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The European Commission, on behalf of the European Union, has today renewed its strong support for the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine, under its recently extended mandate, for the full implementation of the Minsk agreements.

This new funding of 3 million, under the Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, will provide timely and focused assistance to the OSCE, in the area of satellite imagery. "The use of satellite imagery allows for more in-depth monitoring of the situation in areas where regrettably monitors still do not have access to, and also for a more efficient deployment of monitors in general", said High Representative/Vice-President, Federica Mogherini. "This fresh support again underlines the European Union's strong commitment to the full respect of the Minsk agreements, which offer the best chance for moving towards a peaceful, sustainable solution to the conflict in Ukraine based on respect for its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, and our determination to accompany and support the work of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission." Satellite imagery remains an essential planning and analytical tool, especially because it allows the Special Monitoring Mission to map wide areas which are inaccessible to its monitors and to report on infrastructure damage as well as on the presence and movement of people and equipment. As has been the case for previous support from the EU's Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace (IcSP), this funding will continue to be channelled via the European Union Satellite Centre which will procure the necessary imagery and provide analysis products to the OSCE, at the request of the latter. The activities will directly complement other, ongoing IcSP-financed actions to fund the operational costs of the monitors, as well as to enhance technological surveillance capabilities, including through the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, night vision cameras, sensors and other monitoring means. The European Union has been supporting the SMM from the beginning of the Mission's operations and continues to play an active part in ensuring that it is able to execute its tasks in the best possible way, including through the new funding announced today. The Special Monitoring Mission has played, and continues to play, an essential role in observing and reporting in an impartial and objective way on the situation in eastern Ukraine.

Background information

Since its inception in April 2014, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has received 30 million support from the EU's Instrument contributing to Stability and Peace, allowing the SMM to expand and to develop its technical monitoring capabilities. The OSCE SMM mandate has recently been extended until March 2018.

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European Union provides further satellite imagery support to the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine - Reliefweb

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European Union to Celebrate Its 60th Birthday Under a Cloud Wall Street Journal (subscription) For European Union leaders, Saturday's gathering in Rome to mark the 60th anniversary of the bloc's founding treaty was to be an unvarnished celebration of a successful experiment to rebuild a continent scarred by two world wars. But Brexit, economic ...

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European Union to Celebrate Its 60th Birthday Under a Cloud - Wall Street Journal (subscription)

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Despite Britains impending Brexit, the German chancellor believes the EU will continue to thrive with more cooperation from member states.

When asked if she feared other countries would quit the bloc, Ms Merkel told the Passauer Neue Presse: "No. Individual member states of course have different ideas about how we shape the future, but the overall way forward is clear, more cooperation."

She added that defence, control of the EU's external borders, economic policy and the fight against Islamist militancy were areas for cooperation.

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Prime Minister Theresa May will next Wednesday launch a two-year countdown to Brexit.

But Ms Merkel said Mrs May's impending letter would not overshadow the EU's 60th anniversary summit.

She added: The work for the coming years will go in both directions: On the one hand, the exit negotiations with Britain, and on the other considerations about making the EU of 27 members fit for the future.

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The overall way forward is clear, more cooperation

Angela Merkel

Her comments come as talks on Turkeys accession to the European Union were suspended over concerns on its human rights and rules of law last year.

Turkey is planning an April 16 referendum on constitutional changes that would extend President Tayyip Erdogan's powers.

Earlier this month a European legal report called the proposed changes by Turkey a big setback for democracy.

But when asked about whether Turkeys negotiations to join the EU should be broken off, Ms Merkel said she would defer her answer until after the Islamic Republics referendum next month.

She said: "We should await the vote on the referendum in Turkey and everything else."

But the German leader said she had taken the report by the Venice Commission, a panel of legal experts at the Council of Europe, very seriously.

Turkey has rejected the report.

Speaking about her meeting with US President Donald Trump last week, Ms Merkel said she had stressed the importance of German investments on the American economy.

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German officials have said the stalled US-European trade deal known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is "on ice" but talks could be rekindled if there is US interest.

Ms Merkel added: Trade agreements should bring benefits to both sides, and we need to negotiate on that.

"Now we will see whether we can revive negotiations on our TTIP trade and investment agreement."

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Angela Merkel 'confident' NO MORE countries will ditch the European Union after Brexit - Express.co.uk

A letter is expected to land on the desk of European Council President Donald Tusk next week that will signal the start of the fundamental reshaping of Britain and Europe.

The document, carrying the signature of British Prime Minister Theresa May, will provide formal notice that Britain is withdrawing from the 28-nation European Union after more than 40 years of membership.

British officials said Monday that the expected two-year period of negotiations for leaving the bloc will begin when the letter is delivered March 29, triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty the formal process for the withdrawal.

The country must work out numerous issues with the remaining 27 EU nations, including trade and immigration deals, workers rights and the conditions for retirees and students to live and study abroad.

"We are on the threshold of the most important negotiation for this country for a generation," David Davis, secretary of state for exiting the European Union, said in a statement.

"The government is clear in its aims: a deal that works for every nation and region of the U.K. and indeed for all of Europe a new, positive partnership between the U.K. and our friends and allies in the European Union, he said.

May, during a speech in Wales on Monday, stressed that she was committed to securing the right deal for Britain as part of what is commonly known as Brexit. She said the June referendum in which voters favored leaving the European Union 52% to 48% was not just about exiting from the EU, but a vote for a change in the way the country works."

Exactly how May, leader of the Conservative Party, and her government plan to secure that change remains far from clear and, in the short term, Britain is likely to be thrown into a period of intense uncertainty.

The Labor Partys Brexit secretary Keir Starmer painted an ominous picture of the road ahead, saying, Britain is now more divided at home and isolated abroad.

He also criticized the prime minister for failing to provide greater certainty about what Brexit would look like, or making sure a contingency plan was in place in case no deal was reached within the two-year negotiation period.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said the prime minister rushed this through without a plan, and without a clue.

The developments have also stirred differences of opinion within the components of the United Kingdom England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has called for a second independence referendum within two years, once the full terms of the Brexit deal are known.

May has rejected such an idea, saying now is not the time, but the issue is unlikely to go away considering that Scotland voted 62% to 38% to remain within the EU and feels it is being withdrawn against its will.

May, who succeeded David Cameron after he campaigned for the losing side in the referendum, has said she intended to trigger Article 50 by the end of March.

The timeline was thrown into doubt after a legal challenge was mounted against the government questioning the mandate the prime minister had to take Britain out of the European Union without Parliaments approval.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that May needed the backing of both the House of Commons and House of Lords to proceed. Lawmakers last week approved the Brexit Bill formally called the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act and it was ratified by Queen Elizabeth II.

May is expected to make a statement to the House of Commons setting out her agenda for the months and years ahead. She has previously said that there could be no half in, half out deal and Britain is prepared to withdraw from the European single market a central tenet of the European Union that guarantees the free movement of goods, capital, services and people and also the customs union, which guarantees tariff-free trade within Europe.

"No deal for Britain is better than a bad deal for Britain," May said during a January speech.

For their part, several European officials have said they are poised and ready to get negotiations underway.

Within 48 hours of the U.K. triggering Article 50, I will present the draft #Brexit guidelines to the EU27 Member States, Tusk wrote on Twitter on Monday.

Tusk said EU leaders will meet within four to six weeks to decide on their negotiating stance, paving the way for discussions to begin around May. After a draft deal is drawn up, it will need to be approved by at least 20 of the remaining 27 EU member states and ratified by the European Parliament.

May has said she will give lawmakers a vote on the deal she negotiates.

Economics and public policy professor Jonathan Portes of Kings College London said the negotiations probably will result in a compromise no one likes, but everyone will describe as a victory.

"But if politics either here or on the continent derails the process, Portes said, we could soon find that far from taking back control, we have done precisely the opposite."

Boyle is a special correspondent.

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UPDATES:

4:55 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with Times reporting.

This article was originally published at 5:10 a.m.

An earlier version of this article identified the Liberal Democratic leader as Tim Fallon. He is Tim Farron.

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A letter from Britain to the European Union will trigger the ...

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Warsaw continued its recent bitter war of words with eurocrats as it threatened to veto the proposed Rome Declaration, which is meant to pave the way forward for the project after Brexit.

Prime minister Beata Szydo said she would not hesitate to vote down the document if it does not match Polands priorities as her country takes an increasingly hard line towards European integration.

Such a move would spark pandemonium amongst other member states at what is supposed to be a carefully choreographed and painstakingly stage-managed display of unity during the blocs darkest hours.

Eurocrats have repeatedly talked up the summit in Rome, to be held on March 25, saying it will be a display of solidarity between the remaining member states and a birth certificate for the EU at 27.

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But those plans now appear to be in disarray amid a brutal and escalating diplomatic crisis with Warsaw, which has been infuriated by the re-election of Donald Tusk as EU Council president.

After the decision was made in Brussels earlier this month Polish ministers issued a series of extraordinary attacks on their fellow member states and vowed to take revenge by blocking future EU initiatives.

And now it appears they have the much-vaunted Rome Declaration, which is legally of no consequence but which could not be more symbolically important to Brussels, firmly in their sights.

Ms Szydo said: If the declaration does not include the issues which are priorities for Poland, we will not accept the declaration.

The unity of the European Union, defence of a tight NATO cooperation, strengthening the role of national governments and the rules of the common market which cannot divide but unite these are the four priorities which have to be included in the dec

Her open threat will provoke fury in Europes other capitals where for some senior leaders patience with Warsaws political grandstanding is growing increasingly thin.

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Hollande and Merkel on the second day of a European Summit

Earlier this month Francois Hollande appeared at the end of his tether with Poland when he said EU funding to the country - the blocs biggest recipient - should be pulled until it rows into line.

Those remarks sparked a blazing row over dinner with Ms Szydo, who subsequently called an extraordinary press conference at which she accused the rest of Europe of bullying and "blackmailing" her country.

The summit descended into acrimony after Warsaw vetoed the conclusions of the EU Council summit in protest at the re-election of Mr Tusk and of plans to pursue a two-speed Europe in which it fears it will be left behind.

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Poland vows to veto plan for EU future unless it includes more power back from Brussels - Express.co.uk