EUROPE - POLITICAL NEWS ON February 3

 



 

EUROPE – POLITICAL NEWS IN BRIEF

I have earlier published a number of notes on political events in Europe. I intend to continue this tradition. And my plan is to make them brief and to the point, also now and then with web links and illustrations.

 

1.     Sweden’s and Finland’s application for NATO membership:

So far, 28 NATO member states have ratified the full membership of the two countries.  All members have to ratify before it is agreed. The two countries still to ratify are Hungary and Turkey.   The Hungarians say that they will do it in Parliament in March.  A question is, if Orbán is delaying it in his fight with the EU ?  Sweden holds the presidency until July 1.

When Turkey is concerned president Erdogan requires that Sweden sends 130 Kurds who are refugees in Sweden back to Turkey.  A request that the Swedes are not willing to or able to do.  And after a Russian-backed Swedish-Danish right-wing politician was burning the Koran in front of the Turkish embassy in Stockholm Erdogan has refused to have any further negotiations with Sweden.   

Turkey is holding anticipated presidential and parliamentary elections on May 14. Erdogan’s party is not in a good position in the polls at the moment. This might explain the situation.

NATO’s secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, is putting a hard pressure on the two remaining countries to ratify. And in the US leading specialists even want to find a way to exclude Turkey from NATO.

NATO’s next summit takes place in Lithuania on July 11-12.   This is considered by many as an important deadline.

 

2.     Croatia now in the EURO zone and in the Schengen area too.

On January 1, 2023 the EU country Croatia joined both areas of cooperation. It is the first time that a country has joined both of them on the same day. And it has worked without any problems.

The EURO zone now has 20 EU-countries as members. They all have the EURO as their currency. They have 343 million inhabitants.

And the number of countries in the Schengen-area is 27, incl. 23 EU member states. They have 420 million inhabitants.

 

3.     EURO: The next member state:

Bulgaria plans to be the next EU member state joining the EURO zone. It is expected to happen on January 1, 2024.  But it depends on the political development in the country. On Sunday, April 2, Bulgaria will have its 5th parliamentary elections in two years.

 

4.     New Czech president.

The EU member state Czech Republic has elected a new president.  Petr Pavel won with a clear majority. He is political independent and won clearly over the former prime minister Andrej Babis ( billionaire, populist and charged with corruption ).  Pavel is former general in the Czech army and was in 2015-18 chairman of NATO’s military committee. He is pro-EU, pro-NATO and pro-Ukraine.   He will start in his new job on March 9.

 

5.     Ukraine and the EU.

Yesterday and today very important meetings take place in Kyiv between the EU leadership and Ukraine.  Ukraine is since last year accepted as a candidate country to EU membership.  This will be discussed as well as further EU assistance to the country.

Ukraine has also asked for the release of the 300 billion €, which is the frozen amount from the Russian Central Bank, to be used for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

I will come back to a report about the results of the meetings yesterday and today.

 

6.     Elections in Europe in 2023.

European democracy is, of course, very dependent on what happens politically in the 27 member states – and in the associated countries too.  Therefore, we all have to follow elections in all countries. They are important to all of us.

At the moment the following general elections are expected in the coming months:

·       March 5:     Estonia

·       April 2:        Finland

·       April 2:        Bulgaria

·       May 14:      Turkey

·       May 28:       Spain       ( EU president from July 1 )

·       June 8:         Greece    ( probably )

·       Sept. 30:      Slovakia

·       October:      Poland   ( perhaps earlier )

 

If you know of others wanting to receive this Europe – Political News in Brief  note, please let me know.

 

Niels Jørgen Thøgersen

e-mail:  niels4europe@gmail.com 

February 3, 2023 

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