EU military forces? All squawk, no bite: Juncker
Brussels, May 7, 2015 (AFP) -- European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker called again Thursday for the bloc to build an army, saying a flock of hens posed more of a threat than its current military capabilities.
"A bunch of chickens looks like a combat formation compared to the foreign and security policy of the European Union," Juncker told a Brussels forum in typically lively language.
"I always call for a European army as a long-term project. It is not something you can build from scratch tomorrow morning," he said.
Juncker has consistently backed the idea that the EU's 28 member nations -- all no strangers to a bloody, war-torn past -- should accept a military arm, a need highlighted by the Ukraine crisis.
"A common army among the Europeans would convey to Russia that we are serious about defending the values of the European Union," he told Germany's Welt am Sonntag in March.
A joint EU force would also rationalise defence spending and drive further EU integration.
For many European Union states, however, defence is a no-go area, with Britain especially hostile to sacrificing what it sees as a core sovereign perogative to Brussels.
Britain also insists that NATO, the US-led military alliance set up to hold the Cold War line against the Soviet Union, should remain the focus of European defence efforts.
Juncker told the forum that considering the current fragmented state of EU military readiness, it was perfectly "right that central and eastern European countries put their trust primarily in NATO."
"The 28 armies are just not up to it," he added.
EU leaders are due to review the bloc's security policy at a June summit to take on board the threat posed by a more assertive Russia and turmoil across North Africa and the Middle East.
Analysts say it is unlikely to lead to radical changes in the current very limited joint military operations undertaken by the EU, such as the Atalanta anti-piracy mission off the Horn of Africa.
The U.S. envoy to Kyiv has been talking to RFE/RL. Our news desk has the details:
KYIV -- The U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, says Russia has to change its approach to the situation in Ukraine's east to make peace in the region possible.
Talking to RFE/RL in Kyiv on May 6, Pyatt said that Russia is supplying pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions with weapons, including "many of their tanks and missiles and antiaircraft systems."
Pyatt called the military conflict between Ukrainian armed forces and what the U.S. State Department considers combined Russian-separatist forces "a manufactured war."
"The people of Donbas," he said of the eastern Ukrainian region that is at the center of the fighting, "have been a target of an aggressive campaign of propaganda and misinformation."
"Russia's information war is very effective," Pyatt said, addressing reports by Russian state-run media that the U.S. and Kyiv are hindering the implementation of peace agreements. "The United States is not providing weapons to Ukraine. Of course, we support the peace process and the cease-fire."
Pyatt stressed that the United States supports Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and the peace plan by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. "We all want peace," Pyatt said. "Russia has to change its approach to make it happen."
He added, however, that there are indications that "Russia and the separatists are preparing to reignite the fighting."
"We know that Russia has maintained a very active training program for the so-called army of Novorossia ," the U.S. ambassador said, adding "And we know that Russia has moved its advanced surface-to-air missile systems very close to the contact line inside the Ukrainian territory."
Pyatt also recalled a recent statement by Aleksandr Zakharchenko, the leader of the separatists in Donetsk region, who told some media outlets that his main goal was to take control over the entire region.
"If that is his [Zakharchenko's] goal, he did not read the agreement or he does not remember the agreement that he signed in February in Minsk," Pyatt said to RFE/RL.
The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France signed a deal known as Minsk II in February which set out measures to stop the fighting in eastern Ukraine. The agreement included a cease-fire in the Donetsk region and sets out plans for Ukraine to grant limited self-governance to rebel-held territory there.
Here's a fairly chortlesome cartoon on the ongoing negotiations between Kyiv, the separatists, the OSCE, and Russia in Minsk:
Meanwhile, in Crimea (from RFE/RL's news desk):
SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine -- A high-ranking member of the Crimean Tatar assembly has begun a hunger strike at the facility where he awaits trial for allegedly organizing "mass disorder" ahead of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
Ahtem Ciygoz began his protest on May 6 after being placed in solitary confinement this week at the Simferopol facility, assembly first deputy chairman Nariman Celal told RFE/RL.
It it not known why Ciygoz was sent to solitary confinement.
Ciygoz is a deputy chairman of the assembly, or Mejlis. He was arrested in late January by Russian authorities for his alleged role in clashes with pro-Russian demonstrators in February 2014, a month prior to Moscow's annexation of Crimea.
He was charged with organizing deadly mass disorder in relation to the clashes, which took place outside the regional parliament building in the Crimean capital, Simferopol.
Ciygoz was placed in pretrial detention and that detention was subsequently extended until May 19.
Armed men in unmarked uniforms seized the parliament building on February 27, 2014, the day after the clashes in which two died. Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula after a March 16 referendum that was dismissed by Kyiv and the West as illegitimate.
Since January, several Crimean Tatar activists have been arrested for their roles in the clashes.
Eskender Bariyev of the Committee to Protect Crimean Tatars' Rights wrote on Facebook that activist Mustafa Degermenci was taken away on May 7 by a group of armed men in the village of Hrushivka.
According to Bariyev, Degermenci's parents were told that their son might be charged with taking part in the clashes outside the Crimean parliament.
In April, Crimea's Russian authorities arrested Eskender Nebiyev, a cameraman for a Crimean Tatar television channel that was shut down on April 1. Nebiyev was also arrested over the clashes outside parliament.
In March, Crimean Tatar activist Talyat Yunusov was arrested and charged with assaulting a man during the clashes.
Activists Iskender Kantemirov and Ali Asanov were earlier arrested in connection with the clashes.
Activists say Crimean Tatars have faced discrimination, pressure, and abuse for their opposition to the annexation.
Here's a tweet from Ukraine's ambassador to Poland, showing Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's plane arriving in Gdansk for commemorations marking the end of World War II. (He's not going to Moscow.):
It seems somebody painted the Ukrainian colors on a monument to the Red Army in Brno: