Qatargate: MEP Tarabella’s release gives hope to Eva Kaili

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In today’s news from the Capitals:

BRUSSELS | ATHENS

The Belgian justice’s decision on Tuesday to release MEP Marc Tarabella with an electronic bracelet has given hope to Greek MEP Eva Kaili that she will have a similar treatment at a hearing on Thursday, EURACTIV was informed. Read more.

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EU INSTITUTIONS

World Bank chief says Europe needs to help fund Ukraine reconstruction. The World Bank is ready to do its part in rebuilding Ukraine after the devastation of Russia’s invasion, but international financial institutions cannot shoulder the sums involved alone and Western European countries will have to chip in, World Bank President David Malpass said on Tuesday (11 April). Read more.

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BERLIN

German MEP blames ECB for IMF’s recession forecast. EU lawmaker Rasmus Andresen has blamed the European Central Bank for the forecast contraction of the German economy by 0.1% according to an IMF forecast even if other forecasts projected a slight growth of around 0.3%. Read more.

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PARIS

Macron heckled presenting EU economy vision in The Hague. Protestors interrupted President Emmanuel Macron’s speech as he presented his vision of the EU economy at a talk in The Hague during his two-day trip to the Netherlands on Tuesday. Read more.

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VIENNA

Austria to request extension of border controls with Hungary, Slovenia. Interior Minister Gerhard Karner wants to apply to the European Commission to extend border controls with Hungary and Slovenia for another six months, the minister said on Tuesday. Read more. 

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THE HAGUE

EU climate chief talks nitrogen with Dutch agrarian party leader. Problems related to the Netherlands’ current nitrogen policy and possible alternatives were discussed by the EU’s Climate Chiefs Frans Timmermans and Caroline van der Plas, leader of the opposition party BoerBurgerBeweging (BBB), in The Hague on Tuesday. Read more.

UK & IRELAND

LONDON

UN experts urge UK to protect unaccompanied children seeking asylum. The UK must ensure the protection of all children seeking asylum and put an end to the practice of placing unaccompanied children in hotels, UN experts warned in a statement published by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Tuesday. Read more.

NORDICS AND BALTICS

STOCKHOLM

Swedish climate minister dismisses far-right’s biofuel threats. Climate and Environment Minister Romina Pourmokhtari dismissed threats of political crisis from the far-right Sweden Democrats, who want the currently undecided government to reduce the number of biofuels that must be blended into petrol and diesel from the current 30% mandate to virtually zero. Read more. 

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HELSINKI

Finland’s Green Party Chair resigns. Maria Ohisalo, the Green Party Chair for the past four years, resigned at a press conference Tuesday, saying she is ready to take responsibility for the heavy electoral defeat. Read more.

EUROPE’S SOUTH

MADRID

Study: Serious hurdles for Spanish youth to achieve emancipation. Spanish youth is facing serious difficulties in achieving economic independence and emancipation due to precarious employment conditions and skyrocketing rent prices, with youth living with their parents until their 30s, a recent report by the NGO Ayuda en Acción reveals. Read more.

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ROME

Italy declares state of emergency amid migration influx. Italy declared a nationwide state of emergency on Tuesday for the next six months following the exceptional increase in migrants continuously arriving via the Mediterranean routes. Read more.

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LISBON

Over 90,000 Portuguese-speaking migrants get residency permits in a month. Over 93,000 Portuguese-speaking immigrants – mostly from Brazil – obtained residency permits in Portugal during the first operational month of the new automatic immigration and border service (SEF) portal, according to an assessment published on Tuesday. Read more.

VISEGRAD

PRAGUE

Czech PM advisor: Expect new Cold War, no Russia-Ukraine peace. Peace between Russia and Ukraine is out of the question, and a new Cold War could come instead, Tomáš Pojar, a Czech diplomat and advisor of the Czech prime minister, has warned. Read more.

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WARSAW

PiS MEP: Tusk’s silence over cancelled EPP Warsaw visit ‘interesting’. While you can speculate why the European People’s Party (EPP) delegation cancelled its visit to Warsaw last week, silence from the party’s former president, Donald Tusk, is particularly interesting, according to Witold Waszczykowski, an MEP from the ruling PiS party. Read more.

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BUDAPEST 

US may announce new sanctions against Hungarian individuals. The United States may announce new sanctions against influential Hungarian individuals on Wednesday, diplomatic sources told Hungarian news site 444. Read more. 

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BRATISLAVA

Slovak party leader voices support for caretaker government. Peter Pellegrini, Chair of the Hlas-SD party, publicly voiced his support for President Zuzana Čaputová’s proposal to appoint a caretaker government to take over Prime Minister Eduard Heger’s cabinet in case it fails to implement key measures such as those related to the recovery plan. Read more.

NEWS FROM THE BALKANS

SOFIA

Number of drugged drivers skyrocket in Bulgaria.  Police caught almost 70% more drugged drivers in the first three months of the year than they did in the previous three, while the increase for drunk drivers was much less (5%), the head of the traffic police, Dimitar Michev, said on Tuesday. Read more.

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LJUBLJANA 

Slovenia’s ruling party ratings plunge one year after elections. Ratings have dropped for Prime Minister Robert Golob’s Freedom Movement and his government as a whole as close to one year has passed since the landslide election win attributed to the reform drive that has since been widely condemned as botched and poorly communicated, a poll conducted by Mediana for Delo on Tuesday reads. Read more.

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BELGRADE 

Serbia to label child marriage as human trafficking. Serbia is working on an initiative to amend Family law to define and recognise child marriage as a form of human trafficking, as between 22 and 50% of Serbian girls get married before 18.  Read more.

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SKOPJE

Skopje sets up working group in hopes of unlocking EU accession. The Ministry of Justice of North Macedonia has formed a working group to prepare constitutional changes for introducing the Bulgarian minority, which emerged as a condition of the agreement with Sofia to unblock Skopje’s EU membership pathway. Read more.

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TIRANA  |  BERLIN

Germany company sues Albania over controversial port project. A German company, EMS Shipping and Trading, has filed a lawsuit against the Albanian state in the ICSID Court of Arbitration in Washington, US, over a concession to operate a terminal at the Port of Durres, which is set for a multi-billion euro facelift. Read more.

AGENDA

• EU: Vice President of the European Commission Valdis Dombrovskis participates in the third ministerial roundtable discussion for support to Ukraine organised by the World Bank;
• Economy Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni participates in the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund;
• Equality Commissioner Helena Dalli meets with UN Women Executive Director Ulrika Grandin and President Alexandra Pascalidou;
• High level conference on LGBTIQ equality in the EU organised by the Swedish Presidency in co-operation with the European Commission;
• President Roberta Metsola gives opening address at the first Inter-Committee meeting of the European Parliament and the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;
• USA: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky discusses remotely with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank President David Malpass;
• China: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on official visit;

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[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Daniel Eck, Zoran Radosavljevic, Alice Taylor, Sofia Stuart Leeson, Sofia Mandilara] 

Read more with Euractiv

Serbia to label child marriage as human trafficking