Latest news with #GeorgiaMeloni
New European
4 days ago
- Politics
- New European
Karol Nawrocki, Poland's MAGA president
France elected a socialist prime minister – and then almost simultaneously a conservative president. Italy elected a far right prime minister, Georgia Meloni, who obeys Italy ruling economic elites who depend on EU membership for their investment and profits. Europe now has several of these tandem governments, where different parties control different parts of the state and promote contradictory policies. Poland can now be added to that list. Poland's new president, Karol Nawrocki, admires Trump, is cool towards Ukraine and sports a 'Chelsea FC ' tattoo. He also embodies the dizzying, see-sawing politics of today's Europe. Fifteen years ago I spoke on a platform with Donald Tusk, the long – probably too-long – leader of the centre-right-liberal Civic Platform party, and current prime minister. Back then, Tusk was cheered at an economic conference, as he promised he would take Poland into the euro. It hasn't happened. Like every other EU leader, Tusk has a transactional relationship with Europe. When Tusk, first elected prime minister two decades ago, now 68, returned to power in 2023 he had to work with a president, Andrzej Duda, from the europhobic Law and Justice Party (PiS) headed by Lech Kaczynski. The president of Poland has to countersign laws and also controls the appointment of judges and other key posts, from museum directors to the head of the Polish equivalent of the BBC. The American writer, Anne Applebaum, is married to Poland's foreign minister Radek Skiorski and is the historian of the Soviet Gulag system. In her fine and very readable book Twilight of Democracy, written in 2022 she examined the political-social forces that gave birth to the Polish union Solidarity, which signalled the end of communist rule in Poland 40 years ago. The book goes on to show how that new political settlement fell apart in the face of the muddy compromises ushered in by the new of democratic era. The PiS Party which ruled from 2014-2023 is anti-women, anti-gay, anti-liberal and even embraced Holocaust denial. It was ultra-Catholic, banned abortion and objected to EU policy on climate change and LGBT rights. It opposed enlargement to take in Ukraine. Suggested Reading Here's how Orbán could be ousted Iván L Nagy There was an upsurge in the 2023 election similar to the enthusiasm that took Labour to power last year. Young voters, women, liberals, and greens voted out PiS, but Tusk did not know how to convert this youth-led wave into a new politics of change. The old parliamentary game-playing returned. Polish workers who joined Solidarity en masse in 1981 now turn their backs on trade unions, whose membership is among the lowest in Europe. There is no effective social democratic politics in Poland. Into this situation stepped Nawrocki, who has a PhD in Polish history and speaks English, and who made a career of reminding Poland of her confiscated national history. He wrote books on organised crime that had taken place during the communist years 1945-1990. He called for the replacement of monuments to Russian soldiers who are seen in Poland as Hitler's allies. He was elected a local councillor and headed a town council for a few years. He then was director of the Gdansk Museum of World War 2 Remembrance. The UK has just celebrated VE day but for Poles 1945 meant the arrival of a new occupying power, Stalin's Russia, helped by collaborators inside Poland and cruelties against anyone who opposed communist imperialism. It is this Poland that Nowracki appeals to. While the Civic Platform chose the Mayor of Warsaw, a nice liberal Sadiq Khan type politician, to be its candidate for president, PiS allowed Nawrocki to run as an independent anti-abortion, anti-EU, anti-gay, anti-woke candidate. His pre-election rally used the slogan MPGA – Make Poland Great Again. Poles are Americanphiles to the point of exaggeration. They hate Putin, but are fed up with 1 million Ukrainian refugees and don't want to allow poor Ukraine into the EU to get a share of EU funds. Like Nigel Farage (and, ahem, Sir Keir Starmer) Nawrocki backs large infrastructure projects, especially rail links. He opposes the euro. He opposed the Tusk government's liberal economics including reducing the healthcare contributions paid by business, while at the same time he opposed any reduction in healthcare funding. He has promised not to raise the retirement age, to ban businesses operating on Sundays, and to provide more cash for farmers and promote 'patriotic economics.' As president he has no power to legislate on any of these promises. But like Farage he can spot an opening in the political market as all mainstream liberal politicians as well as social democrats, from Poland to the British Isles, have forgotten that poverty exists. Nawrocki will ally with other nationalist populist parties in Poland as well as the PiS who hope to win full government power in 2027. Social democratic politics has been fading in Europe ever since the democratic left allowed the EU to become a centre-right liberal project. Nawrocki's election as president of Poland confirms this trend. Denis MacShane is the UK's former Minister of Europe. He wrote the first book on Polish Solidarity in 1982 and was briefly imprisoned in Warsaw for running money to the underground Polish Solidarity opposition movement
NBC News
17-04-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Trump meets with Italian prime minister at the White House
Watch live coverage as President Trump meets with Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni at the White House. The meeting comes as the world and markets are still responding to the president's tariff announcement and temporary pause.
Telegraph
11-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
EU to give all-clear for Rwanda-style detention camps for migrants
EU governments will be able to set up offshore detention camps for failed asylum seekers legally under laws proposed by Brussels. The new legal framework will allow Rwanda plan-style arrangements with non-EU countries to host migrants who are slated for deportation. The legislation marks a shift on migration for Brussels which in 2018 ruled out deals with non-EU countries to process asylum seekers amid ethical and legal concerns. Attitudes towards immigration have hardened in Europe, which has suffered a string of terror attacks blamed on migrants and seen a series of electoral successes for hard-Right anti-migrant parties. The European Commission proposal came after more than half of the EU's 27 leaders urged stricter return rules in October. It is seen as a victory for a model pioneered by Georgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister, whose coalition government has built two migrant centres in Albania, a non-EU nation, through which it hopes tens of thousands of migrants can be processed. In October, Ms Meloni said that 'almost the whole of Europe [is discussing] our initiatives to curb irregular immigration and stop human trafficking, [with] some nations considering them as models'. The project has, however, been dogged by court challenges. Data show that less than 20 per cent of unauthorised migrants who are ordered to leave Europe do so. 'On the return hubs, we are creating the scope for member states to explore new solutions for return,' Magnus Brunner, the EU commissioner for migration, told a press conference in Strasbourg. 'We are creating the legal frame, we're not creating the content,' he added of the reforms, which drew inspiration from Italy's deal with Albania. Under EU rules, migrants can only be sent back to their countries of origin or a country they transited through, unless they agree otherwise. The new proposal would allow the creation of 'return hubs' outside the EU, where failed asylum seekers could be sent pending transfer home. It will be up to individual EU governments to strike deals with the non-EU countries. 'Member states have called for innovative solutions for migration management. This proposal introduces the legal possibility to return individuals who are illegally staying in the EU and have received a final return decision, to a third country,' the commission said. Agreements will be possible only with countries where human rights 'are respected', and minors and families with children will be exempt. The agreements must be subject to monitoring. The EU reforms also allow more conditions under which irregular migrants can be detained, which was previously a last resort. Authorities will be authorised to hold those considered at risk of absconding or who pose a security risk, as well as people who do not cooperate with return procedures. Detention is also possible 'to determine or verify' someone's identity or nationality, according to the plan, which needs backing from parliament and member states to become law. The commission then said such hubs were neither 'desirable nor feasible'. EU member states backing the camps included Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Denmark, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Malta and the Baltic states. Spain was among those opposing the proposal. Germany's chancellor in waiting, Friedrich Merz, has vowed to take back control of German borders and expressed support for the now-ditched British Rwanda Plan before his election. Unlike the return hubs, the Rwanda plan envisaged sending migrants to Africa before their asylum claims were heard. The British Rwanda plan was deemed unlawful by the UK Supreme Court. EU member Denmark has been in discussions with Rwanda over a similar plan but it has been on hold, amid legal difficulties. No countries have agreed to host the deportation camps. In October there were reports that western Balkans countries hoping to join the EU could be approached. Albania has ruled out making any deals additional to the one already struck with Italy. Moldova has ruled out hosting any camps. Kosovo, which already hosts Dutch prisoners, and Bosnia and Serbia were also mentioned in reports, but any hubs would face stiff domestic opposition. 'A new low for Europe' Jacob Kirkegaard, of the Bruegel think tank, said that Ursula von der Leyen, the commission president, had chosen the 'path of least resistance' at a time when Brussels is dealing with a crisis in Ukraine and the threat of a trade war with the US. 'This is simply about political bandwidth,' he said, adding that Mrs von der Leyen would let the member states do what they want. 'The European Commission has caved to the unworkable, expensive and inhumane demands of a few shrill anti-human rights and anti-migration governments,' said Eve Geddie, director of Amnesty International's European Institutions Office. 'Frankly, this is a new low for Europe. Across Australia's offshore detention scheme, Italy's agreement with Albania, or the UK's aborted Rwanda scheme, we have seen these tried-and-failed policies before.' Marta Welander, of the International Rescue Committee, said: 'Without extremely robust safeguards in place, the EU's new proposals are likely to result in individuals being uprooted from their communities, families being torn apart, people being held in prison-like conditions, and the grave risk of increased human rights violations.' The European Commission said its proposal did not break the European Convention on Human Rights, although that is likely to be challenged in the courts if individual governments put the plan into practice. 'Agreements or arrangements with a non-EU country hosting a return hub will have to include strong protection conditions,' the commission said. Only people who have exhausted all appeals can be sent to the camps. The centres have to be in countries that respect international human rights law, including non-refoulement, which prevents people being sent to countries where their rights could be at risk from, for example, torture. The commission added: 'A clear number of safeguards would have to be part of the agreements or arrangements, such as the existence of an independent body or mechanism to monitor the application of the agreement or arrangement Unaccompanied minors and families with children are excluded from returns to return hubs.' The EU executive also argues that effective returns protect the human right to security for other citizens. Italy's plan to send single, male migrants to Albania and then back to their home countries has been challenged by the European Court of Justice as well as by courts in Italy, which argue it is illegal and violates migrants' rights. Ms Meloni has expressed deep frustration with the court decisions and insists that the scheme will one day work. The €670 million (£565 million) deal signed with Albania in 2023 envisaged up to 3,000 male migrants being processed in the centres in northern Albania each month. So far, a few dozen migrants have been taken by ship to the Albanian centres and none has stayed for more than a day or two. All had to be brought to Italy as a result of court rulings.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Pope's health slightly better, says Vatican
The Pope's health has shown a "slight improvement" on his sixth day in hospital, the Vatican has said. Pope Francis, aged 88, was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital last week with a respiratory infection. He has been diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs. On Wednesday, he was visited by Italy's Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, who said she was "very happy to have found him alert and responsive. We joked as always. He hasn't lost his proverbial sense of humour". She offered him best wishes for a speedy recovery, on behalf of the Italian government and the whole country. "The blood tests, evaluated by the medical staff, show a slight improvement, particularly in inflammatory indices," said the Vatican in a statement later on Wednesday. Earlier in the week, the Vatican said medical tests and a chest X-ray showed "a complex picture". Pneumonia is a serious infection that can inflame and scar the lungs, causing chest pain and making breathing more difficult. The Vatican said in its latest update on the pontiff's fragile health that he was alert and ate breakfast. A Vatican official said the Pope was still able to get out of bed and sit in an armchair in his hospital room, and he was continuing to do some work. He has cancelled a papal audience scheduled for Saturday and is not well enough to attend Mass on Sunday. Outside the hospital, well-wishers and pilgrims have continued to gather to pray, light candles and write notes of encouragement. Pope Francis has pneumonia in both lungs, Vatican says Pope's health a 'complex clinical situation', Vatican says
BBC News
19-02-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Pope 'alert and joking' says Italy's PM after visit
Italy's Prime Minister Georgia Meloni has visited the Pope in hospital, where he has been diagnosed with pneumonia in both lungs. The 88-year-old was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Friday with a respiratory infection. Meloni said in a statement that she was "very happy to have found him alert and responsive. We joked as always. He hasn't lost his proverbial sense of humour."She offered him best wishes for a speedy recovery, on behalf of the Italian government and the whole country. Earlier in the week, the Vatican said medical tests and a chest X-ray showed "a complex picture".Pneumonia is a serious infection that can inflame and scar the lungs, causing chest pain and making breathing more Vatican said in its latest update on the pontiff's fragile health that he was alert and ate breakfast. A Vatican official said he was still able to get out of bed and sit in an armchair in his hospital room, and was continuing to do some has cancelled a papal audience scheduled for Saturday and is not well enough to attend a mass on the hospital, well-wishers and pilgrims have continued to gather to pray, light candles and write notes of encouragement.
