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KASTANIES, Greece With tear gas clouding the air, thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe clashed with riot police officers on the Greek border with Turkey on Saturday morning, signaling a new and potentially volatile phase in the migration crisis.

The scene at Kastanies, a normally quiet Greek border checkpoint into Turkey, rapidly became a tense confrontation with the potential to worsen as dozens of Greek security officers and soldiers fired canisters of tear gas. Riot police officers with batons, shields and masks confronted the migrants through the wire, yelling at them to stay back.

About 4,000 migrants of various nationalities were pressed against the Turkish side of the border. An additional 500 or so people were trapped between two border posts, but still on the Turkish side, at the long and heavily militarized land border that has turned into the flash point of the tug of war between Turkey and Europe.

Some people had climbed onto the limbs of trees or were crouching against the thick loops of barbed wired placed on the ground by the Greek Army. They cheered, booed and screamed to be let through.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey declared on Saturday that he had opened his countrys borders for migrants to cross into Europe, saying that Turkey could no longer handle the numbers fleeing the war in Syria.

What did we do yesterday? he said in a televised speech in Istanbul. We opened the doors. His comments were his first to acknowledge what he had long threatened to do: push some of the millions of Syrian refugees and other migrants in Turkey toward Europe in order to cajole the European Union to heed Turkeys demands.

He accused European leaders of not keeping their promises to help Turkey bear the load of millions of Syrians.

Mr. Erdogan has also called for European support for his military operations against a Russian and Syrian offensive in northern Syria that has displaced at least a million more Syrians toward Turkeys border. He has also sought more support for the displaced and the 3.6 million Syrian refugees already in Turkey.

The migrants at the border had heeded Mr. Erdogans call and rushed to Turkeys borders with Europe, some on Friday taking free rides on buses organized by Turkish officials. But once at Europes doorstep, they were met with a violent crackdown.

Migrants were also heading by sea to the Turkish coast, from where they hope to reach Greek islands, facilitated by the Turkish authorities, but officials reported few arrivals Saturday, perhaps because of poor weather at sea.

The mini-exodus was live-streamed by Turkish state television in scenes reminiscent of the 2015 migrant crisis that Europe solved only with Turkeys help. Syrians shared information, some joking about the Turkish facilitation, suggesting they should publish the telephone numbers of people smugglers, too.

The International Organization for Migration, a United Nations agency, said that as many as 10,000 were making their way through Turkey to the northern land borders, in hopes of reaching Europe.

The Greek authorities said on Saturday that they had intercepted some 4,000 people attempting to cross at various spots of the 50-mile border overnight, and that only a few had been successful and made it to Greece.

The frontier is heavily militarized on both sides, and is closed off with barbed wire only for about seven miles. It runs through fields, valleys and forests, and is partly demarcated by the Evros River and its delta, where migrants have long died because of choppy waters.

Even if the Greek officials succeed in holding back the hundreds at the small border chokehold in Kastanies, it will be hard to secure the entire border as migrants become dispersed and try their luck farther afield.

Most on the front line of the confrontation at the Kastanies crossing were men, but children were heard screaming farther back, and women were hanging on the side of the group stuck between the Turkish and Greek officials.

The ground was strewn with empty Turkish tear-gas canisters, rocks and burned-out tree branches, and the Greek guards pledged a standoff for as long as it took into the cold night and beyond.

Greece came under an illegal, mass and orchestrated attempt to raze our borders and stood up protecting not only our frontiers, but those of Europe too, said Stelios Petsas, the Greek government spokesman. He added that 66 migrants had been arrested crossing the land border illegally, and none have anything to do with Idlib.

Our government is determined to do whatever it takes to protect our borders, he said.

Mr. Erdogans comments on Saturday came after Turkey suffered heavy losses from Russian or Syrian airstrikes in northwestern Syria on Thursday and as Turkey seeks American and European support for its Syrian operations. The death toll from the strikes has risen to 36, Mr. Erdogan said. More than 30 soldiers were wounded.

The Turkish leader has avoided accusing Russia directly of carrying out the airstrikes, and has spoken with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia by telephone. But he said Turkey was retaliating with strikes of its own, including on a Syrian chemical weapons site south of the city of Aleppo. Turkey has deployed thousands of troops in recent weeks into Idlib Province to try to stem the Russian-backed advance.

Mr. Erdogan is struggling to handle the growing crisis in Idlib, the last Syrian province held by the rebel forces his government has supported. Turkey has lost more than 50 soldiers in the past two months in Syria, which has angered many Turks, while domestic resentment toward Syrian refugees has grown amid an economic downturn.

The Turkish president called on Mr. Putin to get out of our way in Idlib and allow Turkey to push back Syrian forces to positions agreed upon under a 2018 de-escalation agreement.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff reported from Kastanies, Greece, and Carlotta Gall from Istanbul. Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.

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Erdogan Says, We Opened the Doors, and Clashes Erupt as Migrants Head for Europe - The New York Times

The European Union considers todays conclusion of the Afghanistan-U.S. Joint Statement for Peace and the settlement between the U.S and the Taliban as important first steps towards a comprehensive peace process, with intra-Afghan negotiations at its core. The current opportunity to move towards peace should not be missed. The European Union expects these Afghan-owned and Afghan-led negotiations to start without delay in an inclusive manner and aiming at a lasting peace that could create an environment of security and stability for all Afghans. The continuation of a reduction in violence and its expansion into a ceasefire constitute a necessary condition for trust between the negotiating parties.

The European Union stands ready to facilitate and support the peace process with the aim of preserving and building upon the political, economic and social achievements of the people of Afghanistan since 2001, which should be irreversible. The conflict needs a political solution in which human rights, including womens rights, are respected and common grievances are addressed. The European Union stresses the importance of an inclusive peace process with all political factions, where notably Afghan women and minorities as well as the civil society, are represented in a meaningful manner. Respect for the constitutional order and rule of law is paramount during the process.

In this crucial time, unity is essential to master the challenging tasks ahead and for the long-term future of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The European Union calls upon all actors to unite forces for the coming period. It is vital that all people of Afghanistan feel represented in the next government and in peace negotiations. This would help address grievances, including in the context of the recent electoral process, and promote reconciliation. The EU calls on all stakeholders to put the interests of the nation above all other considerations, as the collective responsibility of all Afghan political forces.

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Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the EU on current political developments in Afghanistan and the prospects for peace - EU News

The United Kingdom and the European Union have now formally laid down their opening positions for the high-stakes talks this year on their future economic relationship after Brexit. And while Britains stated refusal to swallow any of Europes demands for regulatory alignment and a level playing field grabs most of the headlines, a potentially bigger and even more imminent flash point looms elsewhere: Fish.

Since joining in the early 1970s what would eventually become the EU, Britain, like other European countries, has essentially had a shared approach to fisheries in British and European waters. And that has long been a sore point for British fishermen, who rightly note that European fishing vessels gained access to a lot more U.K. waters than the other way around and who chafe at what they see as Brusselss ham-handed management of fisheries, including annual quotas and rules that member states must abide by.

Since British membership in Europe happened to coincide with the near-collapse of the British fishing industry, Europe has become a scapegoat for that decline. Taking back control of British fisheries, like borders, regulation, and justice, became a central plank in the 2016 campaign for Brexitand the new government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has already laid out its plan for sovereign control of fisheries in legislation.

Britains negotiating position, published Thursday, calls for a comprehensive free trade agreement between the U.K. and the European Unionbut doesnt even include fisheries as part of that deal. Instead, as with security, law enforcement, and aviation, Britain sees a future fisheries agreement as something completely separate. The U.K. aims to cut off European fishing vessels access to British waters and negotiate any access and allowable catches on a yearly basis.

Europe, in stark contrast, sees fisheries as almost the keystone of any future economic agreement between the two. In its negotiating position, also published this week, Europe made clear that any talks on trade must start with a continuation of the current EU fishing arrangementwhere European vessels have open access to British waters and remain under the management of the Common Fisheries Policy Britain so despises, including annual quotas.

Fisheries are absolutely a big flash point, said Joe Owen, the Brexit program director at the Institute for Government, a think tank in London. The two sides have been squaring up on this for a long time.

More urgently, while the two sides ostensibly have until the end of the year to wrap up talks on their future trade relationship, Europe made clear that the fisheries question must be sorted by July 1 so that European fleets can plan for next years fishing quotas.

The clock is really tickingit has to be done by summer, said Michael Leigh, a senior fellow at Bruegel, a think tank in Brussels. The idea that December is the deadline is false as far as fisheries are concerned.

Its a bit odd that fish and fisheries could occupy such a central place in the all-important discussions about the future economic relationship between the U.K. and Europe. Its a vanishingly small industry in economic terms in both blocs, especially in the U.K., where it represents about 0.1 percent of GDP. In contrast, the EU accounts for roughly half of British imports and exports in the economy as a wholemaking the securing of a broad free trade agreement a lot more economically important than wresting control of coastal waters.

But fisheries have always been an emotive and politically sensitive issue, in both Britain and the Continent. Fishing states in the EU, such as Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, will likely have to sign off on whatever future economic agreement the two sides makewhich means Brussels has to secure continued access for European fishermen as part of any accord if it expects to ratify it.

In Britain, coastal fishing communities voted overwhelmingly for Brexiteven in Scotland, which on the whole roundly rejected the referendum to leave Europe. Many British fishermen who argue that joining Europe led to the decimation of their industry and see a golden opportunity to right that mistake now fear the government could throw fishing interests under the bus to secure a broader deal.

Its a hugely political and symbolic issue, even if its nowhere near as economically important as some other industriescommunities and constituencies are based around fishing, Owen said. And from the EU side, the same thing is true. The U.K. is a vital trading partnerwould they imperil that because of fishing communities in coastal states?

Britains fight with Europe over fish obviously didnt start with the EU or the Common Fisheries Policy. For centuries, access to the rich fishing waters off the British coast has been a bone of contention between England, Scotland, and Europeans like the Danes, Dutch, and French.

While England granted pretty free access to the Dutch and others to fish in British waters under Queen Elizabeth I, the growing power and wealth of the Dutch herring fleets angered many Britsespecially Scots, then and now the most reliant on the fishing industry. As the legal historian Douglas Johnston has noted, when Scotlands James VI took the throne of England as James I, he made that animosity to foreign fishing fleets state policy. In 1609, he laid claim to British fisheries and banned all foreign vesselsunless they got a license from the British crown, pretty much the same recipe for fishing access as envisioned in Boris Johnsons road map.

The British obsession with claiming ownership and sovereignty of its waters culminated in the legal theories of John Selden, who coined the closed sea school of maritime law to rebut Dutch rivals whod pioneered a legal vision of an open sea. That frontal confrontation between British and Continental visions of how to share European waters continued, with fishing a big part of the three Anglo-Dutch wars of the 17th century.

Access to fishing grounds has also colored the Anglo-French rivalry for centuries, with fishing rights an important part of peace treaties in 1763 and 1815. Both countries spent the rest of the 19th century trying to sort out fishing rights in the English Channeland still are, at times, with several scallop wars breaking out in recent years.

But Britains best-known fight over fish is probably the three cod wars with Iceland between the 1950s and 1970s. (There were actually 10 in all, going back centuries.) The showdown over the British fishing fleets access to rich cod waters off Iceland played out in repeated violent clashes over a period of decades and nearly pulled Iceland out of NATO and into the Soviet orbit. In the end, Britain lost most of its access to what had been a very lucrative fishing groundjust as the overall industry was entering a period of sharp decline and right as Britain joined Europe.

While British fishermen blame Europe and its fisheries policy for their economic decline, the problem isnt really in Brusselsbut in the water. Beginning in the late 19th century, steam trawlers began replacing small sailing vessels, making longer trips for further distances with ever more sophisticated gear to land ever larger hauls of bottom-dwelling fish like cod and haddock. The end result was massive overfishingand no matter how hard the British fleet worked, it could never catch as much fish as it did more than a century before.

For every unit of fishing power expended today, bottom trawlers land little more than one-seventeenth of the catches in the late nineteenth century, one scientific study concluded. The Common Fisheries Policy was not responsible for this collapse, although under its auspices most stocks have continued to decline.

But since the collapse coincided with European membership and common fisheries management, fishing communities tended to blame quotas and European ships. Thats one reason coastal communities were vocal proponents of the Leave campaign and are still pressuring the Johnson government to seize the chance to reclaim British control over fisheries.

Theres no doubt that British fishermen view Brexit as the occasion to try and expel European fishing vessels from U.K. waters, Leigh said.

Its not even clear that British plans to do so would prevail. Under international law, nations can lay claim to historic fishing rightswhich would likely give European fleets at least some access to waters that they have plied for decades or even centuries.

And for the British fishing industry as a whole, there is a bigger question looming in the talks with Europe. Britain by and large doesnt eat what its fishing fleet catches, exporting most of the fish to Europe. What Brits like to eat, in contrast, is mostly landed by European fleets.

While the British negotiating plan blithely assumes that it can keep free trade in fish while barring European fleets, thats unlikely to work, Owen noted. Continued tariff-free access to Europe for that exported British fish will depend on first reaching an agreement over fishing access in the first place.

Most observers expect that fish and fisheries will ultimately become a bargaining chip in this years talks.

Europe hopes that if Britain is forced to ask for an extensioneven though the Johnson government has been absolutely adamant that talks will be done by December or not at allit can squeeze out fishing concessions from London as the price of more time. Britain wants to use fishing access, which is simply a must-have for many coastal states in the EU, as a lever to secure continued privileges for hugely important economic sectors, like trade in goods or financial services.

But what if the chip never gets bargained away but becomes the game itself?

The risk is, rather than working to get to the middle ground, because it is such a politically totemic issue for certain constituencies on both sides, you end up with very hard-line positions and end up with a bust-up over fish, Owen said. Something that has relatively small economic value could end up preventing a much bigger deal.

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Fisheries Are Small but Will Play Huge Role in UK-EU Talks - Foreign Policy

FILE PHOTO: The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics center in Lauwin-Planque, northern France, December 30, 2019. Picture taken December 30, 2019. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Amazon (AMZN.O) will on Thursday seek to overturn an EU order to repay about 250 million euros ($277 million) in back taxes to Luxembourg at Europes second-highest court, one of a series of high-profile cases marking the blocs crackdown on unfair tax deals.

The European Commission said in its 2017 ruling that the tax deal, which covered the period from May 2006 to June 2014, meant almost three-quarters of Amazons business went untaxed.

The EU competition watchdog said the Grand Duchy allowed the U.S. online retailer to shift a significant portion of its profits from a subsidiary to a holding company without paying tax, giving the company an unfair advantage.

At issue was the royalty paid by the subsidiary Amazon EU on certain intellectual property rights to Amazon Europe Holding Technologies, a company which the European Union said had no employees, no offices and no business activities.

Amazon said in its filing to the General Court that the EU had not proven its case, which it claims is riddled with legal and factual errors. The hearing in Luxembourg, of case T-318/18, will run to Friday.

The company said the EU ruling also breached principles of legal certainty, because it relied on a flawed reference framework.

It accused EU enforcers of discrimination by using 2017 OECD guidelines for a tax deal agreed with Luxembourg in 2003. In addition, Amazon said the EU has no case as the 10-year limitation period has expired.

Apple (AAPL.O), Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCHA.MI) , Starbucks (SBUX.O) and scores of other multinationals have also been caught in the EU crackdown in recent years over their tax deals with countries in the bloc.

Starbucks won its fight in September last year after the General Court backed its arguments while Fiat Chrysler lost. Apple is still waiting for a ruling.

Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jan Harvey

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Amazon's fight against $277 million EU tax order kicks off in court on Thursday - Reuters

What if the future of freedom were being written in the Maghreb? What if we looked to the other side of the Mediterranean to find the most exciting collective adventures, to discern the outline of a new form of democracy where people questioned violence, economic power and the development of society in a new way?

Between 2011 and 2019, popular uprisings changed the destinies of first Tunisia and then Algeria. I was on Avenue Bourguiba when the Jasmine revolution began, and I have some extraordinary memories of those moments shared with the Tunisian people. I covered Zine al-Abidine Ben Alis Tunisia as a journalist from 2008 to 2011, and I had the feeling at the time that this country and its youth were dying. Young people were being driven to illegal emigration and suicide by the nations ills: police brutality, the economic crisis, endemic corruption and mass unemployment. Tunisia had been undermined so deeply and systematically by its ruling regime that it was hard to see a way out of the situation. In Algeria, similar causes produced comparable effects. And there was a sense of amazement there too, among observers and the protesters. As the Algerian journalist and author Kamel Daoud put it: We had forgotten that we were a people, and in the street, we were united once again, amid joy and laughter.

In Europe, nobody had forecast the rise of these popular movements because it was nearly 10 years since the European Union has stopped taking an interest in the Maghreb. When I was a student, the Mediterranean was still talked about as a sphere of influence on Europe. Remember Turkey presenting its arguments for joining the club of 27 member states? Even Morocco did not exclude the possibility of gradually joining the union. Theres a story that King Hassan II hired teams of Moroccan and Spanish engineers to make a presentation at a meeting with Jacques Delors, who was president of the European Commission at the time for his plan to build a bridge that would connect Africa to the Old Continent. In 2008, the French president Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to pursue this dream of bringing together the peoples of the north and south by launching the Union for the Mediterranean. But no solid union could ever be forged with a band of dictators such as Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad and Hosni Mubarak.

I am from the Maghreb; I am from the Mediterranean. My attachment to Europe was built across that sea. For me, mare nostrum was not a border and not yet a cemetery; it was the outline of a community. In Homer, the Mediterranean is hygra keleutha, the liquid road, a space of transition and sharing. It is our common heritage. Odysseus made stopovers on the coast of Africa just as he did in the Greek islands. When I first visited Spain, Portugal and Italy, I was struck by this feeling of familiarity. So how can we explain Europes current inability to face that sea? How can we understand the way it has deliberately turned its back on the Mediterranean, when this southward tropism is one of the most fortunate aspects of our continent? We have lost the sea and betrayed that essential part of our identity. How devastating to see the youth of the Maghreb and Africa turning away from the continent that has rejected them and let them down.

The Austrian author Stefan Zweig devoted a large part of his critical work to the European question. In an article published before the second world war, he writes that a Russian exile once told him: In the old days, a man had only a body and a soul. Now, he needs a passport too, otherwise he is not treated like a man. And Zweig, who saw the European continent sink into the horrors of fascism and genocide, adds: The first visible manifestation of our centurys moral epidemic was xenophobia: the hatred or, at the very least, the fear of the other. Everywhere, people defended themselves against the foreigner, they excluded and separated him. All those humiliations that before had been reserved for criminals were now inflicted on travellers. And still today, the question of migration is fundamental, central, because the future of our continent will be decided in terms of our capacity to welcome and also to think about the Other.

The European Union, built on the ruins of the second world war, was intended to be an incarnation of pacifism and the virtues of dialogue. Whether through Schengen or Erasmus, it championed the ground-breaking idea of a future based on reducing borders and encouraging the circulation of people, products and ideas. It is easy to forget this now, but when the European project was first conceived by its founding fathers, it was profoundly innovative, even subversive. Turning its back on a warlike, dog-eat-dog vision of the world, the European Union was designed to promote mutual assistance and cooperation. It seems such a sad waste that this democratic ideal is now considered by some to be a sort of outdated, rancid utopianism, while nationalist speeches are cheered, and walls are being built on our doorsteps.

But the EU also bears some responsibility for what has happened to it. During the past 10 years, the union has too often renounced its own moral principles, providing fuel for nationalist and populist arguments. Europes leaders have demonstrated shameful cynicism by constantly prioritising finance and economics over the construction of a genuine European people. The management of the 2008 economic crisis in Greece constituted the EUs first moral failure: by showing its reactionary side, it reduced Europe to a union that was essentially commercial, cold and heartless, embodied by a dominant elite obsessed with profit. Mans indifference to man seemed to become the norm. The second stage in the EUs fall came in 2015, with the migrant crisis. The image of those masses of people fleeing poverty and war and coming up against Europes haughty indifference left a deep wound in the hearts of many of us. Even today, this continent that sees itself as a lighthouse for the world is, in reality, incapable of fighting against the slavery at its doorstep, the death on its shores, the poverty within its borders.

Faced with populists promising simple answers and playing on peoples fears, the EU must cast aside its fear of what it is and boldly proclaim that utopia is possible. It must reduce inequality, improve the democratic process, fight climate change, and welcome refugees fleeing wars and poverty. To be European is to believe that we are, at once, diverse and united, that the Other is different but equal. That cultures are not irreconcilable; that we are capable of building a dialogue and a friendship by seeking out what we have in common. The universalism of the Enlightenment must be at the heart of the European project.

It was probably in Europe that the awareness of what is today called globalisation was first forged. Zweig wrote that, after the first world war, the intellectuals of the Old Continent were both enthusiastic and anxious about the fact that the destiny of different peoples was now so closely linked: Humanity, as it spread across the earth, became more intimately interconnected, and today it is shaken by a fever, the entire cosmos shivering with dread. European integration was driven by that awareness: the great problems of tomorrow will not be resolved at a national scale. Only by combining our efforts will we find solutions to the challenges of the future, and the best example of this is obviously the planets ecological ultimatum.

It seems to me that Europe must look southward, with interest, respect and passion. It must look to those shores, too, in order to move on to the next chapter in its history; to cease defining itself as an old colonising power, and to find strength in its egalitarian values. To stop wallowing in nostalgia, and instead pour its energy into inventing a better future. Europe must no longer be defined by Christianity or by exclusive, irreconcilable national identities, but must return to the Greek matrix that unites the two sides of mare nostrum. In Greek, the term crisis comes from crineo, which means to choose. Thats where Europe is now: at a crossroads. And our common future will depend on which path we take next, which moral and philosophical choice we make.

Translated from French by Sam Taylor. Lela Slimani represents France in the Hay Festival Europa28 project. An anthology, Europa28: Writing by Women on the Future of Europe is published by Comma.

Link:
Europe has turned its back on the Mediterranean but there is still hope - The Guardian