Today, President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy and Prime Minister of Ukraine Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed the political part of the Association Agreement. An Association Agreement is EU's main instrument to bring the countries in the Eastern Partnership closer to EU standards and norms. It comprises four general chapters: Common Foreign and Security Policy; Justice and Home Affairs; the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA); and a fourth chapter covering a range of issues including the environment, science, transportation, and education. The trade part of the EU accord, which is the bulk of the treaty, is to be signed after May.
Op 7 mei gaan de Zuid-Afrikanen naar de stembus voor de vijfde democratische verkiezing sinds het einde van het apartheidregime in 1994. Vanaf dat moment is het African National Congress (ANC) aan de macht. Doordat de huidige president Jacob Zuma (ANC) in een corruptieschandaal is verwikkeld zullen de aankomende verkiezingen naar verwachting de meest competitieve worden sinds 1994.
Op 19 maart maakte de EU bekend om eind april troepen naar CAR te sturen, in plaats van anderhalve maand eerder, zoals gepland. Volgens diplomaten komt deze verlating door de huidige ontwikkelingen in Oekraïne.
The Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party announced, on 18 March, its withdrawal from the Kyrgyz government coalition, which means the government, will be dissolved. Ata-Meken party leader Omurbek Tekebayev said the withdrawal was the result of a parliamentary inquiry into the State Directorate for Reconstruction of Osh and Jalal-Abad Cities, which was headed by Prime Minister Jantoro Satybaldiyev. The ministers will remain at their posts until a new government is formed.
General elections of a new parliament in Bulgaria have been held on May 12th 2013. The results were that the number of parliamentarians in the former leading party GERB (which stands for Citizens for an European Development of Bulgaria) declined from 117 to 97 persons, whereas the number of socialists (BSP) more than doubled to 84 parliamentarians and the Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedom (DPS) consolidated its position with 36 members.
On April 17th presidential elections are scheduled in Algeria. The current president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who has been in power for the last fifteen years, will run again. His candidature has caused a lot of resistance by opponents, which have staged several protests. Next to the current president, eleven candidates have registered for the elections. The Constitutional Council have examined all applications and approved those of six candidates. Despite this number, changes that Bouteflika will win again are huge.
Op 14 maart vond in de Rode Hoed te Amsterdam een burgerdialoog plaats met Europees Commissaris voor Justitie, Burgerschap en Fundamentele Rechten en tevens vicevoorzitter, Viviane Reding, en burgemeester Eberhard van der Laan onder leiding van Caroline de Gruyter.
In Nigeria zijn de afgelopen week meer dan tweehonderd mensen gedood toen mannen op motors verschillende dorpen onder vuur namen en huizen in brand staken. Vermoedelijk waren het Fulani herders die een wraakactie uitvoerden. De herders zijn al jaren in een vete verwikkeld met de Hausa boeren. Ze beschuldigen de boeren ervan grond die voor hun kuddes bestemd is te gebruiken als landbouwgrond. Die grond is voor beiden cruciaal. De herders stelen vee, vernietigen landbouwgrond en –producten en voeren dit soort wraakacties uit om hun grond terug te winnen en de boeren te verdrijven. De boeren vrezen dat de herders steeds meer georganiseerd en heviger bewapend worden. Omdat de politie niet genoeg ingrijpt, en de grond nog steeds betwist wordt, komt er voorlopig geen eind aan deze vete.
Exit polls predict a landslide victory for the centre-right Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) in the parliamentary elections of Sunday 16 March. Winning almost half of all votes, the SNS will gain an overall majority in the Serbian parliament. SNS leader, Alexander Vucic, is widely believed to become Serbia’s new prime minister. The turnout was 50.3 percent, 3.3 percent less than the last elections in 2012.
Following a referendum on Sunday 16 March, Crimea declared itself an independent state on Monday 17 March. The newly formed Republic of Crimea formally applied to join the Russian Federation the same day. The West claims the referendum to be illegal and says it will impose new sanctions.
