It is possible to cooperate with “some” far-right personalities, says European Council President Charles Michel.

Michel made the comment at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday when he was asked about the upcoming elections to the European Parliament, where hard- and far-right parties are projected to enjoy a significant boost in representation.

“The question in the European Parliament will be: What are the political parties ready to cooperate (with), to collaborate to support Ukraine, to defend the democratic principles and to make the EU stronger?” Michel said on stage.

“If I’m observing the reality of some of those political parties that you qualify as the ‘far right,’ the reality is sometimes a bit more balanced in some of those personalities within those parties – personalities with whom it is possible to cooperate because they can share the same goals, the same views on those topics,” he went on.

“And with some others, in my opinion, it’s not possible to cooperate.”

Michel did not mention any party or personality by name, but his remarks seemed to refer to Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whose three-party coalition has been described as the most right-wing in the country’s history.

Due to its strident Eurosceptic tone, Meloni’s campaign for Italy’s leadership had sent alarms ringing in Brussels. However, upon coming into office, the premier baffled critics by adopting a more pragmatic approach to EU politics, proving constructive on key issues such as support for Ukraine and migration reform, while remaining opposed to the Green Deal.

Meloni and her allies from the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, including Poland’s Law and Justice (PiS) and Spain’s Vox, are seeking to secure a sizeable share of seats in the next Parliament and further tilt the agenda to the right.

The shift has raised questions over how much the traditional mainstream parties are willing to accommodate, or even align with, the demands from the extreme right. In recent years, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) has struck working arrangements with ECR forces in Italy, the Czech Republic, Sweden and Finland. 

Last week, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, a prominent EPP politician, signed a new deal with the ultra-nationalist Homeland Movement, a party that intends to join the far-right Identify and Democracy (ID) group in the European Parliament.

Plenković’s move revived concerns about the normalisation of the far right, a phenomenon that progressives say threatens European democracy and integration.

Focus on the substance

For Michel, though, what matters is the results.

“What is important, in my opinion, is the policy, is the substance, and what are the decisions we are making,” Michel said in Copenhagen.

“I don’t want to give one concrete example, but I remember that sometimes in the (European) Council when there were elections in one member state, there were some doubts and some worries,” he added, in another apparent reference to Meloni.

“And then we have seen that it was possible to work with the leadership of countries, including when in one coalition you have some political parties more oriented to the right.”

Michel’s comments put him at odds with his own liberal family, Renew Europe, which is firmly opposed to cooperation with either ECR or ID. 

Last week, Renew Europe joined the socialists and the greens in a statement condemning growing violence against lawmakers, activists and journalists, which they linked to the rise in support for far-right parties.

“For our political families, there is no ambiguity: We will never cooperate nor form a coalition with the far right and radical parties at any level,” the statement said.

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Michel, who will leave office later this year after completing his mandate at the top of the European Council, said he was “confident” that centrist parties would continue to play an “essential role” in the EU’s future.

“I know that this is usual a few weeks before the elections, that we are worried and that we think that the worse will come,” he said.

“I am a bit more calm. I am a bit more serene.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of reported sexual assaults across the military decreased last year, and a confidential survey found a 19% drop in the number of service members who said they had experienced some type of unwanted sexual contact, according to new figures obtained by The Associated Press. Both are dramatic reversals of what has been a growing problem in recent years.

More than 29,000 active-duty service members said in the survey that they had unwanted sexual contact during the previous year, compared with nearly 36,000 in the 2021 survey, according to several defense officials. The decrease is the first in eight years.

At the same time, 8,515 sexual assaults were reported last year involving members of the U.S. military, a decrease from 8,942 in 2022. And officials said the U.S. military academies also saw fewer reported sexual assaults in the school year that ended last spring versus the previous year.

Senior defense officials said the assault numbers are still far too high and there is much more work to do, but they expressed cautious optimism that the military could be turning a corner, with help from an array of new programs and increased personnel. Sexual assault reports in the military have gone up for much of the last decade, except for a tiny decrease in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been publicly released.

While it’s difficult to point to any one reason for the recent decreases, the Defense Department has been making a series of changes over the past year that officials say may be contributing to the shift. The services are using an infusion of more than $1 billion in the last two budgets to improve programs and hire up to 2,500 personnel as part of a new “prevention workforce” and place them at military installations around the world. So far, more than 1,000 have been hired.

The Pentagon releases a report every year on the number of sexual assaults reported by or about troops. But because sexual assault is a highly underreported crime, the department does a confidential survey every two years to get a clearer picture of the problem.

The data for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 also suggests that a greater percentage of service members came forward to report sexual assaults, which has been a key goal for the Defense Department. About 25% of those who said on the survey that they had faced unwanted sexual contact reported it last year, compared with 20% in 2021, according to defense officials and documents reviewed by the AP.

Defense officials have long argued that an increase in reported assaults is a positive trend because so many people are reluctant to report them, both in the military and in society as a whole. Greater reporting, they say, shows there is more confidence in the reporting system and greater comfort with the support for victims, and results in a growing number of offenders being held accountable.

But the Pentagon and the military services also have come under persistent criticism and pressure from members of Congress to reduce sexual assaults and harassment in the military. Service leaders and lawmakers have all argued that the sexual assaults and harassment contribute to the military’s struggles to meet recruiting goals.

Alarmed members of Congress have enacted a number of changes, including a new prosecution system that uses independent lawyers. Lawmakers argued that some commanders failed to take victims’ complaints seriously or tried to protect those in their units who faced accusations, making victims reluctant to come forward.

The services have long worked to develop programs to prevent sexual assaults, encourage reporting and bolster confidence in the system. The Army, for example, has a new training program for soldiers when they report to their first duty station that shows service members acting out dangerous situations and teaches troops how to respond.

The number of reported sexual assaults decreased across all the military services, which is a marked improvement over the 2022 fiscal year, when the number of sexual assaults in the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all shot up significantly. A 9% drop in Army reports in 2022 offset the increases in the other branches so that there was an uptick of about 1% for the whole military. The Army is the largest military service.

According to officials, the number of sexual assault reported in the Army decreased from 3,718 in 2022 to 3,507 last year, while the Navy went from 2,052 to 1,942 and the Air Force from 1,928 to 1,838. The Marine Corps had the smallest decline, going from 1,244 to 1,228.

Included in the 8,515 total were 541 service members who reported an assault that occurred before they entered the military and 612 civilians who said they were assaulted by a member of the military.

At the military academies, the number of assaults dipped from 155 in 2022 to 124 in the 2023 school year. Service commanders are still working, however, to address what was a dramatic spike in 2022.

The latest survey also showed that nearly a quarter of all active-duty women said they’d faced sexual harassment, a decrease from the 28.6% in 2021.

One troubling area continues to be female service members’ satisfaction with the help they get when they make a complaint and their overall trust in the system and their leaders.

While a large percentage of victims seek out sexual assault response staff, fewer than 70% are happy with the services they get. And that hasn’t changed much over the past several years. Roughly the same percentage says they trust the military to respect and protect them and their privacy.

Officials said the hiring of more permanent, full-time workers will help improve that process.

A Guatemalan court ordered the release Wednesday of journalist José Rubén Zamora, jailed for nearly two years on money laundering charges.

Zamora, the 67-year-old founder of El Periodico newspaper, was sentenced to six years in prison last June for alleged money laundering. But that conviction and sentence were overturned by another court and a new trial ordered.

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For nearly two years, he has been kept in jail.

But on Wednesday, a judge ruled that there was no longer justification to keep him in jail, noting that he was not considered a flight risk or a threat to the investigation. Zamora will spend the rest of his time before a new trial on a conditional release.

He was ordered to post a bond of nearly $4,800.

“During my entire life I have been the victim of attacks, abductions, aggressions for the work that I do,” Zamora said during Wednesday’s hearing.

Cristina Gómez, his defense attorney, said that his detention was arbitrary.

Guatemala’s former human rights ombudsman Jorge Duque agreed to guarantee Zamora’s appearance at future hearings. “It is the least I can do,” Duque said. “I know him and I know that he will continue facing the process against him.”

Press freedom groups had decried his prosecution as politically motivated.

El Periodico published numerous investigations critical of former President Alejandro Giammattei.

The charges stemmed from Zamora, 66, asking a friend to deposit a $38,000 donation to keep the newspaper going rather than depositing it himself. Zamora has said he did so because the donor did not want to be identified supporting an outlet in the sights of Giammattei.

The foundation of Nobel Prize winning writer Gabriel García Márquez awarded its excellence in journalism prize to Zamora on Tuesday.