Archived version of AP article (archive.li)

Archived

Chinese efforts to spy on the Dutch are intensifying, with the focus on semiconductors, Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said on Saturday.

"The semiconductor industry, which we are technologically leading, or technology advanced, of course, to get that intellectual property - that's interesting to China," Brekelmans said in an interview on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security meeting in Singapore.

[...]

When asked if the spying had stopped, Brekelmans said: "It's continuing. In our newest intelligence reports, our intelligence agency said that the biggest cyber threat is coming from China, and that we do see most cyber activity when it comes to us being as from China. That was the case last year, but that's still the case. So we only see this intensifying."

[...]

Dutch intelligence agencies first publicly attributed cyber espionage to China last year, when they said state-backed cyber spies had gained access to a Dutch military network in 2023.

Brekelmans said security is becoming increasingly important for the Netherlands as China is "using their economic position for geopolitical purposes and also to pressure us".

[...]

The minister said the Netherlands has introduced instruments to protect key industries and vital interests but the country and region also need to reduce their dependency on China for critical raw materials.

"Both on the European Union level, but also on the national level, we need to make bigger steps in order to reduce those dependencies."

Archived

Question: [In 2025, U.S. President] Donald Trump ... jump started major changes in the global security order, Russia's war against Ukraine continues, and populism is rising across Europe. How would you evaluate these first steps of the new era?

Timothy Garton Ash: The triple shock: the Putin shock, what I call the Xi Jinping shock, and now the Trump shock means that we are in the deepest crisis Europe has been in for a very long time, in some respects, since 1945.

But it also means that we all know that in Europe.

[...]

There's a long-term trend of the United States becoming less committed to and less engaged in Europe, which started already after the end of the Cold War. It was happening under the Democrats and under the Republicans. It's turning either to what (Barack) Obama called nation-building at home, or the pivot to Asia.

[...]

First of all, we never really had a unipolar world. Even the U.S.-led liberal international order was only a large part of the world. It worked because the United States was what the Princeton scholar John Ikenberry calls a "Liberal Leviathan."

[...]

So I believe that if we are to preserve what's left of the liberal international order, which is not a great deal, it's up to us as Europeans, but also other liberal democratic partners.

Canada becomes much more important to us. Australia becomes important to us. Japan becomes important to us. In other words, there's a whole new constellation of liberal international order — if you like, a new West.

[...]

Our role is to defend ourselves and to look after what we've achieved in Europe over the last 80 years. That means defending ourselves against external enemies or challenges. Obviously, Vladimir Putin's Russia in the first place, but also China in a different way, and other powers.

[...]

[We Europeans need to] preserve at least some elements of what we call the liberal international order — for example, a free trading world, an international economic order. The EU is a regulatory superpower. Can we preserve some of those shared regulations around the world?

[...]

I would say the forces of integration and disintegration [Ash mentions right-wing populism in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Czech Republic] in Europe are quite finely balanced at the moment.

We have to be tough on populism and tough on the causes of populism. We have to fight the nationalist populist and make a convincing case to our public for a different approach.

But we also have to understand why they continue to get large numbers of votes. For example, the sense that large parts of our societies have been both economically and culturally neglected in the name of liberalism.

And we need to show that we care, we're actually doing something for them economically, that culturally we don't just care about specific minorities in the name of multiculturalism, but we actually care about everyone in our societies.

[...]

There's always been an anti-liberal Europe, as well as a liberal Europe throughout European history. And it's always been a great mistake to believe that the liberal Europe has prevailed once and for all. By the way, there are also liberal and anti-liberal forces in Ukraine, let's make no mistake about that.

The two things are intimately connected. It's very difficult to imagine Ukraine making a successful transition to a prosperous, sovereign, democratic European future if Europe is disintegrating next door. It's quite difficult to imagine a successful, liberal, democratic, integrated Europe if Ukraine is disintegrating next door.

[...]

[History is] going to give us both hope and warnings.

The warning is that just when everybody takes things for granted, they start going wrong. [...] The hope is that we already have examples of successful liberal fightback [against anti-democratic tendencies]. The Polish (2023 parliamentary) election is a classic example of a (country) which had nearly gone in the direction of Hungary and an electoral-authoritarian, non-liberal regime, and then it came back.

The larger lesson is that you have these wave movements in history. We had what I would call a liberal democratic revolution across Europe and much of the world from the early 1970s to the 2000s. Now we have an anti-liberal counter-revolution. But with time, people start discovering that that doesn't deliver either.

In fact, it delivers even less. And if you look at the enormous demonstrations in Serbia, large demonstrations in Hungary in support of an opposition candidate, and in Turkey after the imprisonment of Mr. (Ekrem) Imamoglu, you see that the fightback also comes from the countries that have gone authoritarian.

Archived

European leaders headed to Asia this week with a key message: We need to work closer together to preserve the rules-based order against threats from China and Russia.

Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, and French President Emmanuel Macron emphasized the links between Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine and Russia’s deepening relationship with China during a range of appearances in Southeast Asia in recent days.

“It is the greatest challenge of our time,” Kallas told an audience at the Shangri-La security conference in Singapore.

[...]

Kallas accused China of enabling Russia’s war machine, saying 80% of dual-use goods used to fight Ukraine come from the world’s second-biggest economy.

[...]

"If you are worried about China, you should be worried about Russia,” Kallas said.

Western officials accuse China of supplying Russia with critical technologies, including drones, while saying that both nations have engaged in cyberattacks, acts of sabotage and dangerous activities related to infrastructure such as deep-sea cables.

Kallas called on European and Asian partners to work together on tackling covert shadow fleets of tankers and to review maritime security laws. North Korea’s direct support of Russia’s war efforts – including missiles, ammunition and troops – has further brought the conflict closer to home on both sides of the world.

"If China doesn’t want NATO being involved in Southeast Asia or in Asia, they should prevent North Korea from engaging on European soil,” Macron said in a keynote address in Singapore on Friday.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting on Thursday of a little-known defense grouping known as the Five Power Defence Arrangements, which brings together the Commonwealth nations of Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and the UK, officials from several member countries acknowledged some common challenges. That included risks against underwater information infrastructure in Europe and Asia.

“It is a complex and new area,” said General Mohd Nizam Jaffar, Malaysia’s chief of defense forces. “But we are looking into it.”

[...]

Nations in the Indo-Pacific and Southeast Asia are caught between the threat of dramatically higher US levies and a surge of cheaper Chinese goods that could cost them manufacturing jobs. Many rely on China economically and the US for defense.

[...]

In an apparent jab at the US and China a day earlier, Macron condemned “revisionist countries” that seek to impose “spheres of coercion.” He called for fresh cooperation between Europe and Asia based on free trade, jointly mitigating risks and autonomous decision-making. In Europe’s case, that means being allied to the US as a matter of choice but not being dependent on it, while wanting to cooperate and compete fairly with China.

“Our shared responsibility is to ensure with others that our countries are not collateral victims of the imbalances linked to the choices made by the superpowers,” the French president said.

[...]

Hundreds of millions in European Union funds have been used in projects that violate the rights of marginalised communities, a report alleges, citing initiatives such as segregated housing for Roma, residential institutions for children with disabilities and holding centres for asylum seekers.

The report, based on information compiled by eight NGOs from across Europe, looks at 63 projects in six countries. Together these projects are believed to have received more than €1bn in funding from the European Union, laying bare a seemingly “low understanding” of fundamental rights across the bloc, according to one of the authors of the EU-funded report.

https://archive.is/Htwxm

The EU is launching a new age verification app in July, establishing a tool that will potentially allow for tighter enforcement of rules requiring online platforms to protect minors online.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22904041

American investors are increasingly acquiring European companies, prompting calls for new ownership models to protect economic sovereignty.

Three doctors have been charged over the death of a pregnant woman, named only as Dorota, while she was in hospital under their care. Prosecutors found that “there was a failure to undertake appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, which led to the patient’s death”.

Dorota’s death in 2023 prompted mass protests against Poland’s near-total abortion ban, which activists blamed for the doctors’ decision not to terminate the pregnancy despite it threatening the woman’s life. It also led the then government to take action to ensure pregnant women receive appropriate medical care.

Dorota, who was aged 33, was admitted to John Paul II Hospital in the city of Nowy Targ in May 2023 while five months pregnant after her waters had broken prematurely. She died a few days later as a result of septic shock.

According to the findings of prosecutors, a few hours before her death, an ultrasound scan showed that the foetus had already died, reports the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The state commissioner for patients’ rights concluded that Dorota’s rights had been violated both in terms of not receiving appropriate medical care and not being provided with correct information about her health condition.

On Friday, prosecutors announced that they had filed charges against three gynaecology and obstetrics doctors involved in Dorota’s care, one of whom was at the time head of the hospital department.

All were charged with exposing the patient to immediate danger of loss of life and one was additionally charged with unintentionally causing her death. Both of those crimes are punishable by up to five years in prison.

A lawyer representing Dorota’s family, Jolanta Budzowska, welcomed the charges but added that the “liability of medical personnel is only one dimension of this tragedy”.

“The source of medical errors is often unclear law, which requires change,” said Budzowska. “The arbitrary interpretation of the applicable regulations creates a risk for both doctors and patients.”

Budzowska is also representing the family of another woman, Izabela, whose death in hospital in 2021 while pregnant also prompted mass protests against the abortion law.

“After Izabela’s death, recommendations were issued by the health minister,” noted the lawyer. “But these did not prevent Dorota’s death, and subsequent positions and standards issued by medical associations do not solve the problem of the lack of safety for women.”

Earlier this year, a medical court suspended three doctors from practising medicine after finding negligence in their treatment of Izabela, including their decision not to terminate her pregnancy despite signs of the development of sepsis.

Supporters of Poland’s strict abortion law argue that it is not to blame for such incidents because it stillincreas allows pregnancies to be terminated if they threaten the mother’s life or health. They say the tragedies are the result of medical malpractice.

However, protests against the law, which was toughened in 2021 after a constitutional court ruling, argue that it has created an atmosphere in which doctors are fearful of legal consequences for performing abortions.

In 2021, only 107 legal abortions were carried out in Poland (and most of them before the new law went into force in late January) compared to over 1,000 in 2020, when the previous law was in place. Since then, the number of terminations has increased, though remains well below the previous level.

The current government, which came to power in December 2023, has pledged to liberalise the abortion law. However, it has so far failed to do so, as it has been unable to find agreement between more conservative and liberal elements of the ruling camp on what form the new law should take.

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/22898524

Speaking at a press conference in Singapore ahead of the Shangri-La Dialogue security conference, French President Emmanuel Macron said that recognising a Palestinian state was a moral duty as well as a political necessity. Macron called on European countries to harden their stance on Israel unless the humanitarian crisis in the ravaged Gaza Strip improved.

Archived version

The new investigation reveals a pronounced skew in the content promoting the two presidential candidates, over that of centrist and left-wing candidates.

In the study conducted by Global Witness investigators, TikTok showed our test accounts five times more content supporting nationalist right candidate Karol Nawrocki as centrist candidate Rafal Trzaskowski. This is despite the centrist candidate’s official TikTok account being more popular at the time than his opponent’s, with 12,000 more followers and nearly 1 million more likes.

...

“When we found TikTok was sending new, politically balanced users disproportionately to far right content ahead of the Romanian election, the European Commission launched an investigation. When we found the same thing happening again ahead of the German election, we were seriously concerned about a potential pattern emerging.

“But when we looked at Poland, heading to the polls this week, we thought the results might have been different – particularly as the centrist candidate is so much more popular on the platform.

“Yet again, TikTok’s algorithm appears to be serving hard-right content over and above all other content.

“It raises the question, why is TikTok’s algorithm so into the hard right? And what is the Commission going to do about the fact that another Big Tech company may be distorting so many elections all over Europe?”

The findings come just two weeks after a Global Witness investigation in Romania found TikTok’s algorithm was serving nearly three times as much far-right content as all other political content, and similar tests around previous elections in Germany and Romania suggesting TikTok’s algorithm pushes users towards far-right content. TikTok is currently under investigation by the European Commission for its handling of election risks, with particular reference to the annulled Romania election in late 2024.

...

• Archived version of BBC article (archive.li)
• "Who is Paul Doyle, the father and ex-Royal Marine commando accused of Liverpool parade crash?" (The Independent)

Archived

The probability of a systemic banking crisis in Russia is on the rise, according to a new report from a state-affiliated economic think tank.

Experts at the Center for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting (CMASF) warn that while a full-blown crisis has not yet materialized, several warning signs point to a high likelihood of one happening.

In its latest analysis, CMASF describes the current situation as a "resonance" of negative economic signals: rising bad debts, early indications of depositor flight and mounting pressure on both businesses and consumers from high interest rates.

[...]

A systemic banking crisis, as defined by CMASF, would involve at least one of three conditions: non-performing loans exceeding 10% of total banking assets, a significant withdrawal of funds by depositors, or large-scale bank recapitalizations exceeding 2% of the country’s GDP.

None of those conditions have been met so far, but the underlying risks are steadily growing, the report says.

[...]

The Russian Central Bank, which has maintained a tight monetary policy to combat inflation, acknowledges that high interest rates are putting strain on the financial system.

Corporate borrowers are increasingly struggling to service their debt, while households are accumulating bad loans at a growing pace.

[...]

In a recent financial stability report, the Central Bank identified corporate credit risk and consumer over-indebtedness as two of the six primary vulnerabilities in the financial system. It noted a marked increase in the cost of credit risk and a deterioration in repayment rates, particularly among retail borrowers.

[...]

Some of Russia’s largest corporations are already feeling the pressure. The Central Bank reports that 13 of the country’s 78 largest firms now earn less in profits than they owe in interest — an unsustainable dynamic if high rates persist.

[...]

Russia has weathered banking crises before, most recently in 2014-2015, when a crash in oil prices and Western sanctions over the annexation of Crimea sparked a deep financial shock.

That episode was successfully predicted by CMASF’s early-warning indicators, similar to those now raising concern.

cross-posted from: https://szmer.info/post/7675906

Poland’s government has announced 230 million zloty (€54 million) in state support for the construction of what it says will be the world’s largest factory producing towers for offshore wind turbines.

The facility will be built by a Polish subsidiary of Spanish renewable energy company Windar Renovables and located on the northern Baltic Sea coast, where Poland is planning to develop its first offshore wind farms in the coming years.

“The Baltic Sea will be an example in the not-too-distant future of how clean, efficient and inexpensive green energy can be generated for Poland and for the whole of Europe,” said development minister Krzysztof Paszyk during yesterday’s signing of a financing agreement with Windar Polska.

The plant will be built on a 17-hectare site on the island of Ostrów Grabowski, in Szczecin harbour. The ministry says the location was chosen to allow direct sea transport of the massive steel towers, which can measure up to 10 metres in diameter, 50 metres in height, and weigh 450 tonnes.

“Such enormous dimensions make it impossible to transport these elements overland,” Paszyk told the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The factory is expected to produce up to 500 tower sections annually, equivalent to around 100 complete towers, depending on the model, each designed for turbines with a capacity of 14 megawatts. Total investment is expected to reach 880 million zloty, with Windar contributing 653 million zloty and the rest coming from state aid.

Construction of the plant will be carried out by a Polish subsidiary of the Australian PORR group. According to PORR’s statement, the facility will comprise four production lines housed in a 47,000-square-metre building, as well as a raw materials warehouse.

Yesterday, a symbolic foundation stone was laid for the factory, which is due to be completed in 2026 and reach full production capacity in early 2027, reports local newspaper Głos Szczeciński. It is expected to create nearly 500 jobs.

The development marks the latest in a series of investments by foreign firms in Poland’s growing wind turbine manufacturing sector. In early 2022, two Spanish companies, including Windar, announced plans to build wind turbine component factories.

Later that year, a Danish firm revealed it would construct a factory near Szczecin to assemble parts for wind turbines. That facility is scheduled to begin operations this year and to create 700 direct jobs.

Paszyk noted the 230 million zloty in public funding being granted to the new Windar facility is part of a broader 5 billion zloty package earmarked by the ministry for green investments, aimed at reducing Poland’s reliance on conventional energy sources.

The minister cited Baltic Towers, a Polish firm building another offshore wind tower production facility in Gdańsk, which has received more than 376 million zloty in aid.

Other government-backed ventures include SK Nexilis’s copper foil production plant in Stalowa Wola, which received over 545 million zloty in support, and IONWAY Poland’s cathode material factory for electric vehicle batteries near Nysa, supported with nearly 1.5 billion zloty.

“Increasing the share of cheap renewable energy in our energy mix will make it possible to reduce electricity prices,” Paszyk said, quoted by PAP.

Poland remains one of the most coal-dependent countries in the European Union. Although it has accelerated the development of renewables, coal still accounted for 56.7% of electricity generation in 2024. However, in April this year, coal’s share fell below 50% in a single month for the first time.

While Poland does not yet have an operational offshore wind farm, three projects are currently in development, including one that began to be constructed in February and another announced earlier this month.

Archived version

Key takeaways:

• Hungary’s State Audit Office uncovered major financial mismanagement by Hungarian National Bank (MNB)-linked foundations, in an apparent government-initiated showdown against [former MNB governor György] Matolcsy.
• Matolcsy was a key figure in Hungary’s “Eastern Opening”, with the MNB operating a network of foundations, think tanks, and international forums promoting a “Eurasian identity” for Hungary.
• Much of Hungary’s Beijing- and Moscow-friendly think tank network is linked to MNB funding, making it questionable how they will continue to operate in the future.

...

Between 2013 and early 2025, György Matolcsy served as the Governor of Hungary’s National Bank (MNB) and was widely regarded as a key ally of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In 2024, he was listed as the 15th most influential person in Hungary by the popular “100 Richest Hungarians” list. Matolcsy played a crucial role in the Hungarian government’s “Eastern Opening” strategy, a policy aimed at fostering closer relations with non-Western partners, particularly Beijing and Moscow.

...

However, despite their decade-long close relationship, reports of growing disagreements between Orbán and Matolcsy began to surface in early 2024. By late 2024, Matolcsy had become increasingly outspoken in his criticism of Hungary’s economic direction, publicly dismissing Orbán’s economic plans as “unrealistic.” In September 2024, it was announced that Matolcsy’s term as Governor of the National Bank would not be extended in 2025, signaling a clear break in their political partnership.

...

Under Matolcsy’s leadership, the MNB played a central role in this strategy, using its financial resources to build ties with Beijing and promote a Beijing-friendly narrative in Hungary. However, the recent scandals surrounding MNB-linked foundations and the broader geopolitical shifts brought about by Donald Trump’s return to the White House are likely to influence Hungary’s strategic direction.

...

The apparent freezing of controversial projects, such as the Chinese police patrols in Budapest, suggests a potential recalibration. As Hungary seeks to balance its relations between Washington and Beijing, institutions like the Danube Institute, known for its connections to the American conservative movement, may become more prominent than the MNB’s network of pro-Beijing research institutions. This shift could signal a broader realignment in Hungary’s foreign policy, as the country navigates the increasingly polarized landscape of great power competition.

Data analysed by the BBC show that Ukraine's Western allies have paid Russia more for its hydrocarbons than they have given Ukraine in aid.

Paywall? https://archive.is/kyzkg

Archived

[...]

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said China has stopped selling drones to Kyiv and other European nations while continuing shipments to Russia.

“Chinese Mavic is open for Russians but is closed for Ukrainians,” Zelenskiy told a group of reporters on Tuesday. “There are production lines on Russian territory where there are Chinese representatives,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy added.

The Mavic is a popular civilian quadcopter, normally used for aerial photography, which can be adapted to carry explosives. On the battlefield, Mavics can be used both for surveillance and to attack enemy targets.

Drones have become central to the war in Ukraine, dramatically reshaping the tactics both sides employ on the frontline because of their ability to limit offensive maneuvers. They’ve also been increasingly used for long-range strikes far behind the frontlines.

A European official said that Zelenskiy’s remarks match their own assessments. The official said that China also appears to have curtailed deliveries to western buyers of some drone components, such as magnets used in motors, at the same time as ramping up deliveries to Russia.

“When someone is asking whether China is helping Russia, how shall we assess these steps?” Zelenskiy said.

Manufacturers in China began limiting sales to the US and Europe of key components Bloomberg reported late last year, in a move that western officials believed was a prelude to broader export restrictions.

[...]

Bloomberg reported last summer that Chinese and Russian companies were working together on developing attack drones. The US and European Union have since sanctioned several Chinese firms for aiding Moscow’s drone manufacturing operations and providing critical components, including as part of a recent package of measures adopted by Brussels earlier this month.

[...]

In March, Ukraine launched a so-called the Drone Line project that envisions the creation of a “kill zone” up to 15 kilometers (9 miles) along the front line to limit maneuvers by the Kremlin’s troops and provide air support for its own infantry.

Kyiv has asked allies to help finance its drone production as it seeks the ability to make between 300 to 500 units every 24 hours, Zelenskiy said.

“There is no issue in production capacity,” the Ukrainian president said. “The issue is in financing.”

Paywall? https://archive.is/PFryO