Новости за 07.06.2017

People seem more worried in the Brexit debate about the relocation of the European Medicines Agency building, than the more important issue of risks to European public health.

The Commission has offered to put aside €1.5 billion a year for joint defence spending in what could be the first step toward the creation of an EU army.

The centre-right EPP and liberal Alde want EU state intelligence and police services to explain how people known to them were still able to commit terror attacks. The two groups are proposing a special committee.

Far-right parties around Europe have managed to turn the passport-free Schengen area into a game of political hot potato despite its numerous benefits.

Since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, there has been a somewhat mixed reaction to the increased Russian presence on the peninsula. Some welcome it, others reject it in hushed voices.

Anti-gay statements are part of an anti-EU narrative propagated by Poland's ruling Law and Justice party. But only a few politicians from the opposition are willing to challenge the image of Poland as a homophobic country.

US-based cyber security firm FireEye has said Russia will try to use Montenegro to steal Nato information after the Balkan country joined the alliance on Monday. FireEye said on Tuesday that APT28, a Russian state hacker group, had already targeted the Montenegrin government. "Montenegro's accession could increase cyber threat activity directed toward Nato, and provide additional avenues for adversaries like Russia to illicitly access Nato information," the firm said.

EU states' ambassadors agreed in Brussels on Tuesday to extend sanctions on Russia-annexed Crimea in Ukraine for a further year, the RFE/RFL news agency reported. It said foreign ministers will rubber stamp the measures, which include a ban on all types of business activity there, on 19 June. Russian special forces seized the peninsula, which hosts a Russian naval base, after a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine in mid-2014.

All five Nordic leaders told EUobserver that Europe needs to invest more in its security. Sweden and Finland want to do it via the EU, but Norway wants to keep Nato centre stage.

The EU budget should be used for military research and the bloc could become a defence alliance akin to Nato, the European Commission is poised to say.

Anti-smoking activists fear that tobacco lobbyists will neuter an EU tracking requirement to counter illicit trade, by trying to influence technical talks in Brussels.

Former European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday in Athens that the danger of Grexit still looms, but that it will depend on the moves of the Greek government, Kathimerini reports. The non-executive chairman at Goldman Sachs International added that several officials in the EU are of the belief that the euro currency would be better off without Greece.

Spanish bank Banco Popular was rescued from collapse on Wednesday by its larger Spanish competitor, Santander, after the European Central Bank had found that Banco Popular was “failing or likely to fail”. Banco Popular will continue to operate under “normal business conditions”, the EU’s Single Resolution Board said in a statement. The purchase price paid by Santander for the shares and capital instruments of Banco Popular was €1.

France's overseas voters overwhelmingly backed candidates from new French president Emmanuel Macron's movement, En Marche!, in the early first-round vote in the parliamentary elections. The 1.3 million French expatriates voted for MPs representing citizens abroad and, so far, 10 out of 11 constituencies put En Marche! candidates ahead, with a second-round still to come. Voting across France will take place on 11 and 18 June.

The number of people registered as having died from drug overdose has increased in the EU, Norway and Turkey.