World
War in Ukraine set to haunt EU summit with Latin American countries
Brussels sees the region as crucial to reducing its dependency on China for critical raw materials.
The war in Ukraine looks set to become a bone of contention at a summit between the EU and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) that starts in Brussels on Monday.
It will be the third EU-CELAC summit with more than 60 leaders in attendance. Similarly to the last meeting, which took place eight years ago, the aim is to relaunch both political and economic relations.
But positions on the conflict launched by Russia against Ukraine more than 500 days ago vary on either side of the Atlantic.
“Latin American countries have been quite hesitant in condemning Russia for a variety of reasons,” Gustavo Müller, a researcher at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies told Euronews.
“One of those has to do with a more pragmatic approach. Latin American countries have their own economic ties with Russia and they cannot simply cut those ties because of a war that in their view is happening in Europe.
“At the same time, they also have their own reason that comes from a tradition of being Global South countries that have taken quite a solid approach of neutrality.”
This divergence of views is complicating the drafting of a joint statement set to be published at the end of the summit. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not be attending the meeting, but experts say it should serve, above all, to advance some of the EU’s pending trade agreements, such as updates to those with Chile and Mexico.
The same goes for the much anticipated Mercosur deal, with Europe still holding out for the inclusion of tougher environmental commitments.
Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, said in an interview that the support of countries in South America is important.
“If you take the different trade agreements that we have been discussing with the different countries of Latin America for many years, the best way of making sure that the environmental standards are respected in Latin America is advancing and signing and ratifying those agreements,” he said.
“If we want Latin America to turn its back on Europe and to look to other partners that don’t share the same concerns about the enviroment, then we just have to put them aside.”
The EU also wants to promote investment in the continent, particularly in critical raw materials that South America is rich in, with Brussels allocating €10 billion towards this and Spain €9.4 billion, which it hopes will be complemented by aid from other countries.
A Russian-born U.S. citizen who was already behind bars in Russia on a bribery conviction has been handed a second sentence for espionage.
Eugene Spector was sentenced to a new 15-year term for his espionage conviction, according to Russian news agencies. Spector was born and raised in Leningrad, Russia, but later moved to the U.S. and became a citizen.
A Moscow court brought espionage charges against Spector in August of last year, although details surrounding the case were not made publicly available.
RUSSIA ARRESTS US CITIZEN ON ESPIONAGE CHARGES: REPORT
Eugene Spector, a Russian-born U.S. citizen already imprisoned in Russia on a bribery conviction, has been handed a second 15-year jail term for espionage. (AP)
The U.S. State Department said it was aware of reports of a U.S. citizen in Russia being sentenced and that it was monitoring the situation.
Spector, a former executive at a medical equipment company in Russia, was sentenced in September 2022 to three and a half years in prison for enabling bribes to an aide of former Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.
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A Moscow court brought espionage charges against Spector in August of last year. (iStock)
The aide, Anastasia Alekseyeva, was sentenced to 12 years in April for accepting bribes of two expensive overseas vacation trips.
Dvorkovich was a deputy prime minister under former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev in 2012 to 2018. Dvorkovich is currently head of the international chess federation FIDE.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BREAKINGBREAKING,
Passenger plane crashed near the city of Aktau.
An passenger plane flying from Azerbaijan to Russia crashed near the city of Aktau in Kazakhstan, the Central Asian country’s Emergencies Ministry said in a statement.
Fourteen people had survived the crash and had been hospitalised, according to the local health officials.
“At the moment, 14 survivors have been taken to the regional hospital, including five in intensive care,” the health ministry’s regional department said in a statement. The Emergencies Ministry said fire services had put out the blaze
Azerbaijan Airlines said the Embraer 190 aircraft, with flight number J2-8243, had been flying from Baku to Grozny, the capital of Russia’s Chechnya, but had been forced to make an emergency landing approximately 3 km (1.8 miles) from the Kazakh city of Aktau.
Russian news agencies said the plane had been rerouted due to fog in Grozny.
Authorities in Kazakhstan said they had begun looking into different possible versions of what had happened, including a technical problem, Russia’s Interfax news agency reported.
More to follow.
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