EU chief to Zelensky: Keep anti-graft bodies independent
"It must build on these solid foundations and preserve independent anti-corruption bodies, which are cornerstones of Ukraine's rule of law," she added in a post on X. Ukraine sparked a firestorm of criticism on Tuesday after its parliament voted to revoke the autonomy of two anti-corruption agencies.
The EU at the time described the move as a "serious step back," with critics saying it would enable the government to meddle in high-profile graft cases. Von der Leyen herself demanded "explanations" from Zelensky, a rare rebuke from Brussels that came as Kyiv is pushing to join the 27-nation EU.
The move sparked unprecedented protests in Kyiv, and Zelensky backtracked two days later, announcing new laws to guarantee the independence of the anti-graft bodies. The EU was quick to welcome that action, saying the fight against corruption was "an extremely important priority for us and for Ukraine as well."
"Ukraine can count on our support to deliver progress on its European path," said von der Leyen on Sunday in her post on X.
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Euronews
7 minutes ago
- Euronews
China announces fertility subsidy program as births hit historic lows
Long seen in the West as a byword for the Chinese Communist Party's heavy-handedness, the one-child policy became a trope for Chinese authoritarianism. While the policy was officially scrapped in 2015 after years of looser enforcement, China now faces unprecedentedly low birth rates — and has announced it will begin offering childcare subsidies for the first, second and third child up to the age of three, starting this year. Under the plan, families will receive what the government calls a 'fertility bonus' of 3,600 yuan or just over €430 per child until the age of three. While the national government will pay this 'base' amount, local authorities are free to top it up depending on their own resources. The CCP said the nationwide rollout of cash subsidies will help ease the pressure of childcare expenses and will help to prevent a further decline in the fertility rate. Crucially, the subsidies will be tax-exempt and excluded from calculations of household or individual income, ensuring they do not affect eligibility for minimum living allowances or extreme poverty assistance. Why now? In 2024, China's total fertility (TFR) rate — the average number of children a woman is expected to have over her lifetime according to current patterns — was around 1.15 children per woman. That's among the world's lowest and below the so-called 'replacement level' of 2.1, meaning the baseline for the population size to stay the same. Demographers use these rates to measure whether a population is shrinking, growing or staying the same. The goal of the new policy would not be to expand the population, but to keep it at a relatively similar size without seeing it skew too heavily towards an ageing population. The latter is a problem faced by many European economies. According to the World Health Organization, by 2040, around 28% of China's population will be over the age of 60, threatening to disrupt what used to be a growing labour force and competitive wages. This also skews the dependency ratio, with funds in the economy going to supporting elderly relatives, increased healthcare costs and pensions. In 2022, China's population shrank for the first time since 1961, marking a yearly drop of 850,000 people as deaths outnumbered births. In 2023, the worst year on record, the population fell by approximately 2.08 million, and the decline continued in 2024 — improving only slightly — as it fell by 1.39mn. Chinese growth miracle is reversed In 1978, China went through political and economic reforms, including opening up parts of its economy to combat rural poverty and absorbing hundreds of millions of workers into its labour force. It is widely considered one of the fastest economic transformations in history, with China becoming the biggest net exporter in the world and its economy growing an average of about 9.5% per year until 2018. Of course, the economic clout came with political and diplomatic power. Now, the population decline could lead to China falling on the wrong side of the demographic dividend as its pool of available labour shrinks. Ultra-low fertility economies China is not the only Asian country to suffer from this problem and its effects on the economy. Several Asian countries are now considered ultra-low fertility economies, where population decline has become very steep and hard to reverse — even with pro-natalist policies like the child subsidy. A mix of economic, cultural and demographic dynamics may reinforce a cycle of fewer births in these countries. Economically, this erodes the very demographic dividend that once fuelled the explosive growth of East Asia's richest countries.
Euronews
7 minutes ago
- Euronews
German politicians furious at von der Leyen over new EU-US trade deal
German politicians across party lines denounced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Tuesday, calling for her resignation after she agreed to asymmetric trade terms that impose 15% US tariffs on EU exports while granting Americans duty-free access to European markets. The deal, struck under pressure from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz both in public and behind the scenes to avoid threatened 30% punitive tariffs, triggered unprecedented cross-party criticism in Germany, where lawmakers described the arrangement as a "capitulation" and "betrayal of Europe". Merz himself initially appeared satisfied. "With the agreement, we have succeeded in averting a trade conflict that would have hit the export-oriented German economy hard," the German chancellor said on Sunday. By Monday evening, however, Merz suddenly had a change of heart, expressing strong reservations. The agreed tariffs were now a "considerable burden" for the German economy, in the eyes of Merz. Under the agreement announced Sunday, EU products face 15% US tariffs while American goods enter Europe levy-free. For the EU, the US tariff rate for steel and aluminium imports will remain at 50%. The EU also committed to purchasing $750 billion in US energy and pledged $600 billion in European corporate investments in America. The deal led to an unprecedented wave of shock and outrage across all camps of German politics. Now, for the first time in a long time, all German parties are criticising the move. "Due to pressure from the German chancellor, the EU has agreed to a deal that abandons fundamental principles of rules-based global trade. Instead of long-term stability, the agreement creates uncertainty," Sandra Detzer from the Greens said, slamming the deal at the Bundestag. In fact, this agreement hits Germany particularly hard. According to the Institute for Economic Research (IfW), the deal will cost the German economy around €6.5 billion in terms of its GDP in the first year. "This is an inadequate compromise and sends a fatal signal to the closely interlinked economies on both sides of the Atlantic," warned Wolfgang Niedermark from the Federation of German Industries (BDI). A rate of 15% is set to have immense adverse effects, and the lack of an agreement for steel exports was an "additional low blow", he pointed out. 'Von der Leyen should resign for this worst deal ever' German EU politician Fabio De Masi (BSW) is also shocked. "This bad deal will do immense economic damage to Europe - it is a betrayal of Europe. Mrs von der Leyen should resign for this worst deal ever," he told Euronews. "While the US is to export duty-free to the EU, EU exporters will be subject to a 15% tariff. In addition, European companies are to make direct investments worth hundreds of billions of US dollars." "So Trump is hitting us with new punitive tariffs and, as business, we are filling his order books with purchases of dirty US fracking gas and defence equipment." EU politician Svenja Hahn (FDP) concurs. "15% tariffs are better than the threatened 30 - but the deal is not a success. At best, it is damage control," she told Euronews. The deal struck on Sunday represents "unbalanced to the detriment of the EU, contains no substantial successes" and weakens "rules-based trade". "Ursula von der Leyen has damaged the EU's reputation and economic strength with her weak conduct of negotiations, she must finally deliver: less bureaucracy, a strong internal market and real progress on free trade agreements, especially Mercosur," Hahn explained. German-Polish MEP Tomasz Froelich (AfD) told Euronews that the agreement reached is "not a deal", but "a capitulation of the EU", as there had been no serious attempt to exert pressure on the US, according to him. "This declaration of bankruptcy stands in stark contrast to the EU's otherwise grandiloquent behaviour on the international stage: confrontation in all directions, leaving hardly any options, especially in the area of energy imports," he explained. "I will work in the EU Parliament to ensure that this humiliating and ruinous agreement is prevented after all," Froelich, who serves as the first deputy head of the AfD delegation at the European Parliament, added. Governing parties lob criticism too Ruling CDU/CSU lawmaker Johannes Winkel stepped up to the plate. "This humiliation of Europe by the US must above all be a reason for self-criticism," Winkel warned on X. "Energy saving, bureaucracy, ESG instead of innovation, growth and technology. This politically motivated economic self-deprecation must end." Others representing the coalition partner SPD also dared to come forward with particularly harsh criticism. Bremen's mayor, Andreas Bovenschulte said on X: "The worst thing is how our EU leader is allowing herself to be humiliated into licking Trump's boots and flattering him as a 'tough - even fair - dealmaker'. Not a spark of honour in her body." The SPD politician later walked back on a part of his statement. "I take back the honour thing. That was a bit harsh," he said. In his hometown of Bremen, thousands of jobs at the ArcelorMittal steel plant are in jeopardy. Bavaria's Minister President Markus Söder (CSU) was honest and made it clear on Monday: things cannot go on like this. "The customs deal has prevented the worst," Söder said, "but the situation is now more difficult than before, especially for the automotive industry." "That's why it must be clear: There must be no additional taxes in Europe, as the EU is currently planning." Relief would now be needed to offset the tariffs. Söder criticised von der Leyen: "We simply need to do less of a Green Deal in Europe and more of an Economic Deal." Economic expert and longstanding German MEP Markus Ferber (CSU) also made it clear to the Bild newspaper: "If you consider that our offer was the complete elimination of all tariffs, then the deal is not a great success." "Fifteen per cent makes European products massively more expensive in the US and will hit the German economy particularly hard. Even if a non-agreement would have been even more expensive, a good deal looks different."
France 24
38 minutes ago
- France 24
Fossil-fuel pledge in EU-Trump deal sparks climate fears
As part of the framework agreed Sunday, the EU said its companies would buy $750 billion of liquefied natural gas, oil and nuclear fuels from the United States -- split equally over three years -- to replace Russian energy sources. Many experts believe the eye-watering figure to be unrealistic -- and point out that market dynamics rather than EU policymakers dictate companies' energy choices. Even on the supply side, Simone Tagliapietra of the Bruegel think-tank noted that the United States might not be able to build the additional export capacity within such a short time frame. Brussels insists the number was not plucked out of thin air to keep Trump happy, but was based on an analysis of energy needs as it phases out Russian imports because of the Ukraine war between now and 2027. The proposed increase would mean more than tripling annual energy imports from the United States -- about $70 billion last year -- and equate to well over half the 378 billion euros' worth of overall EU energy imports last year. 'Submission' A large part of the EU's additional billions would go to imports of LNG, which is transported in liquid state to European ports before being converted back to gaseous form and injected into the bloc's power network. The United States currently account for about half of the EU's LNG imports, ahead of Russia on 20 percent -- a figure Brussels wants to cut to zero to choke off income that helps fund the war in Ukraine. But environmental groups warn against a massive switch to American LNG extracted in part though hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses explosives to create cracks in rock formations to release oil and gas deposits. The highly polluting process comes with steep costs to both the climate and local environment, and is banned in a number of European countries. "The Commission risks replacing one disastrous dependency with another -- unplugging Putin's gas and plugging in Trump's," Greenpeace warned when the EU's phase-out plans were presented. Francois Gemenne, a policy expert who co-authored the UN's most recent IPCC report on climate change, in 2023, accused the EU of "submission" to Trump's pro-fossil fuel agenda. Elected on a promise to "drill, baby drill," the US leader is openly hostile to renewable energy efforts and lashed out again at windmills "ruining" the landscape before meeting with EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in Scotland last weekend. For Aymeric Kouam of the Strategic Perspectives think-tank, the energy deal with Trump is both "dangerous and counterproductive" and imperils its goal to become carbon neutral by 2050. "Tying Europe's energy future to the US as a main supplier undermines the bloc's energy security strategy, anchored in supply diversification, renewable energy development, and energy efficiency increase," he said. The EU pushed back at the charge on Tuesday. "This agreement does not contradict our medium- to long-term decarbonisation objectives or targets at all," a commission spokesperson told reporters of the three-year energy pledge. The Trump trade deal comes as the EU debates its 2040 emissions-reduction target, a key step towards its net zero goal. The commission has proposed a target of cutting emissions by 90 percent compared to 1990 levels, but with new flexibilities to win over reluctant member states. The EU says it has already cut climate-warming emissions by 37 percent relative to 1990, but its green agenda faces pushback with a rightward shift and rising climate scepticism in many European countries.
