Free Republic

Donald Trump's presidential victory means some U.S. allies may have to reckon with prior scathing remarks as their countries prepare to build diplomatic ties with a president-elect whose return they may not have anticipated. “The most destructive president in history,” Australian Ambassador to the U.S. Kevin Rudd said of Trump in 2020, who “drags America and democracy through the mud.” “A woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order,” David Lammy, the U.K.'s current foreign secretary, said in 2018. “A political pyromaniac who must be put before a criminal court,” Jean Asselborn, then-foreign minister for Luxembourg, said...

Hungary should be excluded from the European Union for anti-migrant policies that undermine EU values, including erecting a razor-wire fence, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said, provoking a scornful riposte from Budapest. The unusually strong attack came three days before a crucial summit intended to project the bloc's unity after Britain's shock decision to leave. "We cannot accept that the basic values of the European Union are being so seriously breached," Asselborn told German daily Die Welt in comments published on Tuesday. "Anyone, like Hungary, who builds fences against war refugees or breaches press freedom and the independence of the...

Barring a last-minute breakthrough, Croatia faces being told it cannot start EU membership talks this week as planned, because it is not fully cooperating in finding a fugitive war crimes suspect, diplomats say. Croatia, hoping to be the second former Yugoslav republic to join the European Union as early as 2007, was told in December that it could in theory start talks with Brussels on March 17 -- this Thursday. But that green light was conditional in providing "full cooperation" with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in a manhunt for fugitive general Ante Gotovina. And the...

FM Shalom welcomes Luxembourg FM Asselborn 19 Jan 2005 FM Shalom greets FM Asselborn at the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem. (Flash 90) Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom welcomes Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn to Jerusalem It is my pleasure to welcome the foreign minister of Luxembourg and president of the European Union, my friend and colleague, Jean Asselborn, here to Jerusalem. Close relations between Israel and Europe are a strategic asset to both sides. The recent conclusion of the Joint EU-Israel Action Plan within the framework of the ENP has given practical expression to this truth. I...