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News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

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The European Commission has opened a call for evidence and public consultation on a new EU Civil Society Strategy. The strategy will propose a framework for action at EU and Member State level.

The key objectives of this call for evidence and public consultation will be to recognise the crucial role of civil society in our democracies and propose actions to foster a thriving civic space. These actions will aim to strengthen meaningful engagement with and protection and support of civil society organisations working on a broad range of EU policies.

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The EU Civil Society Strategy will provide a comprehensive framework for action at EU and Member State level; It will focus on strengthening meaningful engagement and providing support to all civil society actors, whilst including specific actions to address the shrinking civic space for civil society organisations and human rights defenders active in promoting and protecting EU values.

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Just about everything about the onion-domed Russian Orthodox church near the otherwise unassuming Swedish city of Vasteras seems odd: its close proximity to the airport, its taller-than-planned spire, and its elusive priest allegedly commended by the Kremlin’s foreign spy agency, SVR. Swedish intelligence services think so too, and have warned that Moscow is likely using it as a platform for espionage and other hostile hybrid activities potentially threatening Sweden’s national security.

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Archived version

  • Dutch military intelligence says Russia uses banned chemical weapons in Ukraine
  • Evidence points to 'large-scale program' of producing and using choking agent, officials say
  • Dutch defence minister urges tougher sanctions

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The Dutch intelligence findings on alleged Russian use of chloropicrin, a banned warfare agent first used by Germany during World War One, have not previously been reported.

The head of the Dutch Military Intelligence Agency (MIVD), Peter Reesink, said the conclusions followed "our own independent intelligence, so we have observed it ourselves based on our own investigations."

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The United States first accused Russia of using chloropicrin, a chemical compound more toxic than riot control agents, in May last year.

Ukraine alleges thousands of instances of Russian chemical weapons use.

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cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3405265

Archived version

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Speaking to the National Security Strategy (Joint Committee) yesterday, Ministry of Defence parliamentary under-secretary Luke Pollard admitted that the Submarine Telegraph Act 1885 – which can impose £1,000 fines – "does seem somewhat out of step with the modern-day risk."

However, he pointed out that forming legislation to mitigate the risk to undersea infrastructure is a balance between a civil and military approach, but this raises the question of how the government might prosecute a perpetrator of undersea cable sabotage.

"We've identified that this is an area that could be looked at again. That's why the Strategic Defence Review talked about creating a defence readiness bill, probably in a later stage, a later session of parliament," he said.

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Archived

The former head of the UK’s civil service has described the Chinese leader Xi Jinping as a “dictator” and said Donald Trump had put “helpful pressure” on Europe to increase defence spending.

Simon Case, who served as the cabinet secretary until December, when he stepped down on health grounds, said China had sent a clear message to “prepare for serious conflict” in Taiwan.

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The UK has committed to spend the equivalent of 2.6% of GDP in 2027, and it and other Nato members have signed up to increasing spending to 5% by 2035 on militaries and related security.

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Case said: “There’s some actually quite helpful pressure, if you ask me – [this is a] slightly unpopular view – from the White House about us pulling our fingers out in Europe and actually stepping up to the plate on our defence spending."

“But the reason that matters is because President Xi has publicly set out his timetable for, as he would put it, reunifying Taiwan. We’re incredibly bad at reading what dictators say in public. We spend millions of pounds on secret intelligence, which is absolutely amazing, but we’re really bad at missing what they actually say in public, which is, this is the timetable at which I want everybody to be ready for us to prepare for serious conflict.”

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Case also raised the threat of Russia starting further conflicts in Europe, beyond Ukraine.

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Archived

China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi reportedly told the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas on July 3 that the country cannot afford for Russia to lose the war in Ukraine amid fears the U.S. would shift focus towards Beijing, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported, citing sources familiar with the conversation.

As the war in Ukraine drags on, Wang's reported comments suggest that Russia's war in Ukraine may serve China's strategic needs as focus is deviated away from Beijing's mounting preparation to launch its own possible invasion into Taiwan.

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China has been a key ally to Russia during its full-scale war, helping Moscow evade Western sanctions and becoming the leading source of dual-use goods fueling the Russian defense industry.

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The frankness of Wang's reported admission was greeted with surprise by EU official, according to Hong Kong-based SCMP, amid China's past public statements in favor of a peace deal. Two sources familiar with the meeting told SCMP that they believed Wang was providing Kallas with a lesson in realpolitik during the four-hour encounter.

Wang on July 3 again reportedly rejected Western accusations that it was providing funding and weaponry to support Moscow's war effort in Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly accused Beijing of providing weaponry to Moscow. On May 29, Zelensky said that China had stopped selling drones to Ukraine and Western countries while continuing to supply them to Russia.

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https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

Stop Killing Games is an European Citizens Initiative aiming to keep games playable even after their developers and publishers have stopped supporting it.

To get the initiative onto the EUs agenda so it has the chance to become EU law, it has to both reach 1 million signatures total and minimum thresholds in at least 7 countries. Now both of those goals have been reached. But that's no reason to stop signing! Some signatures will get thrown out in the validation phase because the signee made a mistake. So keep signing and show the world just how many people are in favour of saving videogames.

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The page seems to be not working at the moment but keep on signing https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

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Anglosphere countries are very bad at housing.

Source: https://cps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/How-Many-Homes-Does-the-UK-Need-.pdf

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Archived

On July 1, German authorities announced they will tighten inspections of oil tankers passing through the country’s territorial waters, focusing on those transiting the Fehmarn Belt strait between Germany and Denmark. Vessels heading east will now be required to present valid insurance documentation.

The move mirrors similar steps by Sweden, which began requiring insurance checks for foreign ships entering its territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) starting this month. According to the German Foreign Ministry, any violations may lead to “Europe-wide monitoring, action by the flag state, and — if further criteria are met — a listing of the ships for sanctions.”

A significant portion of Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” consists of aging vessels that are either insured by questionable firms or not insured at all. This sharply increases the risk of accidents of the sort that often lead to oil products leaking into the surrounding environment. The Insider previously reported on a Russian national whose company in Norway was issuing fake certificates to tankers transporting Russian oil.

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Sweden previously announced similar insurance checks for foreign vessels, set to begin on July 1. Authorities said they would require documentation not only from ships entering Swedish ports, but also from those passing through the country’s territorial waters and EEZ. The EEZ extends up to 370 kilometers (approximately 230 miles) from the coast, while territorial waters typically span up to 22 kilometers (13.6 miles). The Fehmarn Belt — a strait roughly 18 kilometers wide (just over 11 miles) wide — falls within German territorial waters.

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Archived

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The [Ukrainian] foreign ministry said that Russian use of anti-personnel mines since 2014, which increased after the full-scale invasion of 2022, has created an unequal situation that limits Ukraine’s right to self-defence.

In his nightly video address, Zelensky accused Moscow of “using anti-personnel mines with utmost cynicism” in Ukrainian territory and of seeking to “destroy life by all means at their disposal”. He also described anti-personnel mines as “often the instrument for which nothing can be substituted for defence purposes”.

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