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European Left elects Walter Baier as top candidate for June elections
Baier, the current party chairman with little European experience, was the only contender. He was elected in a closed assembly in Slovenia.
The European Left on Saturday elected Austrian Walter Baier as their spitzenkandidat or pick to lead the European Commission following the elections in June.
Baier, 70, who hails from the Austrian communist party, has been the group’s president since December 2022 but had, until then, little experience in European politics.
He defended his lack of European credentials at the group’s meeting in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on Saturday, telling reporters that “frankly speaking, Europe is not just Brussels.”
“Europe is 27 nations and hundreds of cities and millions of citizens. The European Left wants to be the voice of these people, whose voices are rarely heard in Brussels,” he said.
Despite being the group’s spitzenkandidat, Baier is not on any national list and will therefore not run for an MEP seat.
The party’s assembly, which unlike the other groups was held behind closed doors, also served to agree on a manifesto for the European elections scheduled to be held on June 6-9.
The Left has set five priorities for the upcoming campaign: civil rights, peace and democracy, the cost of living, the climate crisis and public services and social rights.
A difficult road to the European Commission
The lead candidate system, also known as the Spitzenkandidaten process, allows European parties to choose their leader for the European elections. If the party secures the highest number of seats, the candidate then becomes the top contender for the European Commission president job.
The incumbent, Ursula von der Leyen, is currently the one to beat after she announced earlier this week her wish to run for her second term. She is expected to be formally endorsed as the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) spitzenkandidat at the group’s conference in early March. The EPP is the biggest group in the hemicycle and is projected to remain so after the ballot.
The Greens have already picked Terry Reintke and Bas Eickhout as their leaders for the elections while the Social Democrats are expected to anoint Nicolas Schmit, the current European Commissioner for Employment and Social Rights, for the role at their meeting next week.
The Left’s chances of winning the leadership of the European Commission are very low.
The party is very divided going into the elections and although current projections by EU Elects, a poll aggregator, predict the group could up its number of seats from 37 to 42, a reshuffle of parties after the June plebiscite could actually see it lose of MEPs.
The newly created Spanish party Sumar, for instance, previously joined the ranks of the European Left-affiliated Podemos party but suggested recently that it could instead join the Greens.
The report also identifies Vietnam as a priority country on the watchlist.
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North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has publicly praised soldiers who killed themselves rather than be captured while fighting Ukrainian forces in Kursk region, offering the clearest confirmation yet of what officials and intelligence agencies have long described as one of Pyongyang’s most extreme battlefield policies.
In remarks published Monday by North Korean state media KCNA and first reported by Reuters, Kim honored troops who “unhesitatingly chose the path of self-destruction and suicide” rather than surrender, as he addressed Russian officials and bereaved families during a memorial ceremony for North Korean soldiers killed in combat.
“It is not only the heroes who unhesitatingly chose the path of self-destruction and suicide to defend great honor, but also those who fell while charging at the forefront of assault battles,” Kim said.
The comments mark the first time Kim has directly acknowledged the lengths North Korean troops fighting for Russia have gone to in attempts to avoid capture by Ukrainian forces.
BATTERED IN UKRAINE, RUSSIA RACES TO REARM — BUT QUESTIONS LINGER OVER ITS MILITARY STRENGTH
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un attends a photo session with officers and soldiers who participated in the 90th founding anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army in North Korea on April 27, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service)
North Korea deployed an estimated 14,000 troops to Russia’s western Kursk region to support Moscow’s war effort, according to South Korean, Ukrainian and Western officials cited by Reuters. Those same officials say the forces suffered staggering losses, with more than 6,000 North Korean soldiers believed killed in some of the war’s most intense fighting.
For months, intelligence reports, battlefield evidence and defector testimony have pointed to a grim directive: North Korean troops were expected to detonate grenades or otherwise take their own lives rather than risk capture.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un pose for a photo during a signing ceremony following bilateral talks in Pyongyang, North Korea, June 19, 2024. (Sputnik/Kristina Kormilitsyna/Kremlin via REUTERS)
That policy appears to have extended even to the few who survived. According to The Guardian, two North Korean soldiers captured by Ukrainian forces and now held as prisoners of war in Kyiv both reportedly attempted to blow themselves up but were unable to do so because of severe injuries. One of the captured soldiers has reportedly expressed guilt over failing to carry out those orders.
NORTH KOREA VOWS ‘TOUGHEST’ US POLICY IN VAGUE ANNOUNCEMENT
North Korean troops train with Russian instructors to clear mines in the heavily contaminated Kursk region, according to Russian Defense Ministry footage. (East to West News Agency)
Kim’s latest speech appears to transform those reports from battlefield allegations into publicly praised state doctrine.
“Those who writhed in frustration at failing to fulfill their duty as soldiers rather than suffering the agony of their bodies being torn apart by bullets and shells — these too can be called the party’s loyal warriors and patriots,” Kim added.
The statement underscores the ideological intensity imposed on North Korean forces, whose loyalty to the regime appears to extend beyond combat to self-destruction.
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North Korean troops sweep minefields left behind in the Kursk region after months of fighting. (East to West News Agency)
The revelation also highlights the deepening military relationship between Pyongyang and Moscow.
According to South Korean intelligence assessments, North Korea has provided not only troops but also munitions to Russia, while receiving economic aid and military technology in return.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Published on
A 33-year-old man will appear in court next week after he was detained on suspicion of plotting an attack on two Dutch princesses, prosecutors said on Friday.
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According to details in a court scheduling order published on the website of The Hague Public Prosecutor’s Office, the man is suspected of preparing an attack on the 22-year-old heir to the Dutch throne, Princess Amalia, and her 20-year-old sister, Princess Alexia, in The Hague in February.
“The suspect was allegedly in possession of two axes in early February with the words ‘Alexia,’ ‘Mossad’ and ‘Sieg Heil’ carved into them, and he allegedly had a handwritten sheet with the words ‘Amalia,’ ‘Alexia’ and ‘Bloodbath,’” the scheduling order said.
A spokesman for The Hague public prosecutor’s office declined to provide further details on the case ahead of Monday’s procedural hearing.
It was not clear where or when the man was arrested. The suspect’s name was not released, in line with Dutch privacy regulations.
The Royal House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Princess Amalia has faced threats before. The heir to the Dutch throne was forced in 2022 to give up Amsterdam’s student life and live at her parents’ palace due to threats believed to come from the criminal underworld.
Queen Maxima said at the time that Amalia “can’t leave home” and that it has “enormous consequences for her life.”
The eldest of the three Dutch princesses subsequently spent several months living in Madrid and later honoured the Spanish capital and its citizens for their hospitality by opening a tulip garden there.
In 2020, a man was convicted of threatening the princess and of sending threats via Instagram to the then-16-year-old Amalia and one of her friends.
Additional sources • AP
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