分类： politics

As the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum approaches this June, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer has reignited debate over Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the European Union, launching a high-profile push to rebuild tighter ties just one week after his Labour Party suffered a devastating defeat in local elections.

In a widely anticipated defiant address, Starmer framed closer alignment with the EU as a core priority for his government, promising to lay the groundwork for deeper collaboration ahead of this summer’s EU-UK summit. “This Labour government will be defined by rebuilding our relationship with Europe, by putting Britain at the heart of Europe, so that we are stronger on the economy, stronger on trade, stronger on defence,” he told the audience. Starmer also argued that incremental changes are insufficient to address the UK’s current challenges in growth, energy and security, calling for a bolder approach to EU engagement than what his administration outlined after taking power in 2024.

However, the speech has drawn widespread criticism for its lack of concrete new policies. Jill Rutter, a former British civil servant and senior research fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe think tank, dismissed Starmer’s announcement as “a damp squib”, noting it failed to deliver a single tangible new proposal. Reactions from across the Channel are deeply divided, split along the lines of defence and security versus economic and trade cooperation.

On defence and global security, European leaders view the UK as a reliable and critical ally. With the EU focused on pressing threats including the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, rising tensions with Iran, and shifting transatlantic relations under Donald Trump’s second U.S. administration, Brussels sees consistent UK cooperation as a strategic asset. This stable dynamic is not expected to change regardless of Starmer’s political future: EU officials widely believe UK foreign policy will remain consistent, including continued support for Ukraine and plans to assemble an international maritime force to protect shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, even if Starmer is ousted by internal leadership rivals.

The mood shifts dramatically when it comes to economic ties, where Brussels holds a stance of weary cynicism. While the EU has repeatedly stated it welcomes closer relations if the UK commits to that path, the sector-specific talks Starmer’s government has pursued so far remain extremely limited. The only active negotiations focus on three areas: a food and drink safety agreement (known as SPS), a carbon emissions trading pact, and a youth mobility scheme that Starmer now touts as a major initiative for underprivileged British youth. Even that proposal, however, was originally an EU demand led by Germany that the Labour government initially rejected. Analysts widely agree that none of these limited deals will deliver meaningful, broad-based growth to the UK economy, even if expanded to other small sectors such as electricity market integration.

The policy measures that could actually move the needle economically – joining the EU single market or forming a full customs union to eliminate most trade barriers – remain off the table for now, bound by Starmer’s pre-election “red lines” that rule out accepting free movement of workers, a non-negotiable requirement for full single market access. When pressed by journalists on whether these red lines might be dropped ahead of the next general election scheduled for 2029, Starmer declined to give a direct answer, sparking speculation of a potential policy shift. But the long timeline to the next election has left Brussels frustrated with the government’s vague positioning.

One senior EU diplomat from a traditionally UK-friendly member state summed up the widespread European view: “For the last two years since Labour won power, we have heard the same thing: we want a ‘reset’ with the EU after Brexit. But what is this famous reset? The words from UK ministers sound increasingly enthusiastic but the actual steps they take are baby steps. Probably because they know the closer you get back to us, the more we ask from you in return. Do their voters know that?”

To date, even modest steps toward closer cooperation have required the UK to accept EU terms, including the “pay to play” model for participation in EU programs. Rejoining the Horizon science research program, agreed by the previous Conservative government, costs the UK £2.2 billion annually, though proponents note British researchers have emerged as leading beneficiaries after two years of membership. In the ongoing sectoral talks, Starmer’s government has also had to agree to align with current and future EU regulations on relevant issues – a compromise that has already drawn fire from eurosceptic opponents. Nigel Farage’s Reform Party, which saw strong gains in last week’s local elections, has accused Labour of quietly reversing Brexit through incremental regulatory alignment. This alignment also complicates the UK’s long-held goal of reaching a comprehensive free trade agreement with the United States, as closer alignment with EU rules narrows the room for negotiating a separate deal that meets U.S. demands.

Reform’s strong performance in last week’s local elections has not gone unnoticed in Brussels. Farage, who spent more than 20 years as a Member of the European Parliament campaigning for Brexit, is a well-known and controversial figure across the EU. While the EU will continue negotiating with the current Labour government, insiders say the European Commission is considering adding penalty clauses to future agreements, which would require the UK to pay compensation if a future eurosceptic government withdraws from existing cooperation deals.

UK Minister for EU Relations Nick Thomas-Symonds has defended the government’s approach, saying Labour is pursuing a “ruthlessly pragmatic” and “ambitious” strategy that will never accept deals that conflict with UK national interests. But with the public increasingly divided over Brexit a decade on, and a rising eurosceptic opposition gaining traction, Starmer’s push to reset relations with the EU remains mired in vagueness – leaving both British voters and European leaders waiting for concrete action.

BRUSSELS — After years of gridlock and mounting public anger fueled by the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, the 27-member European Union has struck a historic unanimous political deal to impose fresh sanctions on senior Hamas leaders and extremist actors within the Israeli settler movement, top EU diplomatic officials confirmed Monday.

The breakthrough came during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in the Belgian capital, where EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas hailed the agreement as a long-overdue shift from stalemate to action. “Extremism and violence should carry consequences,” Kallas wrote in a social media statement following the vote. “It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery.”

While the bloc ultimately rejected bolder penalties pushed by a cohort of progressive European governments and has not yet published the full text of the new sanctions framework, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot outlined the scope of the agreed measures: sanctions will target top Hamas commanders, as well as leading figures and key organizations tied to the Israeli settler movement operating in the occupied West Bank.

“The European Union is sanctioning today the main Israeli organizations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonization of the West Bank, as well as their leaders,” Barrot wrote in his own social media post Monday. “These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay.”

Addressing the targeting of Hamas leaders, Barrot added: “It is sanctioning the main leaders of Hamas, responsible for the worst antisemitic massacre in our history since the Shoah during which 51 French people lost their lives, a terrorist movement that must imperatively be disarmed and excluded from any participation in the future of Palestine.”

The push for new sanctions against West Bank settler groups comes amid growing international alarm over a sharp surge in settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied territory. Palestinian authorities, human rights organizations and international monitors have repeatedly warned that routine attacks by settlers — including arson, property vandalism, the displacement of agricultural communities, and lethal violence against civilians — are worsening at an alarming rate. Data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs shows that at least 40 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of 2026, with a record 11 of those deaths at the hands of Israeli settlers — two more fatalities than were recorded in all of 2025.

Diplomatic analysts widely attribute the sudden breakthrough on sanctions to the recent electoral ouster of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who stepped down last month after 16 consecutive years in power. A steadfast ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Orbán had single-handedly blocked all previous EU attempts to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers for years, leaving the bloc unable to act despite widespread support among other member states.

Orbán was defeated in April’s general election by opposition leader Péter Magyar, who was sworn in as Hungary’s new prime minister just days before Monday’s vote. Martin Konečný, head of the Brussels-based European Middle East Project, noted that the successful approval of the sanctions package confirms long-held assessments that Orbán was the sole barrier to action. “This validates the notion that Orbán was blocking them single-handedly,” Konečný said.

Many foreign policy observers say the new sanctions could mark a pivotal shift in the EU’s long-standing approach to Israel. For months, a growing bloc of European governments led by Spain, Ireland and the Netherlands has pushed for punitive measures over the Israeli government’s military campaign in Gaza, as well as its expanding settlement activity and rising violence in the West Bank, and escalating cross-border conflicts in Lebanon, Syria and Iran.

Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel summed up the growing pressure to act: “You can’t just turn a blind eye.”

Even with the historic agreement, the EU fell short of adopting the more sweeping measures that many activists and progressive governments had called for. Diplomats failed to reach consensus on harsher economic measures, such as a bloc-wide ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank or the suspension of a key bilateral trade agreement between the EU and Israel.

Hugh Lovatt, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, criticized the bloc’s limited scope of action. “There’s so much that you can and should be doing, and so to get stuck in this question of adding a few more settlers is missing the big picture,” Lovatt said. “The EU’s narrowed the scope of action now to individuals and to a few entities, and in doing that it’s ignoring the far more systemic issues at play.”

Claudio Francavilla, associate EU director at Human Rights Watch, called the sanctions a tentative step forward but said far more action is required to bring the bloc into compliance with international law. The measures are “a step in the right direction, but so many more needed for the EU to comply with international law,” Francavilla said.

Italy, one of the more prominent EU member states skeptical of harsher measures, has already signaled it is not ready to back a French-Swedish proposal that would cut West Bank settlers off from EU markets. Ahead of Monday’s meeting, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said his government needed additional time to review the plan, withholding its support despite growing public pressure across the continent for tougher action.

Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen noted that individual EU member states retain the right to implement national bans on settlement goods if bloc-wide negotiations stall in Brussels. The next meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, scheduled for later this May, will focus specifically on trade policy related to the region.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno pushed for swift action on broader measures in comments to reporters in Brussels Monday. “We have been talking about measures for too long,” he said. “Let’s move on to a vote and stop saying that there is no qualified majority for it. Let’s see how many of us are in agreement and who is not.”

After more than three years in one of the most contentious positions in Balkan politics, Christian Schmidt, the international High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, has formally announced he will step down from his role, ending a tenure marked by persistent confrontation with ethno-separatist leaders and growing geopolitical friction.

Schmidt, who took up the post in 2021, leaves behind a role that has been central to Bosnia’s post-conflict stability since the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement. That landmark accord, which brought an end to three years of devastating ethnic conflict that tore the country apart, established the Office of the High Representative (OHR) as a UN-mandated watchdog tasked with upholding the terms of the peace deal. Endowed with sweeping executive authority known as the Bonn Powers, the post holder can intervene to override domestic legislation and remove fractious ethno-political leaders from office to preserve the country’s territorial integrity.

Early high-profile office holders like Paddy Ashdown, who held the role in the early 2000s, embraced these expansive powers, famously removing 60 Bosnian-Serb officials from office in a single 2004 day over their refusal to cooperate with the UN’s war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The move earned Ashdown the unflattering moniker the “Viceroy of Bosnia”, and later office holders adopted a far more restrained approach, pushing for Bosnian leaders to take ownership of domestic affairs. This hands-off strategy ultimately yielded limited progress, however, paving the way for Schmidt to take a far more activist approach when he assumed the role.

Schmidt’s tenure was defined almost entirely by his standoff with Milorad Dodik, the powerful Bosnian-Serb leader who has long pushed for separatist secession from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Schmidt repeatedly used his Bonn Powers to block laws advanced by Dodik that would have advanced separatist goals, a confrontation that ultimately resulted in a one-year prison sentence and six-year ban from public office for Dodik. But the conflict ultimately eroded Schmidt’s own position: after Dodik spent heavily on high-powered Washington lobbying, the U.S. reversed its long-standing sanctions on the Bosnian-Serb leader. Observers have linked this policy shift to Dodik’s decision to award a major trans-Balkan gas pipeline contract to a little-known U.S. firm with close ties to former President Donald Trump’s family, a project that Schmidt openly opposed.

Beyond his standoff with Dodik, Schmidt’s appointment was never formally recognized by Russia from the start. With the loss of U.S. backing, his position became untenable, leading to his personal decision to end his service supporting peace implementation in Bosnia, as confirmed by his office.

Schmidt has confirmed he will remain in post until a successor is appointed, but the future of the OHR itself is now in serious question. Russia has long aligned with Dodik in calls to shut down the office entirely. If the U.S. now joins Russia in supporting closure, Bosnia will lose the only international check on ethno-nationalist separatist ambitions, leaving the country’s future stability and territorial integrity deeply uncertain.

In a dramatic development that has triggered a cross-border legal probe and raised questions of potential diplomatic friction, former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro — a top figure in Poland’s nationalist conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government that ruled from 2015 to 2023 — has announced he traveled from Hungary, where he held asylum, to the United States. Polish prosecutors confirmed Monday they are now probing whether any third parties helped Ziobro evade the criminal charges he faces in his home country.

Ziobro, a central architect of the PiS administration’s controversial overhaul of Poland’s judiciary, has been wanted by Polish authorities since last year for allegations of abuse of power. Under his leadership, the PiS government installed ideologically aligned judges to secure political control over Poland’s highest courts, and targeted judicial critics with disciplinary punishments and unwanted geographic reassignments, moves that drew widespread international criticism over democratic backsliding.

In January, Ziobro confirmed he had been granted political asylum in Hungary, then led by long-time nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a close ideological ally of the PiS movement. His unexpected move to the U.S. was made public on Sunday, in an interview with Polish right-wing media outlet Republika — timed on the exact same day that Orbán’s elected successor, Péter Magyar, was sworn into office in Budapest following an upset election victory last month that ended Orbán’s 16-year tenure. According to Polish state news agency PAP, Ziobro stated he used travel documentation issued to him as part of his asylum status in Hungary to enter the U.S.

The charges against Ziobro date back to October 2023, when Polish prosecutors requested that his parliamentary immunity be stripped to allow formal charges to proceed. Prosecutors accuse Ziobro of misappropriating funds from a public state fund established for victims of violence, including diverting money to purchase Israeli Pegasus spyware. Tusk’s governing Civic Coalition has repeatedly accused the former PiS administration of using Pegasus to conduct illegal surveillance on political opponents ahead of the 2020 parliamentary election. Ziobro has consistently denied all wrongdoing, maintaining every action he took was fully legal under Polish law.

Poland’s new pro-European Union government, led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, took office in late 2023 on a pledge to roll back the judicial overhaul implemented by the PiS and restore the rule of law. To date, however, those efforts have been blocked by two consecutive Polish presidents affiliated with the nationalist right, leaving the reform process deadlocked.

On Monday, Poland’s national prosecutor’s office announced via social media that it has opened a new investigation into Ziobro’s sudden departure, focused on identifying any individuals who may have aided his flight and helped him avoid standing trial on existing charges, which would constitute obstruction of the ongoing inquiry into the management of the national justice fund.

Current Polish Justice Minister Waldemar Żurek confirmed via a post on X Sunday evening that Polish authorities had already invalidated all of Ziobro’s Polish-issued travel documents, including his diplomatic passport, before his international travel. He added that Poland will formally request clarification from both the U.S. and Hungary on the legal basis that allowed Ziobro to exit Hungarian territory and enter the United States.

The cross-border movement has opened the door to potential political tension between Warsaw and Washington, but Polish officials have moved quickly to downplay that risk. “We don’t want this issue to become political,” Polish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maciej Wewiór told the Associated Press in an interview. “Our relationship with the U.S. goes much deeper than what happens with Ziobro. But we do want our citizen to eventually return to Poland and face justice.”

The 72-hour ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine negotiated by the United States expired on Monday amid mutual accusations of breaches, leaving Western powers scrambling to map out a path toward new diplomatic negotiations to end the more than four-year-old conflict. This truce, announced by former U.S. President Donald Trump late last week, was framed as a gesture to mark Russia’s Victory Day holiday commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, and was also paired with a proposed prisoner swap of 1,000 detainees from each side. Trump had even hailed the temporary pause in fighting as the potential “beginning of the end” of the full-scale invasion that began in 2022.

Even before the truce reached its expiration deadline, both warring parties had already levied widespread claims of violations against one another. Ukrainian officials confirmed on Monday that Russian strikes using drones, aerial bombs and heavy artillery hit populated civilian areas in northeastern Kharkiv and southern Kherson, leaving at least two civilians dead and seven more injured. For its part, Russia’s Defense Ministry released a claim Sunday that Kyiv had violated the truce more than 1,000 times, according to Russian state media reports.

Independent analysis from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which draws on NASA satellite observation data, found that while large-scale military activity dropped slightly after the ceasefire took effect, fighting never fully halted across the front line. In an assessment published late Sunday, the think tank cautioned that ceasefires lack durability without three core components: clear enforcement rules, independent credible monitoring systems, and formal structured processes to resolve disputes. This collapse follows a pattern of similar temporary truces that have failed to end sustained fighting since Russia’s full-scale invasion, as well as a year of U.S.-led diplomatic efforts that have yielded no tangible progress toward a lasting peace.

Despite the tentative prisoner swap plans announced alongside the ceasefire, neither side has shown any willingness to compromise on their core negotiating demands. Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to insist on full Russian control of Ukraine’s Donbas region, the country’s major industrial heartland that Russian forces have yet to fully capture, a non-negotiable demand that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected outright. While Zelenskyy has offered to hold direct face-to-face peace talks with Putin, the Russian leader has refused to meet until a final negotiated settlement is nearly complete, creating a stalemate that has persisted for months.

Over the weekend, Putin floated the idea of former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder—who has long-standing close business ties to Russia—serving as an independent mediator, but the proposal was immediately dismissed by German and European officials. The move comes as European Union officials acknowledge that their own peace efforts have been largely sidelined by U.S. leadership over the past year, but the bloc is now moving to take a more prominent role in diplomatic processes. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas emphasized that the bloc must first align on its core objectives before entering any formal discussions with the Kremlin, telling reporters in Brussels that “Before we discuss with Russia, we should discuss amongst ourselves what we want to talk to them about.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha joined EU foreign ministers for their Brussels meeting, and backed a continued dual-track approach to diplomacy. “We have mainstream peace talks under the leadership of the U.S., and we need this track and we need U.S. leadership. But Europe could play also its role,” he said. Sybiha also highlighted shifting battlefield dynamics, noting that Ukraine has strengthened its position in recent months, slowing Russia’s gradual advance into Ukrainian territory to a costly, slow-moving campaign across the 1,250-kilometer front line. Ukraine has also leveraged domestically produced long-range drones and missiles to strike military targets deep inside Russian territory, he added, saying “We have a new reality on the battlefield … Ukraine became stronger after the most difficult winter.”

On the sidelines of diplomatic talks, a separate incident linked to the war has sparked political upheaval in the Baltic state of Latvia. Investigations into recent stray drone incidents on Latvian territory concluded that Russian electronic warfare systems deliberately diverted Ukrainian drones that had been targeting sites inside Russia, pulling them off course into Latvian airspace. On Sunday, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina ordered Defense Minister Andris Sprūds to resign over the incident, saying he had lost her trust after the incident “clearly demonstrated that the political leadership of the defense sector has failed to fulfill its promise of safe skies over our country.” Sprūds complied with the order, framing the ouster as an internal domestic political dispute.

Sybiha confirmed he had spoken with Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braže about the incident, and reaffirmed Ukraine’s commitment to collaborating with Baltic states and Finland to prevent similar stray drone incursions in the future. He offered to deploy Ukrainian technical specialists directly to assist with prevention efforts. Latvia is not the only European country to report such incidents in recent weeks; Estonia, Poland and Romania have all also documented stray drones landing on their territory in recent months.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius became the latest senior European official to visit Kyiv on Monday, arriving for an unannounced trip focused on expanding bilateral defense cooperation between Germany and Ukraine. Western leaders have continued to reiterate their commitment to supporting Ukraine’s military capabilities amid the ongoing stalemate on the front lines.