European Union

Now that the country has been recaptured by the Taliban fighters, governments have to position themselves vis-à-vis the new de facto rulers. Opinions differ as to whether dialogue with them is possible, desirable or makes any sense.

Slovenian environmental NGOs have called on infrastructure minister Jernej Vrtovec to use the country's EU presidency to propose a political discussion on the bloc exiting the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) at an energy ministers' meeting in September.

Hamburg's privacy watchdog has issued an official warning to public authorities on using Zoom, advancing a strict interpretation of international data transfers under the EU's data regime.

Germany has announced plans to sell up to a quarter of its stake in Lufthansa, Deutsche Welle writes. The German finance agency said the move would take place in the coming weeks and cited positive development at the airline. The state's 20 percent stake was acquired for €300m. The federal government announced the 20 percent stake initially to help the airline mitigate the effects of the global pandemic.

The death toll in northern Turkey has risen to 70 in the wake of this month's devastating floods, the country's disaster management authority (AFAD) announced on Monday, Deutsche Welle reports. Torrential rains battered the country's northwestern Black Sea provinces on 4 August, causing flash floods that demolished homes and bridges, swept away cars, and blocked roads. Officials confirmed that rescuers recovered more bodies over the weekend.

In The Netherlands tension in the labour market is high as there are more vacancies than unemployed people, the Dutch broadcaster NOS reports. "This we haven't seen in 50 years," Peter Hein van Mulligen, chief economist of the Dutch Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS) said. For every 100 unemployed people, there are 106 open vacancies in the second quarter of 2021, which makes it hard for employers to find employees.

Two wildfires, fanned by strong winds, raged out of control near Athens on Monday, forcing the evacuation of villages, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, Reuters reports. More than 500 wildfires have broken out in recent weeks across Greece, which, like other countries in the Mediterranean region including Turkey and Tunisia, has seen some of its highest temperatures in decades.

Postal voting for Germany's federal election began on Monday, piling pressure on conservative chancellor candidate Armin Laschet (CDU) to reinvigorate his floundering campaign or else risk losing out to a left-leaning coalition, Reuters reports. Although polls show that the Bavarian leader, CSU politician Markus Söder, is still more popular than Laschet, Söder ruled out replacing Laschet, saying "the ballots are printed, the posters are pasted, it's been decided."

Poland's ambassador to Israel has been recalled until further notice, the foreign ministry said on Monday, in a further sign of the deteriorating relations between the countries after Warsaw introduced a law affecting World War Two property restitutions, Reuters writes. Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid on Saturday branded Poland's law "antisemitic and immoral". Lapid said the head of Israel's embassy in Warsaw was being called back immediately.

Several EU member states are worried that the Taliban takeover would trigger a replay of the 2015-16 migration crisis when the bloc has seen the arrival of over one million asylum seekers in a matter of months.

EU countries have resumed evacuations from Kabul airport, the last piece of allied-controlled territory in Afghanistan, as Taliban forces urged people to return to normal life.

The struggle for the survival of the Taliban's survival starts today. Afghanistan is a potential sink hole of instability. And we know what sinkholes do: they usually drag a much wider region down.

Thousands of people desperate to flee Afghanistan thronged Kabul's airport on Monday (16 August) after the Taliban seized the capital, prompting the United States to pause evacuations, as President Joe Biden confronted mounting criticism over the US withdrawal.

As violence in Libya has waned this year, the number of would-be migrants to Europe intercepted so far has doubled compared to the same period of 2020, experts say.