cleric_splash

The EU may well receive Ukraine as a candidate for accession and then leave it to rot in the antechamber, just as happened with Turkey. Right now, the EU is structurally not equipped to deal with Ukraine.

Despite pro-Ukrainian virtue signalling at European summits and on social media, the tone is likely to change once member states are presented with the bill for Ukraine’s EU accession. Germany and the other net contributors to the union’s budget would have to bear the brunt of the cost – at a time when their own economic models are coming under strain. Would Poland and Hungary be happy to give up their current status as net recipients of funds from the EU budget for the sake of Ukraine? Would Italy agree to become an even larger net contributor?

As a country with 43 million inhabitants, Ukraine would displace Poland as the fifth-largest EU member, after Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Ukraine’s accession would dilute existing voting shares in the Council of Ministers, one of the two decision-making bodies of the EU.

I believe there is a solution. The EU could adopt a two-tier membership structure – a fortified eurozone at the centre and an outer group of members. Ukraine could join that second group. The frequently used word “associate member” would be too dismissive for what this would entail. A separation of the EU into inner and outer groupings would include the customs union, the single market, and structural and regional aid for everybody. If the core group assigned itself an autonomous fiscal union, it could raise funds, on the EU’s behalf, to finance Ukraine’s reconstruction. Ukraine, along with other countries in the outer group, would have full voting rights on all issues except the monetary and fiscal union, which would not include them. In turn, they would enjoy a higher degree of national sovereignty in economic policy.

I am not pretending that this would be easy to agree on. As long as people are under the delusion that the recovery fund can act as a blueprint for a common European fiscal policy, there will be no pressure in favour of a formal treaty change. But it is not possible for this delusion to persist forever. The cost of maintaining the status quo will eventually become apparent: it will be an EU that disappoints; an EU with a diminished global role; and an EU that does not include Ukraine.

Palestinian health ministry and Red Crescent said that one person was killed and four wounded by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Israeli forces have shot a Palestinian dead and injured at least four others – two in serious condition – in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian health ministry and the Red Crescent said.

The Palestinian health ministry said a person was shot dead before dawn on Thursday, as Palestinian fighters said they were confronting Israeli forces and settlers in the Nablus area, Reuters news agency reported.

At least four Palestinians sustained gunshot wounds and two were in serious condition, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in what it described as clashes with Israeli forces in the eastern part of Nablus, a northern occupied West Bank city that has been a traditional centre of Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

The Nablus battalion of the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad group, said its members were “fighting the occupation forces and groups of settlers who had stormed the area of Joseph’s Tomb,” referring to a shrine in the city that has seen repeated clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces.

Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the latest killing of a Palestinian, which follows the raid by Israeli forces earlier this month on the Jenin refugee camp – located about 41km (25 miles) away – that killed 12 Palestinians, injured approximately 100 others, caused thousands to flee, and inflicted widespread destruction on civilian infrastructure.

The Sub Labans lost their home of several decades after being forced out by Israel at the start of the month. Willem Marx recounts the story of the eviction, and the push to force Palestinians out.

Occupied East Jerusalem – In the darkness, just after 4:30am [01:30 GMT], police officers began to seal off the narrow sloping street, al-Khalidiyya Ascent, named for an illustrious family who had established a nearby public library.

Some of the officers positioned themselves in doorways opposite the designated building, equipped with Kevlar vests and truncheons, others in a row along the top of a stone step.

Despite the dim grey light, the soaring Dome of the Rock inside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound was still visible in the near distance, towering over the alleyway and the rooftops.

The police commander’s quiet signal was eventually given less than an hour later. After decades of conflict, debate and courtroom drama leading up to this finale, the speed of the eviction on July 11 was itself extraordinary.

A small team of officers entered through the cornflower blue metal door into the building’s cramped foyer.

They needed just a handful of seconds to break open the white wooden doorway of the Sub Laban family home for the past 70 years.

“It was very, very fast,” said Alma Shibolet, one of a small number of people who had been inside the cramped 60-square-metre (645-square-foot) apartment. “They just push the door, came storming in, like dozens of them, immediately.”

https://gitlab.com/redhat/centos-stream/rpms/iperf3/-/merge_requests/5