UK plotting to undermine Trump's Ukraine peace efforts - Russian intelligence

Comment: MI6 playbook for years...

------

RT

London is pushing for the EU to seize frozen Russian assets hoping to drag the conflict out "to the last Ukrainian," the SVR claims.

The UK is reportedly trying to convince the European Union to take control of frozen Russian assets, aiming to undermine US President Donald Trump's efforts to advance peace initiatives that could end the Ukraine conflict, according to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR).

After the launch of Russia's Special Military Operation in February of 2022, Kiev's Western backers froze approximately $300 billion in Russian sovereign assets, of which $246 billion has been immobilized by EU member states. Discussions concerning the frozen Russian assets intensified within the bloc in recent weeks after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed using the funds to back a "reparations loan" to Ukraine.

In a statement released on Tuesday, the SVR claimed that the UK's leadership was "desperately pushing for Brussels' decision to seize Russian assets." Aside from the clear goal of providing financial support to Kiev, London is also seeking to diminish US interest in facilitating any peace mediation between Ukraine and Russia, according to Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service.

The SVR concluded:

"The UK's endgame is to use Kiev against Russia without any obstacles, 'down to the last Ukrainian'. Although the former grandeur of Great Britain has long sunk to oblivion, appropriation and deceit are still the creed for so-called 'London gentlemen'."

Last week, EU member states voted to keep the Russian sovereign funds temporarily frozen. To push through the controversial agenda, the bloc's leadership had to invoke emergency powers to bypass the unanimity requirement.

Several member states, including Hungary, Slovakia, and Belgium, have raised objections. The latter is the seat of the Euroclear depositary, which holds the bulk of the frozen Russian assets. Brussels has expressed concern that it would be left in the lurch by the bloc in the face of Russian lawsuits.

Moscow has characterized any use of its immobilized funds as "theft." On Friday, the Bank of Russia announced that it was filing a lawsuit seeking compensation from Euroclear for damages stemming from its "inability to manage" the assets.

Late last month, the SVR similarly claimed that Britain was concocting a smear campaign aimed at damaging US President Trump's standing, with the aim of derailing his efforts to end the Ukraine conflict.

Poland, Slovakia, Hungary Defy EU By Keeping Bans On Ukraine Imports

ZeroHedge

 

A new European Union deal to liberalize trade with Ukraine took effect Wednesday, but Poland, Hungary and Slovakia are defying it, maintaining their protectionist bans on imports from the country. Their defiance comes amid mounting grievances over EU prioritization of the West's proxy war on Russia over the prosperity of EU member states and their citizens.

Approved on Oct 13, the new EU arrangement expands tariff-free Ukrainian access to European markets, replacing a temporary lowering of trade barriers adopted after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. "We believe (the agreement) is a stable, fair framework, that can be reliable both for the EU and for Ukraine, to ensure a gradual integration in our single market, while providing stable trade flows," said European Commission spokeswoman Ariana Podesta. The European Commission (EC) is the EU's principal executive branch.

Rebelling against the Brussels regime, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia say they will maintain the bans on agricultural imports from Ukraine they put in place in 2023. The three countries' bans were a reaction to a wartime glut of Ukrainian products, which resulted from Black Sea ports being disrupted by the war with Russia. The glut sank prices and hammered domestic producers.

 

Read more

Governments And Social Media Companies Are Collaborating To Censor Anyone That Would Dare To Question Mainstream Media Narratives

Michael Snyder
End of The American Dream

The era of free and unfettered speech on the Internet is rapidly ending.  All over the world, national governments are working very closely with social media companies to take control of “Internet news”.  Up until recently, the Internet really was a wonderful marketplace of ideas, and ordinary people like you and I were empowered to share information with one another like never before in human history.  But now the elite have seen the power that this can have, and they are cracking down hard.  The term “fake news” has come to mean any source that would dare to question the official narratives that are being fed to us from the mainstream media, and in reality the push to censor “fake news” is really just an all-out effort to eliminate independent thought.  Before the Internet, it was much easier for the elite to control the flow of information, and now they are taking unprecedented measures to control the flow of information in the digital age.

Just check out what is happening in France.  A proposed law would give authorities the power “to immediately halt the publication of information deemed to be false”…

Under the law, French authorities would be able to immediately halt the publication of information deemed to be false ahead of elections.
Social networks would have to introduce measures allowing users to flag up false reports, pass their data on such articles to authorities, and make public their efforts against fake news.
And the law would authorise the state to take foreign broadcasters off the air if they were attempting to destabilise France — a measure seemingly aimed at Russian state-backed outlet RT in particular.

New measures under consideration by the European Union as a whole are even more draconian.

According to a Breitbart report, all social media companies would be forced to use “content recognition technologies” to “monitor and control all uploads”…

The European Union (EU) is less than a month away from voting to introduce aggressive new online copyright laws and “widespread censorship” measures, which critics say could strangle new media websites and stifle satire and online meme culture.
Unelected European Commission bureaucrats have drafted legislation which detractors say could force online platforms to monitor and control all uploads to some platforms with “content recognition technologies”. They are also said to have proposed what has been termed a ‘link tax’, which could compel blogs and other websites to pay just to reference content.

To give you an idea of what that would look like in practice, all we have to do is to consider what is already happening over in China.

Internet censorship in China has already achieved legendary status, and the largest social media network in China has already blocked at least 500 million postings in the battle against “fake news”…

Read more

Europe Proposes "Restrictions On Payments In Cash"

Zero Hedge

Having discontinued its production of EUR500 banknotes, it appears Europe is charging towards the utopian dream of a cashless society. Just days after Davos' elites discussed why the world needs to "get rid of currency," the European Commission has introduced a proposal enforcing "restrictions on payments in cash."

With Rogoff, Stiglitz, Summers et al. all calling for the end of cash - because only terrorists and drug-dealers need cash (nothing at all to do with totalitarian control over a nation's wealth) - we are not surprised that this proposal from the European Commission (sanctuary of statism) would appear...

The Commission published on 2 February 2016 a Communication to the Council and the Parliament on an Action Plan to further step up the fight against the financing of terrorism (COM (2016) 50). The Action Plan builds on existing EU rules to adapt to new threats and aims at updating EU policies in line with international standards. In the context of the Commission's action to extent the scope of the Regulation on the controls of cash entering or leaving the Community, reference is made to the appropriateness to explore the relevance of potential upper limits to cash payments.

The Action Plan states that "Payments in cash are widely used in the financing of terrorist activities… In this context, the relevance of potential upper limits to cash payments could also be explored. Several Member States have in place prohibitions for cash payments above a specific threshold."

Read more

What DON'T they want you to know? Eurocrats now making record numbers of EU laws in SECRET

Express UK 

 

Brussels is shutting up shop and deliberating on an ever greater number of intrusive regulations away from the harsh light of public scrutiny, minimising opportunities for criticism and opposition. 

 

Dynamite figures uncovered by an EU observer investigation show that secret lawmaking is now at its joint highest level ever in the history of the bloc, raising serious questions over the health of European democracy. 

 

Campaigners and politicians today described the development as "astonishing" and said they were "alarmed" by the number of sweeping regulations being cooked up behind closed doors. 

 

The issue revolves around the numbers of Brussels bills, originating from the unelected EU Commission, which are being rushed through without lengthy debates in the EU Parliament.

Read More

The EU’s Architects: Nazis and Nazi Collaborators

Wayne Madsen
Strategic Culture

There is an old adage that pertains to the founding of the European Union «If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again». And for the Nazis and Nazi collaborators of the Second World War, viewing the post-war European death and destruction brought about by Adolf Hitler and his «Third Reich» alliance of Italian fascists, French Vichy, and others, the immediate decision was to «try again» with a European Union that would establish the same European super-state envisaged by Hitler but with a decidedly «democratic» aura.

What eventually became the EU, the European Coal and Steel Community, was formed by six Western European countries in 1951. The organization was the brainchild of Robert Schuman, a French politician who swore allegiance to Marshal Philippe Petain, the French Vichy leader and ally of the mustachioed German ex-corporal. Schuman was later stripped of his political rights for his collaboration with the hated German bosche. However, Free French commander, General Charles De Gaulle, restored Schuman’s full citizenship, after which the old Vichy collaborator set about to create a modified version of the Third Reich, the European Union. And to complement his «Fourth Reich-Lite», Schuman advocated a military alliance to give it muscle. It was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Schuman served as a post-war French foreign and prime minister. Schuman’s collaborators in his plan to create a federal Europe were fellow Frenchman and OSS/CIA asset Jean Monnet and German chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who, as pre-war mayor of Cologne and president of the Prussian State Council, provided the Nazis with various perks, including the right to fly Nazi flags from Cologne city flagpoles.

Read more

Europe rejects smart meters - Smart grid technology may not be needed

Diarmaid Williams
Power Engineering International

The transition to an intelligent electricity grid in Europe can take place without smart meters, according to industry players who spoke at the annual Eurelectric conference in Vilnius this week.

Euractiv reports that the news will embarrass the European Commission, which pushed a Europe-wide plan to roll out smart meters years ago.

More efficient means include quicker integration of renewables, the development of energy storage and energy demand response solutions, said the industry representatives.

The actual benefits of smart meters were also questioned at the conference, as several member states have done previously. Germany, for instance, has decided not to have a national roll-out plan at all, running counter to requirements laid out in EU legislation.

EU member states are required to implement smart meters under the 2009 Third Energy Package wherever it is cost-effective to do so, with the goal to replace 80% of electricity meters with smart meters by 2020.The 80% target applies to both households and commercial buildings, a Commission spokesperson confirmed. The EU executive will publish in the next one to two years a report on smart meters "in the context of our regular monitoring exercise of the progress of members states," the spokesperson said.

Progress had been sluggish across the bloc in installation of the equipment. And the countries that do have a commitment to smart meters, such as the UK, have run into hurdles in completing its roll-out because some meters would cease to work if a consumer decided to change energy supplier. Markus Merkel, a senior advisor to the management board of German distribution system operator (DSO) EWE, told the Eurelectric conference that "there isn't a positive business case" for smart meters in Germany.

Member states are expected to conduct their own cost-benefit analyses for their national smart meters roll-out plans, the official said.  


See also:  www.takebackyourpower.net/

The European Union prepares the ‘solidarity clause’ framework for military use against citizens

Stratrisks 

See also: EU prepares the ground for military use against the citizens

The EU creates a legal framework for Europe-wide deployment of police and military units . At the same time, the EU Commission is working intensively on the creation of a single EU police unit as well as an EU public prosecutor (more here ).
The use of the “European Gendarmerie Force” (EUROGENDFOR) is made ​​possible by the “solidarity clause” as Heise reported. At the unit, headquartered in Vicenza, Italy, all EU Member States are involved, the Gendarmerien, so police forces with military status are used. One of the founding countries of the EUROGENDFOR include Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and the Netherlands. We provide our services to the police unit of the EU, NATO or the UN.
“The ‘solidarity clause’ is redundant, since the EU already has mechanisms for mutual assistance in case of disasters. Secondly, the clause amplifies the course to a militarization of domestic politics, since upon request military can be used in another Member State. 

“On Tuesday, the representatives of the EU Member States in the Council adopted a decision on the so-called ‘solidarity clause’. Were a disaster or a loosely defined crisis to occur, the organs of the European Union would be obliged to assist using all the instruments at their disposal. This includes military resources”, warned Member of the Bundestag Andrej Hunko.

The proposal on ‘arrangements for the implementation by the Union of the Solidarity Clause’ was jointly presented by the Commission and the EU High Representative in 2012. A country can invoke the “solidarity clause” if a crisis “overwhelms its response capacities”. Mention is made of operational, policy and financial instruments and structures.

Andrej Hunko continued:

“The adoption at the General Affairs Council took place in secret: the point was not mentioned on the agenda of  the meeting. The press was not informed. Yet this is one of the most controversial clauses contained in the EU treaties. That is precisely the reason why agreement on the details of the solidarity clause was postponed to a later point at the time of the signature of the Lisbon Treaty.

The ‘solidarity clause’ boosts the role of the two intelligence-service-style EU situation centres. But it also creates the legal framework for deployment of the special police units of the ‘ATLAS network’ being developed by the Commission. From Germany, the GSG 9 is involved; last year this Federal Police Special Forces unit was able to head a large-scale ATLAS exercise encompassing several countries for the first time.

The ‘solidarity clause’ is superfluous, since the EU already has mechanisms for mutual assistance in disaster situations. At the same time, however, the clause strengthens the course towards militarisation of home-affairs policy, since military personnel can be sent to another Member State on request. I am concerned that this is about the home-affairs version of the Article 5 clause on mutual defence: it would apply in situations which ‘may have an adverse impact on people, the environment or property’. Even politically motivated blockades in the areas of energy and transport and general strikes are covered.

The text explicitly refers to crises which originate outside the territory of the Member States. The Left Party parliamentary group rejects this blurring of the lines between internal and external security. Instead of militarisation of home-affairs policy through the deployment of military forces inside other Member States, we need reinforcement of the civilian mechanisms of solidarity within the EU.”

Press release of 24 June 2014 by the General Affairs Council:http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/genaff/143353.pdf

Corruption across EU 'breathtaking' - EU Commission

Comment: "breathtakingly" obvious?

-------------------

BBC News

The extent of corruption in Europe is "breathtaking" and it costs the EU economy about 120bn euros (£99bn) annually, the European Commission says. EU Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem will present a full report on the problem at 11:30 GMT. 

Writing in Sweden's Goeteborgs-Posten daily, she said corruption was eroding trust in democracy and draining resources from the legal economy. For the report the Commission studied corruption in all 28 EU member states. 

"The extent of the problem in Europe is breathtaking, although Sweden is among the countries with the least problems," Ms Malmstroem wrote. 

The Commission says it is the first time it has produced such a report. It also makes recommendations on how to tackle corruption. National governments, rather than EU institutions, are chiefly responsible for fighting corruption in the EU.

The EU has an anti-fraud agency, Olaf, which focuses on fraud and corruption affecting the EU budget, but it has limited resources. In 2011 its budget was just 23.5m euros.

Ms Malmstroem said that in some countries public procurement procedures were vulnerable to fraud, while in others party financing was the main problem, or municipal bodies were badly affected. And in some countries patients have to pay bribes in order to get adequate medical care, she wrote.

The EU study includes two major opinion polls, which indicated that three-quarters of EU citizens consider corruption to be widespread in their country. Four out of 10 of the businesses surveyed described corruption as an obstacle to doing business in Europe. 

In Sweden, 18% of people surveyed said they knew someone who had received a bribe, compared with a European average of 12%, Ms Malmstroem said. Despite that finding, she said Sweden "is undoubtedly one of the countries with the least problems with corruption, and other EU countries should learn from Sweden's solutions for dealing with the problem", pointing to the role of laws on transparency and openness.

Organised crime groups have sophisticated networks across Europe and the EU police agency Europol says there are at least 3,000 of them. Bulgaria, Romania and Italy are particular hotspots for organised crime gangs in the EU, but white-collar crimes like bribery and VAT (sales tax) fraud plague many EU countries. 

Last year Europol director Rob Wainwright said VAT fraud in the carbon credits market had cost the EU about 5bn euros.