Europe

In upset, Dutch Labour party trumps populists in European vote – exit poll

Editorial Bureau May 24, 2019

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The Labour party of European Commissioner Frans Timmermans on Thursday won a surprise victory in a Dutch election for European Parliament, an exit poll showed, easily beating a Eurosceptic challenger who had been topping the polls. The leading social democrat

Europe

Poland’s PiS ready to talk with Italian, Spanish far-right – PM

Editorial Bureau May 24, 2019

(Reuters) – Poland’s ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) are ready for talks on a European parliamentary alliance with Italy’s far-right League party and Spain’s Vox, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told Polska Times.pl in remarks published on Friday. Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, who leads the League, has been trying to form

Europe

Istanbul’s ousted mayor says billions wasted under Erdogan’s AKP

Editorial Bureau May 23, 2019

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – President Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party spent 80 million lira ($13 million) in three years on an Istanbul city website, the ousted opposition mayor said on Wednesday, part of what he said was a wider misspending of billions of lira of public money. Ekrem Imamoglu, from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), […]

Europe

Turkey preparing for possible U.S. sanctions over S-400s – minister

Editorial Bureau May 23, 2019

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s defence minister said it was preparing for potential U.S. sanctions over its purchase of Russian S-400 missile defence systems, even while he said there was some improvement in talks with the United States over buying F-35 fighter jets. Turkey and the United States have been at odds on several fronts including […]

Europe

Europe holds ‘most important’ EU vote

Editorial Bureau May 23, 2019

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europeans start voting on Thursday in four days of elections to the EU parliament that will influence not just Brussels policy for the next five years but, to some extent, the very future of the Union project itself. In 2014, nationalists hostile to the EU doubled their presence in the assembly, topped […]

Europe

In western France, a village remembers D-Day’s “secret massacre”

Editorial Bureau May 23, 2019

France (Reuters) – The lost U.S. paratrooper tapped on the door of the Rigault family’s farmhouse in Normandy in the early hours of June 6, 1944, miles south of his intended drop zone and soaking from his landing in the surrounding marshland. After four years under German occupation, 12-year-old Marthe Rigault, awoken by the roar […]

Europe

Upstart nationalist Baudet vies to become largest Dutch party in Europe

Editorial Bureau May 23, 2019

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – A 36-year-old nationalist who has taken Dutch politics by storm is set to make huge gains in European elections in the Netherlands on Thursday. Thierry Baudet’s Forum for Democracy, which won just 2% of the vote in a 2017 general election, is polling at 15% ahead of voting, neck and neck with […]

Europe

French minister warns of ‘toxic’ Nigel Farage poll win, urges speedy Brexit

Editorial Bureau May 22, 2019

(Reuters) – Victory for veteran British anti-EU campaigner Nigel Farage in this week’s European Parliament election will create a big headache for the European Union and the UK should exit the bloc as soon as possible, France’s finance minister said on Tuesday. Opinion polls put Farage’s newly created Brexit Party well ahead of its rivals, […]

Europe

Thousands of Czechs protest for fourth week against justice minister

Editorial Bureau May 22, 2019

(Reuters) – Thousands of Czechs protested for a fourth week in a row on Tuesday against a justice minister they fear could influence a criminal case against Prime Minister Andrej Babis. Protesters say Justice Minister Marie Benesova’s past comments and actions were supportive of Babis, a billionaire-turned-politician who has been charged with illegally tapping

Europe

Tension flares between Roma, extremists in Hungary

Editorial Bureau May 22, 2019

Hungary (Reuters) – Several hundred radical nationalists, including hard-line extremists, protested in a small town in eastern Hungary on Tuesday against what they call Roma crime. In the town of Torokszentmiklos, east of Budapest, a few hundred Roma, mostly men, held a counter-protest commemorating the killing of innocent Roma in a series of shootings a […]