World
In the upcoming European elections, peace and security matter the most
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.
With so many threats on the horizon, we need a union that can navigate the turbulent seas of the future and protect the European dream of peace and prosperity for its people and global neighbours, Alexander Borum writes.
As the European elections approach, a new group of Members of the European Parliament will soon take office, tasked with navigating the turbulent waters of global volatility and the immense challenges Europe is currently grappling with.
In this shifting geopolitical landscape, uncertainty and conflict threaten European values and way of life, underscoring the urgent need to bolster the continent’s security and adopt a strong stance in the bloc’s foreign and security policy.
EU voters must remember the significance of collective security when they cast their votes in early June, considering the broader implications of their choices for our future.
As voters, we must make informed decisions that will ensure the stability and prosperity of the union.
Like the rest of the world, the EU is currently grappling with a multitude of issues that are directly impacting the lives and future of its citizens.
From a deteriorating climate to a cost-of-living crisis, energy insecurity, migration pressures, and a surge of conflicts both within and outside Europe.
While all these issues are important, it is unrealistic to expect that we can address them all at once. As voters, we must ask ourselves, where should we direct our attention and energy for the most effective long-term impact?
War keeps knocking on our door
Looking back at our shared history can give us a clue. Here, we must acknowledge the European Union’s roots as a peace and economic development project.
The EU has, in this regard, been a successful endeavour. Through increased cooperation and burden sharing, we have witnessed a period of unity and progress never seen before on the continent.
While the EU was never without faults, we must reflect on the challenges faced by our British brothers and sisters in the wake of Brexit. It is clear to see that member states are stronger and better off standing together.
As EU voters, we must stand together as we look towards the future, recognising that while the EU peace project has been successful, not everyone agrees with the union’s approach.
War is knocking on our door, and as the Ukrainian people pay the ultimate price for resisting the aggression they face, we must acknowledge that the very same threat is encroaching on our external borders.
This war threatens the organic and consensual growth of the union. As such, EU voters must reflect on their role in European security and the need to embrace collective security responsibilities with a sense of urgency.
Being complacent and disinterested won’t do it any more
After enjoying decades of peace under the EU umbrella, European voters have grown complacent and disinterested in security policy and defence spending.
However, in light of the current reality, if EU voters genuinely desire peace and economic prosperity, they must collectively shoulder the responsibility for security and defence in the EU.
This implies making tough choices in the coming years, as matching up to Russia’s projected defence spending of 8% of GDP in 2024 will require sacrifices. It’s time for the EU, where most member states still fall short of the 2% NATO commitment, to embrace collective security responsibilities.
For decades, Europe has relied on others for its collective security. Still, with the horrors of war returning to European soil and Trumpian cracks emerging in the close-knit alliance with our US cousins, it is evident that the status quo is broken.
It is increasingly clear that EU voters must once again look to the age-old Latin adage _si vis parcem para bellum_— “if you want peace, prepare for war” — to better position the European Union in the world.
ADVERTISEMENTFor a brighter future, the EU must take on a concerted effort to advance European security and defence, deter aggression, and safeguard our shared values and heritage.
For all EU citizens, it is crucial to ensure that security and defence are a clear priority in the European elections in June, ensuring that we collectively push for the continent’s strategic autonomy and further enable it to protect not only itself, its values, and its interests, but also its neighbours from hostile actors.
While strategic autonomy for Europe is a long-term ambition, we must face the fact that our inability to provide the support required for Ukraine to defend itself against an existential threat could easily define the fate of European security for all of us.
No more empty lip service, please
Guiding Europe towards a future of credible deterrence, a more balanced transatlantic partnership in NATO, and the ability to respond to critical threats to the union is crucial.
EU voters must strive for a future where threats to our borders, our near-abroad, or even the vital global supply lines we rely on can be addressed with a combination of cohesive diplomacy and credible deterrence.
ADVERTISEMENTWith this in mind, voters must cast their ballots with determination, fully understanding the need and urgency for a robust European Union.
Come June, citizens must elect European lawmakers who will not pay lip service to our collective security needs and are not afraid to push uncomfortable yet necessary policies.
With so many threats on the horizon, we need a union that can navigate the turbulent seas of the future and protect the European dream of peace and prosperity for its people and global neighbours.
Without a vote in favour of our security, we cannot hope to continue our lives in peace, further progress and development.
Alexander Borum is Policy Leader Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, focusing on the European Union Common Security and Defence Policy.
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Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s former deputy prime minister, whose sudden resignation in December helped set the stage for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to step down, said on Friday that she was running to replace him.
She posted her announcement on X with a six-word sentence: “I’m running to fight for Canada.”
Ms. Freeland, 56, once a close ally of Mr. Trudeau who was often called his “minister of everything,” had served as deputy prime minister since 2019, and had long been viewed as a possible successor.
But the two had a bitter rift when Mr. Trudeau moved to demote her over a Zoom call in December, offering her a minister-without-portfolio role. Instead, she opted to resign and delivered a strong rebuke of Mr. Trudeau’s leadership as Canada prepares to deal with President-elect Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump has threatened to apply a tariff on Canadian exports to the United States.
Her stinging departure destabilized Mr. Trudeau’s shaky grip on power. Three weeks later, on Jan. 6, he announced he would step down as Liberal Party leader and as prime minister once a new leader was in place.
Candidates for the leadership post will campaign ahead of a national vote among party members in March. The new Liberal Party leader will also become Prime Minister of Canada and lead the party in a general election expected to take place in the spring.
Ms. Freeland said she would officially launch her campaign in person on Sunday, which could take place in Toronto, the electoral district she represents in Parliament. She will face a stiff challenge persuading Canadians that she is the candidate best suited to take on the Conservative Party and its leader, Pierre Poilievre.
The Conservatives, who have a 25 percentage point lead over the Liberals in polls, have sought to portray Ms. Freeland as part of the problem given her once-close relationship with Mr. Trudeau and her key role in his governments since 2015, when he first became prime minister.
Mr. Trudeau’s popularity has nose dived in recent years as Canadians have become increasingly frustrated with persistently high cost-of-living on everything from housing to grocery bills.
Many Canadians have also started pushing back against the government’s immigration policy, which has resulted in 2.3 million people arriving in the country in the past two years. While the government said migrants were necessary to help fill gaps in low-skilled jobs, many Canadians say the new arrivals have contributed to rising housing costs and strains on the public health care system.
Ms. Freeland had accused Mr. Trudeau of engaging in political gimmickry after her ministry clashed with his office about a temporary sales-tax break during the end-of-year holidays.
The government estimated that the tax break, which covered items like restaurant bills and some toys and clothing, would cost about 1.6 billion Canadian dollars, or $1.1 billion, which Ms. Freeland said that Canada could “ill afford” at a time when Mr. Trump is raising the specter of tariffs.
“We need to take that threat extremely seriously,” Ms. Freeland said in her resignation letter. “That means keeping our fiscal powder dry today, so we have the reserves we may need for a coming tariff war.”
Ms. Freeland was born and raised in Alberta and is of Ukrainian ancestry. She has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine on the global stage, denouncing Russia’s invasion.
She attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and worked as a journalist and newsroom leader at a number of news organizations, including the Financial Times and Reuters, before joining the Liberal Party in 2013. She is married to a reporter on the Culture desk of The New York Times and has three children.
During Mr. Trump’s first term, Ms. Freeland steered Canada’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with the United States and Mexico, portraying steely confidence during the tense talks with the odd moment of levity. (Ms. Freeland was photographed arriving in Washington in 2018 wearing a white T-shirt that read “Keep Calm and Negotiate NAFTA.”)
But she also angered Mr. Trump during the negotiations and his animosity has apparently not waned.
When Ms. Freeland resigned in December, Mr. Trump posted triumphantly: “Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!”
Ms. Freeland, in an opinion piece published on Friday, hinted that Canada would retaliate in “the single largest trade blow the U.S. economy has ever endured.”
As finance minister, she spearheaded popular government programs to reduce the cost of day care for parents and to tackle childhood poverty.
Her announcement on Friday marks the second entry of a top contender in the Liberal Party leadership race. She will face off against Mark Carney, a former head of the central banks in Canada and England, who declared he was running on Thursday.
Mr. Carney is close friends with Ms. Freeland and is the godfather to one of her three children. He was being recruited by Mr. Trudeau’s team to take Ms. Freeland’s place in the government in December, but declined the job.
World
Pakistani court sentences ex-PM Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and 7 years in prison in graft case
A Pakistani court on Friday sentenced the country’s already-imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife to 14 and seven years in jail after finding them guilty of corruption, officials and his lawyer said.
It’s yet another blow for the former premier who has been behind the bars since 2023.
The couple are accused of accepting a gift of land from a real estate tycoon in exchange for laundered money when Khan was in power.
Prosecutors say the businessman, Malik Riaz, was then allowed by Khan to pay fines that were imposed on him in another case from the same laundered money of 190 million British pounds ($240 million) that was returned to Pakistan by British authorities in 2022 to deposit with the national exchequer.
6 DEAD AS PROTESTS ERUPT IN PAKISTAN OVER JAILED FORMER PRIME MINISTER IMRAN KHAN
Former Prime Minister of Pakistan Imran Khan addresses the media in Lahore, Pakistan. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary, File)
Khan has denied wrongdoing and insisted since his arrest in 2023 that all the charges against him are a plot by rivals to keep him from returning to office.
According to Khan’s legal team, Khan laughed and his wife, Bushra Bibi, smiled when judge Nasir Javed read the verdict.
Later, Khan and Bibi were taken into custody by prison officials after the announcement of the verdict, according to officials. She had earlier served a prison sentence in another graft case until she was freed on bail by a court in October. She recently led a rally to demand her husband’s release.
Later, a post from Khan’s account on the X platform urged his supporters not to panic over the verdict, under which the al-Qadir University built by his wife’s charity will also be taken over by authorities in the Punjab province.
“I will never accept this dictatorship and I will stay in the prison cell for as long as I have to in the struggle against this dictatorship, but I will not compromise on my principles and the struggle for the true freedom of the nation,” Khan wrote. Khan’s family has said such posts are shared with his consent.
Faisal Chaudhry, a defense lawyer, said the court verdict could be challenged in the superior courts.
Shortly after the announcement of the verdict, lawmakers from Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, or PTI, party rallied outside the parliament in the capital, Islamabad, saying the former premier had been wrongly punished.
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Guards protecting a vehicle outside of a compound in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. (AP Photo/W.K. Yousufzai)
“This is a bogus case, and we will approach an appeals court against this decision,” said Omar Ayub Khan, a senior party leader who is not related to the former premier.
Imran Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in parliament in April 2022, had previously been convicted on charges of corruption, revealing official secrets and violating marriage laws in three separate verdicts and sentenced to 10, 14 and seven years respectively. Under Pakistani law, he is to serve the terms concurrently — meaning, the length of the longest of the sentences.
Some of Khan’s supporters were also present outside the Adiala prison in the city of Rawalpindi, and they chanted slogans against the government, demanding the release of their leader.
On Thursday, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar told reporters in Islamabad that there was “irrefutable evidence” against Khan and his wife in the “mega corruption scandal.” Tarar said that Khan even did not tell his own Cabinet members about the money that was returned to Pakistan by Britain.
Tarar also claimed that Khan built a new sprawling house in the eastern city of Lahore after giving benefits to the business tycoon, and that he was unable to prove that from where he got the money from to build it.
The latest development came a day after Khan’s PTI party held a crucial round of talks with representatives of the government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to demand the release of all political detainees, including Khan and other party leaders.
Sharif became prime minister following the February 2024 election, which PTI claims was rigged.
The European Commission said that ‘reflections are ongoing’ over the downsizing of the international hubs under the department for international partnerships.
The European Commission said that ‘reflections are ongoing’ over the downsizing of the international hubs under the department for international partnerships.
Plans to slash EU international partnerships from more than four in five hubs worldwide revealed today by Euronews remain under negotiation, a Commission spokesperson said today.
Euronews reported that Directorate-General for International Partnerships (DG INTPA) presence in 100 delegations worldwide is set for reduction to 18 hubs on the basis of an internal planning document seen by this news service.
“Reflections are ongoing within the Commission and no decision has been taken [on the issue],” European Commission spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Anitta Hipper said when asked for details of the savings and staff moves that the plans entailed, declining to comment further on the document.
Hipper insisted that the EU presence on the ground in foreign offices would be maintained, and said that work is ongoing to see how effectively delegations can deliver on all EU policies, taking into account “budget realities and political priorities”.
DG INTPA is planning slashing more than four in five of its hubs worldwide – reducing from around 100 delegations to 18 hubs – according to a document seen by Euronews.
The DG will maintain 18 hubs in Africa, Asia and Latin American/Caribbean, according to the document, in strategic areas for the institution. You can see in this map where these hub offices will be located in detail:
“It is essential to move to portfolios that are more strategic and less fragmented and an optimised resource allocation across multiple countries,” the document said.
“The current INTPA operating model is based on the de-concentration process of 25 years ago, whereby INTPA staff are distributed across ‘cooperation sections’ within 100 Delegation worldwide,” the document said, adding: “This model no longer meets the needs for increased strategic focus and operation agility.”
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