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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 3, 2022 15:41:17 GMT -5
Russian sanctions backfire on the EU.
RT
Mar 3, 2022
As the West is preparing a fourth set of sanctions on Moscow amid the ongoing Ukrainian conflict, according to the Austrian foreign minister, some other European leaders admit the restrictions will inevitably backfire on the bloc. RT’s Charlotte Dubenskij reports.
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EU has exhausted all financial sanctions on Russia – bloc’s top diplomat.
RT.com
10 Mar, 2022 12:56
The EU has used up all of the possible restrictive measures against Russia in response to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the bloc’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said, in an interview with Franceinfo on Thursday.
“Of course, one can always go further, but we have already reached the limits of what we can do. We have done everything we could,” he said.
Borrell clarified that he was referring to the massive sanctions that have led to a 40% crash of the Russian currency. “These are very heavy sanctions that will put a heavy burden on the Russian economy,” he explained.
According to the foreign-policy chief, the ban on the export of high technologies was the most painful punitive measure for the Russian economy.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military operation in Ukraine to defend the newly-recognized Donbass republics, which broke away from Kiev in 2014. In response, Western countries, including the EU, UK, US, Canada and others introduced or significantly expanded personal and sectoral sanctions, particularly targeting Russia’s sovereign debt and its banking sector. The measures also targeted members of the State Duma, many business figures, as well as, personally, President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Some Russian banks have been cut off from the SWIFT payment system, while international businesses started pulling out from Russia or halting sales to the country.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 12, 2022 4:02:14 GMT -5
Macron comments on Ukraine’s EU membership bid.
RT.com
10 Mar, 2022 19:57
Emmanuel Macron has opposed giving any consideration at present to Ukraine’s European Union membership bid. The French president was grilled by reporters on the issue ahead of an EU summit at Versailles on Thursday.
“Can we open an accession procedure for a country at war? I don’t think so,” he stated.
Macron said the EU should send a “strong signal” of solidarity to Ukraine and to the Ukrainians, but cautioned that, “at the same time, we must be vigilant.” Three nations – Georgia and Moldova, along with Ukraine – have recently voiced their desire for membership.
Joining the EU has for decades been one of the main talking points for pro-West Ukrainian politicians, yet little to no actual progress has been achieved along that path. Kiev has renewed its push for membership amid the Russian offensive launched against the country in late February.
Moscow has since outlined its goals to “denazify” and “demilitarize” the country, claiming it was the only option left to protect the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, which split from Kiev back in 2014, following the Maidan events. Ukraine has denied harboring plans to reconquer the republics, branding the invasion “unprovoked.”
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inked a formal EU membership request, calling on the bloc to accept his country as soon as possible. He reinforced his plea in a speech delivered in the European Parliament, during which he urged the 27 member states to show they were “indeed Europeans.”
“Prove that you are with us. Prove that you will not let us go. Prove that you are indeed Europeans and then life will win over death and light will win over darkness,” Zelensky told MEPs, eliciting a standing ovation.
Kiev’s bid received support from a number of Eastern European member states, with the leaders of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic penning an open letter that urged the Council of Europe to “conduct steps to immediately grant Ukraine EU candidate country status and open the process of negotiations.”
Senior officials gave a reserved reaction to Ukraine’s aspirations, warning that no fast-track procedure to accept a country existed, and that every nation was required to meet various political and economic requirements to be granted merely candidate status.
Some individual EU member states have reportedly opposed Kiev’s aspirations, too. Such countries, of which only Germany and the Netherlands have so far been named, “want to focus on delivering practical support to Ukraine and ending the war, rather than embarking on a process that could take at least a decade,” Bloomberg reported on Monday.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 17, 2022 12:00:53 GMT -5
European consumer prices climb at highest rate on record.
RT.com
17 Mar, 2022 15:59
February consumer price inflation in Europe accelerated by 5.9% compared to last year’s 0.9% per annum, marking the fastest annual jump on record, Eurostat statistics agency said on Thursday.
The indicator rose sharply from 5.1% in January. Prices spiked most in Lithuania (14.0%), Estonia (11.6%) and the Czech Republic (10.0%). The lowest annual price rise rates were registered in Malta and France (both 4.2%), and Portugal, Finland, and Sweden (all 4.4%). According to the agency’s data, inflation fell in only two EU member states, while spiking in 25.
The highest spikes were recorded in the energy sector, followed by services, food, alcohol, tobacco, and non-energy industrial goods.
Experts warn that prices are only going to grow. Berlin-based energy provider GASAG said this month that the average German family will see its gas bill increase by at least 26% starting in May. Prices at gasoline pumps in Europe have nearly doubled in March to around €2 per liter ($8.25/gallon).
This comes as Russia begins to retaliate against EU sanctions to keep the country’s economy running. Moscow recently banned exports of more than 200 items to “unfriendly states,” including telecom, medical, auto, agricultural, electrical, and tech equipment, among other items, until the end of 2022. The government also “suspended the export of several types of timber and timber products to states that are undertaking hostile actions against Russia.”
However, the major question remains whether Russia will move to cut its oil and gas supplies to European states, which, analysts say, would propel energy prices and push the region’s economy into recession.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 22, 2022 22:40:25 GMT -5
Empty shelves, price hikes, car shortages: Sanctioning Russia proves costly for the West.
RT.com
21 Mar, 2022 16:49
The unprecedented sanctions against Russia have pushed energy costs higher in Europe and the US, driving record inflation and making it ever more expensive for farmers and truckers to fuel their machinery, afford fertilizer or keep up with other costs. In Europe, which is dependent on Russian oil and natural gas, the sanctions have worsened an energy supply crunch that has driven up costs for households and businesses. RT looks at what life without Russia is like for the West these days.
1. High energy costs trigger unrest
People have been protesting across the EU as the cost of diesel and gasoline has become prohibitively expensive. Thousands of truckers began an indefinite strike in Spain last Monday, leading to traffic jams and picketing across the country. A few truck companies in Spain stopped operating due to high costs resulting in job losses for some. In Italy, a liter of gasoline and diesel now cost more than two euros due to sanctions. France has also been hit with protests against soaring fuel prices. Hundreds of protesting farmers blocked traffic in central Athens to demand the government grant them additional concessions to cope with higher energy costs. In the US, consumers now have to pay at least twice as much for gasoline after Washington announced an embargo on energy imports from Russia.
2. Empty shelves at grocery stores
The trucker strikes have caused supply problems that are impacting the food industries of entire countries. Images of empty shelves at grocery stores are becoming more common in Europe as supplies of basic foodstuffs and products have been affected.
3. Governments warn against panic buying
Some retailers had to limit the sales of certain products to prevent customers from buying more than “normal household quantities.” Governments insist the supply shortages are a “hoax” and call on people not to panic buy. Experts say that uncertainty in the market is likely to continue, and that the situation could even worsen in the coming weeks.
4. Skyrocketing food prices
Global food prices, which have already been surging due to the coronavirus pandemic, skyrocketed further amid the crisis in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are critical global suppliers of wheat, as well as sunflower, rapeseed, flaxseed, and soy used for cooking oils and in animal feed. Russia and Belarus, which also faces Western sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine, are key global suppliers of fertilizers. The resulting surge in fertilizer prices means farmers worldwide are facing higher costs to grow crops. In Italy, prices for pasta, flour and vegetables have risen sharply, with sunflower oil prices surging the most, by 19%. Data from the national agriculture trade organization, Coldiretti, shows that the cost of bread has almost doubled since November, to its current €8 per kilo. Some German supermarket shelves have been stripped bare of cooking oil and flour, as they were back in March 2020 when the Covid pandemic started. Most recently, the cost of cooking oil has risen significantly, with a cheaper bottle now costing almost €2, up from less than €1 just a few months ago.
5. Global auto market in trouble
The Ukraine crisis has added to the pains suffered by automakers, who had been grappling with high prices due to Covid-related disruptions, including semiconductor shortages. This week major car manufacturers announced they will shut down plants in Europe and raise prices further as supply issues mount. In the United States, prices of used vehicles are currently far above historical norms amid a shortage of new cars and trucks. Russia and Ukraine are significant suppliers of critical commodities to the auto industry like neon gas, aluminum, platinum and palladium, and of components like harnesses. Auto market data provider S&P Global Mobility said last week that the Russia-Ukraine conflict and rising prices for commodities will result in five million fewer cars being built over the next two years.
6. Europe’s anti-crisis calls
The prime ministers of Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece met on Friday to call for an urgent European Union-wide response to the energy crisis to come out of the upcoming European Council meeting. The Spanish government says it plans to introduce measures against high energy and fuel prices later this month. The anxiety in Europe is exacerbated by the fear that Russia will eventually respond to Western sanctions by cutting off energy supplies to the continent, sending their economies into recession.
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 26, 2022 6:28:52 GMT -5
Western elites are exploiting the Ukraine conflict to lower the standard of living. Rachel Marsden, RT 24 Mar, 2022 14:41 It’s impossible to escape the constant undertone of the need to sacrifice for the greater global good or else be viewed as a selfish prick. And now, you risk even worse branding by the thought police if you don’t fall in line with this new outlook: That of a Putin-enabler. Since Russia launched its military campaign in Ukraine, Western elites have been arguing that we all must collectively and senselessly concede to lowering our basic standards of living in order to hit back at President Vladimir Putin. In reality, all it does is allow them to continue to profit from our increasingly lowered expectations while all we get in return is the satisfaction of our own virtue signaling. French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire called on all the French to “make an effort” on their energy consumption to cope with the rising prices. People should “realize that we’re entering into a new world” amid the conflict in Ukraine, in which we “must accelerate our independence vis-à-vis fossil fuel,” he said in an interview with the news channel BFMTV earlier in March. Meanwhile, France’s ecological transition minister, Barbara Pompili, announced that public institutions would be asked to “reduce by one degree” their heating in response to the spike in energy prices since the onset of the conflict. Le Maire let the cat out of the bag in evoking a “new world” – a phrase which seems to be on the lips of top western officials these days, including US President Joe Biden earlier this week at a business round table. “Now is a time when things are shifting and there’s going to be a new world order out there, and we’ve got to lead it,” Biden said. “We’ve got to unite the rest of the free world in doing it.” And chief EU diplomat Josep Borrell has also asked Europeans to “cut the umbilical cord that connects with Russia,” by using less heating, apparently unaware that it could potentially be redirected to other markets while Europeans sit around waiting for their newfound beaming virtue to generate heat. There has long been American pressure on Europe to cut itself off from Russian gas. The hostility towards the needs of the average citizen living within the European Union has been framed as looking out for their best interests against Russia. The “Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019” was designed to sanction corporations involved in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline construction to “address Russian pipeline projects that create risks to U.S. national security, threaten Europe’s energy security, and consequently, endanger Europe’s political and economic welfare.” Not surprisingly, the legislation was introduced by Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from “big oil” Texas, which could eventually profit from the EU losing Russia as its supplier. According to US government data, in 2021, the EU was buying about 2.3 million barrels a day of Russian crude oil and condensate – or 49 % of the country’s exports. The problem is that there are no immediate practical substitutions for Russian energy. And while turning down “Putin’s gas” in your French home may be appropriate in any case – and I speak as someone who has never once turned on the heat in my home in 13 years of French living – there’s something else going on here. It seems like politicians are exploiting the current situation to condition people to accept paying more while accepting less value, and with no real end or practical solution in sight. The fact that Le Maire manipulatively played on emotions by evoking images of Ukrainian children in an appeal for basic energy conservation should raise red flags. Likewise, German Agriculture Minister Cem Ozdemir told Spiegel magazine that people should fight Putin by changing their diet. “Despite the fact that I am a vegetarian, I will not preach that everyone should go vegetarian,” he said. “But let’s put it this way: Eating less meat would be a contribution against Putin.” This message is brought to us by the same elites who routinely peddle the idea of westerners eating bugs in mainstream media. Ozedemir’s request has nothing to do with Putin or Ukraine and everything to do with this obsession of relentlessly guilting the average person into complying with, and pressuring one another into, lowering their own living standards under the pretext of fighting climate change, or Putin, or whatever other cockamamie excuse they think you’ll accept. Meanwhile, Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, climate change fighter, and relentless vaccine peddler, has become the largest private farmland owner in the United States and is set up to be one of the big beneficiaries of a meatless future. Particularly when considering that Gates has openly supported genetically modified food production, while the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has invested millions into the genetically modified food company, Monsanto, according to NBC News. Other Silicon Valley billionaires are also investing in fake food production, including PayPal founder Peter Thiel and Google co-founder Sergey Brin. This makes one wonder if it’s really about sticking it to Putin and not about the wealthy trying to convince you to advocate against your own best interests. Not even your sacred pets are safe. A Bloomberg News opinion piece suggested recently that people should cut corners on the health of their companion animals in this period of crisis-provoked inflation. “If you’re one of the many Americans who became a new pet owner during the pandemic, you might want to rethink those costly pet medical needs,” the piece stated. Another op-ed in France’s Liberation newspaper asks: “How far are we prepared to go in economic sanctions against Russia and what they mean in our daily lives?” It’s impossible to escape the constant undertone of the need to sacrifice for the greater global good or else be viewed as a selfish prick. And now, you risk even worse branding by the thought police if you don’t fall in line with this new outlook: That of a Putin-enabler. At this rate, we’ll soon be at the point where if you aren’t living at the same standard as a Ukrainian refugee, then you’re an earth-killing, gas-guzzling, democracy-hating glutton who has no business participating in polite society. If you think that it can’t happen, just ask any of those who were shunned and marginalized without pity, losing their jobs, lifestyle, or freedom of travel amid the Covid crisis when they refused to get vaccinated in order to obtain the coveted digital health pass. Western elites are exploiting this crisis to accelerate a long articulated agenda that seems destined to lead to collective impoverishment to the benefit of a select few. They point and scream at Russia, advancing their pawns and scapegoats from behind fake virtue. Don’t fall for it. |
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Post by TsarSamuil on Mar 26, 2022 9:26:39 GMT -5
West will 'pay a price' for Russia clampdown – ex-army chief. RT.com 26 Mar, 2022 12:49 Western nations should prepare their peoples for a long-term drop in living standards if their standoff with Russia continues, the Britain’s former Assistant Chief of Defence Staff, Jonathan Shaw, has said. “We in the West have the wrong mentality” about the conflict in Ukraine, he said. Once one of the British Army’s most senior officers, Shaw was speaking on talk radio station LBC on Saturday. “We are obsessed with humanitarian concerns and individual suffering, and that makes good TV, but the reality is this is far more serious than that,” the Major-General, whose 30-year career spanned the Falklands and Kosovo to commanding the UK forces in Iraq in 2006, warned. The West has imposed draconian sanctions on Russia after it attacked Ukraine a month ago. This includes the US and Canada giving up their need for supplies of Russian hydrocarbon fuels, and the EU and UK announcing plans to join them in the near future. The restrictions and retaliatory steps by Moscow have already seen energy and food prices spiking in many Western nations. There were reports of British food-bank users refusing free potatoes because they couldn’t afford to boil them. But Shaw predicted that this is only the beginning. “We’ve now decided that as far as Russia’s concerned we’re going to play geopolitics ahead of economics and we’ve to pay a price for that,” he explained. And, according to the Major-General, governments in the UK and elsewhere aren’t doing enough to ready their citizenry “for that sort of hardship and that attitude.” “We need to be psychologically preparing our people for a long-term degradation of standard of living and a long-term confrontation with Russia,” he argued. “Our quality of life back home absolutely depends on them – cheap fuel, cheap access, doing deals with Saudi Arabia, and things like that,” Shaw pointed out. Russia sent troops to Ukraine in late February following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk. The German- and French-brokered Minsk Protocol was designed to regularize the status of the regions within the Ukrainian state. Russia has demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join NATO. Another goal of the military operation is to “denazify” the country, according to Moscow. Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it had been planning to retake the two republics by force. |
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Post by TsarSamuil on Apr 3, 2022 12:02:53 GMT -5
Good, good the parasite suffers
Ukraine conflict makes Germany ‘poorer’ – finance minister.
RT.com
3 Apr, 2022 15:56
Germans are already paying a price for Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, the country’s finance minister has acknowledged.
Speaking to Bild tabloid newspaper, Christian Lindner said that “the Ukraine war is making us all poorer, for example, because we have to pay more for imported energy.”
In an interview published on Sunday, the German minister went on to admit that the government “cannot offset this loss in prosperity,” adding on a more positive note, however, that the authorities were working to “cushion the biggest shocks.”
The current state of affairs in the national economy is giving Lindner “serious concerns,” he admitted, citing sagging growth and rising prices. The minister reassured journalists that the government is doing all it can to “avoid the threat of so-called stagflation.”
Among the measures Berlin is taking are relief for the middle class, support for the economically vulnerable strata of society and at-risk businesses, Lindner said. The German official pointed out, however, that since the country’s financial resources are limited, these programs are all meant to be temporary.
In the long term, Germany is going to have to “lay new foundations of prosperity,” Lindner warned, adding that special emphasis should be placed on social and ecological aspects.
When asked why Germany was still “funding warmonger Putin with our gas and oil imports,” the German finance minister argued that the end of Russian hydrocarbon supplies “would have dramatic effects on our country.” Lindner clarified that the potential repercussions would go beyond money, affecting the “physical availability of energy” for Germans. He also hailed the sanctions recently imposed on Moscow as “unparalleled,” emphasizing at the same time that punitive measures should “not jeopardize Germany’s stability.”
Lindner also promised that no German would freeze next winter, as Berlin is “building up reserves and tapping alternative sources of supply.” The politician indicated that Germany could consider using “oil and gas reserves in the North Sea, the extraction of which had thus far been deemed too expensive.”
On top of that, Germany will have to shell out considerable sums of money to end what Lindner described as the “neglect” of the country’s military.
Despite the economic woes and massive spending planned in the German budget, there will be no tax hikes in the country this year, Lindner vowed. According to him, some taxes will even be slashed, so as not to “damage the economic recovery.”
Germany – one of Europe’s industrial powerhouses – is a major importer of Russian natural gas, with 34% of the fuel consumed in the country last year coming from Russia. Berlin also buys considerable amounts of Russian oil.
In the wake of February 24, when Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine, energy prices went through the roof, reaching levels unseen since 2008. Although the situation has since somewhat stabilized, prices are still higher than prior to late February, translating into ballooning living and operational costs for European households and businesses.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Thursday requiring countries that have slapped Moscow with sanctions to pay for Russian gas in rubles starting from April 1. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned that failure to pay this way would mean the end of gas supplies, which Moscow was not going to give away “free of charge.” Moscow insists that Western sanctions had left Russia no choice but to switch to its own national currency, as dollars and euro could be “taken away.”
Germany has, however, refused to comply with Russia’s demands, describing them as “blackmail” which runs counter to the terms of the existing gas contracts.
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Post by drkrum on Apr 3, 2022 15:01:53 GMT -5
I appreciate for posting the great articles here at this forum
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Post by TsarSamuil on Apr 4, 2022 12:14:25 GMT -5
I appreciate for posting the great articles here at this forum Thx! Btw have you noticed, if you are subscribed to RT n its channels on Youtube, this bar shows them being live, that they can still make videos, but nobody can watch it...maybe once this conflict is over we'll be able to watch the old videos that are on this forum again...because their channels seem to not be deleted. Those red broadcast symbols next to channel names, are only displayed when a channel is live  I watch RT on Rumble now, though you can't embed their videos here sadly.. |
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Post by TsarSamuil on Apr 7, 2022 12:12:34 GMT -5
Hungary at risk of losing billions in EU funding.
RT.com
6 Apr, 2022 15:45
The EU Commission has triggered a new mechanism which could see billions of euros allocated for Hungary. The bloc has for years accused Budapest of undermining democracy and violating LGBT rights.
Speaking in the European parliament on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen explained that the European Commission and the Hungarian leadership have “not been able to find common ground” on the issue of anti-corruption reforms. She added that Budapest’s response to a formal notice on the matter did not leave the EU top body with any other option but to move on “to the next step.”
“The Commission has today told the Hungarian authorities that we will now send a formal letter to start the conditionality mechanism,” she said, referring to the instrument adopted in late 2020 and allowing the bloc to withhold aid funding from a member that is found to be failing to adhere to the union’s democratic principles.
The announcement on triggering the conditionality mechanism came two days after Viktor Orban's Fidesz-KDNP enjoyed a fourth consecutive landslide win in last weekend's election. The victory prompted Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, to call on the European Commission to accept “the basic rules of democracy” and “not to punish Hungarian voters for expressing an opinion not to Brussels’ taste.” Gulyas was apparently referring to harsh criticism of Orban’s policies by the EU leadership.
EU Commissioner for Budget and Administration Johannes Hahn made it clear that the body planned to speed up the implementation of the mechanism. However, any suspension of funds would involve additional negotiations between the sides and a qualified majority vote in the European Council. The EU Commission will have to provide details of particular cases when rule-of-law violations directly led to the misuse of EU budget funds by Hungarian authorities, which means that the process is expected to last months.
The conditionality mechanism, along with a multi-billion recovery package, was adopted by the EU in 2020, at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, and entered into force on January 1 the following year. It was supposed to serve as “an additional layer of protection in cases when breaches of the rule of law principles affect or risk affecting the EU financial interests.”
The main beneficiaries of the budgetary funds, Hungary and Poland, challenged the new procedure but their bid turned out to be unsuccessful, with the European Court of Justice saying in February that the EU has the right to defend its core values and thus to link funding to member states to respect for the rule of law.
Poland and Hungary had consistently argued that the “conditionality mechanism” was not included in any of the EU treaties. They also said the ECJ would be overstepping its powers in approving such a mechanism.
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