borders being thrust on a weakened Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The US insists it will not do anything without working with its European allies, but is willing to look for some areas of common ground. European Union and Germany see the new Eastern Europe formed as a result of the self determination of countries in the region, and their right to choose their future. Ukraine was historically close to Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Ukraine had developed two identities with eastern parts of the country closer to Russia reflecting earlier close ties and the western parts of Ukraine closer to Poland such as cities Lviv and Kiev reflecting the mood in Poland and Baltics for an independent Ukraine. Lviv is only 70 kilometres from the Polish border and shows traces of the Austro-Hugarian central European heritage. Kiev is about 300 miles from the Polish border in north central Europe. Elections led to governments alternating between close ties to Russia and distant ties to Russia with the two recent governments opposed to Russian interference in its affairs. President Putin responded with invasion of Crimea and forming an autonomous region in eastern Ukraine. In the latest move Putin seeks to reset the borders in a way that is favorable to Russia.   ...

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Britain's High Court gives a ruling on November 2, 2016, that the government must consult parliament, and that parliament has to approve the plan for Brexit before invoking Article 50. This means that the government has to lay out the details of its plans which make it harder to conduct negotiations. The Conservative Party also does not have a majority in the House of Lords. Legal experts say the decision which caught the government by surprise was expected from a constitutional law standpoint which looks at whether the sovereign or parliament is supreme in making such a decision. Members of parliament in general were not in favor of leaving the European Union, making this add an element of uncertainty about Brexit. Political experts say one way out for Theresa May who earlier announced that she would invoke Article 50 by March 2017, is to call a general election. Today she has 329 seats in a 650 member parliament, with many of the MP's opposed to Brexit. May's government is expected to appeal the High Court decision to the Supreme Court. ...

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France's Macron argues that relations of the European Union with Russia that deteriorated with the Ukraine conflict should now be restored. He calls for closer relations with Russia, as Germany under Merkel continues with existing policy and a robust NATO. Merkel sees peace in the Balkans preserved by allowing Balkan countries into the European Union. Macron thinks this is not a good idea and has called NATO brain dead. Merkel and Macron now disagree on goals of NATO.

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Adam Taylor explains what Brexit is about. What should be added is that Brexit is a child of the time in 2015-2016 when Angela Merkel was ill prepared to tackle the sudden wave of migrants from North Africa from wars and population growth outstripping what little progress was made, making decisions to let in close to a million migrants. Migrants are now being returned back to their home countries and the issue has faded. The austerity policies in the EU with Greece, Spain and Portugal as bad poster childs for the EU are also largely over, with economic recovery in Europe.  As a result confidence is growing in the future of the European Union. What pessimists including Mr. Trump saw as a breakup of the European Union is no longer the case. Britain's long negotiations and divisions for Brexit are now reinforcing an opposite conclusion- that it is beneficial to stay in the European Union. Fully 68% in a Eurobarometer Survey of 27 EU countries by the European Commission in March 2019 think so, only 17% think it is not beneficial. In Britain also a majority now support membership in the EU. The European Union and Britain have a lot to learn from this experience and the divisions generated, which is likely to be part of the acquired experience of a new generation of leaders.  ...

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Theresa May, prime minister of Britain, faced a difficult situation by Jan. 2017- the European Union was not going to budge on the free movement of people and services within the EU. With no prospects for negotiations on the migration issue and a decision to retake control of migration, May announced on Jan. 17, 2017, that she would pull Britain out of the single market. By Jan 2017 Theresa May was perceived in the media facing tough challenges and having no clear path, and no clear plan, and little support from the civil service, business, and within a divided Conservative party, to implement Brexit. This has not changed much even with this decision, as the additional hurdle of getting Scotland, Ireland and Wales, and the close to 50% of the people who voted against Brexit to support this move remains as large as ever, the situation of ample uncertainty, for May and for Britain.

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The European Union is making good use of the crisis in Ukraine to ramp up its shift to renewable energy. This WSJ report shows charts of where the EU is focusing its efforts from conservation, heat pumps, hydrogen, to wind and solar. Wind and solar show massive increases by 2030. By 2030 the European Union plans to increase wind and solar energy from 20 billion cubic metres to 170 billion cubic metres according to estimates from The European Commission shown in this graph by WSJ.

By the end of 2022 two thirds of Russian natural gas imports to the EU will have been replaced and by 2030 all of such imports will be replaced. 

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The Iran Saudi talks had already taken place and there was a sense of fatigue on both sides after the prolonged war in Yemen. The Chinese mediation was able to build on this to get the two sides to discuss their differences and come to an agreement. The situation in Russia and Ukraine is very different. China's interest in ending the war in Ukraine comes from its need to not let relations with the European Union deteriorate any further, as this will affect China's economic growth. The pandemic and supply chain shift to home country manufacturing is not likely to change even if China finds a way to keep its relations with the European Union from deteriorating further, as this shift is seen by the US and the European Union as part of the new way of meeting their own strategic interests in the new world following the pandemic.

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European Union countries rush to build their own supplies of lithium inside Europe for renewable energy and batteries. 

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Jean Claude Trichet is one of the last leaders from a generation that helped create the euro currency union and a pathway to closer union of European nations. For four decades he has worked at the upper echelons of European economic policy making. In accepting the Charlemagne prize he stayed true to his idea for closer integration in the European Union. He said- "Confronting the challenges of the future requires strengthening the institutions of economic union." He would like to see a finance ministry for the EU, saying that "in this union of tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, would it be too bold...to envisage a ministry of finance of the Union?" Such a ministry would exercize oversight over European nations economic policies and exercize veto power over national budgets. In the current crisis in Greece such a ministry could take actions and make decisions applicable to Greece. Trichet's remarks were delivered in Aachen, Germany. At the very same time finance ministry officials from 24 European countries were meeting in Vienna to come up with a solution to the Greece debt crisis. A main stumbling block is disagreement between Germany and others including the ECB, about how to make private-sector creditors share the burden of helping Greece avoid a default. Trichet and the European central bank and other central bankers have rejected Germany's insistence of an extension on the maturities of Greece's bonds, because they fear this would be perceived as a default by financial markets.This in turn would lead to contagion effects spreading to Spain and Italy, and a Europe wide crisis. In direct exchanges between Trichet and French president Sarkozy, Sarkozy has told Trichet he represents the bankers views whereas Sarkozy and Merkel have to take public opinion into account. In fact in past resolutions of financial crises in Latin America this type of extension of maturities for bonds has been applied, as for instance in the Brady Bonds and negotiated settlement arranged by the U.S. for banks, and Latin American and some Asian governments. Search term "brady" and see Landon Thomas's piece Nov. 30, 2010, in the NYT. This becomes necessary when countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal are unlikely to ever be able to repay the debt without a renegotiation of the original debt agreemments, spreading the debt over longer maturities, and private creditors taking some losses. By shifting the entire burden on austerity and spending cuts the current agreements leave the EU lurching from crisis to crisis as the underlying situation remains unresolved. It is here that Trichet's laudable vision of European unity runs aground because of the failure to build bridges between the outlook of the financial community and the public opinion of Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and other countries. The governments of creditor countries such as Germany seek a renegotiation for a restructuring of debt. The governments of Greece, Ireland and Portugal understand that severe austerity cuts alone with declining growth can never resolve the situation, and would welcome a restructuring especially because the cuts are deeply unpopular. The renegotiation has to be conducted with the full faith and credibility of the European governments, ECB and the support of the U.S. government, so that financial markets are given a certain reassurance that the situation will be managed to a successful conclusion, and not lead to contagion effects on Spain and Italy. When asked about this Nicholas Brady recently said this required "a unified decision." This would include money set aside for recapitalization of European banks that are affected by such a restructuring. In such a restructuring the German government and other European governments would still come up with taxpayer money for the resolution, yet the shared cost by all parties would create a fair and workable financial arrangement that has the potential for successful resolution to the sovereign debt crisis. This disconnect between the political leaders and the bankers is why observers say the Europeans have not been able to wrap their arms around this problem. ...

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French and German authorites raid banks in an investigation on a $50 billion tax avoidance scheme in the European Union.

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The European Union has adapted well to a cutoff of supplies of Russian gas. Alternative sources were quickly pulled together in a matter of months after the invasion and cutoff to tackle the winter of 2022-2023. Conservation was moved into high gear, renewable energy investment expanded, and alternative sources for gas established. Germany sought supplies of LNG from the US and Qatar and built gas terminal at Wilhelmshaven in record time of less than 6 months. Norway increased gas supplies to Europe and now provides one third of Europe's gas needs. German industry changed the way they used gas supplies to reduce usage and make it efficient.

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How the threat of the energy offensive by Russia against Germany and the European Union was met and tackled successfully.

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Removing nuclear material has already been done for Kazakhstan and Georgia by the US in the past. The same methods and advanced technologies could be used to get all of the nuclear material out of Iran. Special operations set up for this purpose can also be used to get this done. This appears to be the only safe and certain way to avoid the nuclear proliferation. Despite what the media has been saying, even the Pope and others like Starmer and Macron are saying, who have never brought this up, but is the only way to tell the whole story,  the US and the world is safer without nuclear proliferation -especially in the most volatile region of the world for the last 5 decades. This is all the US is doing and getting more than its share of blame when all it is interested in is making it safe for the people of the world , including the people of India, Brazil, China and Russia, European Union and Africa, Latin America, whatever their leaders say.

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Starmer's visit to China and the result being halving of tariffs- it comes 8 years after Theresa May's visit 2018.  Starmer is following his intution  to set an independent course for Brtian's foreign policy. It makes sense as the US is using common sense in coming back to basics, to getting its own hemisphere policies right. How could there be a situation like that in Venezuela and Mexico as with the drug cartels operating as states within states- what would Teddy Roosevelt say about this? So we now have the Monroe Doctrine, the return of the Panama Canal, the restructuring of the oil industry in Venezuela, and other action. This also means Canada and UK, India, European Union can pursue policies that are common sense. It means for Britain a new openness with China after 8 years inward looking with Austerity, Brexit and Covid. For a smaller economy it makes sense for Britain to have agreements on trade as it signed with India, and now with China. Carney, Starmer and soon Merz will have worked out relations with China on trade and exchanges. For Europe and the US over concentration of making goods in China can be corrected while still engaging with China. For the EU the visits Germany's Merz made to the kite festival an India and Leyen/Costa of the EU following up with trade agreements are all part of common sense to not just reduce over concentration in China, but also to build a new partnership with India to form a 2 billion people market. All of which happened suddenly as European nations realized how to work out new arrangements following the war with Russia over Ukraine and China's support for Russia, taking up the cues from DJT common sense action in its backyard. "I'm a pragmatist, a British pragmatist, applying common sense," the prime minister tells BBC on the plane and says he wants to "make Britain face outwards again."  ...

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The visit of European Commission president Von Der Leyen to India is her first to the country. The aim is to strengthen European Union's ties with India. The EU would like to take the cooperation between the two sides to the next level.

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US president Biden's State of the Union address comes at a new inflection point in history for the US, the European Union and India. The Ukraine crisis and setting the US response, as well as US response to the neglect of infrastructure, healthcare, social cohesion during the last two decades.

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The European Union governments are finding it increasingly difficult to salvage the Iran nuclear deal and lifting of sanctions. European governments rejected Iran's 60 day ultimatum to help circumvent U.S. Trump administration sanctions. The U.S. sanctions have already led to Iran's oil export to drop from 2.5 million barrels a day to 1 million. Lost shipments have cost Iran $10 billion hurting its economy. Initially European nations France and Germany hoped to keep the 2015 Iran nuclear deal by working with Iran, but this has become increasingly difficult with the Trump administration increasing sanctions including limiting access to U.S. markets for nations that do not cooperate with U.S. policy. The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and now it looks like the Europeans are faced with a difficult choice in continuing to work with Iran.

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A look back at the Merkel 16 years in Germany and the European Union, the compromises to keep the Social Democrats out and her party the CDU in power, the failures in preserving social mobility in German society, immigration that led to divisions in German society, and climate change where she took some faltering steps. Only in the end did Merkel put all her convictions behind Scholz and the effort to bring trillions of euros of aid to Germany and the European Union devastated by the coronavirus pandemic. This may be her singular achievement.

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Merz at ease at Gandhiji's Sabarmati Ashram with Modi in Ahmedabad, India. An historic opportunity for the European Union and India, two of the world's great civilizations and with 2 billion people taking the first step to modernize the German and Indian economy by 2037 and 2047. 

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BBC's Europe Editor Katya Adler talks to EU officials and gives this assessment of how the situation in Britain after the elections looks from the European Union. The elections in France with pro-EU Macron winning with a large majority, the increasing support for Angela Merkel in Germany, the drubbing for the Five Star Movement in Italy, all point to increasing confidence in the EU, and willingness to let Britain sort its mess out while the EU focusses on more pressing issues. Adler calls the first day of talks on Brexit a Mad Hatters Tea Party, showing how Britain is seen in the EU as having a huge complicated mess to sort out. British politicians are seen from the outside as having ruffled up the electorate on migration, the European Court of Justice and other issues, just to make their own points and for their own ends, not necessarily having the best interests of Britain in mind.

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The European union follows the U.S. with its actions on Hong Kong, suspending an extradition treaty and imposing sanctions, offering new visa arrangements and opportunities.