Category: Europe

European Parliament ratifies EU-Ukraine Association Agreement

The European Parliament gave its consent to the EU-Ukraine Association agreement, which includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA), on Tuesday in Strasbourg. At the same time, the Agreement was also ratified by the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev. The deal will establish a deep political association and economic integration between the EU and Ukraine and provide for mutual free market access.

MEPs backed the agreement with 535 votes in favour, 127 against and 35 abstentions.

“Through this ratification, Ukraine’s European choice will be institutionalized and will bind the futures of the EU and Ukraine together. Ukrainian society has paid the highest price for its European aspirations, grieving the deaths of numerous people, suffering territorial occupation by Russia and experiencing deteriorating economic conditions. With this ratification, the EU gives Ukraine the strongest sign of support, despite the regrettable proposal to delay implementation of the agreement” said rapporteur Jacek Saryusz-Wolski (EPP, PL) before the vote.

He added that the agreement was “not a definitive goal of EU-Ukraine relations” and stressed that the common future of the EU and Ukraine must now be protected from Russian aggression by introducing “increasingly heavy sanctions until the cost for Russia will be too high to sustain its policy”.

“This is an historic moment”, said EP President Martin Schulz in his address to MPs in the Strasbourg and Kiev chambers via a video link. “The two parliaments freely determined to vote today at the same time on this agreement. This is free democracy, the opposite of directed democracy. The European Parliament has always defended the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine and will continue to do so”, he added.

Just before the Ukraine Parliament ratified the deal, President Poroshenko said “The Ukrainians have reversed the express-train going East, and I hope that also today’s vote will confirm that. Our synchronised ratifications will be a feast, not just for Ukraine but also for Europe because without Ukraine there is no united Europe. I would like to thank Europe for the support it has given us in these difficult times. At the same time I would like to address our government – the EU only asks for one thing in return from us – the reforms. I urge you not to delay them in any way”.

What does the deal involve?

The deal provides both for a political association and for free trade. The political provisions take Ukraine one step closer to the EU, by opening new channels for political dialogue and establishing ground rules for cooperation in areas such as energy, transport, and education. It requires Ukraine to implement reforms and respect democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law.

Among other rules, the deal provides for greater movement of workers, sets targets for establishing a visa-free travel regime and aligning the two sides’ regulatory systems by laying down detailed timetables for Ukraine to transpose parts of the EU acquis legislation into its national laws and put them into effect.

The Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement part substantially integrates the EU and Ukraine markets, by dismantling import duties and banning other trade restrictions, albeit with specific limitations and transitional periods in “sensitive” areas, such as trade in agricultural products. It will also partially integrate public procurement markets.

When will it take effect?

As a result of today’s votes both in the EU and Ukrainian Parliament, the deal will be applied provisionally but the date still needs to be confirmed by the Council. To take full legal effect, the deal has to be ratified by the 28 EU member states. So far, it has been ratified in six member states,, but several years may elapse before the process is completed in all member states.

It was planned to apply the trade rules from 1 November this year, but last Friday 12 September the EU, Ukraine and Russia agreed in talks to delay the provisional entry into effect of the trade rules until 31 December 2015.

The EU Commission says that it will continue to apply EU “autonomous trade preferences” to Ukraine, which in effect opens the EU market to Ukraine unilaterally. A decision to prolong these preferences later would need the backing of the European Parliament. – European Parliament Media Service

However, the French Front National and some other parties voted against the agreement:

FiveEyes agencies break German laws

Treasure Map is anything but harmless entertainment. Rather, it is the mandate for a massive raid on the digital world. It aims to map the Internet, and not just the large traffic channels, such as telecommunications cables. It also seeks to identify the devices across which our data flows, so-called routers.

Furthermore, every single end device that is connected to the Internet somewhere in the world — every smartphone, tablet and computer — is to be made visible. Such a map doesn’t just reveal one treasure. There are millions of them.

The breathtaking mission is described in a Treasure Map presentation from the documents of the former intelligence service employee Edward Snowden which SPIEGEL has seen. It instructs analysts to “map the entire Internet — Any device, anywhere, all the time.”

Treasure Map allows for the creation of an “interactive map of the global Internet” in “near real-time,” the document notes. Employees of the so-called “FiveEyes” intelligence agencies from Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, which cooperate closely with the American agency NSA, can install and use the program on their own computers. One can imagine it as a kind of Google Earth for global data traffic, a bird’s eye view of the planet’s digital arteries.

In addition to monitoring one’s own networks as well as those belonging to “adversaries,” Treasure Map can also help with “Computer Attack/Exploit Planning.” As such, the program offers a kind of battlefield map for cyber warfare.

Treasure Map graphics don’t just provide detailed views of German cable and satellite networks. Red markings also reveal to agents which carriers and internal company networks FiveEyes agencies claim to have already accessed. Of particular interest from the German perspective are two “Autonomous Systems” (AS) — networks — marked in red. They are labeled Deutsche Telekom AG and Netcologne, a Cologne-based provider.

Because Netcologne is a regional provider, it would seem highly likely that the NSA or one of its Treasure Map partners accessed the network from within Germany. That would be a clear violation of German law and potentially another NSA-related case for German public prosecutors.

Read more.

Jews flock to Le Pen

The number of Jews who voted for the far-right National Front party soared in the most recent presidential election from the previous two votes, surveys showed.

In the surveys of French Jews, some 13.5 percent of 1,095 respondents who self-identified as Jews said they voted for National Front President Marine Le Pen in the 2012 presidential elections.

Asked about the two previous presidential elections, from 2002 and 2007, respectively only 6.1 percent and 4.3 percent of Jewish voters polled said they chose the National Front candidate — Le Pen’s father and predecessor as party leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, who has a history of convictions for “inciting racial hatred” and Holocaust denial.

Marine Le Pen has worked to rehabilitate the party and recently entered a war of words in the media with her father over his suggestion to put a Jewish singer “in the oven.”

The surveys were conducted over 10 years and compiled by the IFOP polling company for publication earlier this month by the news website atlantico.fr, which commissioned the report.

The National Front is a vociferous critic of what it describes as the government’s inaction to stop France’s “Islamization.”

Overall, National Front candidates received 19.2 percent of the vote in the first round in 2002 and 10.6 percent and 19 percent in the first rounds in the following two elections.

In a statement released Friday, National Front General Secretary Nicolas Bay blamed the government’s immigration policy for a 91 percent increase in the number of anti-Semitic attacks documented in France during the first seven months of 2014 over the corresponding period last year.

Muslims are the main perpetrators of anti-Semitic attacks on Jews, according to the Jewish watchdog BNVCA, or the National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism.

“It demonstrates what National Front has long denounced: the development of a radical Islam which endangers the safety of citizens,” the statement said. “It is a direct consequence of the massive immigration that the political class of UMPS led for 40 years in an utterly irresponsible manner.”

UMPS is a mashup of the French-language initials of the centrist UMP and the left-wing Socialist Party.
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy of UMP received more than 45 percent of the votes of Jews polled in the first rounds of both the 2007 and the 2012 elections — far above his share of the votes in the general voter population.

The Socialist Party, which is believed to have been a favorite among Jews in the 1970s and 1990s, fell far behind Sarkozy in the poll of Jews, nabbing 19.7 percent, 28.8 percent and 22.5 percent of the Jewish vote in the first rounds of the presidential elections of 2002, 2007 and 2012, respectively.

Source: JTA

EU members buy oil from ISIS

A senior European Union official has revealed that some EU member states have purchased oil from ISIS Takfiri militants despite their rhetoric against the group.

In a briefing to the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee, EU Ambassador to Iraq Jana Hybaskova said some European countries have purchased crude from the ISIS.

She, however, refused to disclose any names despite pressure by some Parliament members to do so.

The EU official also warned against any support by the West for separatist Kurdish groups who, she said, would destabilize the Middle East.

Earlier reports accused Turkey of buying and transporting oil from both the ISIS and Qaeda-linked Nusra Front. According to the reports, Western intelligence agencies could track ISIS oil shipments as they moved across Iraq and Turkey.

ISIS reportedly controls eleven oil fields in northern Iraq as well as Syria’s Raqqa province.

US intelligence officials estimate that the Takfiri militants earn more than USD 3 million a day from oil profit, theft, human trafficking and ransom. They say the militants sell oil and other products via established networks in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq’s Kurdistan region. Turkey has denied reports of involvement in ISIS’s oil smuggling operations.

Former BP chief warns against Russia sanctions

US and EU sanctions against Moscow are in danger of turning round and biting the west by constraining global oil supply and pushing up prices in coming years, the former chief executive of BP has warned.

Tony Hayward said that cutting off capital markets from Russia’s energy groups, which would eventually lead to less investment in Russian oil production, was likely to damage long-term supply. He said the US shale boom had obscured the growing risks to the world’s supply picture, but its effect would wear off, leaving the global economy dangerously exposed to potential disruptions in the flow of oil.

His comments came as the US and Europe expanded sanctions against Russia on Friday with the US adding Gazprom, Europe’s leading energy provider, and Lukoil, the privately owned oil group, to the list of companies deprived of US goods, technology and services for deepwater, Arctic offshore and shale projects. EU and US sanctions have also imposed restrictions on financing for some state-owned Russian energy companies.

“The world has been lulled into a false sense of security because of what’s going on in the US,” Mr Hayward said in an interview with the Financial Times, referring to the shale boom that has driven a 60 per cent increase in US crude output since 2008. But he asked: “When US supply peaks, where will the new supply come from?”

As output from mature basins such as the North Sea and Alaska’s North Slope declines, the world had been banking on new barrels from places such as Canada, Iraq and Russia. But the latter’s future production from untapped resources in the Arctic and the vast shale reserves of Siberia are under threat because of sanctions, Mr Hayward said.

“Because of financial sanctions, the big gorillas are going to start cutting their activities,” he said.

Mr Hayward, who runs oil explorer Genel Energy and is chairman of commodities group Glencore, also expressed doubt about projections for a big increase in oil production from Iraq. He said current circumstances meant the country would struggle to reach targets to double production by 2020.

The advance of Isis militants in northern Iraq has coincided with political instability in other big oil-producing countries such as Libya. But the barrels lost through post-Arab Spring unrest have been matched by new supply from North America. Without that additional supply, the world would be facing an oil price of $150 a barrel, according to Mr Hayward.

Brent crude has fallen from about $108 per barrel at the start of the year to about $97 today.

Source: FT

‘Marine Le Pen is at the gates of power’

French premier Manuel Valls warned on Sunday that the National Front party is at the “gates of power.”

“In France, the extreme right of Marine Le Pen is at the gates of power,” Valls said. “And I, as a man of the left, will never be able to resign myself to that because it will be the weakest who will be the first to suffer. And it will also be a terrible, perhaps fatal, blow to Europe.”

France’s National Front, known for its anti-immigrant and anti-EU rhetoric, achieved unprecedented results in the latest EU polls, claiming nearly 25 percent of the votes and winning the election.

“Our people demand one type of politics: they want politics by the French, for the French, with the French. They don’t want to be led anymore from outside, to submit to laws.”

Speaking to French media, the head of France’s right-wing National Front likened the recent reshuffle of Prime Minister Manuel Valls’ cabinet to an “illusionist performance,” calling it a “circus.”

Le Pen suggested that French President Francois Hollande should dissolve the National Assembly, France’s lower house of parliament. She added that it was “more than necessary” and “the only responsible decision” Hollande would make since he became head of state five years ago.

“Francois Hollande tries to save time, but the damage is too deep,” Le Pen argued.

In August, Hollande asked Valls to form a new government following tensions within his cabinet over the country’s economic policy.

The decision came after strong criticism of the country’s economic direction – which the outgoing economy minister, Arnaud Montebourg, voiced as he called for a “major shift.”

Source: RT

German eurosceptics surge in two state elections

The eurosceptic ‘Alternative for Germany’ party got more than ten percent of the vote in the country’s regional elections on Sunday, making the right-wing a growing threat for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives.

According to Beatrix von Storch, a Euro MP for Germany’s AFD, her country’s answer to Ukraine crisis should be setting up a free trade agreement with Russia to guarantee German business interests.

The AFD party won 10.1 percent of the vote in Thuringia and 11.9 percent in Brandenburg, according to projections on Germany’s ARD TV announced after voting ended at 6 pm Sunday (1600 GMT).

Two weeks ago, the party already won 9.7 percent in an election in Saxony. With this weekend’s results, the AFD will now have seats in three state assemblies. According to predictions by political analysts, the party has a strong chance of entering Germany’s federal parliament after the 2017 general election.

Founded in early 2013 to oppose eurozone bailouts, it was branded as a group of “unelectable mavericks” by the German political elite. Yet, the AFD won over seven percent of the vote in the EU elections in May, entering the 28-nation bloc’s parliament.

The 52-year-old party leader Bernd Lucke said the recent results in two more eastern states add to the momentum of the party. “We’re delighted that voters have made the choice for a political renewal,” he told German TV.

Originally calling for a return to the Deutsche Mark instead of the eurozone’s unified currency, the party’s message has broadened to include education, security and other issues in its campaign.

With previous allegations of the AFD being hijacked by extremists, the party leader was even happier with the recent results, saying: “We’re not going to sit still and let the other parties bad-mouth us.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel recently called the AFD is a “problem”.

Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) won 34.4 percent in Thuringia, but it’s not clear yet whether it will stay in power in the region, depending on whether their junior coalition partners, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), which won 12.3 percent, switch to support the Left Party (27.7 percent votes), in a coalition with the Greens and their 5.6 percent.

Merkel’s pro-European CDU has ruled out any coalition with the AFD.

Europe saw a remarkable shift towards right-wing and eurosceptic political parties after the EU parliamentary elections in May.

The UK Independence Party (UKIP) beat off competition from the country’s Lib Dems, Conservatives and Labour, garnering 27.5 percent of the vote. France’s National Front, known for its anti-immigration and anti-EU rhetoric, got 25 percent.

Along with the anti-Eurozone position, some new players on the EU political scene have expressed their concern regarding Brussels’ sanctions aimed at Russia.

After the earlier round of sanctions, Heinz-Christian Strache, Chairman of the right-wing Freedom Party of Austria, which has 20 percent of seats in the lower chamber of the national parliament and showed similarly strong results in this year’s European parliamentary election, criticized the EU.

“In just a few days after the [Russian] sanctions came into force they hurt out agriculture. The EU is thinking on how to mitigate it. Instead of putting Russia on its knees, they drag our farmers to ruin with their senseless sanctions policy,” Strache said.

Source: RT

Kiev pondering a nuclear option against Russia

Kiev wants to restart its nuclear weapons program if it doesn’t get enough support from the West.

“If we cannot protect Ukraine today, if the world doesn’t help us, we will have to go back to the development of nuclear weapons, which will protect us from Russia,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Valery Geletey said in an interview with Ukrainian TV, also claiming that NATO members have already started supplying Kiev with other weapons.

In the same briefing Geletey mentioned that arms were starting to come in from the NATO alliance. It could add to the fragility of a recent truce.

Slovakia, to some extent the Czech Republic, and Hungary, are said to be worried about these latest remarks.

The American political establishment wants to use Kiev as a spearhead against Russia, and the Atlanticist alliance has not condemned this statement.

Meanwhile Finland will not give up the construction of a nuclear power plant (NPP) in conjunction with Rosatom (Russia’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Power) because of sanctions; there are no differences in the Finnish government over the matter, Finland Prime Minister Alexander Strubb told Radio Suomi in an interview, ItarTASS has reported.

Strubb also emphasized that cooperation between Finland’s power company Fennovoima and Rosatom “will not shake Finland’s reputation”. He said the project for the construction of the NPP is significant to such an extent that “it should not be mixed with politics”.

The Rusatom Overseas Company (a subsidiary of Rosatom) and Fennovoima signed a contracts for the construction of a Hanhikivi-1 NPP at the end of December 2013. A license for building it had been obtained by Fennovoima way back in summer 2010. During the obtaining of the license, the Russian company had not been mentioned as a supplier of reactor. Therefore the Finnish side considered it necessary for the parliament to approve the construction once again a decision to refer the project to the members of parliament is to be made by the government. Besides, simultaneously, Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy and the Radiological Safety Centre are now busy estimating environmental and nuclear safety of the project.

Fennovoima expects that Finnish authorities, upon studying the new elements that appeared in the project, will reaffirm that it fully meets the country’s interests.

Merkel marches against anti-Semitism in Berlin

Chancellor Angela Merkel led a rally against anti-Semitism in Berlin on Sunday.

Germany’s Jewish community organized the rally at the capital’s Brandenburg Gate after tensions over the Gaza conflict spilled over into demonstrations in Europe with anti-Jewish slogans.

President Joachim Gauck joined ministers and Germany’s top Protestant and Catholic clerics at the event along with Muslim community leaders.

Jewish leader Dieter Graumann said the summer saw “the worst anti-Semitic slogans on German streets for many, many decades.”

“We won’t let ourselves be intimidated,” he said. “But we would have liked a bit more empathy in the last few weeks. Many of us still come from Holocaust families … how do you think we feel when we hear on German streets today, `Jews to the gas?'”

Merkel said it is “verging on a miracle that well above 100,000 Jews live in Germany today,” seven decades after the Nazi Holocaust. After the end of World War II, only around 15,000 remained in Germany.

“It is a monstrous scandal that people in Germany today are being abused if they are somehow recognizable as Jews or if they stand up for the state of Israel,” she said. “I will not accept that and we will not accept that.”

The president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, pointed to the danger from Islamic extremist and other anti-Semitic propaganda.

“Let us not allow this group of agitators to tear down 70 years of good work,” he said.

Source: AP

West’s new sanctions subverts peace process in Ukraine

The West’s new package of sanctions against Russia looks “somewhat strange,” since this move actually subverts the peace process in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

“As for sanctions that were imposed today, or yesterday, it all looks somewhat strange – even on this background of the use of (sanction) mechanisms,” Putin told journalists.

“Some time ago, I had a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and after it I proposed a plan how to solve this conflict peacefully and our positions coincided to a greater extent,” Putin said, adding that his plan had been used as a basis for peace agreements “committed to paper at a Contact Group meeting in Minsk.”

“And I would like to mention it with satisfaction that the process has moved off the starting block,” with combat operations stopped and the offensive by the East Ukraine’s militia suspended, he said. Apart from that, “you have to give the Ukrainian president his dues, the Ukrainian army has made corresponding steps under the agreements: they have withdrawn artillery and multiple launch rocket systems off populated areas to a distance that makes it impossible to fire on these settlement.”

“A peace process has begun, first contacts have been launched and I think this process has yielded a possibility to begin a political settlement, at least provisionally,” Putin said. “It has brought some positive air into the situation, which showed on Ukraine’s southeastern regions.”

Bearing this in mind, Putin said he did not see what had triggered further sanctions from the European Union. “I can’t understand what these next sanction steps are about,” he said.

“I’ve said it many a time that our Western partners first drove the situation into an anti-constitutional coup and then supported the punitive operation in the Southeast and now that the situation has switched over to the track of peace settlement someone is taking steps aimed at breaking the peace process up,” Putin said.

“What is this done for?” he asked.

The EU and US imposed a new batch of sanctions on Russia for Ukrainian developments from Friday despite the fact that the parties to the intra-Ukrainian conflict agreed on a ceasefire during OSCE-mediated talks on September 5, and that the truce took effect the same day.

The new sanctions the European Union and the United States decided against Russia, target the country’s largest banks, energy and defense companies, as well as individuals.

Building on earlier measures, the sanctions target Russian access to capital markets, ban the sale of dual use equipment to nearly a dozen Russian companies, and add dozens of people to the list of those facing travel and financial restrictions. The new initiative follows on a change of tactics made in July, switching from targeted sanctions against individuals and businesses to measures against entire sectors of the Russian economy.

The EU made their announcement first, stating Friday that sanctions targeting Russia’s finance, energy and defense sectors had come into force.

Sanctions against Russia would affect Exxon and BP

The U.S. and European Union are poised to halt billions of dollars in oil exploration in Russia by the world’s largest energy companies in sanctions that would cut deeper than previously disclosed.

The new sanctions over Ukraine would prohibit U.S. and European cooperation in searching Russia’s Arctic, deep seas or shale formations for crude, according to three U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the measures haven’t been made public. If implemented, they would affect companies from Dallas to London, including Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc.

EU ambassadors met today and will resume deliberations tomorrow in Brussels on whether to trigger added sanctions or wait longer to see if a cease-fire holds between Ukraine and pro-Russian separatists and if Russia backs moves toward a longer-term agreement.

Once the EU implemented the new ban on sharing energy technology and services, the U.S. would follow suit with a similar package, including barring the export of U.S. gear and expertise for the specialized exploration that the Russians are unequipped to pursue on their own, the U.S. officials said.

EU governments agreed on these oil-related sanctions on Sept. 8 as part of a wider package of measures intended to hobble Russia’s finance, defense and energy industries, pending evaluation of the cease-fire declared in Ukraine last week, according to two European officials who also spoke on condition that they not be named.

Source: Bloomberg

Ban on Russian TV pure political expediency

Moscow sees Kiev’s decision to ban Russian TV channels from broadcasting in Ukraine as an openly political step, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said on Thursday.

“Unfortunately, I have to say that the Ukrainian leadership keeps ignoring appeals by different international organisations and journalists’ unions, and augments efforts to maintain tough administrative control over media, openly preventing an objective coverage of events in the country,” the diplomat said.

“We see this as being at variance with rules of international law and as an openly political decision,” Lukashevich added.

“This testifies to the fact that Ukraine’s security agencies consistently deprive the population of an opportunity to get an alternative point of view on developments in the country,” he said.

Source: ItarTASS

Too many omissions in Dutch report on MH17

No real international investigation of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine has been conducted, Russia’s UN envoy, Vitaly Churkin, said, adding that there are too many blank spots in the newly released Dutch report on the tragedy.

The document, released by the Dutch Safety Board’s Tjibbe Joustra (DSB) on Tuesday, said that the Malaysian Boeing-777 crash was the result of structural damage caused by a large number of high-energy objects that struck it from the outside.

“It is very hard to call this investigation a truly international one. Many questions have been left unanswered. There are too many omissions,” Churkin said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 channel.

The Dutch report “did little to advance our understanding of what happened,” only confirming what was already known before, he stressed.

It says that the Malaysian plane “didn’t fall by itself, but was shot down. However no further thoughts in this regard are being presented,” the envoy said.

According to Churkin, Dutch investigators have also completely ignored the issue of at least one Ukrainian warplane that reportedly was in midair near the Malaysian plane when the disaster occurred on July 17.

“The report says another three commercial airliners were cruising in the vicinity at the moment of tragedy, but it does not say anything if Ukrainian warplanes were there, too. Our Defense Ministry said at least one military jet might have been there and eyewitnesses also say they saw one or two jets in the sky,” Churkin stressed.

“For some reason however the problem is bypassed,” he added.

It also looks “very strange” that the text of the DSB report doesn’t say a word about the UN Security Council’s resolution on MH17, the envoy said.

The Russian envoy also wanted to know the reasons for the 40-day delay in delivering the recordings of the conversation between air traffic controllers and the jet from the Ukrainian side to the investigators.

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Grigory Karasin, repeated the call for more transparency in the MH17 crash investigation as he met with Malaysian defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, in Moscow on Tuesday.

During the meeting, it was “noted that the [Dutch] probe was incomplete,” the Russian Foreign ministry said in a statement.

Moscow believes that “very important expert examinations have actually not been conducted on the crash site. Without them, valid conclusions on the reasons of what happened are impossible.”

The ministry pointed out that some expert examinations are already impossible to carry out now due to protraction of investigation.

“Russia insists on maximally transparent work of the international commission, fulfilling all norms of ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and is ready to participate in it on a team basis,” the statement said.

All 298 people aboard the Malaysia Airlines jet died as it crashed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on July 17. The majority of those on the plane – which was allegedly shot down – were citizens of the Netherlands.

The disaster has prompted NATO to become more deeply involved in the Ukraine conflict, blaming Russia despite a glaring lack of evidence.

It was initially alleged that the plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. However, claims were also made that the flight was shot down by a Ukrainian military jet which was in the area at the same time.

Polish president urges West to ignore commitments

Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski, in a speech in Berlin commemorating the beginning of World War Two, said it was a good decision “to strengthen NATO’s eastern flank” and said that agreements with Russia not to post NATO combat troops to eastern Europe, were to be ignored.

“We mustn’t let our hands be bound by commitments,” he said.

Komorowski confused nationalism and NATO’s aggressive expansion into Eastern Europe. He compared Russia’s incursions into Ukraine with 1930s-style “nationalism” and he urged the West to attack Moscow.

“We are witnessing the rebirth of nationalist ideology which violates human rights and international law under the cover of humanitarian slogans about protecting minorities,” Komorowski told the Bundestag lower house of parliament on Wednesday.

“We recognize this all too well from the 1930s,” said the president, using his speech to instill more German guilt at the 75th anniversary of the start of the war following the Nazis’ invasion of Poland.

The Polish president also accused the Russian Federation of the international violations that NATO has recently committed.

“The times of the peace dividend following the end of the Cold War are over,” said Komorowski, a fierce critic of the Russian referendum in Crimea and militias that defend Russian minorities in eastern Ukraine against the junta in Kiev.

Speaking on the day European Union diplomats were due to decide when and how to implement new sanctions on Russia, the Polish president welcomed NATO’s decision at a summit in Wales to arm eastern European member states like Poland and the Baltics.

Source: Reuters