Europe

https://archive.is/Z2TOR

“There was a time 20 years ago when people, perhaps rather dismissively in Europe and indeed elsewhere, might have been saying that China are imitators. I think that’s long gone now. I think China has very strong indigenous research capacities, strengths, and abilities, and therefore, genuine partnership is important,” he said.

Danish Defence Academy military analyst Anders Puck Nielsen discusses the future of NATO with Carlo Masala, political scientist and professor of international politics at the Bundeswehr University Munich.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/42466166

Semi-impartial article, although it is easy to see what side Politico, or at least the journalist - prefers to lean in relation to the agreement.

POLITICO analyzes who is uncorking the Malbec — and who is crying into their Bordeaux (cough, Emmanuel Macron, cough).

Europe’s biggest ever trade deal finally got the nod Friday after 25 years of negotiating.

It took blood, sweat, tears and tortured discussions to get there, but EU countries at last backed the deal with the Mercosur bloc — paving the way to create a free trade area that covers more than 700 million people across Europe and Latin America.

The agreement, which awaits approval from the European Parliament, will eliminate more than 90 percent of tariffs on EU exports. European shoppers will be able to dine on grass-fed beef from the Argentinian pampas. Brazilian drivers will see import duties on German motors come down.

As for the accord’s economic impact, well, that pales in comparison with the epic battles over it: The European Commission estimates it will add €77.6 billion (or 0.05 percent) to the EU economy by 2040.

Like in any deal, there are winners and losers. POLITICO takes you through who is uncorking their Malbec, and who, on the other hand, is crying into the Bordeaux.

WINNERS

Giorgia Meloni

Italy’s prime minister has done it again. Giorgia Meloni saw which way the political winds were blowing and skillfully extracted last-minute concessions for Italian farmers after threatening to throw her weight behind French opposition to the deal.

The end result? In exchange for its support, Rome was able to secure farm market safeguards and promises of fresh agriculture funding from the European Commission — wins that the government can trumpet in front of voters back home. It also means that Meloni has picked the winning side once more, coming off as the team player despite the last-minute holdup. All in all, yet another laurel in Rome’s crown.

The German car industry

Das Auto hasn’t had much reason to cheer of late, but Mercosur finally gives reason to celebrate. Germany’s famed automotive sector will have easier access to consumers in LatAm. Lower tariffs mean, all things being equal, more sales and a boost to the bottom line for companies like Volkswagen and BMW.

There are a few catches. Tariffs, now at 35 percent, aren’t coming down all at once. At the behest of Brazil, which hosts an auto industry of its own, the removal of trade barriers will be staggered. Electric vehicles will be given preferential treatment, an area that Europe’s been lagging behind on.

Ursula von der Leyen

Mercosur is a bittersweet triumph for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Since shaking hands on the deal with Mercosur leaders more than a year ago, her team has bent over backwards to accommodate the demands of the skeptics and build the all-important qualified majority that finally materialized Friday. Expect a victory lap next week, when the Berlaymont boss travels to Paraguay to sign the agreement.

On the international stage, it also helps burnish Brussels’ standing at a time when the bloc looks like a lumbering dinosaur, consistently outmaneuvered by the U.S. and China. A large-scale trade deal shows that the rules-based international order that the EU so cherishes is still alive, even as the U.S. whisked away a South American leader in chains.

But the deal came at a very high cost. Von der Leyen had to promise EU farmers €45 billion in subsidies to win them over, backtracking on efforts to rein in agricultural support in the EU budget and invest more in innovation and growth.

Europe’s farmers

Speaking of farmers, going by the headlines you could be forgiven for thinking that Mercosur is an unmitigated disaster. Surely innumerable tons of South American produce sold at rock-bottom prices are about to drive the hard-working French or Polish plowman off his land, right?

The reality is a little bit more complicated. The deal comes with strict quotas for categories ranging from beef to poultry. In effect, Latin American farmers will be limited to exporting a couple of chicken breasts per European person per year. Meanwhile, the deal recognizes special protections for European producers for specialty products like Italian parmesan or French wine, who stand to benefit from the expanded market. So much for the agri-pocalpyse now.

Then there’s the matter of the €45 billion of subsidies going into farmers’ pockets, and it’s hard not to conclude that — despite all the tractor protests and manure fights in downtown Brussels — the deal doesn’t smell too bad after all.

LOSERS

Emmanuel Macron

There’s been no one high-ranking politician more steadfast in their opposition to the trade agreement than France’s President Emmanuel Macron who, under enormous domestic political pressure, has consistently opposed the deal. It’s no surprise then that France joined Poland, Austria, Ireland and Hungary to unsuccessfully vote against Mercosur.

The former investment banker might be a free-trading capitalist at heart, but he knows well that, domestically, the deal is seen as a knife in the back of long-suffering Gallic growers. Macron, who is burning through prime ministers at rates previously reserved for political basket cases like Italy, has had precious few wins recently. Torpedoing the free trade agreement, or at least delaying it further, would have been proof that the lame-duck French president still had some sway on the European stage. Macron made a valiant attempt to rally the troops for a last-minute counterattack, and at one point it looked like he had a good chance to throw a wrench in the works after wooing Italy’s Meloni. That’s all come to nought. After this latest defeat, expect more lambasting of the French president in the national media, as Macron continues his slow-motion tumble down from the Olympian heights of the Élysée Palace.

Donald Trump

Coming within days of the U.S. mission to snatch Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and put him on trial in New York, the Mercosur deal finally shows that Europe has no shortage of soft power to work constructively with like-minded partners — if it actually has the wit to make use of it smartly.

Any trade deal should be seen as a win-win proposition for both sides, and that is just not the way U.S. President Donald Trump and his art of the geopolitical shakedown works.

It also has the incidental benefit of strengthening his adversaries — including Brazilian President and Mercosur head honcho Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva — who showed extraordinary patience as he waited on the EU to get their act together (and nurtured a public bromance with Macron even as the trade talks were deadlocked).

China

China has been expanding exports to Latin America, particularly Brazil, during the decades when the EU was negotiating the Mercosur trade deal. The EU-Mercosur deal is an opportunity for Europe to claw back some market share, especially in competitive sectors like automotive, machines and aviation.

The deal also strengthens the EU’s hand on staying on top when it comes to direct investments, an area where European companies are still outshining their Chinese competitors. More politically, China has somewhat succeeded in drawing countries like Brazil away from Western points of view, for instance via the BRICS grouping, consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and other developing economies. Because the deal is not only about trade but also creates deeper political cooperation, Lula and his Mercosur counterparts become more closely linked to Europe.

The Amazon rainforest

Unfortunately, for the world’s ecosystem, Mercosur means one thing: burn, baby, burn.

The pastures that feed Brazil’s herds come at the expense of the nation’s once-sprawling, now-shrinking tropical rainforest. Put simply, more beef for Europe means less trees for the world. It’s not all bad news for the climate. The trade deal does include both mandatory safeguards against illegal deforestation, as well as a commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement for its signatories. ___

Source

In a response to US President Donald Trump's latest threat to seize control of Greenland, the leaders of the Danish autonomous region's five main political parties issued a joint statement late Friday declaring the future of the island should be decided by Greenlanders.

Italy fined Cloudflare 14.2 million euros for refusing to block access to pirate sites on its 1.1.1.1 DNS service, the country’s communications regulatory agency, AGCOM, announced yesterday. Cloudflare said it will fight the penalty and threatened to remove all of its servers from Italian cities.

Archived version

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Today, the biggest news comes from Northern Europe.

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After months of unexplained damage beneath the Baltic Sea, Finland has moved into action by intercepting a vessel directly linked to the cable cuts. For the first time, a Russian operation that relied on distance and unclear responsibility has been exposed through enforcement rather than inference.

Finland intercepted and exposed a Russian-linked civilian vessel connected to the cutting of underwater cables between Finland and Estonia, marking the first time one of these grey-zone operations has been confronted directly at sea.

Footage released by Finnish authorities shows a controlled interception unfolding step by step in open waters, starting with Finnish patrol vessels pulling alongside and ordering the ship to slow and hold its course.

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This incident fits into a broader Russian campaign targeting underwater infrastructure across the Baltic Sea, where power cables and data lines form the backbone of everyday life. Over recent months, multiple fiber-optic and power cables linking Nordic states have been cut or damaged under suspicious circumstances, often near known shipping lanes.

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While there was broad agreement that these incidents were not random, the lack of direct attribution prevented authorities from acting beyond repairs and diplomatic warnings. The aim has created disruption that creates uncertainty, repair costs, and political hesitation without triggering a direct military response.

The method is simple and hard to counter, because civilian vessels move slowly along established shipping routes, blend into dense maritime traffic, and operate in areas where cables are known to run.

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The breakthrough came when investigators confirmed not only that the vessel was operating along sensitive seabed routes during the cable damage, but also that it was carrying sanctioned steel products.

This turned a pattern of suspicion into a provable violation, allowing Finnish authorities to move immediately from monitoring to action using existing law. Instead of another case of accidental damage in busy waters followed by statements and quiet inquiries, Finland now had clear grounds to act openly and decisively.

By anchoring the response in documented violations rather than intent or attribution debates, Moscow's usual escape route of denial and ambiguity collapsed the moment the cargo was recorded.

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For years, grey-zone operations have thrived because responses stopped at warnings, investigations, or diplomatic pressure. This case establishes a different precedent, as intelligence collection tied to legal preparation and immediate enforcement, allowing states to act publicly without escalating militarily.

Operationally, it lowers the threshold for boarding and inspection, politically it removes the need to argue intent, and legally it shifts the burden onto Russia to explain documented violations rather than deny them.

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This case shows another path, as it shows that intelligence gathering, legal preparation, and enforcement can be combined into a response that exposes the operation without turning it into a military confrontation. Once a ship is boarded and its cargo documented, the shield that protects hybrid warfare disappears.

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As an addition: A recent report exposed how Russia wants to drain Europe's investigative resources with its sabotage campaign, according to officials

TL; DR; it will take many years.

Swedish producer is trying to to accelerate the process of extracting the elements vital for hi-tech products. The LKAB iron ore mine at Kiruna in Sweden is close to one of Europe’s largest-known deposits of rare earths (..).

The 17 rare earth elements – all found in Kiruna – include neodymium and praseodymium, critical materials for the powerful permanent magnets needed for everything from electric cars to household appliances and military jets. From mine to refined end production could take 10 to 15 years, say experts.(..)

“I think people often miss the point. They say ‘why don’t we just produce rare earths in Europe?’. But you have to have the entire supply chain to do that,” says Nigel Steward, a professor at Imperial College London, a materials scientist and a former executive in the US mining industry."(..)

The experience in Kiruna shows just how challenging it is to reduce the EU’s dependency on China, which is now the core supplier of rare earth magnets and willing to choke supplies, as it did last year, if politically desirable.(..)

State-owned LKAB is now trying to accelerate the process of mining, extraction, and separation of the crumbs from the ore, to help the EU de-risk as quickly as possible.(..)

"I’ve been talking in Brussels the past two or three years about the huge disadvantages we created in the 1970s and the 1980s when we closed the mining industry and started importing metals from South America, Africa, Australia,” he says.(..)

Asked why it has taken the EU so long to wake up to the dangers of dependency on China’s rare earth supply, he is blunt: “Politicians will never be more courageous than the voters.”

Right-wing Trump supporters in Central and Southeastern Europe have operated in a legal gray area for years. After the US attack in Venezuela, there's a growing awareness that Trump could pose a threat to them too.

The study by the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) found that 21% of respondents reported thinking about emigration. Among Germans without a migration background, the share was 17%. Those who themselves immigrated to Germany were twice as likely to consider leaving (34%).

Paywall? https://archive.is/vKyQe

cross-posted from: https://mander.xyz/post/45242789

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Russian Railway, which operates approximately 85,000 km of railway, is going through a crisis that has prompted Russian authorities to consider exceptional measures to avoid default, according to an analysis published by Europa Liberă. ...

Russian Railways’ total debt has reached approximately 4 trillion rubles (equivalent to about USD 50–51 billion, EUR 43 billion), at a time when revenues have been affected by the slowdown in the war economy and the highest interest rates in two decades.

The company, which has approximately 700,000 employees, is heavily exposed to state-owned banks, particularly VTB, and its inability to meet its financial obligations could have a knock-on effect on the Russian banking system, several analysts warn.

“This crisis at Russian Railways is one of the factors contributing to accelerating inflation in the Russian economy,” said Russian economist Igor Lipsiț, quoted by Current Time. According to him, falling revenues, rising tariffs, and inflationary pressures directly affect the population and companies dependent on rail transport.

The war in Ukraine, a systemic shock for the rail operator

The invasion of Ukraine was a systemic shock for Russian Railways. The prioritization of military transport, imposed by the government starting in 2024, has seriously affected trade flows and the punctuality of civilian deliveries.

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In an attempt to stabilize the financial situation, the Russian government has ordered the sale of the Moscow Towers office complex, a 62-story building in the Moscow City financial district, purchased by Russian Railways in 2024 for approximately 193 billion rubles (about USD 2.4 billion), according to the Ukrainian portal UNN.

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The Moscow authorities are considering several options to support the company, including:

• increasing freight transport tariffs;
• increasing state subsidies;
• tax cuts;
• using reserve funds;
• converting part of the debt into shares, which would give state banks direct stakes in the company.

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Web archive link

TL;DR:

• China-linked threat actor UAT-7290 has been active since at least 2022 in South Asia but is now also active in Europe
• It is focusing on intrusions against critical infrastructure entities in Southeast Europe
• UAT-7290 shares tactical and infrastructure overlaps with China-linked adversaries known as Stone Panda and RedFoxtrot (aka Nomad Panda)

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Here is the technical report by Cisco Talos

Web archive link

cross-posted from : https://sh.itjust.works/post/53141995

Germany back in 2023 signed a contract with Israeli company Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) for supplying Arrow 3 missile defense systems worth $3.5 billion. Already on December 1, 2026, at an airbase near Annaburg city in Saxony-Anhalt, the system was deployed and reached initial combat readiness.

However, it turned out that two days before official deployment, three unknown drones flew over this system. Moreover, Defense Romania noted that they flew at approximately 100 meters altitude directly over the radar station from Arrow 3 composition.

G27P assault rifles were used for this, equipped with Israeli Smash X4 smart sights, which have recently been actively promoted as a anti-drone solution. However, they failed to shoot down the unmanned aircraft, which then disappeared from the scene.

Later, German counterintelligence and military police classified this incident as an act of deliberate espionage. Defense Express adds that despite all importance of this system which, besides costing over $3.5 billion, is nearly Europe's only defense against russian Oreshnik and intercontinental ballistic missiles Germany couldn't protect it from three drones flying directly over it.

Euronews spoke to Patrick de Bellefeuille, a prominent Canadian weather presenter and climate specialist, on how Europe could benefit from Canada’s long experience with snowstorms. He has been forecasting for MétéoMédia, Canada’s top French-language weather network, since 1988.

Euronews: What are the main Canadian ‘best practices’ for dealing with heavy snowfall?

Patrick de Bellefeuille: Municipal authorities also prepare in advance. They know when snowstorms or freezing rains are coming. Regarding de-icers or abrasives used on streets and sidewalks, there are different types depending on the conditions. For example, if snow has fallen and temperatures drop below -15°C, sand and gravel are used. When temperatures are just below freezing, a salt-based abrasive that melts ice is applied. Authorities plan carefully and use preventive measures whenever possible.

Euronews: Right, but what we saw this week in Brussels and other cities is a snowstorm that caused huge disruptions, as if heavy snow was nearly unprecedented. Schools closed, traffic was chaotic, there were accidents, people slipped—it seemed like a lack of preparation.

Patrick de Bellefeuille: Here in Quebec, we have a law requiring winter tires from December 1 to March 15—it’s mandatory (…). That solves a big problem. We also have five “snow days” in our school system, when children don’t go to school if roads are unsafe. Decisions are based on road conditions: can children safely take school buses? If it’s too dangerous, a snow day is declared. At the end of the school year, if fewer than five snow days are used, school days are adjusted accordingly.

Euronews: What general advice would you give to Europeans to protect themselves from snowstorms? What do Canadians do?

Patrick de Bellefeuille: Even with 20 cm of snow, life goes on here—it’s normal. Our main concern is ice. I prepare by consulting forecasts and planning my day around weather conditions: when it will be worst and how to adapt. Consider public transport: buses have snow tires, which could also be done in Europe. Where winter tires aren’t mandatory, a plan B—like chains on buses—should be in place.

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US and EU policymakers have launched government initiatives ..., including diversifying their supply chains, establishing stockpiles, investing in private companies and expanding domestic processing and recycling capacities. These efforts seek to mitigate the risk of supply chain disruptions and price fluctuations as Beijing restricts critical minerals supplies for geopolitical leverage.

Government involvement is expected to accelerate in 2026 as recent restrictions on Chinese rare earths exports highlight vulnerabilities and drive the US and EU to reshape the global supply landscape, experts told Platts, a part of S&P Global Energy.

"What we're seeing globally is that the composition of mining companies is getting much more complex where you have a combination of government stakeholders, private equity, private investors and even capital from export and import banks," said Julie Klinger, a University of Delaware professor in the geography and spatial sciences program.

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In the US, federal agencies launched $134 million in investment opportunities for rare earths and obtained several equity stakes in private companies, including the formation of a public-private partnership between the US defense department and rare earths company MP Materials, which aims to build a secure, end-to-end domestic rare earths supply chain. The deal involved a $400 million equity investment, a $150 million loan and a 10-year offtake agreement.

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In Europe, the EU ratified the Critical Raw Materials Act in 2024, which aims to enhance the EU's domestic capacities. The law stipulates that no more than 65% of the EU's annual consumption of any strategic raw material should come from a single third country.

The bloc in March 2025 also published a list of 47 strategic and critical minerals projects, accounting for an expected overall capital investment of Eur22.5 billion ($24.35 billion). Other actions include plans to mobilize up to Eur3 billion in funding over the next 12 months to fast-track strategic extraction and processing projects that could reduce EU import dependencies by up to 50% by 2029.

To date, the EU has established 15 critical minerals partnerships with resource-rich countries, such as South Africa, Namibia, Argentina, Chile and Canada, to bolster resilient supply chains. The bloc has also launched negotiations with Brazil, while deepening cooperation with Ukraine and the Western Balkans through the Global Gateway investment initiative.

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Archive link