Free Republic

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney has said that the “new world order will be built from Europe” with his country playing a key role in comments that echo a speech earlier in the year interpreted as a criticism of President Donald Trump. During a visit to Ireland, Carney said that that Canada was “the most European of non-European countries, and we are transforming our cooperation with the EU.” In January, Carney addressed the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, taking aim at the erosion of the rules-based international order in comments which were seen as a pointed reference to Trump’s...

German public broadcaster ZDF accused Elon Musk and British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson of inciting anti-immigrant violence in Belfast following a brutal stabbing attack that triggered days of riots across Northern Ireland. A 30-year-old Sudanese man, Hadi Alodid, was charged with attempted murder, possession of a knife and making threats to kill. He entered Northern Ireland in 2023, applied for asylum and was granted refugee status the same year, with leave to remain until 2028, a Home Office spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek. The victim — a man in his 40s — was hospitalized with serious injuries to his eyes, face...

The Sudanese suspect in the Belfast knife attack used a backdoor route into Britain popular with migrants seeking to sneak into the country. The Telegraph revealed last year how people smugglers were exploiting the soft border between Britain and Ireland to bring illegal migrants into the UK. Albanian gangs were charging £4,000 to traffic the migrants to Britain through the "backdoor" provided by the Common Travel Area (CTA) between Ireland and Britain. The CTA is a long-standing open borders zone comprising the UK, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. Established in the 1920s, it allows British and...

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked. The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said. It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves...

This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet"NICOSIA, June 8. /TASS/. EU member states have authorized their warships operating in the Mediterranean as part of Operation IRINI to detain foreign tankers suspected of transporting Russian oil as part of what Brussels describes as the "shadow fleet," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. TASS has summed up what is known to this moment. Kallas’ statementEU member countries have authorized their warships to detain foreign tankers suspected of shipping Russian oil, Kallas said. This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet." According to Kallas, the main objective...

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine arrived on Sunday afternoon in London for talks with the leaders of Britain, Germany and France as Europe considers taking a more active role in peace talks with Russia after more than a year of unsuccessful U.S. mediation. Ukraine and its European allies see a new opening to revive talks that have stalled as Moscow made uncompromising territorial demands and Washington shifted its focus to the war with Iran. They note that Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks and mounting economic strains could make a peace settlement more appealing to the Kremlin, a scenario that is also...

Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan has introduced travel bans on Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has confirmed. Mr. Ben-Gvir is the Israeli national security minister, while Mr. Smotrich is the minister for finance. The Taoiseach was speaking at the EU-Western Balkans Summit in the city of Tivat in Montenegro. Mr. Martin said the ministers’ actions and words “amount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine”. He added that he believes that there should be further EU measures introduced against them. …

The European Commission has taken Ireland to Europe’s highest court over the alleged lack of enforcement of EU rules when it comes to peat cutting. Following years of friction between the Government and the Commission on the issue, the EU’s executive body today referred Ireland to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for failure to comply with EU rules on environmental impact assessments. In a statement, the Commission said Ireland had failed to comply with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive. The statement claimed there was still “significant peat cutting activity” which was not subject to planning permission or environmental impact...

In an interview with Handelsblatt, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel dismissed criticism and concerns surrounding the digital euro. The possibility that the project could ultimately evolve into a form of capital control appears to play virtually no role either in banking circles or in government-aligned media. The digital euro ranks among the most ambitious projects within the political architecture of the European Union. As the Eurosystem and the EU increasingly merge into identical and integrated political spaces, it can no longer be denied that this CBDC project is primarily a geopolitical power play by Brussels. Yet the euro-CBDC -- shorthand for...

It was the kind of sweeping, last-minute demand that would have torpedoed most diplomatic talks: President Donald Trump insisting this week that in exchange for him ending the war with Iran, several Arab and Muslim countries should sign on to his Abraham Accords to normalize their diplomatic relations with Israel. But there’s been almost no response from any of the countries that Trump mentioned by name — more than half of whom already have diplomatic relations with Israel — and no statement of support from an Israeli government that would reap enormous benefits from such a deal. Analysts said Trump’s...

With less than 100 days until Iceland votes on whether to restart EU membership talks, the island remains deeply divided, with both camps only now beginning to mobilise their campaigns ahead of the summer ballot. The national referendum on joining the EU takes place on 29 August and the two intractable opposing political sides have yet to fully make their case. On the “yes” side: a government coalition that sees a geopolitical imperative for EU membership and on the other side, the “no” campaign sees a loss of sovereignty, and worse, loss of control over Iceland’s agriculture and fishing industries....

Wes Streeting has called for a “proper contest” to replace Sir Keir Starmer and confirmed he would stand if the race is triggered, as he and other senior Labour figures make their pitch to replace the Prime Minister. In his first public appearance since resigning as health secretary, Mr Streeting set out a fledgling policy platform for a run at the Labour leadership. He said Britain must pursue a “new special relationship” with the European Union and signalled he wanted to see the country rejoin the trade bloc in the future. Mr Streeting is among the senior Labour figures to...

The European Union is moving to tighten migration controls after years of struggling to deport most migrants ordered to leave, with a top official saying the bloc is now working to "get control back" ahead of sweeping new asylum rules set to take effect in June. European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said deportations have increased and new border screening systems are identifying potential security threats, part of a broader effort to address gaps in enforcement that have drawn criticism from the United States and fueled political pressure across Europe. "Ten years ago, we didn't have a...

As we mark the 81st anniversary of the end of the second world war in Europe this Friday, 8 May, it’s clear that Germany will again be the leading European military power. Already next year its defense spending will be as much as that of France and Britain combined — and it is projected to be significantly larger by 2030. The German government’s declared goal is to have the strongest conventional army in Europe. True, France and Britain have nuclear weapons, but that means less money to spend on the rest of defense. So, the question is not “will this...

Europe will not submit to a more “brutal world”, and can instead be the base from which a new international order can be rebuilt, Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, has said. Carney was speaking as the first non-European leader to attend a meeting of the European Political Community, which opened on Monday amid high tensions in the strait of Hormuz and renewed doubts about the US commitment to Nato. “We don’t think that we’re destined to submit to a more transactional, insular and brutal world, and gatherings such as these point to a better way forward,” he said. In...

Britain ​is set to enter talks to join the European Union's 78 billion ‌pound loan ($106 billion) to Ukraine, the government said on Sunday, in a further sign of deepening European defence ties under rising U.S. pressure. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected on Monday to tell ​a summit in Armenia's capital Yerevan of the European Political Community - a discussion ​forum set up after Russia's invasion in 2022 - that Britain wants ⁠to work with the EU to support Ukraine in getting vital military equipment, his ​office said.

Nato is “disintegrating”, Poland’s prime minister has said after the United States announced it was withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany. Donald Tusk made the dire assessment of the Western alliance on Saturday amid an escalating war of words between Donald Trump and Germany over Berlin’s criticism of the war on Iran. In a post on X on Saturday, Mr Tusk wrote: “The greatest threat to the transatlantic community are not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend.” On Friday evening, the US department of defence...

The chairmen of the House and Senate Armed Service committees on Saturday expressed they are “very concerned” about the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. troops from Germany amid President Trump’s feud with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump on Wednesday had announced that he was reviewing a possible reduction of U.S. troops in Germany. “We are very concerned by the decision to withdraw a U.S. brigade from Germany,” the chairs, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), said in a joint statement. “Germany has stepped up in response to President Trump’s call for greater burden sharing, significantly increasing defense spending...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggested on Monday that Ukraine may have to accept that parts of its territory could remain outside Kyiv's control in ​a future peace deal with Russia, linking such concessions to ‌the country's prospects for joining the European Union. "At some point, Ukraine will sign a ceasefire agreement; at some point, hopefully, a peace treaty with Russia. Then it may ​be that part of Ukraine's territory is no longer Ukrainian," Merz ​told students at the Carolus-Magnus-Gymnasium in Marsberg, a town in ⁠North Rhine-Westphalia, on Monday. "If President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy wants to communicate this to his ​own population...

I asked my friend in Ireland what was going on as the media is downplaying stuff as usual. Here's her response: People are raging and worse it is getting. It’s been a slowly building … Our cost of living has gone unbearable for many. Gas is around 13 or 14 dollars a gallon if you were to put it in dollars 65 % of that is government tax then there is home heating oil - that has doubled. Then there is a housing crisis for Irish but immigrants get immediately given government housing while our homeless and violent crime skyrocket...