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By Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson. Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur K. Gunnarsdóttir is seeking a referendum on Iceland’s membership of the European Union on 29 August this year. She says now is the right moment, because our ties with the United States are loosening as President Donald Trump turns his back on Europe.

By international affairs specialist Glen Hodgson of Swedish think tank Free Trade Europa In the Taoist text The Liezi, attributed to Lie Yukou, it is said that to solve a problem, one must remove its cause, not merely treat its symptoms. This wisdom has unfortunately been ignored in the formulation of strategy for the European steel sector. Despite the fundamentally flawed premise, tougher steel safeguards in Europe were approved late on 13 April.

By Martin Patzelt, a former member of the German Bundestag. He was part of the German Parliament’s Human Rights Committee for two terms, where he also served, among other roles, as rapporteur on Iran. Europe stayed out of the recent confrontation between the United States and Iran. Yet the European Union remains a major stakeholder, for a simple and important reason: energy. Europe depends significantly on oil and gas produced in, or transported through, the Gulf region.

By Tim Andrews (Prohibitiondoesnotwork.com) A new report from Prohibition Does Not Work (PDNW) finds that the Netherlands’ vaping flavour prohibition has totally undermined any control over the market and failed to achieve its public health goals. Instituted in 2024 out of fear of a non-existent ‘youth gateway effect’, the ban has instead driven over half of consumers to a black market, provoking both a doubling in youth vaping, and increase in cigarette consumption.

By former Dutch MP and MEP Derk Jan Eppink In December 2010, former VVD leader and ex-European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein (picture) spoke his mind. In the book The Decline: Jews in a Rudderless Netherlands by Israeli Holocaust researcher Manfred Gerstenfeld, he stated that “self-aware Jews” needed to realize there was no future for them in the Netherlands, and that they would be best advised to encourage their children to emigrate to America or Israel. A major uproar ensued.

The Council of European Heads of State or Government wishes to reach an agreement on the long-term European budget by the end of this year. The intention is to negotiate this at the informal European summit in Cyprus on 23 and 24 April, and at the European summit in Brussels at the end of June. So far, discussions have mainly taken place at a technical level. The European Parliament also plans to approve an interim report with recommendations by the end of this month, or in May if necessary.

Greenpeace, one of the most well-known NGOs in the world, may be on the verge of bankruptcy, following a loss in a US Court case. Last month, a North Dakota judge ordered the NGO to pay 345 million dollars to Energy Transfer, the American company that built the Dakota Access Pipeline. The NGO was found guilty of defamation, sabotage, trespassing and deliberately interfering with the business operations of the company.

Copyright: Current file:Found by 475847394d347339 in websites noted in the source section.Previous fileVectorization: Mysid and uploaded to Flag of NATO.svgCode cleaned up by Artem Karimov., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons By Hannes Hólmsteinn Gissurarson. Professor Emeritus of Politics at the University of Iceland NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, was founded in 1949 to keep the Germans down, the Russians out, and the Americans in.

In an interview with Brussels Report, Matthew Robinson, Director of the Euro-Gulf Information Centre, comments the ongoing developments related to the war in Iran. The Euro-Gulf Information Centre is a think tank aiming to contribute to enhancing strategic, cultural, economic and political ties between Europe and the countries in the Gulf region.

At the end of March, the European Parliament approved the trade agreement concluded between the EU and the US last summer to stabilise their trade relationship following years of escalating trade tensions and US President Donald Trump’s tariff war. Under the agreement, the US agrees to a 15 per cent tariff cap on most European exports, in exchange for lower or zero import duties from the EU on certain US products.