The Nature Restoration Law was approved in the European Council: After a dramatic vote, where the Austrian Minister of Environment went against instructions from the Austrian prime minister and voted in favor of the law, the proposal to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030 and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050 became law. Read more in English here.
The leaders of the European Union member states could not agree on who should be ruling Europe for the next five years. They will try again next week to reach a consensus. The package is still the same: Ursula von der Leyen (EPP, Germany) for European Commission President, Roberta Metsola (EPP, Malta) for European Parliament President, Antonio Costa (S&D, Portugal) for European Council President and Kaja Kallas (Renew, Estonia) as High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs. What’s the apple of discord? EPP wants more; the term for the European Council President is 2.5 years and they want the next president to be from EPP.
80 countries agreed on a roadmap for peace in Ukraine: The main point? Ukraine should not accept Russia’s territorial claims in the event of a peace offer. 92 countries gathered in Switzerland for the peace summit (Russia was not invited and China chose to not participate). Although Brazil, South Africa and India participated, they chose to not support the roadmap for peace.
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Russia’s current offer for peace has three main points: for Ukraine to give up the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya (almost half of the territory), for Ukraine to never be allowed to join NATO and for the EU to lift all sanctions against Russia.
A right-wing group in Denmark is on the USA’s terror list: The Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordfront), a neo-Nazi group originally from Sweden, has been put on the USA’s terror list. They organize in Denmark as “nests,” with “nest leaders” as local commanders. The group members have carried out violent attacks on political opponents, protesters and journalists alike. The association was banned in Finland in 2020.
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The association organizes training in melee and knife combat and sends the members on various missions, like putting stickers with messages on mailboxes with Jewish sounding family names and placing threatening flyers in mailboxes of internationals. The Danish leader was convicted after covering 84 Jewish gravestones with paint.
