Polish Farmers defend Wojciechowski against Warsaw’s calls for resignation

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In today’s news from The Capitals:

WARSAW

Polish farmers have come to the defence of EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski after Polish Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz and the opposition made calls for his resignation. Read More.

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EU INSTITUTIONS

German liberals want to renegotiate EU due diligence law, blame Spain. Germany’s liberal FDP party wants to reopen negotiations on the EU’s Due Diligence Directive after the issue was removed from the agenda of a meeting of EU ambassadors last Friday, which the party says shows the poor quality of the preliminary agreement reached in December. Read more.

Romania’s far-right threatens to pull out of ECR group in new blow to Orbán. Echoing other delegations’ concerns, Romania’s rising far-right party AUR has expressed they will backtrack on their decision to join the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group in the European Parliament if Hungarian ruling party Fidesz joins. Read more.

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PARIS | BERLIN | WARSAW

‘Weimar Triangle’ gets second wind in light of potential Trump return, Russian threat to NATO. Foreign ministers from the French-German-Polish ‘Weimar Triangle’ will meet outside Paris on Monday for a ‘working meeting’, with the threat of a potential Trump re-election in November and military leaders warning of Russia’s threat to NATO looming in the background. Read more.

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BERLIN

Germany’s CDU wants to call the shots on the economy early. The German conservatives have urged Chancellor Olaf Scholz to adopt measures they hope will address the country’s economic problems, including getting rid of the EU supply chain law known as the corporate sustainability due diligence directive. Read more.

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PARIS

EU lead candidates denounce French government announcements in Mayotte. French candidates leading the EU election lists have hit back at French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin’s announcement of a tailor-made constitutional amendment on citizenship for the overseas region of Mayotte. Read more.

NORDICS & BALTICS

HELSINKI

Centre-right’s Stubb wins close-fought Finnish presidential election. Alexander Stubb of the centre-right National Coalition Party narrowly won Finland’s presidential election on Sunday, defeating liberal Green Party member Pekka Haavisto, who conceded defeat. Read more.

EUROPE’S SOUTH

MADRID

PP leader won’t oppose pardoning Puigdemont if he is brought to justice. Spain’s main right-wing opposition party, Partido Popular, said it would consider a pardon for former Catalan president and separatist leader Carles Puigdemont if he agrees to be tried, serves his sentence, renounces calling a referendum on self-determination and abandons plans to declare the region’s “independence”. Read more.

EASTERN EUROPE

PRAGUE

Czech MEP says Europe needs its own army, can’t rely on Trump’s protection. Republican frontrunner and former US president Donald Trump’s recent comments about how he would not protect NATO countries that do not abide by their spending obligations if he were to be re-elected led to Czech MEP Mikuláš Peksa (Pirates, Greens/EFA) calling for a European army. Read more.

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BRATISLAVA

Slovakia excludes NGOs from disinformation fight. Robert Fico’s government is mulling the exclusion of NGOs in the government’s plans to fight disinformation, which plans to scrap the former “non-conceptual” action plan “with elements of politicisation”. Read more.

NEWS FROM THE BALKANS

SOFIA

Bulgarian government at risk amid quibble over foreign minister post. Infighting within the ruling coalition over who will be the new foreign minister is threatening the stability of the Bulgarian government ahead of the scheduled change of prime minister in March. Read more.

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BUCHAREST

Romanian PM confident Russia won’t attack his country. Russia has not launched any deliberate attacks on Romania and will not do so in the future, Romanian Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said on Saturday, after residents of Tulcea, which borders Ukraine, received warnings of possible objects descending from the skies. Read more.

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ZAGREB

Croatian opposition fears new ‘Orban-like’ attorney-general. Croatia’s opposition fears that Ivan Turudić, the country’s new attorney-general, will use his new position to obstruct the work of the EU Prosecutors Office specialised in fighting EU funds fraud. Read more.

AGENDA:

EU: Informal meeting of development ministers, in Egmont Palace, Brussels, expected to focus on development cooperation;
Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis participates in “Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the EU” Semester Conference within the European Parliamentary Week 2024; Takes part in Parliament’s AGRI Committee meeting;
Vice President Margaritis Schinas participates in Munich Security Conference kick off event, in Berlin Germany;
Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski meets Visegrad Group Chambers of Agriculture, in Warsaw, Poland;
Financial services, financial stability and Capital Markets Union Commissioner Mairead McGuinness delivers introductory remarks at 4th Meeting of the European Forum for Innovation in Payments (EFIP); Gives opening statement at ECON Interparliamentary Committee meeting on “Euro@25: What’s next for the EMU?”;
Home Affairs Commissioner Yiva Johansson participates in trilogue on the extension of the Temporary Regulation on Child Sexual Abuse;

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[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Daniel Eck, Alice Taylor, Sofia Stuart Leeson, Sofia Mandilara]