The European Union’s upgraded partnership with the Philippines signals the bloc’s aim to diversify its Indo-Pacific strategy beyond trade into the security arena. Such a move shows Brussels is seeking a larger role in a region where maritime disputes and challenges to the rules-based order could damage its extensive interests, according to analysts. On Friday, Philippine Foreign Secretary Maria Theresa Lazaro and Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy...
Arkady Dvorkovich, a former Russian deputy prime minister, now faces an EU travel ban and asset freeze.
China and the EU have renewed their joint research agreement, according to Chinese state-linked media, signalling a willingness to collaborate on climate and agriculture despite trade tensions. People’s Financial News, a publication affiliated with Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily, reported on the new two-year agreement on Wednesday. China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and the European Commission had signed joint research funding agreements to support scientific cooperation...
The China threat has landed in Brussels. A new European Union position paper accuses Beijing of amplifying security threats, posing “a critical long-term strategic challenge” and reviving “sphere-of-influence logic” to reshape the global order. Beijing is cast as an enabler of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while its “assertive behaviour” in the South China Sea threatens European and Indo-Pacific security, stability and prosperity. The document, “Common Understanding: The Threats and Challenges...
The recent resignation of Keir Starmer as Britain’s prime minister has reignited a debate over the United Kingdom’s post-Brexit identity – and talk of rejoining the European Union. Over the past decade, has Britain’s decision to exit the EU returned the UK to its splendid isolation – or merely a splendid squalor? It may seem a far-fetched idea but what if the UK were to become a special sovereignty within the EU? And in that case, what can post-Brexit Britain learn from Hong Kong, which has been...
Pressure is growing within the EU to sanction Israel for its illegal settlements and violence against Palestinians.
In a public park a stone’s throw from the European Commission buildings in Brussels late last month, beer flowed, meat grilled and country music blared as revellers marked the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. The fallout from the event, however, provided signs – if they were needed – that all is not well in America’s relations with its erstwhile European allies. Just three of the EU’s 27 commissioners and none of its leaders showed up, while authorities were reportedly...
EU departments and some universities, including in Spain, are still spending on Israeli companies.