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EU set to take legal action against UK

European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said on Monday that the UK’s unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk

The European Union (EU) is expected to launch legal action against the UK government this week after the latter on Monday introduced a bill to change parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a post-Brexit trade deal.

The EU has said UK government’s unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust.

In a statement late Monday, the UK government said that the bill will allow it to address “the practical problems the Protocol has created in Northern Ireland” in four areas: burdensome customs processes; inflexible regulation; tax and spend discrepancies; and democratic governance issues, reports Xinhua news agency.

“These problems include disruption and diversion of trade and significant costs and bureaucracy for business,” it said.

They are also undermining the Belfast Good Friday Agreement, and have led to the collapse of the power-sharing arrangements at the Northern Ireland Assembly, the government said.

Signed in 1998 after three decades of conflict, the landmark Belfast Agreement established a power-sharing system of government, including an Executive and Assembly. It underpins peace in Northern Ireland, its constitutional settlement, and its institutions.

Recently, it has become more urgent that disputes over the protocol should be resolved since Sinn Fein, the Irish nationalist party, won the May 5 elections in Northern Ireland for the devolved Assembly.

Coming second in the elections, the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party said it would not sit in the Assembly. The party is opposed to the Protocol, saying it creates a trade border in the Irish Sea.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the bill “will end the untenable situation where people in Northern Ireland are treated differently to the rest of the UK, protect the supremacy of our courts and our territorial integrity”.

The Protocol has also deepened a rift between the UK and EU.

Under the Protocol, Northern Ireland is part of the UK’s customs territory but is subject to the EU’s customs code, value-added tax (VAT) rules and single market rules for goods.

Despite the two sides’ agreement in October 2019, the Protocol has caused divisions over how some of the rules should be implemented, particularly for goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland.

“The UK has engaged extensively with the EU to resolve the problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol over the past 18 months,” the British government said in its statement ON Monday.

“However, it has become clear the EU proposals don’t address the core problems created by the Protocol. They would be worse than the status quo, requiring more paperwork and checks than today,” it added.

In response, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said on Monday that the UK’s unilateral action is damaging to mutual trust.

“Renegotiating the Protocol is unrealistic. No workable alternative solution has been found to this delicate, long-negotiated balance.”

The European Commission said it will consider continuing the infringement procedure which was launched against the UK government in March 2021, but subsequently put on hold.

The Commission will also consider launching new infringement procedures that protect the EU Single Market from the risks that the violation of the Protocol creates for businesses and for the health and safety of the bloc’s citizens, according to Sefcovic.

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Stage set for new UK-EU battle over NI

The European Union is on the stand that any unilateral change could breach international law and it could respond by launching legal actions and impose tariffs, reports Asian Lite Newsdesk

The United Kingdom will propose legislation to unilaterally rip up post Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland, in a move that may trigger a trade war with the European Union (EU).

A UK-EU rift has recently deepened over the protocol, under which Northern Ireland is part of the UK’s customs territory but is subject to the EU’s customs code, value-added tax rules and single market rules for goods

When UK left the EU, Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed a deal that effectively kept Northern Ireland in the EU single market and customs union to preserve the open border with Ireland specified in the Good Friday peace agreement.

Despite the two sides’ agreement in October 2019, the protocol has caused divisions over how some of the rules should be implemented, particularly for goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

It imposes customs checks between the province and the rest of the UK, which pro-British communities in Northern Ireland say erodes their place within the UK.

Johnson has said the protocol’s implementation has damaged trade within the UK and has threatened political stability in Northern Ireland.

The legislation will be presented to parliament by British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

Brussels believes any unilateral change could breach international law. It could respond by launching legal action and by imposing countermeasures, such as tariffs.

UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis insisted on Sunday that the legislation complied with the law.  But he declined to say how the protocol would be changed, but said the government would set out the legal basis for the bill.

It is expected to propose a “green channel” for goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland, as well as scrapping rules that prevent the province from benefiting from tax assistance and ending the role of the European Court of Justice as sole arbiter, according to reports.

While British leaders have argued the protocol needs to be amended, the EU has said a renegotiation is off the table.

UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss had earlier told Parliament that the priority was to uphold the Belfast Good Friday Agreement “in all its dimensions”.

Signed in April 1998 following three decades of conflict, the landmark Belfast Agreement established a power-sharing system of government, including an Executive and Assembly. It underpins Northern Ireland’s peace, its constitutional settlement and its institutions.

However, the agreement “is under strain,” Truss said, noting that the Northern Ireland Executive has not been fully functioning since early February because the protocol “does not have the support necessary in one part of the community in Northern Ireland”.

While the protocol has not yet been implemented in full due to the operation of grace periods and easements, she added, EU customs procedures for moving goods within the UK have already meant companies are facing significant costs and paperwork, among other practical problems.

Recently, the need to solve the dispute over the protocol has been made even more urgent after Sinn Fein, the Irish Nationalist Party, was in early May declared winner in elections for the devolved Assembly in Northern Ireland.

Coming second in the elections, the pro-Brexit Democratic Unionist Party has said it would not sit in the Assembly, citing its opposition to the protocol, which creates a trade border in the Irish Sea.

The UK Foreign Secretary said the UK has proposed a “comprehensive and reasonable solution” to deliver on the objectives of the protocol, including a trusted trader scheme to provide the EU with real-time commercial data, giving the bloc confidence that goods intended for Northern Ireland are not entering the EU single market.

In response, European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic said that the UK’s plan to table legislation “raises significant concerns”.

He noted in a statement that the protocol is an international agreement signed by the EU and the UK and that unilateral actions contradicting an international agreement are “not acceptable”.

Should the UK decide to move ahead with a bill disapplying constitutive elements of the protocol as announced by London, Sefcovic added “the EU will need to respond with all measures at its disposal”.

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India, EU hold defence consultations

The wide-ranging discussions covered the evolving security situation in Europe, India’s neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific….reports Asian Lite News

The first-ever India-EU Security and Defence Consultations took place on June 10 in Brussels where both sides agreed to “increase India-EU defence and security cooperation”, said the Embassy in Brussels in its press release.

“The first-ever India-EU Security and Defence Consultations took place on 10th June 2022 in Brussels pursuant to a decision taken at the India-EU summit in July 2020,” read the release.

The consultations were co-chaired by Sornnath Ghosh, Joint Secretary (lnternational Cooperation), Ministry of Defence, Sandeep Chakravorty, Joint Secretary (Europe West), Ministry of External Affairs (India Side) and Joanneke Balfoort, Director Security and Defence Policy (EU Side).

The wide-ranging discussions covered the evolving security situation in Europe, India’s neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific.

The two sides noted the number of positive developments in the area of security and defence cooperation in recent years. The discussions included the establishment of a regular maritime security dialogue, which met for the second time in February 2022, the first-ever joint naval exercises held in June 2021, and a number of joint workshops on the subject of fostering maritime security.

During the consultations, the two sides also discussed various means of increasing India-EU cooperation on maritime security, implementation of the European code of conduct on arms export to India’s neighbourhood, cooperation in co-development and co-production of defence equipment including India’s participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO).

Both sides agreed to increase India-EU defence and security cooperation as an important pillar of the bilateral strategic relations. The next consultations will be held in Delhi at a mutually agreed convenient time. (ANI)

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European Parliamentarians reject crucial draft climate law

Parliament’s rules of procedure provide for the possibility, upon request by a political group or members, to refer a file back to committee for further consideration…reports Asian Lite News

Members of the European Parliament have sent back three draft laws forming part of the European Commission’s “Fit For 55” climate legislation package, referring them back to Parliament’s committee on environment (ENVI) for further consideration.

The draft legislations were on the reform of the Emissions Trading System (ETS), the European Union’s (EU) Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) and the Social Climate Fund.

Parliament was meant to adopt its position on legislative proposals that aim to deliver on the EU’s climate action ambitions.

The measures are part of the “Fit for 55” package and seek to reduce the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy dependence, while supporting businesses and people in the transition to a sustainable economy.

The EU is pursuing the most ambitious climate target: to cut emissions substantially by 2030 and bring them down to net zero by 2050.

However, the European Parliament rejected the report on the revision of the ETS by 340 votes to 265, with 34 abstentions.

Parliament’s rules of procedure provide for the possibility, upon request by a political group or members, to refer a file back to committee for further consideration.

MEPs voted in favour of postponing a decision on the two other reports so the ENVI committee will now discuss the matter in a forthcoming session in order to find a way forward on the files.

Once a compromise has been found in the committee, the plenary session will vote again.

The ETS obliges more than 10,000 power plants and factories to hold a permit for each tonne of CO2 they emit.

MEPs want to make the proposal more ambitious and also want municipal waste incineration to be included in the sector from 2026.

They also want a more ambitious carbon levy on imported goods to stop companies from moving outside the EU to avoid emissions standards, a practice known as carbon leakage.

The Social Climate Fund will address any social impacts that arise from a European Commission proposal to extend emissions trading to the building and road transport sectors.

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Fraudulent claims cost 527 mn euros to EU in 2021

In 2021, OLAF concluded 212 investigations and issued 294 recommendations to the relevant national and EU authorities. It also opened 234 new investigations…reports Asian Lite News

In 2021, a total of 527.4 million euros ($564 million) in European Union (EU) funds were used fraudulently, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) said in its annual report.

OLAF recommends the recovery of this sum.

In its report published on Wednesday, the office unveils emerging fraud trends on a wide range of issues and provides details on investigations on fraud schemes damaging the environment, Xinhua news agency reported.

In 2021, OLAF concluded 212 investigations and issued 294 recommendations to the relevant national and EU authorities. It also opened 234 new investigations.

The office noted that fraudsters continued to profiteer from the Covid-19 pandemic and became even more sophisticated and adaptable, taking full advantage of the opportunities available by working across borders and jurisdictions, exploiting digital tools and professionalising their illicit business activities.

It said fraudsters continued to try to take advantage of Covid-19 at a time when all eyes were focused on the vaccine rollout. It exposed the fraudsters’ scam attempts as they tried to approach national authorities with bogus offers of nearly 1.2 billion vaccine doses worth more than 16 billion euros.

OLAF said it had detected and investigated cases that showed how fraudsters also targeted funding for green and digitalisation projects, including cases of fraud in software development projects, in customs operations that involved counterfeit pesticides, or in EU funding for the development and delivery of environmentally friendly aircraft.

The report details how OLAF’s investigators uncovered the potential misuse of 330 million euros for a social assistance scheme for low-income pensioners in a region of Italy and recommended the project’s termination.

In 2021, OLAF and its partners prevented 437 million illicit cigarettes from entering the EU market and helped national authorities confiscate 372 tonnes of raw tobacco that were destined for the illicit production of cigarettes. These seizures are estimated to have saved the EU member states 90 million euros in lost revenue. (1 euro = $1.07)

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EU agrees on common charger for mobile devices by 2024

Provision on wireless charging has also been made, as it is becoming more prevalent, Agius Saliba said…reports Asian Lite News

Chargers will be harmonized for small and medium-sized portable electronic devices by 2024 in the European Union (EU), negotiators of the European Parliament and the Council have agreed.

“By autumn 2024, USB Type-C will become the common charging port for all mobile phones, tablets and cameras in the EU,” a press release from the Parliament said.

The devices affected include mobile phones, tablets, e-readers, earbuds, digital cameras, headphones and headsets, handheld videogame consoles and portable speakers rechargeable via a wired cable, keyboards, computer mice, and portable navigation devices, said European Parliament rapporteur Alex Agius Saliba.

Laptop manufacturers will also need to conform to the new regulation, but they will benefit from an extended deadline — 40 months after the entry into force — to comply.

Provision on wireless charging has also been made, as it is becoming more prevalent, Agius Saliba said.

Consumers will be able to choose if they want to purchase new devices with or without a charger.

The two important benefits of the regulation, the rapporteur said, are that consumers will get a fairer deal, and so will the environment.

European consumers will be able to save up to 250 million euros ($267 million) per year on unnecessary charger purchases since they will be able to use one charger for multiple devices.

Regarding the environment, it is estimated that unused chargers generate about 11,000 tonnes of e-waste each year.

The new rule will have to be formally approved by the European Parliament and the European Council after the summer break, and then published in the EU Official Journal.

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EU oil embargo ‘in days’ as Russia flags closer China ties

The European Commission and United States were working in parallel on a proposal to cap global oil prices, he said…reports Asian Lite News

The European Union will likely agree to an embargo on Russian oil imports “within days”, according to its biggest member Germany, as Moscow said it saw its economic ties growing with China after being isolated by the West over its invasion of Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told global business leaders in Davos on Monday that the world must increase sanctions against Russia to deter other countries from using “brute force” to achieve their aims.

Many of the EU’s 27 member states are heavily reliant on Russian energy, prompting criticism from Kyiv that the bloc has not moved quickly enough to halt supplies.

Hungary stuck to its demands for energy investment before it agrees to such an embargo, clashing with EU states pushing for swift approval. The EU has offered up to 2 billion euros ($2.14bn) to central and eastern nations lacking non-Russian supply.

“We will reach a breakthrough within days,” Germany’s economy minister, Robert Habeck, told broadcaster ZDF.

The European Commission and United States were working in parallel on a proposal to cap global oil prices, he said.

“It is obviously an unusual measure, but these are unusual times,” he said.

Russia’s three-month-long invasion of Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European state since 1945, has seen more than 6.5 million people flee abroad, turned entire cities into rubble, and prompted the unprecedented imposition of Western sanctions on Russia.

In a further symbolic indication of Russia’s isolation, US coffee chain Starbucks became the latest Western brand to say it was pulling out of the country on Monday.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said the Kremlin would focus on developing ties with China as economic links with the US and Europe were cut.

“If they (the West) want to offer something in terms of resuming relations, then we will seriously consider whether we will need it or not,” he said in a speech, according to a transcript on the foreign ministry’s website.

“Now that the West has taken a ‘dictator’s position’, our economic ties with China will grow even faster.”

The comments came as US President Joe Biden toured Asia, where he said he would be willing to use force to defend Taiwan against Chinese aggression – a comment that seemed to stretch the limits of the ambiguous US policy towards the self-ruled island.

Russia sent thousands of troops into Ukraine on February 24 for what it calls a “special operation” to demilitarise its neighbour and root out dangerous nationalists – claims dismissed by Kyiv and Western countries as false pretexts for a land grab.

Having captured the port city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine last week after a months-long siege, Russian forces now control a largely unbroken swathe of the east and south.

They are trying to encircle Ukrainian forces and fully capture the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces that make up the eastern Donbas region, where Moscow backs separatist forces.

A total of 12,500 Russians were trying to seize Luhansk, the region’s governor, Serhiy Haidai, said on Telegram. The town of Sievierodonetsk is being destroyed, but Ukraine has forced Russian troops out of Toshkivka to its south, Haidai added.

Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told local television that shelling was occurring along the front line, with the coal mining town of Avdiivka being hit round the clock.

Russian forces fired on 38 communities in Donetsk and Luhansk on Monday, killing seven and injuring six, Ukraine’s Joint Forces Task Force military command said in its nightly update.

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‘Ukraine could become EU member in 20 years’

But Beaune said Macron’s proposal is not “an alternative to joining the European political community. It doesn’t prevent membership later on.”…reports Asian Lite News

A bid by Ukraine to join the European Union would not be finalised for “15 or 20 years,” France’s Europe Minister said on Sunday, rejecting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hopes for a quick entry in the wake of Russia’s invasion of his country.

“We have to be honest. If you say Ukraine is going to join the EU in six months, or a year or two, you’re lying,” Clement Beaune told Radio J. “It’s probably in 15 or 20 years, it takes a long time.”

“I don’t want to offer Ukrainians any illusions or lies,” he said, reiterating an offer by President Emmanuel Macron to create a looser “European political community” that could help integrate Ukraine with the bloc sooner.

That offer has received a cold welcome from Zelensky, who on Saturday denounced “such compromises” and insisted on an immediate start of the process towards full EU membership.

But Beaune said Macron’s proposal is not “an alternative to joining the European political community. It doesn’t prevent membership later on.”

Macron

Under Macron’s plan, “there could be free circulation in Europe, and it could benefit from the European Budget for reconstruction and the revival of its country, society and economy,” he said.

Other EU leaders have also shown little appetite for a quick welcome of Ukraine, whose pro-Western aspirations are seen as a main reason Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of the country on February 24.

Macron’s “European political community” initiative will be debated at an EU summit in late June.

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Britain calls for EU action on Northern Ireland

London is bidding to placate pro-UK unionists who are refusing to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast — led for the first time by pro-Irish nationalists — until the protocol is reformed…reports Asian Lite News

Britain has insisted it is up to the European Union to unblock political paralysis in Northern Ireland, after assuring a delegation from the US Congress of its “cast-iron” commitment to peace in the province.

The British government has provoked anger on both sides of the Atlantic with a plan to overhaul the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, a trading arrangement that was agreed as part of its Brexit divorce deal with the EU.

London is bidding to placate pro-UK unionists who are refusing to join a new power-sharing government in Belfast — led for the first time by pro-Irish nationalists — until the protocol is reformed.

Interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis demanded that Brussels adopt a new negotiating mandate to address the fierce objections of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

“I made this point to the EU myself before the (May 5) elections. My view was, it was much easier to get a deal before the elections than afterwards,” Lewis said.

“The idea that it was going to be easier after the elections was a crazy one from the EU.” The protocol recognised Northern Ireland’s status as a fragile, post-conflict territory that shares the UK’s new land border with the EU.

Keeping the border open with neighbouring Ireland, an EU member, was mandated in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, given that the frontier was a frequent flashpoint during three decades of violence. But the protocol’s requirement for checks on goods arriving from England, Scotland and Wales has infuriated the DUP and other unionists, who say it drives a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Lewis stressed that the DUP, as the biggest unionist party, had a democratic mandate to back its position.

“And at the moment, the protocol, which the EU claims is about protecting the Good Friday Agreement, is the very document putting the Good Friday Agreement most at risk,” he said. But the EU insists the protocol is not up for renegotiation.

And last week Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the US House of Representatives, warned that the UK could forget about a post-Brexit trade deal if it rewrites the agreement.

On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss met in England with a congressional delegation led by Richard Neal, a senior member of Pelosi’s Democratic party in the House.

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EU needs to reverse its present self-destruct mode

A flow of resources into the EU from Russia is essential for Europe to remain at the vanguard of economic progress, writes Prof. Madhav Nalapat

The history of the European part of the Eurasian continent has not been an uninterrupted saga of onward progress. Within just the first four decades of the 20th century, there were two wars, each of which drained several countries in Europe of their very marrow. The bloodletting and other costs of the 1914-19 war weakened the sinews with which European powers such as France, the Netherlands and Britain held on to their colonies across the world. Especially in India, among the effects of the war (apart from the increase in material deprivation caused by it) was to substantially increase those within the subcontinent who regarded as not merely possible but desirable a speedy exit of the British from India.

After the 1939-45 war between the Axis and the Allies, such an exit was regarded not only as wholly desirable for the future of the people of the colonised nation, but inevitable. This truth continued to be resisted by those who lived on the fumes of pre-war strength and glory, such as Winston Churchill. Had the Conservatives not lost the elections that followed the war against the Hitlerite menace, the securing of independence may have been far costlier in terms of human lives than was the case under a Labour government.

The latter accepted the inevitable, even while it remained faithful to the Churchillian dictum that the subcontinent needed to be partitioned into India and Pakistan before it was handed over to the population of the subcontinent. Had he secured a fresh lease as Prime Minister, Churchill may have been able to delay independence for a few more years, but would not have been able to prevent what he saw as a catastrophe, the separation of India from the British Empire. The leaders of France, despite having had to endure the overlordship of the Germans for over four years, were determined to hold on to the French Empire, including in Vietnam and Algeria, despite the overwhelming desire of the local populations to be freed of such a yoke.

There are in US politics occasional visionaries such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt or, later, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who forecast in a forgotten report the future social tensions that the US would in brief years witness as a consequence of several of its policies. Unfortunately for the world, Harry S. Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt, had a far more conventional view of the world than Roosevelt, and thus began the US path of following in the footsteps of France rather than standing with those in the colonies who sought freedom from external oppression.

A Roosevelt or a Moynihan could see into the future, a faculty not shared by almost all the leaders of yesterday or today, who seem anchored to the presumed verities of the past in their perception of not just the present but the future. In this, governance systems are a great leveller, in that myopic rulers have all too often been the norm not just in autocracies but in democracies. An Abe Lincoln saw the power of a united country and entered upon a war to keep it so, while a Mao Zedong understood the potential power of Greater China, and more than doubled the territory traditionally under the control of Beijing. This was achieved through the conquest of Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Manchuria, none of which attracted even a tiny portion of the blowback that has followed the war launched against Ukraine by Russia on 24 February 2022. This was despite the far greater global geopolitical significance of Mao’s territorial conquests in contrast to absorbing the slivers of additional Ukrainian territory that is the objective of Vladimir Putin in his war on Ukraine.

Save for a few zealots in Europe who seek a military conquest of Russia in the manner that Napoleon and Hitler tried before them, Ukraine is only of marginal strategic significance to the European Union. The UK under Johnson reflexively seeks to divide one half of Europe (Russia) from the rest, in its traditional policy of keeping continental Europe at sixes and sevens with each other. The US would gain temporarily by replacing Russian oil and gas with its own, but over time, denying itself access to the immense natural resources of the Russian Federation would affect its competitive standing in a situation that is making China almost the only major buyer of such resources.

As yet, while India has retained freedom of action in the matter, its own purchases of Russian resources remains less than significant, despite the price discounts Moscow is offering. Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to prod his bureaucracy and ensure that such hesitancy in action (although combined with zealotry in words) gets replaced by the taking advantage of the opportunity for access to resources offered by the war in Ukraine. Both the Chabahar port as well as the proposed Vladivostok to Chennai sea corridor would come in handy for such a move. However, it is neither India nor even Russia that is the major loser from this war, but the European Union. The group is willy-nilly in the process of cutting down its access to the natural resources of Russia. Such a flow of resources into the EU from the world’s largest country is essential for Europe to remain at the vanguard of economic progress.

EU governments must be praying that Russia retreat from Ukraine before the full onset of winter. Once that comes, and the sanctions if not the war on Russia continue, public opinion outraged by unbearable energy costs and dislocations will force their governments to reverse course, of course after much damage has already been done. If the 1914-19 and 1939-45 wars were acts of self-destruction (in the latter case, especially in the case of the primary perpetrator of the conflict, Germany), so too is the present efforts towards de-coupling European access to the natural resources of Russia.

More so in a situation where China is seeking to replace European supply chains in several markets, and where Xi Jinping has ensured untrammelled access for the PRC to Russian resources. The silver lining is that with the onset of winter a few months hence, deficiencies within Europe in heating and in other ways that are caused by decoupling not from China but from Russia will lead to public pressure on governments to scale back the measures taken against Russia in the name of Ukraine. Steps that damage Europe far more than they do the intended target. As for Ukraine, the longer the leadership of that unfortunate country believes in the NATO narrative that Kiev can prevail over Moscow, the greater will be its eventual losses of lives and territory.

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