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By 2024, the project aims to provide access to improved and climate resilient water services to children, young people and their families in two areas, Al-Baradiya and Al-Jiha watersheds in Basra. This includes 40 schools and 21 health centers.

BASRA, 07 February 2022. The European Union (EU) and UNICEF, in collaboration with Eni, launched a project today in partnership with the Basra Governorate, aiming to improve the water quality for 850,000 people in Basra City, including over 160,000 children as direct beneficiaries. The launch ceremony was attended by the Governor of Basra, H.E. Asaad Al Edani, Barbara Egger, Head of Cooperation of the EU Delegation in Iraq, Paula Bulancea, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Iraq, Alberto Piatti, Enis Head of Sustainable Development, Walid ElMahdy, Eni Iraq BV Managing Director, and other authorities.

UNICEF continues to work in Iraq to support a climate resilient environment, ensure access to safe water and empower young people to be actors of change through civic engagement. This project with the EU in collaboration with Eni will help to ensure the provision of equitable, sustainable and safe drinking water to vulnerable populations and support sustainable green job creation for young people in Basra city, said Paula Bulancea, UNICEF Deputy Representative in Iraq.

We are proud to continue with this important joint programme with UNICEF our strong EU engagement in Iraq and in particular in the South of Iraq, notably in Basra. It is our priority to contribute to improving the quality of life for Basrawis and strengthening the capacity of the water sector to provide for the equitable and sustainable provision of clean drinking water, in close collaboration with the Basra authorities. Applying an employment intensive approach, we will contribute to creating green decent jobs for Basras Youth but also build strong alliances to advance the climate change agenda together with ENI, confirmed Barbara Egger, Head of Cooperation of the EU in Iraq.

This partnership is a clear example of how public-private alliances can create added value for local development, contributing to improve peoples living conditions. Eni will provide its Al-Baradiya water treatment plants each with a capacity of 400,000 litres per hour under the sponsorship of the Ministry of Oil and Basra Oil Company, and thanks to this joint initiative with UNICEF and the EU we will be able to supply clean drinking water to the community of Basra. By joining our forces we will take one step closer to the achievement of the UN SDGs, said Alberto Piatti, Enis Head of Sustainable Development.

Climate change has a dire impact on childrens lives in Iraq, including increasing water scarcity and salinization, with serious implications on the countrys future. Nearly 3 out of 5 children in Iraq have no access to safely managed water services and less than half of all schools in the country have access to basic water.

As a response, and thanks to the project, 350,000 people in two communities within Basra city, will have access to improved and climate resilient water services. In addition, 1,000 people in Basra city, especially young people, will have improved capacity to contribute to delivering equitable services and promote employment-intensive green growth.

To implement the project, costed at almost $7 million over 3 years, UNICEF will work in close coordination with local authorities in Basra and Ministry of Construction, Housing and Public Municipalities in Baghdad and in partnership with Basra Water Directorate and private consultancy firms, and through strengthening capacities of local contractors, NGOs, and operators to improve water services management and social inclusion.

The project, launched by the EU and UNICEF in collaboration with Eni, is a new step in the right direction and aligns with joint engagement with the business sector to drive progress towards Agenda 2030 and the SDGs in Iraq and globally.

###About UNICEF

UNICEF works in some of the worlds toughest places, to reach the worlds most disadvantaged children. Across more than 190 countries and territories, we work for every child, everywhere, to build a better world for everyone.

Follow UNICEF on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

For further information, please contact:

Miguel Mateos Muoz

UNICEF Chief Communication, mmateosmunoz@unicef.org

Zaid Fahmi

UNICEF Communication Officer, zfahmi@unicef.org

###About European Union

Al-Sadiq Al-Adilee

Press and Information Officer, alsadiq.al-adilee@eeas.europa.eu

###About Eni

Eni is a global integrated energy company engaged in the entire energy chain in 68 countries around the world: from exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas, to the generation of electricity from cogeneration and renewable sources, traditional and biorefining and chemicals, and the development of circular economy processes and carbon capture projects. Eni concretely supports a just energy transition, with the objective of preserving our planet and promoting an efficient and sustainable access to energy for all and aims to achieve net zero emissions (Scope 1, 2 and 3) and net zero carbon intensity by 2050. Enis mission statement is inspired by the UN 2030 Agenda and is reflected in the companys business model, believing in the value of long-term partnerships with the countries and communities where it operates and the creation of alliances for local development.

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The European Union and UNICEF, in collaboration with Eni, launch a project to improve the water quality for 850000 people in Basra [EN/AR/KU] - Iraq -...

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg attends a news briefing following talks with his counterparts from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine February 8, 2022. REUTERS/Valentyn Ogirenko/Pool/File Photo

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VIENNA, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Austria is sticking with its opposition to including the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in a package of sanctions against Moscow that the European Union is preparing in the event Russia invades Ukraine, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg said on Friday.

Austrian oil company OMV (OMVV.VI) is one of Russian gas giant Gazprom's partners in the pipeline project connecting Russia to Germany, which has been completed but is not yet operational as it is awaiting German and EU regulatory approval. Austria owns 31.5% of OMV and backs the project.

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday the United States would "bring an end" to the $11 billion project if Russia, which has amassed more than 100,000 troops near Ukraine, invades the country. Washington has long pushed against Nord Stream 2, saying it will only increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas.

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"I once compared it to a car without an engine. It is not even operational," Schallenberg told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"To discuss it publicly in Europe as if it were a central element of a credible package of sanctions against Russia makes no sense to me logically," he added.

German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said earlier on Friday the Ukraine crisis would play a role in the approval process for the project, and Schallenberg argued sanctions would not be necessary.

"It is unthinkable that the German authorities would grant the technical approval for operations if it comes to an act of military aggression," Schallenberg said.

Austria would, however, "support a consensus" regarding sanctions on the project, he said, without elaborating.

In addition to depending on Russia for 80% of its natural gas, Vienna has a vested interest in Russia's banking sector as the country is Austrian lender Raiffeisen Bank International's (RBIV.VI) biggest market. Raiffeisen has a total exposure to Russia of 22.9 billion euros ($26.1 billion).

The European Union says it is ready to impose "massive" economic sanctions on Russia if it invades Ukraine, but officials say that depends on complex negotiations among member states that are far from complete.

Schallenberg said discussions were "very advanced" and nothing was ruled out, but he declined to provide details. There was a "strong consensus," he added.

"There is no question that if there is military aggression, there must be a clear, unified and strong response from the West," he said.

($1 = 0.8775 euros)

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Editing by Mark Potter

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Austria resists including Nord Stream 2 in EU package of Russia sanctions - Reuters

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The European Union is forecasting 3.5% inflation in 2022 - ForexLive

The Western attempt to expel Russia from Europe has failed. That there was such an attempt was always implicit in the strategy of seeking to admit every European country but Russia into NATO and the European Union. In this context, the NATO slogan A Europe Whole and Free is an explicit statement that Russia is not part of Europe.

But as French President Emmanuel Macron has reminded us, Russia is part of Europe and is simply too big, too powerful, and too invested in its immediate neighborhood to be excluded from the European security order. A continued strategy along these lines will lead to repeated Russian attempts to force its way back in. At best, this will lead to repeated and very damaging crises; at worst, to war.

A structure needs to be created that can defend the interests of NATO and the EU while at the same time accommodating vital Russian interests and preserving peace. The solution lies in a modernized version of what was once called the Concert of Europe.

The Western attempt to expel Russia from Europe has failed. That there was such an attempt was always implicit in the strategy of seeking to admit every European country but Russia into NATO and the European Union. In this context, the NATO slogan A Europe Whole and Free is an explicit statement that Russia is not part of Europe.

But as French President Emmanuel Macron has reminded us, Russia is part of Europe and is simply too big, too powerful, and too invested in its immediate neighborhood to be excluded from the European security order. A continued strategy along these lines will lead to repeated Russian attempts to force its way back in. At best, this will lead to repeated and very damaging crises; at worst, to war.

A structure needs to be created that can defend the interests of NATO and the EU while at the same time accommodating vital Russian interests and preserving peace. The solution lies in a modernized version of what was once called the Concert of Europe.

The current security order has reached its limit. Until 2007-2008, the expansion of the EU and NATO appeared to have proceeded flawlessly, with the admission of all the former Soviet satellites in Central Europe and the Balkans, as well as the Baltic states. Russia was unhappy with NATO expansion but did not actively oppose it. Then, however, both NATO and the EU received decisive checks, through their own overreach.

At the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, in 2008, the United States and its allies, though denied an immediate Membership Action Plan for Ukraine and Georgia because of the opposition of France and Germany, procured a promise of those countries eventual membership. Seen from Moscow, this created the prospect that NATO would include countries with territorial disputes (and in the case of Georgia, frozen conflicts) with Russia; that (as in the Baltic states) NATO would give cover to moves to harm the position of local Russian minorities; and that NATO would expel Russia from its naval base at Sevastopol and from the southern Caucasus.

Later that year, the Russo-Georgian War should have sounded the death knell of further NATO expansion, for it demonstrated beyond doubt both the acute dangers of territorial disputes in the former USSR and that in the last resort Russia would fight to defend its vital interests in the region, and the West would not fight. This is being demonstrated again today by the repeated and categorical statements from Washington and Brussels that there is no question of sending troops to defend Ukraine; and if NATO will not fight for Ukraine, then it cannot admit Ukraine as an ally. It is as simple as that.

The rise of China is the other factor that makes the exclusion of Russia unviable. For this project was developed at a time when Russia was at its weakest in almost 400 years and when Chinas colossal growth had only just begun. This allowed the West possibilities that today have diminished enormously, if as seems likely China is prepared to strengthen Russia against Western economic sanctions.

The EU too has reached the limit of its expansion eastward. On the one hand, there is Ukraines size (44 million people), corruption, political dysfunction, and poverty (GDP per capita thats one-third of Russias). Perhaps more importantly, EU expansion to eastern Europe no longer looks like the unconditional success story that it did a decade ago.

Romania, Bulgaria, and other states remain deeply corrupt and in many ways still ex-communist. Poland and Hungary have developed dominant strains of chauvinist and quasi-authoritarian populism that place them at odds with what were supposed to be the core values of the EUand that in some respects bring them closer ideologically to the regime of Russian President Vladimir Putin. After this experience, there is no chance that the EU will admit a country like Ukraine in any foreseeable future.

An acknowledgment of these obvious truths (which are acknowledged in private by the overwhelming majority of Western officials and experts) should open the way to thinking about a new European security architecture that would incorporate NATO and the EU while reducing the hostility between these organizations and Russia. We should aim at the creation of this new system as part of the solution to the present crisis, and in order to avoid new ones.

This requires a return to a more traditional way of thinking about international politics. For a key problem of the Wests approach to Russia since the end of the Cold War is that it has demanded that Russia observe the internal rules of behavior of the EU and NATO without offering EU and NATO membership (something that is in any case impossible for multiple reasons).

In recent years and in the wider world, the U.S. establishment by contrast has loudly announced the return of great-power politicsand this is true enough as far as it goes. Certainly the idea of a monolithic rules-based global order, in which liberal internationalism acts as a thin cover for U.S. primacy, is now dead.

The problem is that most members of the U.S. establishment have become so wedded to belief in both the necessity and the righteousness of U.S. global primacy that they can see relations with other great powers only in confrontational and zero-sum terms. Rivalry, of course, there will inevitably be; but if we are to avoid future disasters, we need to find a way of managing relations so as to keep this rivalry within bounds, establish certain genuine common rules, prevent conflict, and work toward the solution of common problems. To achieve this, we need to seek lessons further back in diplomatic history.

The essential elements of a new, reasonably consensual pan-European order should be the following: a traditional nonaggression treaty between NATO and the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), by which both sides pledge not to attack the other militarily. As a matter of fact, neither side has any intention of doing so, and to put this on paper would reduce mutual paranoia and the ability of establishments on both sides to feed this paranoia for their own domestic purposes.

Full diplomatic relations should be established or reestablished between NATO and the CSTO and between the EU and the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union. On the basis of this, intensive negotiations should be launched to achieve two goals: new arms control agreements in Europe, starting with nuclear missiles, and economic arrangements that would allow nonmembers of the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union to trade freely with both blocs, rather than forcing on them a mutually exclusive choice of trading partners.

When it comes to the avoidance and solution of conflicts, however, institutions involving all European countries are too large and too rigid to be of much use. The Russian establishment has also decidednot without reasonthat these are simply excuses for Western countries to agree to a common position and then present it to Russia as a fait accompli. The need is for a regular, frequent, but much smaller and less formal meeting place for the countries that really count in European security: the United States, France, Germany, and Russia (plus the United Kingdom, if it survives as one state and emerges from its post-Brexit bewilderment).

Such a European security council would have three goals: firstly, the avoidance of new conflicts through early consultation about impending crises; secondly, the solution of existing conflicts on the basis of common standards of realismin other words, who actually controls the territory in question and will continue to do so; and thirdly, democracythe will of the majority of the local population, expressed through internationally supervised referendums (a proposal put forward by Thomas Graham).

Finally, a European security council could lay the basis for security cooperation outside Europe. Here, the present situation is nothing short of tragicomic. In Afghanistan, the United States, NATO, the EU, Russia, and the CSTO have an identical vital interest: to prevent that country from becoming a base for international Islamist terrorism and revolution. And for all the greater complexity of the situation, this is also true in the end of the fight against the Islamic State and its allies in the Middle East and western Africa.

Among the other benefits of such a new consultative institution would therefore be to remind both the West and Russia that while Russian and NATO soldiers have never killed each other and do not want to, there are other forces out there that have killed many thousands of Americans, Russians, and West Europeans, would gladly kill us all if they could find the means to do so, and see no moral difference whatsoever between what they see as Western and Eastern infidel imperialism.

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Russia Belongs at the Center of Europe - Foreign Policy

THE Scottish Governments 650-page White Paper on Independence, published in late 2013, contained just eight pages on Scotland in the European Union, a sign that Brexit was yet to be taken seriously by either side of the constitutional debate.

The paper assumed the UK would still be part of the EU when Scotland became independent.

Although it flagged up the idea of Brexit, noting an in-out referendum was expected in 2017, there was no discussion of its implications, only the statement that independence offered a way to avoidbeing taken out of the EU against our will.

The prospectus assumed, again perfectly reasonably for the time, that an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK would be in the EU single market and customs union, with continued free trade across the Anglo-Scottish border.

Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon at the launch of the White Paper on independence

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The paper also said that Scotland would not have to apply to join the EU as an outside country, but would enjoy a smooth and timely transition to independent membership of the EU based on the principle of continuity of effect, as it was already inside it.

The paper said this membership process would be achieved in the 18 months after a Yes vote, while Scotland was still part of the UK and, therefore, part of the EU.

The paper did not propose a referendum on EU membership.

It said Scotland would retain the pound and not adopt the Euro.

Some key White Paper quotes:

It is the current Scottish Governments policy that Scotland remains part of the European Union. Between a Yes vote in 2014 and independence day, Scotland will agree the terms of our continuing membership of the EU. This will happen while we are still part of the UK and part of the EU, ensuring a smooth transition to independent membership.

The advantage of independence is that the people of Scotland will have the sole and final say. We will not be taken out of the EU against our wishes as may turn out to be the case if we are not independent.

An independent Scottish Government will, for the first time, be able to promote Scottish economic interests directly, protect Scottish citizens and participate on equal terms as all other member states in EU affairs.

The Scottish Government does not wish Scotland to leave the EU and does not support the Prime Ministers plans to hold an in-out referendum on EU membership.

Following a vote for independence, Scotland will become an independent EU member state before the planned in-out referendum on the EU in 2017. However, if we do not become independent, we risk being taken out of the EU against our will.

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What the SNP's independence White Paper said about the European Union - HeraldScotland