Thursday, 2 June 2022

POLITICO

POLITICO

More than 20 of Putin’s allies fight back against EU sanctions

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 11:01 AM PDT

More than 20 businessmen, politicians and other individuals connected to the Kremlin are suing the Council of the EU after having been sanctioned following the invasion of Ukraine, court filings show.

Among them is Roman Abramovich, former owner of the Chelsea football club, who was sanctioned in March for allegedly benefiting from his close ties to President Vladimir Putin.

It’s not the first time oligarchs have taken the EU to court over sanctions — and many have won their legal battles in the past. For example, the court sided with Viktor Yanukovych, former Ukrainian president who courted Russia for years, in 2019.

The complaints were filed at the EU’s General Court, the bloc’s second highest tribunal, according to official documents.

More cases are likely to follow, with the EU having imposed asset freezes and travel bans on more than 1,100 people and more than 80 companies and entities. Proceedings are likely to last months, if not years.

Turkey rebranded as Türkiye at the UN

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 10:41 AM PDT

The United Nations has agreed to change Turkey’s official name at the organization to Türkiye, the way it is written and pronounced in Turkish, following a request from Ankara.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said this week that he had sent the U.N. a letter requesting the official rebranding.

Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, told Turkish state-run outlet Anadolu Agency that the country’s name change had become effective on Wednesday.

The country’s official name has been Türkiye since its declaration of independence in 1923.

The Turkish government has been pushing for this change for some time. In early December, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan issued a press release stating that the name Türkiye should be used in all correspondence with international institutions and organizations. “The term Türkiye best represents the culture, civilization and values of the Turkish Nation,” he said in the statement. He also called for the slogan "Made in Türkiye" to be used on export products.

Russian oil ban — Hungarian hold-up — EU ‘ghostwriters’

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 10:32 AM PDT

Listen on

We unpack EU leaders’ deal to ban Russian oil imports — with some notable exceptions after Hungary played hardball. And author Tommaso Pavone tells the story of the lawyers who turned “ghostwriters” to make the EU a legal reality.

POLITICO’s Andrew Gray, Matthew Karnitschnig, Lili Bayer and David M. Herszenhorn assess this week’s EU summit, where leaders struck a late-night agreement to ban Russian oil — but only after making more concessions to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. The crew also discusses what’s next for the EU in terms of sanctions after the bruising battle over this package.

You’ll hear what Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, French President Emmanuel Macron and Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told POLITICO about the summit — and about whether the EU's sanctions are having an impact on Vladimir Putin.

Our special guest is Tommaso Pavone, assistant professor of law and politics at the University of Arizona and visiting researcher at the ARENA Center for European Studies at the University of Oslo. His new book, “The Ghostwriters: Lawyers and the Politics Behind the Judicial Construction of Europe,” tells the fascinating story of the “Euro-lawyers” across the Continent who sought out cases and pushed them up the European legal pyramid over decades to make the EU a legal reality.

Klaus Welle to quit his powerful European Parliament post

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 09:58 AM PDT

Klaus Welle, the powerful head of the European Parliament’s administrative wing, will leave his job by year’s end, according to five officials.

Welle, who has served as the Parliament’s secretary-general since 2009, announced his departure in a letter sent this week to senior Parliament members.

“We are very sad that Klaus Welle has taken the personal decision to leave at the end of the year,” Manfred Weber, president of Welle’s European People’s Party (EPP) and chair of its Parliament group, told POLITICO, confirming the news.

Welle, 58, spent his 13 years in office enhancing the secretary-general’s role, and using his clout to expand the Parliament’s authority in the ever-evolving power struggle between the European Union’s political institutions.

Welle held considerable behind-the-scenes sway on everything from the Parliament’s agenda to its massive real estate portfolio to key personnel decisions. He became influential in all of those areas — and drew criticism from his opponents on each of them.

But Welle also had his adherents and will leave behind notable achievements. He helped establish the Parliament’s remote operations during the COVID crisis, expanded the institution's powers and equipped MEPs with more resources to properly challenge the European Commission, even erecting an in-house think tank.

His extensive rein will also make him one of the longest-serving secretaries-general in Parliament history.

“He always had a clear idea of the institutional role of the European Parliament and strengthened it,” said Weber. “His leadership will be greatly missed.”

As a former secretary-general of the EPP, Welle also helped turn the EPP into a pan-European political force.

Welle’s departure will inevitably spark a political fight over his succession.

The EPP holds the most seats in Parliament but has lately seen its power wane across Europe. Other parties and parliamentary groups, especially the Socialists and Democrats (S&D), have also long wanted to oust him. The S&D group even tried — unsuccessfully — to make his departure a condition for their support of the EPP’s Roberta Metsola as Parliament president.

The move marked the first time in recent history that the secretary-general’s office was thrown into the political mix of the regular parliamentary personnel shifts that occur halfway through a five-year term.

Welle did not respond to a request for comment.

While the S&D might now sense a chance to place one of their own in the influential post, the EPP is not giving up its claim.

One possible replacement is Welle’s deputy Markus Winkler, the S&D’s most senior Parliament official. Like Welle, Winkler also holds a German passport — another important dimension in EU politics — but it’s unclear if that will help or hurt his chances.

Other names floated in recent months include Jaume Duch Guillot, the Parliament's communications director, who is from Spain and said to be close to the conservatives.

Weber told POLITICO he intends to nominate a replacement for Welle with the entire Parliament in mind.

“As the biggest political group, we will nominate a successor who is at the service of all members and groups, with the ambition and integrity of the whole institution in mind,” Weber said, announcing he would look for broad support for any candidate. Although the EPP is the biggest group, it can be outvoted if there’s an agreement among other bigger forces.

“The administration must be based on an inclusive approach,” he added. “All groups must be involved and we as EPP will continue this approach.”

Queen pulls out of Platinum Jubilee service after experiencing ‘discomfort’

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 08:44 AM PDT

Queen Elizabeth II will not attend a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral on Friday as part of celebrations to mark her Platinum Jubilee, Buckingham Palace said.

In a statement Thursday, a palace spokesperson said: “The Queen greatly enjoyed today’s Birthday Parade and Flypast but did experience some discomfort.

“Taking into account the journey and activity required to participate in tomorrow’s National Service of Thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral, Her Majesty with great reluctance has concluded that she will not attend.”

Earlier Thursday, it was announced that Prince Andrew had tested positive for COVID-19 and would miss the service of thanksgiving on Friday.

A palace spokesman said: "After undertaking a routine test the duke has tested positive for COVID and with regret will no longer be attending tomorrow's service."

Andrew, the queen’s middle son, has been plagued by scandal in recent years. He settled a civil sexual assault case in February brought against him in the U.S. — and was linked to a convicted sex offender, the late Jeffrey Epstein.

The prince did not join the queen on the Buckingham Palace balcony to mark the Platinum Jubilee on Thursday, after the queen decided only working members of the U.K. royal family would be present. Andrew was stripped of his royal titles in January, amid the sex assault case.

This article was updated after Buckingham Palace said the queen would not attend Friday’s service.

Zelenskyy: Ukraine grain blockade will spark famine, migration

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 07:14 AM PDT

BRATISLAVA — Russia’s maritime blockade of Ukraine is causing a “catastrophic” rise in the price of food and basic goods, which will lead to protests, famine and migration around the world, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday.

“The world is now teetering on the cusp of a food security crisis,” Zelenskyy told an audience via video link at the start of the Globsec conference in Bratislava. “There is a … catastrophic rise in prices of basic products in various countries.”

Since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine nearly 100 days ago, access to Ukraine’s maritime ports have been closed off, which makes it impossible to shift grain and other food products out onto the global market by sea.

That means millions of tons of wheat and grain remain locked inside Ukraine, putting pressure on import-dependent states in North Africa and the Middle East that are usually reliant on the Ukrainian harvest.

“If we do not avert [the supply problems] we will see political chaos in Africa and Asia, and an ensuing migration crisis in Europe when people suffering from famine will seek refuge elsewhere,” Zelenskyy told the conference audience.

The European Commission wants to help authorities in Kyiv shift food exports to road and railways but it’s clear that overland routes cannot replace shipping when it comes to the volume of goods.

“The food security crisis will inevitably lead to large-scale protests in European countries,” Zelenskyy told leaders in the audience, including Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “Many governments will have to explain to protestors why our Continent is held hostage by one country and one person in Moscow that gave the order to put a maritime blockade on Ukraine.”

Russia has offered to relieve the blockade in return for sanctions relief but with the country’s brutal invasion ongoing any deal remains unlikely. On Friday, the leader of the African Union will meet Putin in Moscow to discuss the food supply crunch.

During his speech, the Ukrainian leader also warned of a looming pollution crisis caused by the destruction of industrial and power plant facilities throughout the country by invading Russian forces.

“The pollutants can contaminate not only the rivers of Ukraine but also the Black and Azov Seas,” Zelenskyy told the Globsec audience.

He also urged countries to help make sure the Danube River, which runs through Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria and Romania, along with Ukraine, remains “clean and safe” for shipping.

Orbán wins again as furious EU envoys take church patriarch off Russian sanctions list

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 07:08 AM PDT

The European Union finally agreed on the details of its latest package of sanctions against Russia — but only after Viktor Orbán’s Hungarian government pulled one last trick.

At the 11th hour, Hungary demanded that diplomats meeting to put the finishing touches on the EU’s oil ban remove the head of the Russian Orthodox Church from the list of sanctioned individuals.

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow has been criticized for his closeness to Vladimir Putin, and was included in the proposed list of people to be sanctioned in the bloc’s sixth round of measures against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

In the end, diplomats felt they had no choice but to give in, and Kirill was duly removed from the list.

“We finally adopted 6th sanctions package, crucial for Ukraine and for all of us. Very disappointing and hardly acceptable that the agreement reached by European leaders was not fully respected by some. We will not retreat. I suggest to name [the] 7th package #KGB: Kirill, Gas & Banks,” tweeted Arnoldas Pranckevičius, Lithuania’s ambassador to the EU.

The Hungarian government insisted Orbán’s position on Patriarch Kirill had been well known to other EU countries. Hungary’s foreign minister called the process a “long battle” but “worth it,” adding that the sanctions package is now in line with the country’s national security interests.

But the episode, which follows Orbán holding up progress on the main oil embargo for a month, has left a bitter aftertaste for many countries.

The question is, what can they do to stop him from repeating what one envoy called “Hungarian hostage” tactics in the future?

"Many member states are disappointed with Hungary,” another EU diplomat said. “Hungary has lost the last sympathies of its former friends in Central and Eastern Europe with this unnecessary stunt."

A third diplomat said Hungary would be more isolated as a result of the way it has held up this latest round of EU sanctions.

“Nobody is happy with what happened here,” the envoy said. “A lot of grumpiness on all sides, especially with the Poles. They are really done with Hungary now. This doesn’t buy you any friends.”

For Orbán, however, one thing seems obvious: His tactics worked. He didn’t want Russian oil deliveries by pipeline to be included in the EU ban because it would endanger supplies of vital fuels and hit Hungary’s economy. So he simply refused to agree to the sanctions until other leaders gave in.

While many grew frustrated with the obstruction, some other countries were happy to shelter privately behind Orbán’s more vocal positioning. In the end, he got what he wanted. Pipelines were excluded from the oil ban when EU leaders met in person on Monday to agree to the outline of the deal over dinner.

Then Hungary repeated the successful ploy, raising an objection to Kirill’s listing, which critics said had not been mentioned previously.

Another diplomat said that Hungary had the rest of the EU at its mercy. “We were forced to withdraw it,” the diplomat said. “For pragmatism, they have agreed to the sixth package without this listing, so that it can come into force quickly.”

The prize for the EU is an embargo on Putin’s oil exports that falls some way short of what European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen originally said must be a “complete ban.”

If countries including Germany and Poland honor their pledges voluntarily to ditch pipeline supplies, the combined impact with the ban on fuel delivered by ship will be to cut oil imports from Russia by about 90 percent.

To get landlocked Hungary on board, leaders decided to restrict the ban to Russian oil that arrives on tankers, temporarily exempting fuel flowing into the EU via pipelines.

With the ambassadors now signing off on the plan, it is on the path to becoming law. No date has been announced for when the temporary exemption will come to an end.

Suzanne Lynch, Giorgio Leali and Barbara Moens contributed reporting.

This article has been updated.

European Parliament bars Russia-backed lobbyists

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 05:55 AM PDT

The European Parliament is banning entry to lobbyists representing Russian interests as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine drags on.

Russian company representatives may not enter Parliament buildings "effective immediately," President Roberta Metsola tweeted Thursday. "We must not allow them any space to spread their propaganda & false, toxic narratives about the invasion of #Ukraine."

Metsola announced the move at a meeting of the Conference of Presidents on Thursday morning, according to her spokesman, Jüri Laas. It comes as diplomats debate including a ban on providing consulting and accounting services to Russia in the EU’s sixth package of sanctions.

The ban "applies to all entities that are established in the Russian Federation and that are listed in the EU transparency register," Laas said in an e-mail, as well as entities subject to EU sanctions. Metsola also "instructed Parliament’s services to look into other Russian companies whose representatives might spread false information about the war in Ukraine or try to circumvent the sanctions imposed at European level," he added.

The Parliament has also called on the European Commission and Council to block Russia-linked lobbyists. The Greens/EFA Group launched a petition calling for such a ban in the Parliament earlier this week — it's since been updated to call on Council President Charles Michel to give his support.

"These lobbyists still have access to other EU buildings via the EU lobby register," the updated Greens/EFA petition states. "We call on Charles Michel as Council president to make sure they are banned from all EU premises."

Watchdogs warned that the focus on Russia-based companies could limit the reach of the ban.

“This is a welcome first step," said Nicholas Aiossa, deputy director and head of policy advocacy at Transparency International EU, which has been calling for Russian lobbying restrictions since March. "But the institutions need to fully ensure Russian influence in Brussels stops now, including by EU-based law firms, consultancies and associations."

This article has been updated.

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EU top court weighs in on tasty-looking bath bombs

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 05:42 AM PDT

The European Court of Justice on Thursday weighed in on a legal dispute centered on bath bombs that look like they can be eaten.

EU countries can ban edible-looking cosmetic products, such as bath bombs, especially if they pose a risk to children, the court said. But this should be done on a case-by-case basis, and it’s not enough for a product to look like food for it to be banned.

The case relates to a decision made by Lithuanian authorities to force U.K.-based Get Fresh Cosmetics Limited to withdraw a number of bath bombs, citing the danger they pose to children who could confuse them for food. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania asked the CJEU to provide an opinion on how to interpret relevant EU law.

The company, which trades as Bomb Cosmetics, markets a number of bath bombs that resemble food, including the Cherry Bathe-Well Bath Blaster, covered in faux frosting, sprinkles and topped with a red “cherry.”

The CJEU was asked by the Lithuanian court whether “it must be shown by objective and substantiated data that the placing in the mouth of products which, although not foodstuffs, have the appearance of foodstuffs, may entail risks to health or safety.”

In its judgment, the CJEU cited a directive regulating products “which, appearing to be other than they are, endanger the health or safety of consumers.” It said that risks should be considered on “on a case-by-case basis” while noting that there was no requirement for authorities to provide “objective and substantiated data” proving that they are likely to be mistakenly consumed as food.

It is now up to the Lithuanian court to come to a final ruling on the products.

Bill Clinton and Tony Blair have a warning for progressives

Posted: 02 Jun 2022 04:33 AM PDT

Altitude is a column by POLITICO founding editor John Harris, offering weekly perspective on politics in a moment of radical disruption.

Bill Clinton and Tony Blair no longer have power, but they still have advice. They perceive plenty of people in need of it.

The needy include progressives in the United Kingdom, where the Labour Party has not had power in a long while, and the United States, where the Democratic Party has power for now but looks likely to lose lots of it in midterm elections this fall. Together, they offered a fitness program of sorts for members of their own parties that they fear are getting badly out of shape.

Clinton urges progressives to rebuild atrophied muscles of persuasion. "I think one of the ways you win elections is by talking straight with people and giving them permission to vote against you," he explains in the most recent edition of his podcast. In other words, don't hector and moralize, as though the merits of your position should be self-evident to any decent person. Assume a position of modesty that argues, "If you really disagree with this, then you will go out and take another choice, but here's why I think it's better for you."

Blair urges progressives to rebuild atrophied muscles of self-discipline. For much of the left, Blair said on Clinton's program, it's not clear that their main goal is really to win power or wield it: "Its primary purpose is to make itself feel good about itself, right? To convince itself that it's principled, right? But that is in the end, something that leads you to self-indulgence." Unless progressives commit to reclaiming the center in "culture wars," Blair added, they'll remain vulnerable to "some loose remark from someone" being exploited by the right and will be "hammered day in, day out. That's just not competent politics."

A reasonable question: Who cares what these superannuated politicians have to say? A reasonable answer: Even now, a generation after they came to power, Clinton and Blair are still the emblematic representatives of a distinct brand of progressive centrism.

That description is faint praise to some ears, and criticism to others. But this is an apt moment to recall a time when it was invoked unambiguously as a compliment.

Blair's appearance on Clinton's podcast marked the 25th anniversary of a then 43-year-old Blair coming to power as prime minister in Britain in May 1997. Shortly after Blair's victory, Clinton — who at 50 had been inaugurated for his second term a few months before — arrived in London on a working visit. The two leaders held a news conference in the garden of 10 Downing Street in which they held forth with absorbing fluency on the lessons of their dual success.

I was a White House reporter at the time, and the news conference remains one of my vivid memories in six years covering Clinton's presidency. Most journalists, like many others in the U.S. political class, tended to vow Clinton's centrist "New Democrat" image through the prism of narrow political messaging. By these lights, it was essentially a set of defensive tactics, designed to reassure voters that Clinton was not a more traditional interest-group liberal like Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis.

Blair's victory, and seeing two energetic young leaders standing side-by-side with obvious mutual respect, suddenly made plain how inadequate it was to view Clintonism as merely slick salesmanship and tactical improvisation. It was plainly something more — a set of ideas about how progressives should govern in a modern economy and an increasingly interconnected world. Blair's election, in combination with the successes of similar politicians in other countries, clearly indicated these ideas were on the march globally.

The brand of politics Blair and Clinton stood for — now often called "Third Way," a phrase then not yet in vogue in the United States — started with a critique of the alternatives. The problem with traditional liberalism was that it was stuck in a rut — more responsive to its interest groups than the broader public interest, insufficiently attuned to the imperative of economic growth. The problem with the post-Reagan, post-Thatcher right was that it had turned brutish and backward-looking — enmeshed in racial and sexual prejudice, indifferent to the challenge of expanding opportunity to people who didn't already count as society's winners.

These shortcomings meant that an energetic, disciplined politics of the center was the best hope for creating a humane, rational, prosperous global order in the 21st century. Expanded global trade, technological disruption and a burgeoning, super-wealthy entrepreneurial class could be good things — so long as government protected the most vulnerable and expanded opportunity with targeted assistance in education, childcare and healthcare.

In the 1997 news conference, Clinton referred to "the vital center," while Blair invoked the "radical center." Both men invoke precisely the same terms in the new podcast. While both leaders are sometimes portrayed as expedient and constantly calibrating politicians, what's striking is the degree of consistency in their worldviews across a quarter-century. What's different is that in 1997, just on the brink of the 21st century, Blair and Clinton were describing the world as a fundamentally hopeful place. Now we have had nearly a generation of real-world experience with that century — marked by war, climate change, virulent nationalism, tribalistic identity politics and a malevolent media ecosystem trafficking in misinformation, commercialized contempt and nihilism. In the podcast, even natural optimists like Clinton and Blair strike notably downbeat notes.

Their conversation invites two questions: Why has that brand of politics, in the ascendancy in 1997, spent most of the years since then in retreat? And is there any relevance to their examples now?

The first answer, of course, is that they paid the price for policy and personal misjudgments. Within months of the Downing Street news conference, Clinton was engulfed in scandal. He survived that, but his ability to challenge his own party and lead a new centrist coalition was sharply limited. Blair's robust support for the Iraq War decimated his popularity and gave him culpability in one of the great policy debacles of this generation. The Clinton-Blair brand of centrism, which cheered free markets and was friendly with Wall Street, was damaged further by the 2008 financial crisis.

Other problems shadow their desire to assume the elder statesman role. Blair was for a time the most unpopular former prime minister in modern British history. He embarked on what many admirers regarded as a disappointing lifestyle of lucrative corporate consultancies and tabloid gossip about a jet-setting social life. Clinton lowered his public profile as the #MeToo movement put accounts of his itinerant past in a more glaring light, and prompted stories about his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, who loaned Clinton his airplane.

But both men seem eager to reclaim their political voices. Clinton in September will revive annual summits of the Clinton Global Initiative, which has been dormant for years after he suspended it during Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2016 presidential run. Blair has been evangelizing for his brand of centrist policy responses to issues ranging climate change to right-wing populism through his Institute for Global Change.

More so than Clinton, Blair seems eager to confront politicians he disagrees with. Of his Labour Party's problems, Blair rasped: "We suffered the last election defeat, which was terrible. And I say [to fellow progressives] 'What makes you think if they've been voting conservative for three elections, what they want is a really left-wing labor party, when they've been rejecting a moderately left-wing party? '"

Blair told Clinton the problem isn't lack of demand for centrist politics, but that few people are defining the center in a compelling way: "We are not splitting the difference between left and right, but you're trying to understand the way the world's changing and apply eternal values to a changing situation. I think that's the best position for progressive politics. And I think it usually wins when it offers that."

Can this brand of politics compete in a world where extremism often seems like a rational response to the dysfunction and despair of conventional politics? The answer, as ever, is compared to what.

Clinton borrowed his phrase "The Vital Center" from a landmark book of that name in 1949 by the liberal historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. Late in his life, Schlesinger appreciated the recognition but was uneasy about the association. His "Vital Center" did not refer to U.S. domestic politics, and it did not mean "middle of the road" politics. It meant the robust liberal alternative to fascism totalitarianism on the right and communist totalitarianism on the left.

Something like that context exists today, far more than in 1997. From Russia flows a backward-looking vision, based on nostalgia for a lost age that Vladimir Putin and his admirers believe can be reclaimed through violent nationalism. From China flows a futuristic vision of a new world empire in which technology can be turned into an instrument of surveillance and state control. What both visions have in common is the crushing of individual liberty, free press and the right to dissent. In the center between those two are Western democracies. For the moment, they are hardly vital, but instead are snarling, demoralized, dysfunctional.

Blair said he remains optimistic because of "human spirit — which I believe is basically benign, even though people can of course behave very badly — that human spirit is what will us through ultimately, but it needs agency. It needs us to get behind it and do it."

Blair and Clinton may be damaged messengers, but that message is still valuable. The alternative to the vital center is the dead center — and an increasingly ugly future.

 
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