Europe at a glance NEWS 7
9 April 2022 THE WEEKParis
The election race:
With the first
round of the
presidential
election due this
weekend, polls
show Marine Le
Pen, leader of the
far-right National
Rally party,
drawing closer to
President Macron.
Macron’s lead, bolstered by his handling of
the Ukraine war, seemed unassailable, but
polls now suggest Le Pen can expect 47%
of the vote should she and Macron reach
the second round on 24 April, as expected.
As a third of the electorate has yet to
decide which way to vote, the race is too
close to call. Le Pen’s growing popu larity is
thought to be due to her party’s switch in
focus from its traditional preoccupation
with immigration to the cost of living and
other problems facing France’s poor.
Minsk
Rail lines cut: Dissidents in Belarus are
reportedly sabotaging key railway lines
running across the country from Russia
in an attempt to cut supplies to Russian
forces in Ukraine. The so-called “railway
rebels” have destroyed signalling systems
and set fire to huge logs laid across
sections of track, prompting a Ukrainian
military spokesman to hail the work of the
“oppos ition forces and caring citizens” of
Belarus and their almost daily attacks on
the network. The Belarus authorities have
responded by arresting at least 52 people,
including more than 30 railway workers.
Alone in Europe, Belarus has directly
supported the invasion of Ukraine, letting
its territory be used as a launch pad for
Russian offensives around Kyiv.Rome
“Digital nomads” welcomed: Italy has
become the latest EU state to relax its
immigration rules and open its borders to
non-EU citizens willing and able to work
remotely from villages in Italy. Special
one-year visas will be on offer to “highly
qualified” workers who are either
freelancers or work for a company based
outside Italy. Many are likely to be British
citizens excluded from working in Europe
as a result of Brexit. Applicants will need
to show they meet a minimum income
threshold – yet to be set – and have health
insurance. Similar deals for “digital
nomads” have already been introduced in
a lengthening list of countries that includes
Hungary, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Germany,
France, Croatia, Estonia and Greece. The
aim is often to help local communities
blighted by the pandemic and to
compensate for lost tourist revenues.
Istanbul, Turkey
Khashoggi trial switched: To the outrage
of human rights activists, Turkey has
approved a request from Riyadh to have
the trial of 26 Saudi nationals charged
with the notorious murder of a journalist
in Istanbul trans ferred to Saudi Arabia.
The Saudis, who are accused of killing
Washington Post columnist Jamal
Khashoggi – had fled to Saudi Arabia after
the crime, but were being tried in Istanbul
in absentia. However, in a bid to improve
relations with Riyadh, Turkish justice
minister Bekir Bozdag says he will now
recommend the Istanbul court close its
trial, even though Amnesty International
insists that “justice cannot be delivered by
a Saudi court”. Khashoggi, who was killed
in Istanbul’s Saudi consulate in 2018, was
an outspoken critic of the Saudi royal
family. Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman, the country’s de facto ruler, is
widely suspected of ordering the murder.Warsaw
Nukes welcome: Poland’s deputy prime
minister, Jarosław Kaczynski, has enraged
Moscow by saying that his country “would
be open to” US nuclear missiles on its
territory. In an interview with Welt am
Sonntag, a German weekly, he went on
to say that in view of Russia’s “increasing
aggressiveness”, Warsaw would be pleased
to see the number of American troops
stationed in Europe raised by 50% to
150,000. Poland has taken in nearly 2.
million of the 4.2 million refugees thought
to have fled Ukraine. Meanwhile, Finland
has also provoked Russia by announcing
that in the next few weeks it could decide
to join Nato. Finnish prime minister Sanna
Marin said it was consid ering the move
as the Russian invasion of Ukraine had
changed Finland’s relations with Moscow
“irreversibly”. Russia has spoken of
“military and political consequences”
if Finland chooses to go ahead with
Nato membership.Catch up with daily news at theweek.co.uk
Budapest
Orbán’s triumph: Hungary’s populist leader Viktor Orbán this
week scored a landslide win to secure a fourth consecutive
term as PM. His nationalist Fidesz party trounced a six-party
opposition coalition to take two-thirds of seats in parliament.
The unexpected scale of his success suggests voters had not
been troubled by Budapest’s close ties with Moscow or its
worsening relations with the EU. “We won a victory so big
that you can probably see it from the Moon,” gloated Orbán.
“And you can certainly see it from Brussels.”
Europe’s longest-serving leader, Orbán has cultivated close
ties with Vladimir Putin over the past decade, and during his
campaign cast himself as a champion of peace bent on steering
Hungary clear of confrontation with Moscow. He has enraged Nato partners by
opposing tougher energy sanctions on Russia and refusing to let Western arms for
Ukraine transit across Hungary. And in his victory speech he listed Ukraine’s President
Zelensky, as well as EU bureaucrats, among the nation’s “opponents”. His domestic
opponents fear he will now entrench a reactionary agenda that includes restrictions on
the media and the constitutional cementing of one -party rule. Critics in Brussels are
already talking of cutting EU funds to Hungary should Orbán continue to undermine
the rule of law and establish what he likes to call an “illiberal democracy”.