The Government has not yet decided if it will nominate two candidates for the post of EU commissioner despite a request from president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to put forward one man and one woman.

                                                    <p class="no_name">Senior Government sources believe it is increasingly likely the Government will nominate one candidate instead with the current Minister for Foreign Affairs <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Simon+Coveney">Simon Coveney</a> seen as the frontrunner.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name"><a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_organisation=Fine+Gael">Fine Gael</a> MEP Mairead McGuinness confirmed on Sunday that she would be interested in succeeding <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_person=Phil+Hogan">Phil Hogan</a> as Ireland’s European Commissioner and suggested it would be “unwise” for the Government not to put forward both male and female candidates for the role.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">A spokeswoman for the Government said that the three party leaders met on Friday to discuss the issue and would meet again on Monday, and there had also been contacts over the weekend.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“It is in everyone’s interest to fill the vacancy as soon as possible but there is a process in <a class="search" href="/topics/topics-7.1213540?article=true&tag_location=Brussels">Brussels</a> as well with president and parliament.” </p>
                                                    <h4 class="crosshead">‘Difficult patch’</h4><p class="no_name">Mr Hogan resigned from his position following controversy over his attendance at an Oireachtas golf society dinner and questions around his movements throughout Ireland before and afterwards in apparent breach of Covid-19 guidelines. </p>
                                                                                                        <aside class="related-articles--instream has-3"/><p class="no_name">Speaking on Sunday, Ms McGuinness said she was interested in the role. “My name is in circulation and yes I’m interested in being the commissioner,” she said on the This Week programme on RTÉ Radio 1. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“But, as we all know, the decision is a government’s decision. We’ve been through quite a difficult patch over the last couple of days. Our name in <a class="wpil_keyword_link " href="https://europeantimes.news/category/europe/"  title="Europe" data-wpil-keyword-link="linked">Europe</a> is being spoken of in ways we would rather it wasn’t. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“The president of the commission was very clear that she wants nominations soon so that we can move on from the place we are in. There are a lot of other names there as well, but my name is among them.</p>

                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think we need to listen very carefully to what the president of the commission Ursula von der Leyen has actually said. She wants the Government to act swiftly, and she wants two names. She wants a woman and a man.” </p>
                                                    <h4 class="crosshead">‘In the mix’</h4><p class="no_name">Ms McGuinness said nobody from Government circles had sounded her out about the position yet, but admitted she been in contact with one senior figure for advice on the matter. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think because of my position as first vice-president of the parliament that my name was in the mix early on,” she said. “I spoke to one person who is a good friend of mine for advice.”</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">In relation to Ireland’s chances of retaining the key trade portfolio, Ms McGuinness said there was too much emphasis on that aspect of the discussion in Ireland. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“This is about someone who is committed to Europe,” she said. “I think we have forgotten that here in Ireland. We have focused on Ireland’s interests as if they are exclusive and different from European. </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“Whoever gets this position – man or woman – will be a European commissioner, clearly with an Irish background, but not batting only for Ireland.” </p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">Ms McGuinness also said Ireland’s reputation had suffered in Europe as a result of the controversy, but not “in the sense that we cannot recover”.</p>
                                                    <p class="no_name">“I think it’s very clear that when any member state is at the centre of a difficult crisis or controversy that lasts over a number of days it’s not good news for us and it’s an uncomfortable position,” she said. </p>

European civil society groups angered by decades of mass industrialized agriculture converged Sunday on Koblenz, where 12 EU farm and fisheries ministers began two days of informal talks hosted by Germany’s Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner.

Police said 350 protesters, some on tractors and in animal costumes, headed towards the venue, a riverside palace, while a cross-European alliance, including bio farmers, environmentalists and slow-food advocates, put its turnout at 1,300 persons.

Koblenz lies at the junction of the (larger) Rhine and Moselle rivers in Germany’s state of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Read more: Europe’s hedgehogs endangered by farming practices

The alliance of 400 European civil society groups, calling itself in Germany “We are fed up with the Agra industry” (Wir haben Agraindustrie satt!) and “Good Food, Good Farming, Europe, urged ministers to make “radical” changes to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Better distribution of EU‘s farm budget urged

At €55 billion ($65 billion) a year — roughly a third of the bloc’s budget — CAP’s allocation of flat-rate subsidies for land areas farmed was clearly out-of-date and should be oriented instead toward the new European Commission’s Green Deal plan, said the alliance.

“The Green Deal sets the course that the post-CAP must follow,” it said, and ministers must “ensure” sustainable food sovereignty for future generations and rebuild ecosystems, soils and resilience in rural livelihoods.

Current EU policy of fetching cheap, unsustainable imports also degraded land in developing countries, said the alliance, echoing a German finding in June that Germany’s “footprint” through imported foodstuffs was three times heavier abroad than on its own soil. 

‘Immense’ responsibility

Germany, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, had an “immense” responsibility to bring a CAP reform into line with climate and biodiversity goals, the alliance insisted, directing its remarks at German Minister Klöckner, who hails from Rhineland-Palatinate.

Klöckner, who has floated a European animal welfare label and an EU “farm-to-fork” campaign to reduce usage of herbicides, fertilizers and antibiotics, drew a caution Sunday from Joachim Rukwied. 

The farming federation president — for German growers,  and Europe‘s association Copa — said extra costs should not be imposed on farmers, who instead should get supplements to their incomes for environment protection and animal welfare tasks.

‘Massive’ concentration

The alliance of civil society groups said EU policy of recent decades of rewarding large landowners had “fueled” a massive concentration in farm and land ownership.

Across the EU, between 2005 and 2016, more than four million farms — often family-run livelihoods — had been forced to shut down due to economic pressures. 

“The remaining operations run increasingly large areas,” said the alliance.

ipj/sri (dpa, AFP)

The two explosions that tore through Beirut on Aug. 4 marked the latest catastrophe for Lebanon, a country beleaguered by a massive financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic. The explosions killed at least 160 people, injured thousands and left many homeless. Lebanese officials blamed the disaster on a cache of 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, which had been kept improperly for years in a warehouse at the city’s port.

This chemical long has been favored by Hezbollah for attacks, though the Iranian proxy has denied stockpiling it at the port, which it controls. While it is currently unclear who owned the ammonium nitrate behind the explosions, Hezbollah has stored and used the same material abroad, including in Europe — all while evading a full terrorist designation by the European Union (EU).

In 2012, for instance, a bus carrying young Israeli tourists was bombed in Burgas, Bulgaria, killing six people and wounding dozens. Bulgarian, American and Israeli authorities all linked the attack to Hezbollah, and law enforcement determined that “ammonium nitrate was an active ingredient in the explosives,” according to a US Justice Department complaint.

The Burgas bombing was not an isolated incident. Eighteen years prior, a suicide bomber drove a van packed with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil into a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, murdering 85 people and wounding hundreds. Argentine prosecutors have accused Hezbollah of carrying out the massacre under Iran’s direction.

Indeed, Iran has an extensive record of directing its Hezbollah proxy to conduct attacks on foreign soil. In the same year as the Burgas atrocity, Iran was accused of plotting against American, Israeli and Western targets in Azerbaijan; and orchestrating bombings against Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia. Plots were also uncovered in Thailand, Kenya and Cyprus, where a Hezbollah operative was arrested over his role in a bid to attack Israeli tourists. “I was just collecting information about the Jews,” the operative reportedly told police. “This is what my organization is doing, everywhere in the world.”

In 2013, the EU finally designated Hezbollah’s military wing as a terrorist organization. This paved the way for member states to freeze funds linked to Hezbollah’s military wing and for greater law enforcement cooperation. Yet the ban did not apply to the Iranian proxy’s political wing, effectively enabling it to continue operating in the EU and undermining the designation’s impact. Unfortunately, qualifying the terrorist designation between two wings is illogical, because all Hezbollah operations are coordinated and directed by its political elites. Indeed, even Hezbollah leadership has refuted and mocked this distinction.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah and its Iranian patrons have continued plotting terrorist attacks in Europe. In 2015, Hezbollah-linked operatives were caught stockpiling more than three tons of ammonium nitrate in the U.K., and 8.5 tons of the chemical in Cyprus. In 2018, France accused Iran of seeking to bomb an opposition group rally in Paris. In June, a Danish court sentenced a man over an Iranian plot to murder an Iranian opposition activist in Denmark. In July, reports emerged that Israel thwarted Iranian attacks on its diplomatic missions in Europe.

Hezbollah sustains its reach largely through Tehran’s support, which according to 2018 U.S. estimates amounts to $700 million annually. Yet it also maintains an independent fundraising apparatus, engaging in money laundering, drug trafficking, and other criminal operations across Europe, and exploiting businesses and charity front groups to funnel resources to its terrorist operations.

This April, Germany unilaterally banned Hezbollah in full, reportedly after being tipped off about a stash of ammonium nitrate in the country’s south. Lithuania designated Hezbollah as a terrorist group this month. Such positions align with those adopted by the U.S., U.K., Canada, Israel, Argentina and the Arab League, among others. Yet most EU nations continue to rely on the bloc’s insufficient designation, which grants Hezbollah’s fundraising activities valuable breathing room.

As Europol, the EU’s law enforcement agency, noted in a recent report, investigations into Hezbollah “face the difficulty of demonstrating that the funds collected are channeled to the military wing of the organization.” Aligning Hezbollah’s terrorist designation with the reality of its operations would empower European law enforcement authorities to comprehensively target the group and its resources within the EU.

A full designation also would help further delegitimize Hezbollah at a time when the Lebanese government has resigned, and furious citizens demonstrate against the ruling elite. Indeed, it is notable that some of these protesters are directing their ire at Hezbollah, and even hanging Hezbollah leaders in effigy. The Lebanese are justifiably outraged over the governing malfeasance that set the conditions for this tragedy after running the Lebanese economy into the ground. But there is also evidence that they are fed up with Hezbollah’s parasitic exploitation of their country. Ramping up this terror group’s delegitimization is more urgent than ever to support a Lebanese movement to free their country from Iran and Hezbollah.

Deep reforms are needed if Lebanon has any hope of restoring governing normalcy. Unfortunately, Hezbollah, which exploits Lebanon’s weak political system to operate with no transparency or accountability, presents a major barrier to such reform and the hopes of the Lebanese people. By comprehensively blacklisting Tehran’s top proxy, the EU would decisively signal that Hezbollah is not a legitimate actor, directly threatens stability in and beyond Lebanon, and must be countered if Beirut is to have a hope of a true recovery.

Mark P. Fitzgerald, a retired U.S. Navy admiral, is a former commander of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa and of Allied Joint Force Command, Naples. He is on the board of advisers for the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

Geoffrey S. Corn, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and former military attorney and intelligence officer, is the Vinson & Elkins Professor of Law at South Texas College of Law, Houston, and a distinguished fellow at JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense & Strategy.

AMMAN — Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Wissam Rabadi has signed four financing agreements in the water and education sectors in the presence of Sawsan Aruri, deputy director of the German Development Bank (KfW).

The first agreement is an additional European Union (EU) grant funding for a programme in the education sector amounting to 6 million euros, according to a Planning Ministry statement.

Three additional grant financing agreements for feasibility studies and a training component have also been signed in the water sector for  “Environmental and climate friendly sewage sludge disposal”, “Climate Protection Water Sector V” and “Energy Efficiency in the Water Sector II” amounting to a total of 2.2 million euros, the statement said.

The European Union will grant an additional 6 million euros for the implementation of an ongoing school construction programme in Jordan that was signed in 2018 with a total amount of 33 million euros. 

The objective of the school construction programme financed by the European Union is to assist the government of Jordan in responding to the needs of children and youth impacted by the Syrian crisis. 

This includes increased access to inclusive and child-friendly quality primary and secondary education for both, refugee and host community children. 

The EU-financed school construction programme, primarily channelled through the EU’s Regional Trust Fund in response to the Syrian Crisis, the Madad Fund, will be implemented in parallel to a bilateral school construction programme financed by the German government amounting to 34 million euros that was signed last month.

The German government has made funds available for feasibility studies for the preparation of new projects in the water sector. 

The first agreement is signed for a study of “Environmental and climate friendly sewage sludge disposal” amounting to 700,000 euros. 

The study aims to identify and elaborate concepts for the safe, environmentally sound and climate-friendly final disposal of sewage sludge originating from the wastewater treatment plants — mainly in northern Jordan — including domestic faecal sludge delivered by tankers, the statement said.

The second agreement that is also financed by the government of Germany shall finance a study for a project under “Climate Protection in the Water Sector V” and amounts to 795,000 euros. 

The envisaged project to be studied aims at mitigating climate change risks related to water in the Jordan Valley. 

In particular, the study shall analyse the potential for water loss reduction at the King Abdullah Canal (KAC) with the aim to identify and compare suitable alternatives to reduce the water losses in the KAC by means of a multicriteria analysis in the most sustainable and efficient manner. With support of the potential project a substantial amount of fresh water shall be saved for the use of drinking purposes, read the statement.

The third agreement financed by the German government through KfW German Development Bank amounts to 700,000 euros and shall complement the project “Energy Efficiency in the Water Sector II — with training measures to support operational staff in the water sector in the field of energy efficiency and sustainable operations.  

The school construction programme will be implemented by the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Public Works and Housing and is financed by the European Union.

The water sector programmes will be implemented by the Ministry of Water and Irrigation and is financed by the Federal Republic of Germany through KfW Development Bank. 

KfW finances investments and advisory services on behalf of the German government. In Jordan the ongoing and envisaged projects with a main focus on education, employment promotion as well as water and sanitation amount to about 1.3 billion euros, the statement said.

Since its establishment in December 2014, an increasing share of the EU’s non-humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees and their host countries is provided through the EU Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis, the Madad Fund. With contributions and pledges from 22 EU member states and Turkey, the fund has reached a total volume of 1.5 billion euros to date.

Large programmes focusing on education, livelihoods, health, socio-economic support, water and wastewater infrastructure — benefitting both refugees and their host communities — have already been approved by the fund’s board, for a total of more than 1.4 billion euros. 

Of this, about 1 billion euros have been contracted in over 50 projects to the Trust Fund’s implementing partners on the ground, now reaching more than 2 million beneficiaries, concluded the statement.

A migrant transport funded by the so-called street artist Banksy demanded help after overloading the vessel with more than 200 people picked up off the coast of Africa.

Crew on the Louise Michel, which is painted pink and named after a French anarchist, sent out tweets on Friday night and Saturday calling for “immediate assistance” from authorities in Malta, Italy, and Germany — but seemingly not any of the safe North African countries nearby — and denounced the EU’s supposed ‘Fortress Europe’ migration policy.

… advocating for China and the European Union to reach a deal on … the investment deal with the EU revolve around access to the …