EU, NATO Herald 'Transatlantic Bond' Ahead Of Trump Presidency
By RFE/RL
NATO and the European Union heralded a "new important era" of cooperation on December 6, endorsing an agenda for closer collaboration amid uncertainty over U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy and approach to the alliance.
NATO foreign ministers in Brussels agreed on plans to combat cyberattacks, information warfare, sea operations, and improve defenses for neighboring countries.
"Today we start a new important era in EU-NATO cooperation," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters at the alliance's headquarters.
Trump, who is set to succeed outgoing President Barack Obama in January, suggested earlier this year that the United States might not protect fellow NATO members from attacks if they do not pull their financial weight in the alliance.
Washington has long demanded that NATO members meet the alliance's target of spending 2 percent of their GDP annually on defense, a threshold that only a handful of members are meeting.
Trump's comments during the campaign rattled NATO's easternmost members, who are wary of Russia's intentions in the region following its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and backing of armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The Republican president-elect has also spoken positively about Russian President Vladimir Putin, expressing a desire to mend battered bilateral ties with Moscow and saying he would examine the possibility of lifting sanctions targeting Russia in response to its actions in Ukraine.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels on December 6 that he is "absolutely certain that the United States will remain committed to the transatlantic bond, will remain committed to NATO, and will live up to...security guarantees to Europe."
Speaking after talks with his NATO counterparts, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that "the change of the administration will not change the unwavering commitment of the U.S. to...our NATO obligations."
Appearing at his final NATO ministerial meeting, Kerry added that "unity is very, very important" for the alliance.
"We need to come together, to make sure there is a strong Europe, a strong NATO and that the values and the interests that we all share, we are continuing to work on together," he told reporters.
With reporting by AP, Reuters, AFP, and dpa
Diplomats Say EU Set To Extend Sanctions Against Russia
By Rikard Jozwiak
BRUSSELS -- European Union diplomats say EU leaders are highly likely to prolong economic sanctions on Russia through July 31, 2017, when they meet in Brussels for a summit next week.
Several EU diplomats close to talks on the sanctions have told RFE/RL that EU leaders might give a green light for the six-month extension of the sanctions without a discussion when they meet on December 15.
EU ministers or ambassadors would formally adopt the extension a few days later, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive geopolitical matter publicly.
The sanctions are currently set to expire at the end of January.
Speaking at an event on Ukraine in Brussels on December 6, the U.S. charge d'affaires to the EU, Adam Shub, said the United States is confident that "there will be no easing of sanctions until Russia fully complies with Minsk" -- a reference to a February 2015 agreement aimed to end the conflict between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
"I think that our European partners are on the same wavelength," he said.
Sanctions targeting Russia’s banking and energy sectors were first imposed in the summer of 2014, in response to Russia's seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and support for the separatists.
An excerpt:
The attack was shocking for several reasons. Firstly, there had been a relatively effective ceasefire in effect for several days at the time. Fighting was at the lowest level seen since the beginning of the war. Secondly, Galuschenko was a respected operator and was a personal friend of the governor of the Lugansk region, Heorgiy Tuka. Photos of the charred and bullet-ridden pickup truck the group had been traveling in were quickly disseminated in Ukrainian media.
While some media outlets were swift to blame the killings on Russia-backed forces — a plausible assumption given the proximity of the incident to the front line, some commentators, including Yuriy Biryukov, an adviser to President Petro Poroshenko, suspected that the mobile group had been betrayed.