Новости за 22.08.2017

The leading EU member state must sooner or later face its responsibility for Europe's problems, said German political thinker Ulrike Guerot.

The UK is prepared to recognise some court rulings by judges in EU states after Brexit, but its trade ideas continue to attract ridicule.

"Shrugging your shoulders is not a political strategy in the long run," Johannes Hahn has said, calling for a change of course towards Turkey.

President Donald Trump announced Monday that the US will ask Nato countries to join his new Afghanistan strategy. "We will ask our Nato allies and global partners to support our new strategy with additional troop and funding increases in line with our own. We are confident they will," Trump said. European Nato members provide around 4,300 of the 13,000 troops, with Italy's (1,037) and Germany's (980) contributions being the largest.

Greek justice minister Stavros Kontonis on Monday defended his decision not to attend Wednesday's Estonian event on the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Communism and Nazism. "Communism in whatever form cannot be put on the same level as the disgrace of Nazism," Kathimerini quoted the far-left politician as saying. Centre-right opposition party New Democracy said the decision leads Greece "to a kind of European and international isolation.”

Czech foreign minister Lubomir Zaoralek told Reuters on Monday he supported his country acquiring "observer status" in the Eurogroup, the forum of eurozone finance ministers. "It is undoubtedly beneficial for us to have the possibility to take part in their meetings and thus have a direct insight into the governance of the eurozone," he was quoted as saying. The Czech Republic is in the EU, but not the eurozone.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has appointed Anatoly Antonov as the country's new ambassador to the United States, the Kremlin announced on Monday. He is a former deputy minister of foreign affairs and of defence. Antonov has been on an EU blacklist since 2015 because he was “involved in supporting the deployment of Russian troops in Ukraine”, the EU's official journal said.