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Irish Donoho urges Brexit negotiators to redouble efforts

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Irish Donoho urges Brexit negotiators to redouble efforts

Irish Finance Minister Pashal Donoho said Brexit negotiating teams must redouble their “creativity and commitment” to reach an agreement before the end of the year with officials and governments currently concerned about the coronavirus pandemic.

Donoho told CNBC on Friday that the importance of the EU-UK talks has been heightened as the global economy has been gripped by Covid-19-related events in the past few months.

“It’s so important that we all redouble our efforts and redouble our creativity and dedication to see if a path can be found for an agreement, because the impact of a very, very tough Brexit on all participants in global trade will of course only intensify if we we are already dealing with the consequences of Covid-19, ”he said.

Talks met another setback last week after Ireland’s European Commissioner Phil Hogan, in charge of trade, resigned in the wake of the Golfgate scandal. This means that the EU negotiating team will undergo changes in the coming crisis weeks.

Donoho said negotiations will continue under the leadership of chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier as December 31 approaches, despite the recent turmoil.

“The European Commission will continue to have a very strong team and between Mr Barnier, the Commission and the new Commissioner, whoever he is, I am confident that the Commission’s work will continue at a very high level, which it did under Commissioner Hogan.” …

‘Golfgate’

This couple of weeks has been a tough one for the Irish government with Golfgate, a controversy over a dinner hosted by the Parliamentary Golf Society at a hotel in early August that sparked public outrage. More than 80 people from government and industry gathered for lunch the same week that some of the Covid-19 restrictions were reintroduced to the public.

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Like Hogan, Irish Agriculture Minister Dara Kalliri resigned after news broke that he attended.

Following Hogan’s departure, Ireland is now under pressure to present two candidates for the EU commissioner, with several names circling around as possible elections. But doubts remain as to whether this person will keep the trading portfolio.

Irish Finance Minister Pashal Donoho at the World Economic Forum Annual Conference in Davos, Switzerland, 26 January 2018.

Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive branch, said she wants her candidates for the position to be represented by one man and one woman as part of her efforts to create a gender-balanced Commission.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who was a familiar face in the Brexit negotiations, and Mairead McGuinness, Member and Vice President of the European Parliament, are the names advertised for the role.

Internal calls

Closer to home, Donoho is facing growing challenges as the economy reboots as average daily infections have increased, leading to re-imposition of some restrictions.

The wage subsidy scheme takes effect this week. This is an updated version of the temporary payroll subsidy scheme that covered the payroll of some employers to prevent job losses and was introduced in March when the pandemic began. According to the country’s tax office, this scheme cost the state more than 2.7 billion euros.

Many areas of the Irish economy reopened in the summer, but others are still in trouble. Pubs that do not serve food were due to reopen on August 31 after a series of delays in the quarantine easing schedule, but tax collectors hopes were shattered again

See also  UK economy: Following a pandemic, millions of homeworkers may never return to the office.

Industry group for pubs noted problems with the new wage subsidy scheme, stating that this would exclude some part-time employees and that it would make it impossible to reopen some pubs if they were unable to retain those staff.

On Friday, the government announced an additional € 16 million pub support package, but industry groups dismissed it as a “paltry gesture.”

These are all the challenges Donoho will have to face as he scrutinizes the ledgers ahead of the October budget statement, which analyzes the measures announced in the July stimulus package and charts the way forward.

International taxation pressures also persist. Donoho said that negotiations for an agreement are still possible. OECD-level digital tax could rise again in 2020

“I expect this process to resume later this year, and while I think some agreement is possible in 2020, I think it is more likely that some of this work will be completed initially. next year, “he said.

Any change in the taxation of large tech companies will affect Ireland, which is home to many regional bases for large tech companies.

“I think we should all try to find ways to make progress on tax issues without exacerbating existing trade difficulties,” he added.

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Vladimir Putin has delayed the invasion of Ukraine at least three times.

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Putin has repeatedly consulted with Russian Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov and Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu about the invasion, Europa Press told Ukraine’s chief intelligence director Vadim Skibitsky.

According to Skibitsky, it was the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), which is responsible for counterintelligence and espionage work, that put pressure on Gerasimov and other military agencies to agree to launch an offensive. .

However, according to the Ukrainian intelligence services, the FSB considered that by the end of February sufficient preparations had already been made to guarantee the success of the Russian Armed Forces in a lightning invasion.

However, according to Kyiv, the Russian General Staff provided the Russian troops with supplies and ammunition for only three days, hoping that the offensive would be swift and immediately successful.

The head of Ukrainian intelligence also emphasized the cooperation of local residents, who always provided the Ukrainian authorities with up-to-date information about the Russian army, such as the number of soldiers or the exact location of troops.

The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).

At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.

The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.

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Life sentence for former Swedish official for spying for Russia

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A Stockholm court on Monday sentenced a former Swedish intelligence officer to life in prison for spying for Russia, and his brother to at least 12 years in prison. In what is considered one of the most serious cases in Swedish counterintelligence history, much of the trial took place behind closed doors in the name of national security.

According to the prosecution, it was Russian military intelligence, the GRU, who took advantage of the information provided by the two brothers between 2011 and their arrest at the end of 2021.

Peyman Kia, 42, has held many senior positions in the Swedish security apparatus, including the army and his country’s intelligence services (Säpo). His younger brother, Payam, 35, is accused of “participating in the planning” of the plot and of “managing contacts with Russia and the GRU, including passing on information and receiving financial rewards.”

Both men deny the charges, and their lawyers have demanded an acquittal on charges of “aggravated espionage,” according to the Swedish news agency TT.

The trial coincides with another case of alleged Russian espionage, with the arrest of the Russian-born couple in late November in a suburb of Stockholm by a police team arriving at dawn in a Blackhawk helicopter.

Research website Bellingcat identified them as Sergei Skvortsov and Elena Kulkova. The couple allegedly acted as sleeper agents for Moscow, having moved to Sweden in the late 1990s.

According to Swedish press reports, the couple ran companies specializing in the import and export of electronic components and industrial technology.

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The man was again detained at the end of November for “illegal intelligence activities.” His partner, suspected of being an accomplice, has been released but remains under investigation.

According to Swedish authorities, the arrests are not related to the trial of the Kia brothers.

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Ukraine admitted that Russia may announce a general mobilization

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“They can strengthen their positions. We understand that this can happen. At the same time, we do not rule out that they will announce a general mobilization,” Danilov said in an interview with the Ukrainska Pravda online publication.

Danilov believed that this mobilization would also be convened “to exterminate as many as possible” of Russian citizens, so that “they would no longer have any problems on their territory.”

In this sense, Danilov also reminded that Russia has not given up on securing control over Kyiv or the idea of ​​the complete “destruction” of Ukraine. “We have to be ready for anything,” he said.

“I want everyone to understand that [os russos] they have not given up on the idea of ​​destroying our nation. If they don’t have Kyiv in their hands, they won’t have anything in their hands, we must understand this,” continued Danilov, who also did not rule out that a new Russian offensive would come from “Belarus and other territories.” .

As such, Danilov praised the decision of many of its residents who chose to stay in the Ukrainian capital when the war broke out in order to defend the city.

“They expected that there would be panic, that people would run, that there would be nothing to protect Kyiv,” he added, referring to President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The military offensive launched on February 24 by Russia in Ukraine caused at least 6.5 million internally displaced persons and more than 7.8 million refugees to European countries, which is why the UN classifies this migration crisis as the worst in Europe since World War II (1939-1945). gg.). ).

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At the moment, 17.7 million Ukrainians are in need of humanitarian assistance, and 9.3 million are in need of food aid and housing.

The Russian invasion, justified by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the need to “denazify” and demilitarize Ukraine for Russia’s security, was condemned by the international community at large, which responded by sending weapons to Ukraine and imposing political and economic sanctions on Russia.

The UN has presented as confirmed 6,755 civilian deaths and 10,607 wounded since the beginning of the war, stressing that these figures are much lower than the real ones.

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