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The German army are planning stricter checks of their soldiers as officials fear that jihadists could be using the armed forces as a way to train. The German Cabinet finalized an amendment on Wednesday to military law that will have military intelligence agency MAD soon more thoroughly scrutinize each applicant for connections to jihadist or extremist groups. “There are currently indications that Islamist circles are trying to send so-called ‘short-term soldiers’ into the Bundeswehr so that they can receive such training,” according to the explanation of the amendment, which will come into force on July 1st 2017. […] Since 2007,...

An EU naval mission in the Mediterranean has been authorized to start enforcing a UN arms embargo designed to choke off weapon supplies to extremists in Libya. The EU said ambassadors from the bloc’s 28 member countries also voted Tuesday for the EU’s maritime force, known as Operation Sophia, to begin training the Libyan coast guard and navy. …

The European Union on Tuesday said US tech giant Apple must repay a record 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion or roughly Rs. 95,910 crores) in back taxes after ruling that a series of Irish sweetheart tax deals were illegal. "The European Commission has concluded that Ireland granted undue tax benefits of up to 13 billion euros to Apple. This is illegal under EU state aid rules because it allowed Apple to pay substantially less tax than other businesses. Ireland must now recover the illegal aid," a Commission statement said. EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said Apple's "selective treatment" in Ireland...

Critics have been questioning the German Foreign Minister’s recent series of comments about working closer with Russia, with some labeling the diplomat a “Russia sympathizer”. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier continued to push his ideas for détente towards Russia on Monday, arguing for better relations between the two countries at a conference in Berlin. “We cannot simply wish away a Russia that has become immensely more difficult,” he said, calling for Germany and Russia to go from “a phase of confrontation and growing tensions, back to a reliable understanding of common security”. His comments followed an opinion piece he wrote...

The refusal of some EU countries to accept Muslim refugees is “unacceptable”, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Sunday as Germany called for quotas to divide the influx throughout the bloc. “That’s not right at all that some countries say: ‘generally speaking, we don’t want to have Muslims in our countries’,” Merkel told German public television channel ARD.

A year ago Germany showed itself as a country offering help. Security wasn’t an issue, but today it’s clear that terrorists have misused refugee routes and extremists are recruiting members amongst refugees. The terrorist attacks in Würzburg and Ansbach in July were not related to the arrival of so many refugees in the autumn of 2015. Both assailants were already living in Bavaria. But the fact that people, who had been taken in by Germany, then took an ax and a bomb, respectively, and turned on those who had offered help, has highlighted the disturbing side of migration. Many now...

Free trade talks between the European Union and the United States have failed, Germany’s economy minister said Sunday, citing a lack of progress on any of the major sections of the long-running negotiations. Both Washington and Brussels have pushed for a deal by the end of the year, despite strong misgivings among some EU member states over the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany’s Vice Chancellor, compared the TTIP negotiations unfavorably with a free trade deal forged between the 28-nation EU and Canada, which he said was fairer for both sides. “In my...

France’s highest administrative court has overturned a town’s ban on wearing the full-body burqini swimsuit, in a case expected to set a precedent for the other towns with the same ban. The State Council ruled that local authorities could only restrict individual liberties if there was a “proven risk” to public order. The decision followed arguments from the Human Rights League and an anti-Islamophobia group seeking to reverse the decision by the southern town of Villeneuve-Loubet to ban the Islamic swimsuit. […] Not everyone was pleased with the court result. The former mayor of Nice and current President of Provence-Alpes-Côte...

The Polish foreign minister has said that Germany all too often follows its own interests at the expense of its partners, as Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to visit Warsaw. […] Merkel is set to arrive in Warsaw on Friday for talks with Prime Minister Beata Szydlo, as well as the heads of state of the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. The quartet have had increasingly tense relations with Berlin since Germany took in hundreds of thousands of migrants last year and started pushing for an EU-wide quota system, whereby refugees would be redistributed across the union. But foremost on Waszczykowski’s...

Eastern EU countries on Friday pushed for the bloc to create a joint army as they met with Germany for talks on sketching Europe’s post-Brexit future. “We must prioritize security, and let’s start by building a common European army,” Hungary’s rightwing prime minister, Viktor Orban, said at talks with Czech, German, Polish and Slovak leaders. […] Leftist Czech Premier Bohuslav Sobotka, for his part, said that “we should also begin a discussion about creating a common European army.” […] In an early response to Britain’s shock vote to exit the EU, Poland’s powerful rightwing leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski called for EU...

Green and Die Linke (Left Party) politicians are asking that NSA surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden be allowed into Germany for an ongoing investigation. The Green and Die Linke politicians wrote a letter to the Federal Court of Justice, asking that Snowden be allowed to be questioned in Germany for an ongoing inquiry into NSA surveillance. According to DPA sources, they want to break a blockade by the coalition government against having Snowden come for questioning about surveillance by the US National Security Agency (NSA). …

Two cases of anti-Semitic harassment were reported in London earlier this week, with groups of men threatening Jews and hurling vile insults. Both incidents occurred on Monday in the neighborhood of Newham. In the first instance, a haredi family walking down the street was accosted by a man of African descent, who cursed them and demanded they leave the area. “F---ing Jews, go back to Isra-Hell. Don’t come around here. Go to Stamford Hill [a neighborhood with a large Jewish population], you’re not welcome.” Later that day, a 31-year old Jewish man was harangued by a group of men in...

Danish People’s Party MP Marie Krarup is under fire for saying that the EU is “without a doubt” a bigger threat to Denmark than Russia. In an interview with Mandag Morgen, Krarup said that the EU is an existential threat to Denmark and is a much bigger problem than Russia. “For Denmark? Yes, without a doubt. Just Schengen alone is a catastrophe. It’s something that will make Denmark disappear from the world map if we don’t pull ourselves together. That national borders have been disbanded is a threat against Denmark’s existence,” she told the magazine. …

When Americans went to the polls four years ago, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) deployed 44 observers, a quarter of whom came from countries deemed by a leading democracy watchdog to be “not free” or “partly free.” This year, the OSCE plans to send more than ten times that number — and some civil rights groups in the U.S. say even that won’t be enough. Following a “needs assessment” visit earlier this year, the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) decided to send 100 long-term and 400 short-term observers to monitor the November...

The Leipzig branch of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has come under fire for seemingly using Nazi symbols on a campaign car. A Facebook group dedicated to opposing far-right groups in Leipzig posted a picture on Facebook on Sunday that has been riling up anger in the eastern city. The picture shows what appears to be an AfD campaign car decorated with the official party logo and pictures of candidates parked at an outdoor festival with a front license plate that reads “AH 1818”. The group NO LEGIDA — a reference to a local section of anti-Islam movement...

The marketing team of Frankfurt never expected its English-language dummy website to attract new businesses would actually go live after Britain’s European Union referendum. “We hadn’t really assumed that we would need the site at all,” spokeswoman Michaela Kahle told AFP, as the team thought Britons would surely vote “Remain”. But as it turned out, the Welcome to FrankfurtRheinMain site was not only put to good use, but has become a hit, with 27,000 views since Britain stunned the world by deciding to leave the bloc. Quickly recovering from the shock, Kahle and her colleagues kicked into action, fielding inquiries...

Former French leader Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday announced he will seek his party’s nomination to stand in next year’s presidential election. […] “The next five years will be filled with danger but also with hope,” wrote the 61-year-old conservative, who had made no secret of his ambition to return to the top job. He listed five major challenges for France, which included defending French identity, restoring lost competitiveness and enforcing state authority.The announcement of his bid to secure the nomination of his opposition Republicans at a party primary in November comes in the midst of an impassioned debate over the...

Lithuania on Monday signed its biggest ever arms deal for German-made armored vehicles, as it seeks to allay concerns of a military resurgence of Russia on its doorstep. In its biggest-ever arms purchase, the Baltic NATO member will buy 88 Boxer armored fighting vehicles for €386 million. Produced by the German-Dutch ARTEC consortium, the vehicles are fitted with Israeli-made turrets. […] The largest of the three Baltic states that broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, Lithuania has increased its defense budget by about a third each year since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine....

Philosopher AC Grayling explains why he won’t stop restating the arguments until the folly of Brexit is reversed There are five fundamental points that have to be repeated without cease until the folly of Brexit is reversed and the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union is reaffirmed. Each one is obvious to Remainers, and has been clearly stated and restated already: but the point is to keep stating them all until everyone – but especially our Parliamentarians – is repeating them in their sleep. 1. Advisory referendum The referendum was not binding. It was held under the terms of...

The leaders of Germany, France and Italy will meet on Monday to discuss how to keep the European project together in the second set of talks between the premiers of the eurozone’s three largest economies since Britain’s shock vote to leave the bloc. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi hosts German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande on an island off the coast of Naples ahead of September’s EU summit called to discuss reverberations from the Brexit vote. “They will be coming to discuss how to relaunch Europe from the bottom up; there’s a big need,” Renzi said on...