Burundi’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amb. Albert Shingiro.
After a nearly five-year suspension of direct collaboration between the Burundian government and the European Union, a high-level political dialogue was launched Tuesday with a view to restoring relations with the EU and its member states.
The two delegations met in Bujumbura on Tuesday and were led by Ambassador Albert Shingiro, Burundian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Claude Bochu, European Union envoy in Burundi.
The resumption of exchanges between the two delegations also saw the participation of Ambassadors of the European Union member states in Burundi.
According to a joint statement released by the delegations, the resumption of political dialogue constitutes a shared priority that will benefit the people of Burundi and Europe.
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The delegations agreed to work together towards restoring relations.
‘’I am delighted with the spirit of openness and mutual trust which characterised the resumption of political dialogue. The exchanges took place in a constructive environment with the ultimate goal being to get concrete results as soon as possible,’’ tweeted Ambassador Shingiro.
Both parties recalled that Burundi and the member states drawn from the European Union are historical partners anxious to strengthen their bonds of friendship and cooperation.
This comes days after President Evariste Ndayishimiye, held a ceremony with members of the diplomatic community accredited to Bujumbura where he reaffirmed the will of his government to strengthen the bonds of cooperation with friendly countries and partners.
In 2016, the EU suspended all direct funding to the Burundian government for failing to meet EU concerns over its human rights record, including the loss of over 400 lives.
Unrest erupted in Burundi, a landlocked African country, in 2015 against a decision by late President Pierre Nkurunziza to run for a third term, which the opposition said was illegal.
With an aid package worth some €430 million ($520 million) for the period 2015-2020, the EU is Burundi’s biggest donor.
The Ndayishimiye-led administration has been hailed for opening up the East African country to regional investors and the international community.
Christian Nibasumba, Burundi representative of Trade Mark East Africa said he was encouraged to see the high-level political dialogue between Bujumbura and the European Union with a view to resuming good ties.
The mechanism must not be misused to further protectionism
All imported products under the EU Emissions Trading System should be covered
It should constitute an alternative to existing measures on carbon leakage
To raise global climate ambition and prevent ‘carbon leakage’, the EU must place a carbon price on imports from less climate-ambitious countries, say Environment MEPs.
On Friday, the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted a resolution on a WTO-compatible EU carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) with 58 votes for, 8 against and 10 abstentions.
The resolution underlines that the EU’s increased ambition on climate change must not lead to ‘carbon leakage’ as global climate efforts will not benefit if EU production is just moved to non-EU countries that have less ambitious emissions rules.
MEPs therefore support the introduction of a WTO-compatible CBAM to place a carbon price on imports of certain goods from outside the EU, if these countries are not ambitious enough about climate change. This would create an incentive for EU and non-EU trade industries to decarbonize in line with the Paris Agreement objectives.
MEPs underline that it should be designed with the sole aim of pursuing climate objectives and a global level playing field, and not be misused as a tool to enhance protectionism.
CBAM must be linked to a reformed EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)
The CBAM should be part of a broader EU industrial strategy and cover all imports of products and commodities under the EU ETS. MEPs add that by 2023, and following an impact assessment, it should cover the power sector and energy-intensive industrial sectors like cement, steel, aluminium, oil refinery, paper, glass, chemicals and fertilisers, which continue to receive substantial free allocations, and still represent 94 % of EU industrial emissions.
To prevent carbon leakage, carbon pricing under the CBAM should be linked to the price of EU allowances under the EU ETS, they add.
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After the vote, Parliament rapporteur Yannick Jadot (Greens, FR) said:
“The CBAM is a great opportunity to reconcile climate, industry, employment, resilience, sovereignty and relocation issues. It is a major political and democratic test for the EU, which must stop being naïve and impose the same carbon price on products, whether they are produced in or outside the EU, to ensure the most polluting sectors also take part in fighting climate change and innovate towards zero carbon. This will give us the best chance of remaining below the 1.5°C warming limit, whilst also pushing our trading partners to be equally ambitious in order to enter the EU market. Parliament is leading the way and we expect the same level of ambition from the Commission and member states.”
Next steps
Plenary is set to vote on the resolution in its session 8-11 March 2021. The Commission is expected to present a proposal in the second quarter of 2021.
Background
While the EU has already substantially reduced its domestic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), those from imports have been rising, thereby undermining the EU’s efforts to reduce its global GHG footprint.
Parliament has played an important role in pushing for more ambitious EU climate legislation and declared a climate emergency on 28 November 2019.
The EU has raised concerns over Austrian plans to set a minimum airfare, a spokesman said, weighing in on an environmental policy debate that pits traditional airlines against low-cost carriers.
A minister from Austria’s Greens, the junior partner in the governing coalition, announced plans last June for a €40 minimum fare that explicitly targeted no-frills operators.
The European Commission “expects to receive more detailed information from the Austrian authorities on the precise content of the envisaged measures,” the spokesman for the EU executive told Reuters on Wednesday (3 February).
The Austrian environment and transport ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Faced with pressure for higher airline taxes to curb greenhouse gas emissions, flag carriers like Lufthansa and Air France-KLM have argued instead for minimum fares that could all but abolish much of the low-cost market.
Austria unveiled its proposal after granting €600 million in aid to Lufthansa-owned Austrian Airlines.
But a “pricing freedom” provision within the European Union’s main 2008 air services regulation states that airlines “shall freely set air fares” for flights within the bloc.
“The Commission supports measures to promote the greening of aviation, and of transport in general, which are compatible with the internal market rules,” the EU spokesman said.
“As always, the Commission will verify whether the new measures are in line with EU common rules and, if necessary, will engage a dialogue with the Austrian authorities.”
After weeks of negotiations, it is now set: Austrian Airlines (AUA) is saved from insolvency by the Black-Green government. For the Greens, who are in a governing coalition in Austria for the first time, it was a difficult litmus test. EURACTIV Germany reports.
Air France and its pilot unions protested on Wednesday (3 February) against EU demands that the airline give up takeoff and landing slots at its Paris base in return for government aid.
Brussels wants the French airline, part of Air France-KLM , to cede 24 Orly airport slots as a condition for approval of a state-backed recapitalisation, La Tribune reported this week.
“We wouldn’t understand being subjected to drastic measures that weaken our position in Paris,” Group Chief Executive Ben Smith told L’Express magazine in an interview – adding the slot demands could give low-cost Ryanair a foothold at Orly.
The SNPL pilot union accused the EU in a statement of seeking to “destroy the efforts of Air France employees”.
Battered by the coronavirus pandemic, many traditional airlines have received government aid under European Union guidelines that temporarily relax state aid rules.
In return for its €9 billion bailout last year, Germany’s Lufthansa reluctantly gave up 24 slots at each of its main hubs, Frankfurt and Munich – or three flights a day for four competitors’ aircraft at each base.
The EU executive and French government have declined to comment on discussions under way about Air France bailout terms.
The French government is reportedly going to increase its stake in national carrier Air France, in a move that will shore up the airline with up to €5 billion, and has also won EU support for its plan to help Corsair ride out the pandemic.
Under the plan submitted to Brussels, France would swap a €4 billion shareholder loan granted to Air France-KLM last year for hybrid debt or perpetuities, lightening the group’s debt burden, according to French media reports confirmed to Reuters by company and government sources.
The Dutch government, which formally resigned last month but remains at work ahead of March elections, has yet to say whether it will take part in the recapitalisation or convert its own €1 billion loan to KLM. The two governments each own close to 14% of the airline group.
But appearing before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said some KLM slot concessions at Amsterdam Schiphol seemed inevitable as the EU seeks to “keep a level playing field” among member states and companies.
“So it’s reasonable to expect that remedies will be part of the solution,” Hoekstra said. “You can see in the Lufthansa case what you can roughly expect.”
Portugal’s defence minister, João Gomes Cravinho, held a videoconference with his German counterpart and the Slovenian secretary of state on Wednesday (3 February) to take stock of “developments in European defence policy”.
The presidency trio comprises the current presidency of the Council of the EU (Portugal) along with the previous (Germany) and the next (Slovenia).
According to a statement issued by the ministry of defence, this meeting took place around a month before an informal meeting of defence ministers, scheduled for 2-3 March in Lisbon, under the Portuguese presidency.
Cravinho, Germany’s Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, and the Slovenian Uroš Lampret discussed the developments related to the Strategic Compass, the EU strategy for maritime safety and transatlantic relations.
The ministers said they want to deepen the dialogue on the Strategic Compass, “based on the first EU threat analysis”, to identify concrete steps to move the process forward and ensure the participation of the 27 member states.
Presented by EU defence ministers in June 2020, the Strategic Compass covers three phases: a threat analysis of the EU, the establishment of strategic objectives to strengthen the EU as a security and defence actor, and the creation of political guidelines for military planning procedures.
The communiqué said that “possible measures allowing a rapid operationalisation of the initiative in the Gulf of Guinea”, defined by the EU as the first Maritime Zone of Interest of the Union, were also discussed, following the adoption of the Coordinated Maritime Presences by the Council of Foreign Ministers.
Concerning transatlantic relations, the trio of presidencies examined a number of topics which will be addressed at the next meeting of defence ministers, in particular the relationship with the new US administration under President Joe Biden, and the European Union’s relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Measures for the new European Peace Facility “to train and equip partners in training missions” were also discussed.
Some 59% of French citizens do not see the prospect of the Western Balkans countries’ EU accession in a positive light, a new study has found. But it also revealed increasing mistrust toward the bloc overall.
Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia are official candidates for EU membership, the latter two already engaged in accession talks for several years, while Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo are considered potential candidates.
Although none of the six Western Balkan countries is close to joining the EU, the report, conducted by the Open Society Foundations, found that more than one French in two opposes the EU enlargement toward that region.
While 49% believe that the enlargement to include Montenegro, for example, would be a bad thing, the study emphasised that as many as 76% of the respondents were negative about Turkey, which is also an EU candidate.
“Do the French have a grudge against Kosovars, Albanians or Bosnians? It would be too simplistic to say that. It’s rather that they don’t really care,” Srđan Cvijić, one of the authors of the study, told EURACTIV France.
“The Balkans are a bit of a scapegoat,” added Sébastien Gricourt, director of the Balkan Observatory for the Jean Jaurès Foundation, who also participated in this study.
In fact, nearly one in four respondents said that their life would not be impacted much, if at all, by such an enlargement.
Distrust toward the EU
However, it seems that French people’s negative attitude toward the Balkans somewhat reflects their opinion of the EU institution as a whole.
“The reflex that the French have for enlargement is in fact the reflex they have for the European Union,” Gricourt explained.
The French are among the Europeans who have the least confidence in the EU. The study showed that 62% of those in favour of Balkan accession had a good image of the EU, while more than one in two (55%) disagreed.
In addition, there is also an element of ignorance at play.
“When shown the map of Europe with the current member states highlighted, many participants were surprised that the countries of the Western Balkans are not already part of the EU,” the report said.
A vacuum for extreme-right to step in
Skopje and Tirana have made substantial progress on reforms in the last two years, but Paris has insisted that no green light for the official start of EU accession talks should be granted.
The French government has primarily opposed Albania’s accession, and this had a spill-over effect on North Macedonia as well.
French President Emmanuel Macron stressed at the 2018 Sofia Summit that in order to have a stronger and more united EU, “we also need to modernise the EU and the eurozone, and for me, this is a prerequisite for further membership.”
For Gricourt, the whole discussion over the Balkan region’s EU future should be “de-politicised”.
He recalled that the question of Serbia’s potential accession to the EU had been put to the twelve candidates heading the lists for European Parliament’s election in a televised debate in April 2019. Only two candidates, Raphaël Glucksmann and Jean-Christophe Lagarde, were in favour.
Gricourt warned that instrumentalising enlargement is a strategic mistake because “we are leaving the field to the extreme right”.
In order to avoid this trend, the expert said, more education was needed to explain the accession process, the many criteria and achievements required before a country is allowed to join.
Interestingly, 43% of the respondents appeared to have changed their mind during the various stages of the study, Cvijić explained.
[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Zoran Radosavljevic | EURACTIV.com]
Half of Afghans need humanitarian aid but rising violence is preventing deliveries, a senior European Union humanitarian official said on Wednesday (3 February), reiterating calls for a ceasefire between the Afghan government and the insurgent Taliban.
The European Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarčič visited Kabul to announce the EU will provide €32 million for humanitarian projects in 2021.
“Increasing violence and conflict is the main cause for the humanitarian need in this country,” he said. “We very much hope and call for an immediate, unconditional and comprehensive ceasefire.”
Whilst #AfghanPeaceProcess is ongoing, humanitarian aid is the central way to reach more than half of ?? population, some 19 million people.
It is paramount that all parties to the conflict facilitate the delivery of emergency relief. Protecting civilians cannot wait for peace. pic.twitter.com/ISuCp93DCe
Violence has risen in the war-torn nation, dashing hopes that a US-brokered peace process in Doha would reduce conflict while the Afghan government and the Taliban negotiated a political settlement.
Even during the usually subdued winter months, fighting has taken place around the country along with a wave of assassinations of government officials and civil society members.
On Wednesday a blast in Kabul killed a police officer, and unknown attackers killed a religious leader in the southern city of Kandahar and a judge in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Lenarčič called on the government and the Taliban “to understand that allowing for full and unimpeded humanitarian access is their obligation under humanitarian law.”
Lenarčič said that the amount of the EU’s humanitarian aid could rise. Those funds are separate from the $12 billion over the next four years that foreign donors including the EU pledged in November.
The European Union and its member states should draw the consequences of the current stalemate in multilateral talks aimed at reforming the Energy Charter Treaty and consider a coordinated withdrawal, Paris has said in a letter seen by EURACTIV.
Signed in the early 1990s to protect oil and gas companies from political risk when investing in the former USSR, the treaty has since been decried as outdated by the EU, which wants to reinstate its “right to regulate” and align the treaty with its international climate obligations.
However, negotiations have been slowed down by the treaty’s requirement to take decisions by unanimity. And despite three rounds of talks held last year among the 54 signatories, not much progress has been made.
“In the absence of decisive progress on the reform of the Energy Charter Treaty in 2021, all consequences should be drawn,” says the letter, sent to the European Commission in December, ahead of the third round of talks.
“The option of a coordinated withdrawal of the European Union and its member states should be raised publicly from now on, while its legal, institutional and budgetary modalities should be assessed,” it adds.
The missive – showing France’s growing impatience with the slow progress in the reform talks – was signed by four French ministers and state secretaries involved in the Energy Charter Treaty negotiation: Bruno Le Maire (economy and finance), Barbara Pompili (ecological transition), Franck Riester (external trade) and Clément Beaune (European affairs).
“After two years of preparatory discussions, between 2017 and 2019, and three formal rounds of negotiations in 2020, it is clear that the process of modernising the ECT is not on track,” the ministers write.
“The current dynamics of the discussions are not likely to produce results for several years” and the EU’s objectives in the talks are “far from being achieved,” the letter states.
In 2019, EU countries gave the European Commission a mandate to revise the treaty, saying it must reinstate Europe’s “right to regulate” in areas like climate change and workers’ rights.
But those objectives are not shared by all the 54 signatories to the Energy Charter Treaty, which includes countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan, all highly reliant on fossil fuels.
“Not all Contracting Parties seem to share European ambitions in the field of the fight against climate change,” the four French ministers wrote, pointing out that the EU’s willingness to “exclude fossil fuels from the scope of the modernised ECT” is currently opposed by countries whose economies remain dependent oil, gas and coal.
Other aspects of the reform also appear to be in a dead end. At the last negotiation round in December, Japan refused to revise the most controversial aspect of the treaty – the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism – which refers litigations to private tribunals where judges are nominated by the parties in the dispute.
Instead, the EU has proposed to refer cases to a future “Multilateral Investment Court”, which is currently being negotiated at UN level.
In their letter, the French ministers found it “regrettable” that no progress has been made on reforming the ECT’s arbitration system. Talks at UN level are likely to drag on for many more years, the letter said, calling this prospect “unsatisfactory”.
Together, the EU and its 27 member states account for more than half of the 54 contracting parties to the ECT, the ministers underlined, saying this is “a considerable lever that should be exploited now by sending a strong political signal to the other states” in the treaty.
“At the next Energy Charter Conference, the European Union and the member states should collectively express their serious concerns about the conduct of the modernisation process and indicate that, in the absence of decisive progress in 2021, all consequences should be drawn.”
As we enter the first months of 2021, increasing numbers of reports of variants of the COVID-19 virus mark a new development in the pandemic. A variant dominant in the WHO European Region is of concern as it shows signs of being able to spread more easily between people.
Research and observations indicate that the variant spreads across all age groups, and children do not appear to be at higher risk. However, with increased transmissibility, this variant does raise concern: if we do not continue and redouble the measures to slow its spread, there will be a higher impact on health facilities already under stress.
Since the start of the pandemic, WHO has been routinely monitoring and assessing whether variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, result in changes in transmissibility, clinical presentation or severity, or whether they impact on countermeasures, including diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines.
“Variants are a common phenomenon and are not in themselves dangerous, but they can be if they change the behaviour of the virus; therefore, we need to monitor these developments closely,” says Dr Richard Pebody, who leads the epidemiology and surveillance response on COVID-19 in WHO/Europe. “We are working with experts around the world to monitor and identify which variants are of concern and how they might affect our response.”
A dominant variant in the European Region
The dominant variant currently circulating in the Region is SARS-CoV-2 VOC 202012/01, so named because it was the first “variant of concern” (VOC) detected in December 2020. This variant was originally found in the United Kingdom and has now spread to many countries in the European Region, some reporting circulation within their country. There is currently no evidence that available vaccines are any less effective in preventing it, but there is some evidence that it spreads faster.
Epidemiological and virological investigations are underway in the affected countries to further assess the transmissibility, severity, risk of reinfection and antibody response with regard to new variants. It is expected that continued virus circulation is likely to result in more variants being detected over time.
Higher transmissibility is a risk to health systems
VOC 202012/01 has spread to 30 countries in the Region, with 22 503 cases reported as of 22 January 2021. Many of those countries are projecting that this variant might become dominant in the coming weeks, outnumbering non-variant cases of the COVID-19 virus.
WHO/Europe is still learning about the possible impact of this and other variants. We need to differentiate the significance of these changes for scientific purposes and for public health. The reason we are particularly interested in some variants is that they appear to spread more easily between people.
“Higher transmissibility does not mean a variant transmits in a different way, rather the variant just spreads better. This is cause for concern since as more people get infected with COVID-19, more people will be hospitalized. If this causes our health-care systems to become overwhelmed and less able to cope, more people could be at risk of dying from the virus,” explains Dr Catherine Smallwood, who leads the COVID-19 response team at WHO/Europe. “It is this scenario we are trying to avoid, which is why it is more important than ever to slow down transmission with the use of public health and social measures.”
Working together to contain COVID-19 spread
As the virus variants continue to spread across the Region, it is necessary to increase commitment and engagement to address them.
Countries need to increase sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 viral isolates and report them. WHO also urges continuing and redoubling all of the basic public health and social measures that are known to work, including testing, isolating and treating cases, contact tracing, and quarantine for contacts of cases. Everyone is part of this effort and individuals will need to be extra careful and continue protective measures such as hand hygiene, physical distancing, and wearing a mask when needed.
Let’s not forget that COVID-19 is already a serious disease, and everything should be done to control its spread.
Few topics are as delicate as religion — especially in the Middle East.
Officially, Arab states have major Muslim populations, varying from around 60% in Lebanon to almost 100% in Jordan or Saudi Arabia. Since the countries’ religious establishments also serve as governmental bodies, governments play a significant role in religious life, as they often control prayers, media or school curriculums.
However, several recently conducted and very comprehensive surveys in the Middle East and Iran, have come to similar conclusions: They all show an increase in secularization and growing calls for reforms in religious political institutions.
The conclusion after 25,000 interviews in Lebanon, by one of the largest pollsters in the region, the Arab Barometer, a research network at Princeton University and the University of Michigan, is “Personal piety has declined some 43% over the past decade, indicating less than a quarter of the population now define themselves as religious.”
One Lebanese woman told DW of her experience growing up in a conservative household. “I come from a very religious family, my parents forced me to wear the veil when I was only 12 years old,” said the 27-year-old, who does not want her name published out of fear of reprisal. “They constantly threatened me that if I remove my veil, I will burn in hell.”
Only years later, at university, she met a group of friends who were atheists. “I gradually became convinced of their beliefs, so one day before going to uni, I decided to remove my veil and leave the house,” she said.
“The hardest part was facing my family, deep down, I was ashamed that I put my parents down.”
The survey included 40,000 literate interviewees above 19 years in Iran, with an astonishing 47% reported to have gone from religious to non-religious
Iranians quest for religious change
A recent surveyamong 40,000 interviewees by the Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), which researched Iranians’ attitudes toward religion, found that no less than 47% reported “having transitioned from being religious to non-religious”
Pooyan Tamimi Arab, assistant professor of Religious Studies at Utrecht University and co-author of the survey, sees this transition, as well as the quest for religious change, as a logical consequence of Iran’s secularization. “The Iranian society has undergone huge transformations, such as the literacy rate has gone up spectacularly, the country has experienced massive urbanization, economic changes have affected traditional family structures, the internet penetration rate grew to be comparable with the European Union and fertility rates dropped,” Tamimi Arab told DW.
Compared with Iran’s 99.5% Shiite census figure, GAMAAN found that 78% of the participants believed in God — but only 32% identified themselves as Shiite Muslims. Figures show that 9% identified as atheist, 8% as Zoroastrian, 7% as spiritual, 6% as agnostic, and 5% as Sunni Muslim. Around 22% identified with none of these religions.
Tehran’s Hasan Abad, the only neighborhood in the region that brings together followers of four religions
“We see an increase in secularization and a diversity of faiths and beliefs,” Tamimi Arab told DW. From his point of view, however, the most decisive factor is “the entanglement of state and religion, which has caused the population to resent institutional religion even as the overwhelming majority still believes in God.”
A woman in Kuwait, who requested DW not publish her name due to safety concerns, also strictly differentiates between Islam as a religion and Islam as a system. “As a teenager, I didn’t find any proof of the government’s claimed regulations in the Quran.”
She recalls how, around 20 years ago, such thoughts had been mainly resented — but today the difference in the people’s attitude toward Islam can be felt everywhere. “Rejecting the submission to Islam as a system doesn’t mean rejecting Islam as a religion,” she explained.
The rise of the ‘nones’
The sociologist Ronald Inglehart, Lowenstein Professor of Political Science emeritus at the University of Michigan and author of the book Religious Sudden Decline, has analyzed surveys of more than 100 countries, carried out from 1981-2020. Inglehart has observed that rapid secularization is not unique in the Middle East. “The rise of the so-called ‘nones,’ who do not identify with a particular faith, has been noted in Muslim majority countries as different as Iraq, Tunisia, and Morocco,” Tamimi Arab added.
Saudi Arabia has re-assessed anti-religious thoughts as terrorism
The threat of changing attitudes
The more people differentiate between religion as a faith and religion as a system, the louder the calls for reforms. “The trend puts a dent in the efforts of Iran as well as its rivals, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates, that are competing for religious soft power and leadership of the Muslim world,” said James Dorsey, senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.
Dorsey, an expert on the region, highlights two contrasting examples. While the United Arab Emirates has lifted the bans on alcohol consumption and unmarried couples living together, Saudi Arabia has labeled having atheist thoughts as a form of terrorism.
As an example, Dorsey references Saudi dissident and activist Raif Badawi, who was convicted of apostasy, or insulting Islam. Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for questioning why Saudis are obliged to adhere to Islam — and asserting that religion did not have the answers to all of life’s questions.
Razan Salman contributed to this article from Beirut.
