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EVIA, Greece, July 21 (Reuters) - Climber Tassos Baltas points up at a 22-metre high mast which is monitoring wind speeds on the summit of a rocky hillside on the Greek island of Evia and declares, "This mast which has been installed next to us is an omen of catastrophe."

The mountaineer's views are one of a host of obstacles to efforts to boost wind power across the European Union.

As parts of Europe reel from devastating flooding and Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel says governments must redouble their efforts to tackle the impact of climate change, developers and governments are racing to capture green power investment. They are running into local opposition, bureaucratic red tape and legal tangles in the permitting process - to the point where the EU is veering off track for its emissions-cutting goals, wind industry data show.

The EU has unveiled ambitious plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 55% by 2030, which will mean renewable sources in its energy generation should increase to 40%. For that, it needs 27 GW of new wind capacity - enough to meet almost one third of European electricity demand - to be installed every year.

That's nearly double the 15 GW currently put in place annually, according to WindEurope, an association that represents the industry in Europe.

The drive to speed up renewable energy is pitting greens against each other. Theodota Nantsou, policy director for the World Wide Fund for Nature in Greece, said the country decided belatedly to shut down its coal plants and is now racing to build up renewables at the risk of hurting its biodiversity.

Last year, WindEurope says, the EU and Britain invested 43 billion euros ($51 billion) in new wind farms - the second highest annual amount on record after 2016. Banks lent over 21 billion euros for the construction of new wind farms - the most ever.

"The problem is not money: there is lots of money available," said Giles Dickson, the association's chief executive. "The problem is the projects: we are not getting enough new permitted projects coming through."

The EU Commission has recognised that. The EU's renewable energy directive says it should not take more than two years to grant a permit for a power plant, or three in extraordinary circumstances.

But these timelines have yet to be fully implemented.

The Commission says it is trying to speed things up. However, some of its plans need to be negotiated by 27 EU countries and the European Parliament. That itself can take around two years.

Worldwide, according to the Global Wind Energy Council, new wind capacity needs to be installed at about twice the current rate if the globe is to meet a goal in the Paris Agreement climate pact of limiting temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius this century.

"I think (permitting) is one of the key factors that could potentially slow down the energy transition," Miguel Stilwell de Andrade, chief executive of Portuguese energy company Energias de Portugal (EDP) SA (EDP.LS) which develops renewable energy, such as wind and solar, told Reuters.

"If we want to meet the Paris Agreement targets we really need to find a way of making sure that permitting is efficient, transparent."

FAST-TRACK

On Evia, Baltas and other Greek campaigners object to eight new wind farms, planned to span 80 km (50 miles) over an area which encompasses a pristine fir forest overlooking the Aegean. They say it will ruin acres of ancient forests, and turn a largely agricultural region into an industrial zone.

They are also fighting the fact that the Greek government, trying to avoid the delays that hobble some developments, fast-tracked the application to build 100 turbines, adding to 600 already in place on the island.

Greece, aiming for renewables to help transform the country's economy, wants to shorten its permitting process to about two to three years, the government says. That's down from the eight years more typical for such schemes in Greece, according to the Hellenic Wind Energy Association, which represents the industry.

As falling costs have made wind power attractive, there's an incentive to move fast. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organisation that supports countries in their transition to sustainable energy, the overall cost of new projects both onshore and offshore roughly halved in the decade to 2020 read more .

This is visible in places like Evia, which has high winds from the Caucasus and Aegean Sea and is only about 80 km from the mainland power grid.

"There is a very strong interest in renewable energy sources," said Greece's Secretary General for Energy Alexandra Sdoukou. Greece hopes renewable energy will help secure power ahead of a shutdown of coal-fired plants by 2025.

Other countries are also trying to streamline procedures to help win access to some of the EU's 750 billion euro post-pandemic recovery fund - which will only be disbursed if projects move ahead.

Greece's fast-track process is no guarantee of a license, the government's investment agency said. An environmental impact assessment will happen later.

OBSOLETE EQUIPMENT

Elsewhere in the EU, it can take as long as a decade for wind projects on land to be greenlighted, case studies provided by the industry show. In at least one country, Sweden, the Wind Energy Association says it's not unusual for the process to take even longer, because municipalities can vote on projects and there is no legal deadline for appeals processes to end.

For offshore projects, negotiations with businesses such as fishing, tourism and shipping mean the permitting processes can take up to six years, said Jonathan Cole, head of offshore wind at Spanish energy company Iberdrola SA (IBE.MC). For projects on land, problems range from rules that require turbines to be certain distances away from buildings to local disputes.

In one case in Germany, WindEurope said, permissioning was so slow that by the time the farm was greenlighted, the turbine model in the plans was obsolete. Updated height restrictions meant the developer had to dismantle part-built foundations, as well as persuading the manufacturer to revive an old model.

In another German example, renewables developer Abo Wind AG (AB9.DE) applied to build a wind project south of Frankfurt in 2016. The plan was initially rejected due to a risk to black stork habitats. After back-and-forth legal actions and appeals with the local authority, the company says the wind farm will be built next year.

"This project is a prime example of why wind power expansion in Germany suffers," said ABO Wind executive Kristof Frank. "Courts are overburdened and there's not enough personnel to quickly handle the numerous processes."

A spokeswoman for Germany's economic affairs ministry said almost half Germany's electricity is supplied by renewable sources, but that Germany must accelerate the implementation of green energy. This will be the task of the next government, she added. The current government has pushed four laws to speed up new infrastructure through parliament, but nothing major has changed.

Germany does not have enough qualified experts in local administration, people in the industry say. And when its strong environmental laws slow down new wind farms, they divide the green movement.

ABANDONED PLANS

Italy is the biggest recipient of the EU's recovery resources. To meet targets agreed under the EU's Green Deal plan to become the first climate-neutral continent, it needs to add at least 7 GW of renewable capacity every year, compared with a recent average of less than 1 GW per year. It has identified almost 60 billion euros of projects for that funding.

But a group of European renewable energy associations says almost half of all renewables projects are abandoned in the country, and the other half subject to six years of permitting delays.

Italy's energy transition minister Roberto Cingolani said the consequences of delays will be far-reaching.

"If we don't get the permits, we'll be late in reaching the goal of having 72% of our electricity generated from renewables by 2030," Cingolani told Reuters.

"So we won't be able to press ahead with plans to replace furnaces, produce green hydrogen, and generate electricity for electric cars."

DETERRENT

Spending on the permitting process can run into tens of millions of euros, people in the industry say.

Delays are starting to deter investment.

"We could invest more in certain countries in Europe if we had better visibility on the permitting timeline," said Carlo Zorzoli, head of business development for the green power unit of Italy-based utility Enel SpA (ENEI.MI), which has the biggest capacity for renewable energy of any listed company worldwide. He declined to name the countries he was referring to.

Generally, wind industry groups say authorities are scrutinising projects more carefully, but permitting agencies have not been expanded enough: "The permitting agencies are often under-resourced and with the market growing faster than was ever expected it's going to be hard for them to keep up," said Iberdrola's Cole.

The EU Commission is proposing one body be made responsible for coordinating permits of some offshore projects. But that proposal needs to be negotiated by EU countries and the European Parliament.

Rather than wait, Greece plans to hire certified private evaluators, the country's energy ministry said in May.

Evia's opposition groups have rallied.

"To appeal against the project at the court, we have collected money by talking to local residents, shopkeepers, hotels, farmers with environmental concerns, beekeepers," said Baltas.

"And we did that rather fast."

($1 = 0.8499 euros)

Angeliki Koutantou reported from Evia, Nina Chestney reported from London, Stephen Jewkes from Milan; Additional reporting from Markus Wacket in Berlin, Christoph Steitz in Frankfurt, Kate Abnett in Brussels, Isla Binnie in Madrid and Tim Barsoe in Copenhagen; Edited by Veronica Brown and Sara Ledwith

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Floods wreck towns, but Europe's wind power goals tangled in red tape - Reuters

Peter R.deVries, who specialised in covering crime, died of the gunshot injuries to the head that he received on 6 July. The Dutch police quickly arrested two suspected perpetrators after the shooting but have yet to identify who ordered it or discover the motive. Furthermore, a live broadcast of the RTL Boulevard programme in which de Vries participated immediately before the shooting had to be cancelled on 10 July because of a serious threat.

Aged 64 and much respected by fellow journalists and the Dutch public, de Vries took a close interest in both recent cases with organised crime links as well older ones, which would explain why he was targeted. A crime reporter for 40 years, he had won the trust of several victims and had served as their mouthpiece or adviser. He had, for example, advised the main prosecution witness in the case against Ridouan Taghi, the countrys most wanted criminal and suspected organised crime boss.

The murder of Peter R. de Vries is the latest in a series of murders of journalists in Europe, where organised crime now represents a major danger for the media profession, said Pavol Szalai, the head of RSFs EU and Balkans desk.

The mafia-style hit on this Dutch journalist follows three other murders in which organised crime is also suspected those of Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta in 2017, Jan Kuciak in Slovakia in 2018 and Giorgos Karaivaz in Greece in April of this year. We therefore urge the Netherlands, which is ranked sixth in the World Press Freedom Index, to set an example in the way it identifies and prosecutes those responsible for this murder.

Threats from organised crime against Dutch journalists have increased in recent years. A live grenade was found outside the home of a crime reporter for the newspaper De Limburger in December 2020. In June 2018, three Dutch newspapers De Telegraaf, Panorama and Nieuwe Revu were the targets of attacks using an anti-tank missile and a van driven into the facade of their premises.

Organised crime is suspected of being behind the murders of three other journalists in the European Union in the past four years, in cases in which national authorities have struggled to render justice to the victims. The most recent previous victim, Greek crime reporter Giorgos Karaivaz, was gunned down in broad daylight in Athens on 9 April. Despite the government's promise to act in a swift and expedited manner, the investigation has not progressed.

The accused instigator of Slovak investigative journalist Jan Kuciaks murder in February 2018 has still not been convicted, the Slovak supreme court having only recently overturned businessman Marian Kocners acquittal on a charge of ordering the hit.

Several people are suspected of ordering and carrying out the 2017 car-bomb killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a reporter who was investigating corruption at the highest levels of the state in Malta. But only one of them has so far been convicted. Yorgen Fenech, a businessman accused of ordering her murder, is currently detained pending a trial that will not begin before this autumn.

Reporters are often organised crime targets in the south of the European Union. Around 20 journalists live under permanent police protection in Italy, although this does not prevent them from being regularly targeted. Journalist Fabio Buonofiglios car was destroyed by a fire in Calabria in April 2020, while reporter Michele Santagata was ambushed in the town of Cosenza in the same region in September 2020.

The situation is no better in Bulgaria, which has the lowest ranking of any EU country in the World Press Freedom Index. Journalists are often attacked there. Recent victims include Slavi Angelov, an investigative journalist who was badly beaten outside his home in March 2020. The perpetrator has still not been identified.

Slovakia, Italy, Malta and Bulgaria are ranked 35th, 41st, 56th and 81st respectively in RSF's 2021 World Press Freedom Index.

See the report entitled Journalists: bte noire of organised crime that RSF published in November 2018.

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Dutch crime reporter is fourth journalist murdered in as many years in the European Union | Reporters without borders - Reporters sans frontires

In the eyes of the current Bulgarian political elites, North Macedonia does not deserve to be a European Union member state until it agrees that the language its people speak is not Macedonian a south Slavic language in its own right but is in fact derived from Bulgarian.

Bulgaria, an EU member state since 2007, is holding North Macedonias future in the union hostage regardless of how an entire neighbouring nation feels about it.

This standoff between the two has revealed a fatal flaw in the EU membership process.

Each step along the accession path requires full consensus by all 27 member states, and Bulgaria is using the most significant power given to member states that of vetoing a candidates accession by sticking to its 2020 veto on North Macedonias launch of membership talks with the union.

This, despite all other countries agreeing that the two-million-strong Balkan nation is more than ready.

Bulgaria questioning the countrys right to shape its own identity and history has only created bitterness in one of the most pro-European countries on the continent, says Nikola Dimitrov, deputy Prime Minister of North Macedonia and the main EU negotiator for the country.

Is questioning the Macedonian language in line with what Europe stands for? Isnt Europe supposed to be a continent where linguistic and cultural diversity is cherished and where all nations are treated with dignity and respect? he told Euronews.

Isnt the question of who you are and what language you speak a question for the people concerned and only for the people concerned?

North Macedonia has already jumped significant hurdles to show its commitment to join the union. Having achieved full statehood in 1991 only after the breakup of Yugoslavia, it arrived late to the nation-building party and first had to deal with its southern neighbour Greece also vetoing its use of the name Macedonia for the country claiming they had a region by the same name.

Resolving the name dispute took 11 years. North Macedonia was deemed a regional frontrunner after its 2004 application for EU membership, but it had to find a solution to the Greek veto it was subject to since 2008.

In 2018, what was then called the Republic of Macedonia agreed to go as far as to change its name to North Macedonia to overcome a veto from Athens that hampered the countrys EU and NATO accession and signed the Prespa Agreement with Greece to much praise.

We lost generations in the waiting room of the EU, Dimitrov explained.

We started our European journey after Slovenia and before Croatia. Both have become member states years ago, and we still struggle to open the accession talks.

"And just when we finally resolve the issue with the Prespa Agreement, embraced with major international praise and promises of EU accession talks, another mountain appears, he said.

Even after the latest disappointment, his government does not plan on giving up on EU aspirations and will continue to actively seek out a solution, Dimitrov told Euronews. But the veto is seen as damaging, both to neighbourly relations as well as the unions credibility.

If there is political will and leadership on the side of Bulgaria, I think we can find a European solution that would be good for Macedonian-Bulgarian friendship, for the European promise to the region, and for North Macedonia. But there is an if, because we already did our best, he continues.

And frankly, if my mother tongue, the Macedonian language, is the reason we cant move closer to the EU, so be it. Then the EU is not really what we thought it was a community of values, Dimitrov said.

The EU dangled the prospect of accession in front of Albania and North Macedonia whose accession process has been coupled for years before deciding to launch talks in March 2020, with all 27 member states in agreement and without any preconditions.

Then, Bulgaria had a change of heart.

Bulgaria sent a memo to the other members, demanding the EU acknowledge Macedonian as a written regional norm of the Bulgarian language. It also issued a veto on the opening of the talks so that everyone knew it was taking this seriously.

The most recent veto came earlier this summer, during the EU summit in Brussels in June.

While Deputy Foreign Minister Rumen Alexandrov tried to be diplomatic in a statement at the EU General Affairs Council meeting on June 22, highlighting that Bulgaria is open for a constructive dialogue to find mutually acceptable solutions, others were blunter.

We cannot say 'Yes' before being convinced that our neighbour won't be building its identity by stealing from Bulgaria's history," Bulgarian president Rumen Radev said at the EU Council summit only a couple of days later, vowing to keep the door to North Macedonias EU accession firmly shut.

Timing, too, is not on the Macedonian side. Bulgarian politicians are currently embroiled in a political deadlock following the July elections, a shakeup that has left the country without a clear frontrunner. This is also cited as one of the reasons for not lifting the veto on North Macedonias accession talks in June.

However, the yet-to-be-formed government in Bulgaria is unlikely to lift the veto or change the countrys stance on the Macedonian language regardless of its internal political upheaval.

Bulgaria held two elections in the span of three months, its second being in July 2021. The results echo those from April, with the same six parties and coalitions crossing the mandatory electoral threshold.

With any of the six being possible contenders for a government coalition but almost none seeing eye to eye Bulgaria will most likely end up being left with a hung parliament.

In the July snap election, the populist conservative coalition led by former PM Boyko Borissovs GERB party came in second. The proclaimed anti-elite Ima takv narod (There Is Such a People) party headed by TV host and musician Slavi Trifonov just came out on top with 24.08 per cent of the vote.

Despite the victory, Trifonovs party is expected to struggle with forming a government. Other parties that crossed the threshold, such as Democratic Bulgaria and Stand Up! Get Out! have already proclaimed they would not join any government coalitions lead by There Is Such a People.

The 2020 veto against North Macedonia was seen by many as a calculated move by former PM Borissov to appease his nationalist coalition partners an increasingly successful election ploy in Central and Eastern Europe ahead of the 2021 elections.

The move did not pay off. Neither Borissov nor the far-right nationalists platforming on it, such as Krasimir Karakachanov, whose party IMRO did not cross the parliamentary threshold, achieved the electoral success they expected in both of this years elections.

Karakachanov, a vocal Bulgarian nationalist, went as far as to threaten with sending a military regiment to North Macedonia to remove all the plaques bearing reference to the Bulgarian fascist occupation during the Second World War.

However, his inflammatory nationalistic messages fell flat.

Dimitar Bechev believes this is because the Macedonian language issue is not as polarising in Bulgaria as its political leaders believe.

Bechev, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, thinks that for the populists to attract attention enough to win, there would have to be an opposing voice on the political scene to fight against.

But nobody opposes the prevailing belief that Macedonians, in fact, speak Bulgarian.

Its a niche subject, Bechev said. As a result, you have a consensus, and also because its such a boutique issue, you have the most radical voices dominating the debate simply because there is no critical voice.

This also means that Bulgaria is in no rush to find a solution. If everybody agrees on it, its kind of on the backburner. And its bad for the Macedonians because it means that there is no sense of urgency to resolve it now, he said.

What Bechev is saying is that an issue that holds one country hostage doesnt really ignite people in the other country. Except that an entire countrys, in this case, North Macedonias, future depends on the reception of this topic in Bulgaria.

According to Bechev, with Borissov most likely out of power, little is known about who will now own the issue in Sofia. In addition to creating the issue, Borissov positioned himself as the key to its solution and most likely planned a way out for North Macedonia, explains Bechev.

Borissov is a political actor many in the EU fail to understand. The burly politician became a mainstay of politics in the country by both causing and solving most of its crises.

Bechev posits that Borissov likely envisioned a scenario to resolve the North Macedonia issue that he bolstered especially considering his relatively good relationship with the government in Skopje in the past but any promises made to the Macedonian government before are now on life support.

Borissov has a track record of Borissov making promises to people and then throwing them under the bus. Which is what he did to [Macedonian PM Zoran] Zaev, he stated.

With his party failing to form a government after the April elections and now falling to second place, Borissovs return to power is almost impossible. He is seen as too toxic even by his own party members, who would rather have someone else take over the reins.

Even if hes back he wont care that much [about the North Macedonia issue], because his survival is at stake. Simply, theres nobody on the Bulgarian side who is willing to take any risks. So we are kind of captive to this issue, Bechev said.

Zaev caused a stir in North Macedonia when, in an interview for the Bulgarian news agency BGNES last November, he suggested that Bulgaria was not an occupying force during the Second World War.

Zaev, known as a political appeaser, made a costly domestic gamble -- seemingly for nothing, according to Bechev. Zaev is still viewed in a negative light in Bulgaria.

He went on a limb to accommodate Sofia. And frankly, you dont get anything better than Zaev. And now hes maligned as some sort of an anti-Bulgarian politician. Its frustrating, that he of all people gets the heat, Bechev said.

In its essence, this dispute stems from the consequences of World War II, when North Macedonia and Bulgaria were placed on opposing sides.

During the interwar period, the area of todays North Macedonia was a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. It was named the Vardar Banovina, an administrative unit equivalent to a province. In the vein of modern developments, the very name Macedonia was prohibited.

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrendered to Axis powers in 1941, and Bulgaria was given most of North Macedonia by the Nazis, as well as parts of Southern Serbia and Northern Greece, to administer.

Axis powers delivered on the unfulfilled ethno-nationalist desires of its allies on the continent, and thus entertained long-standing Bulgarian nationalist aspirations to control todays North Macedonia.

After its liberation in 1944, the Socialist Republic of Macedonia became one of the six republics of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia led by Josip Broz Tito.

Unlike Yugoslavia, after the Second World War, Bulgaria became a part of the Stalin led communist bloc and remained a loyal ally to the Soviet Union until the fall of top functionary Todor Zhivkov in 1989 and the first multiparty elections in the following year.

Bulgaria and North Macedonia within Yugoslavia were at loggerheads starting in 1948 when one side embraced a liberal form of socialism under Tito and the other championed hardline communism under the Warsaw Pact.

Democratization saw them become friendly again. Bulgaria was the first country to recognize what was then known as the Republic of Macedonia when it declared independence from the former Yugoslavia in 1991.

The Yugoslav-era dispute is now being used as an argument by the Bulgarian side, claiming that the Macedonian identity and the codification of the language in 1944 was a way for Yugoslavia and Tito to minimize Bulgarian cultural importance.

The Yugoslavia argument is a way to rationalise what happened. Because its difficult from a nationalist position to understand that people who had this connection a few generations ago suddenly developed a separate national identity, Bechev adds.

Its a human reflex, to blame it on external forces like conspiracies and not to look at the complexities of the process. Somebody elses fault is a political machination, he said.

North Macedonia signed the Good-Neighbourly Relations treaty with Bulgaria in 2017 which included setting up a joint historical commission. The goal of the commission - the likes of which exist elsewhere in Europe and the world - is to resolve issues pertaining to important historical figures or textbook references that could potentially cause negative perceptions or stereotypes about others.

Macedonian historian Petar Todorov, a member of the commission, says that the work of the commission has since been stalled due to a difference in approach.

Our principle from the start was to come up with suggestions for the two governments that reflect what is important for both societies, Todorov said.

Unfortunately, the other side has an approach that emphasizes only what is important to the Bulgarian perspective and the Bulgarian society alone. We cant accept that solution because it wouldnt represent a joint space, rather creating another problem in the two countries relations.

Bulgaria is sensitive to being represented as a fascist occupier in the Second World War, he said. I believe its an internal problem of the Bulgarian society, and they should openly and self-critically discuss Bulgarias collaboration with fascists in the Second World War.

But the essence of reconciliation, whether between countries or within the same society can only come from a critical re-examination of the past. And if you try to hide it, to forget it, then the process is doomed to fail, Todorov points out.

But this is also a broader issue on the continent, according to him. After the end of communism in Europe, an anti-communist movement appeared that is very critical of socialism, Todorov said.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, former communist countries seeking acceptance from Western nations were quick to place fascism and communism on identical footing touting them as parallel totalitarianisms which planted the seeds for historical revisionism ranging from a rehabilitation of Nazism to communist crimes being minimized.

The European Parliament issued a resolution in 2009 condemning all totalitarian regimes of the past century. This bundled communism together with Nazism and fascism as having a shared legacy.

I think this encouraged the far-right movements to settle scores with socialism, while relativizing all of the crimes committed in the Second World War, Todorov explains.

Charged narratives involving a countrys fascist or communist past or both have transformed processes such as EU integration which were usually purely bureaucratic in the past.

This goes against the very role of politicians. Its their responsibility to create conditions for our work, in the sense that the politicians are not the ones interpreting history, and determining what is true and what is false, Todorov concludes.

Journalist and analyst Sasho Ordanoski believes that, although the Bulgarian veto echoes political stances from the Zhivkov period, it also unearths the geopolitical tit-for-tat that North Macedonias EU integration has turned into.

The competition between Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia about who will rule over North Macedonia is a competition for the Heart of the Balkans, he said.

And its not the first time this kind of energy has been generated, because whoever rules North Macedonia can freely claim they dominate the Balkans.

Greece did not question the Macedonian identity past the countrys name, as the Prespa Agreement itself proves. In the agreement, the language is called Macedonian: Its an international document sponsored by the United Nations which leaves no doubts as to a nations identity and its language. The agreement, which was also lauded internationally, cemented both, explains Ordanoski.

Ironically, as a southern Slavic nation, Macedonians felt less ostracised by Bulgaria. Greece was the hurdle they were expecting.

Although our relations with Bulgaria were never developed, there was no negative energy. After the last months of a very fierce Bulgarian offensive, where all sorts of things were said, the public in North Macedonia has been scandalised and confused, he said.

Many are saying that we should give up and so what if we do. If we enter the EU, we enter it, if we dont, well, then this should not be the price of our entry. And its a shame that the Bulgarians got themselves into a situation where a generation of Macedonians are reacting negatively, said Ordanoski.

Its not just the Bulgarian image that is suffering. The very idea of the European Union is in question, Ordanoski believes.

Its clear that this dispute is the result of many unanswered questions that have been bothering Europe for hundreds of years now. The EU was supposed to be the recipe and the solution for resolving disputes once and for all, with everyone becoming part of a large family without borders where we will exchange our experiences and cultures, he said.

Its a shame that this recipe the only one that could work because everything else is worse has been proven impossible to implement by the Europeans themselves.

Every weekday, Uncovering Europe brings you a European story that goes beyond the headlines. Download the Euronews app to get a daily alert for this and other breaking news notifications. It's available on Apple and Android devices.

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Could North Macedonia be the graveyard of the EU's ideals? - Euronews

A road sign directs traffic towards the Nord Stream 2 gas line landfall facility entrance in Lubmin, Germany, September 10, 2020. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke/File Photo

WASHINGTON, July 20 (Reuters) - The United States and Germany will take action against Russia if it uses the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to harm Ukraine or other Eastern European countries, according to two sources familiar with a bilateral agreement expected on Wednesday.

The agreement, hammered out in recent months by senior U.S. and German officials and first reported by Reuters on Tuesday, will resolve a long-standing dispute over the $11 billion pipeline, now 98% complete, being built under the Baltic Sea to carry gas from Russia's Arctic region to Germany. read more

U.S. officials insist they continue to oppose the pipeline, but said the U.S.-German agreement would mitigate the possibility of Russia using energy as a weapon against Ukraine and other countries in the region.

The United States worries that Russia could cut off energy supplies to Ukraine or other countries as a form of aggression, and also fears that Ukraine will miss out on transit fees for gas now carried on an existing land-based pipeline.

The agreement will avert, for now, the resumption of congressionally mandated sanctions against Nord Stream 2 AG and its chief executive. President Joe Biden waived those sanctions in May to allow time for both sides to negotiate a way forward.

But the Biden administration reserves the right to use sanctions on a case-by-case basis, in line with U.S. law, one of the sources said.

Germany also agreed to contribute to a new $1 billion fund to help Ukraine transition to cleaner sources of energy and improve its energy security, said one of the sources.

Details about the funding were not immediately available, but the money is likely to come from private sources, backed with government guarantees, one of the sources said.

Bloomberg News reported earlier that Germany would provide an initial investment of $175 million.

Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel failed to reach an agreement on the pipeline when they met last week, but said they agreed Moscow must not be allowed to use energy as a weapon against its neighbors. read more

At the time, Merkel said Germany had a number of instruments at its disposal, including the possibility of imposing sanctions through the European Union, to respond to Russia, if needed.

'GEOPOLITICAL PROJECT'

Officials from both countries have continued working out the details in recent days, and senior State Department official Derek Chollet visited Ukraine on Tuesday to discuss the deal.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Tuesday that Washington still viewed the pipeline as a bad deal for Germany and Europe but decided that sanctions were unlikely to halt the project and focused instead on addressing Russia's potential use of energy as a weapon.

"We continue to oppose the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We view it as a Kremlin geopolitical project that is intended to expand Russia's influence over Europe's energy resources and to circumvent Ukraine."

Price declined to address the reported agreement, but said Germany had "put forward useful proposals" and they had made progress on the shared goal of ensuring that "Russia cannot weaponize energy flows."

Biden faces pressure from Congress to block the pipeline.

"Regardless of the foreign policy outcome the administration thinks it has achieved, there are still mandatory sanctions the administration has not imposed," Senator James Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement, referring to existing U.S. law.

Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Simon Lewis; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom; Editing by Peter Cooney

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U.S., Germany to vow action on Russia in Nord Stream 2 deal -sources - Reuters

Valrie Hayer (FR, Renew Europe) and Jos Manuel Fernandes (PT, EPP) are members of the European Parliament and co-rapporteurs on the reimbursement of the EU recovery plan and own resources.

Can we still trust the European Commission when it comes to repaying European Union debt? The answer seems to be no. The only party who can count on the Commission is the United States.

The Commission is preparing to breach a legally binding agreement it sealed with MEPs and EU ambassadors just a few months ago. According to the deal, the debt was to be repaid with proceeds from new so-called own resources, including a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), additional charges using the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and a new EU digital tax. Today, all three of these new sources of revenue for the EU budget are in doubt.

This is a problem because there are only three options for repaying this debt: additional national contributions (meaning additional taxpayer money), cuts to European programs such as the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) or Erasmus, or making the digital giants, big industrial polluters, foreign CO2 importers and aggressive stock market players pay.

The third solution is the right one and it is the one we negotiated last year. The other two are unfair. And it would be strikingly ironic if the future-oriented EU budget were to be cut by 10 percent in order to reimburse a program called Next Generation EU.

And yet, U.S. pressure regarding CBAM and the EU digital tax has demonstrated the political weakness of this Commission, culminating in last weeks decision to postpone sine die the EU digital levy at the request of U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, due to global tax reform negotiations at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The OECD/G20 pre-agreement, which aims to set a global minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent, is a major achievement, and the Commission is right to support it. However, the decision to postpone the EU digital levy is outrageous. When it comes to its strategic interests, we expect a geopolitical Commission not to yield to pressure from third countries. We did not vote in the EU elections for a European executive that prioritizes American interests over ours.

Additionally, Washington is still imposing several conditions on the final agreement. What would happen if the U.S. Senate does not approve the deal? Whether a final deal is reached or not, the EU digital levy would be a complementary way to protect European interests and further ensure tax fairness beyond this agreement.

As if this were not enough, the Commission also plans to take another unilateral decision today, deferring the two other new own resources to an unspecified date as well.

This is unacceptable. We urge the College of Commissioners to preserve its credibility by thinking strategically and acting in the interests of the EU citizens it is meant to serve.

We ask the Commission to take two actions: First, it must honor its commitment to present the new own resources as soon as possible, including the complementary EU digital levy.

Second, it should take advantage of the OECD/G20 agreement and channel part of the revenues that will be generated by this global reform on international taxation (around 50 billion in the EU) toward the EU budget and the repayment of EU debt. Member countries and third countries should not be allowed to keep all the money for their national budgets and leave the EU to cope with its debt repayment without new own resources.

The recovery plan must prepare to build an EU that will benefit Europeans for decades, implementing the ecological and digital transition and providing new and improved job prospects. However, without new own resources, the Commission would be leaving a troubling legacy for future generations: Debts from the past.

This is not what we promised them, and this is not what the Commission promised us in December 2020. Therefore, we will do everything in our power to put an end to weak decisions by the Commission and make those who do not currently pay their fair share of taxes pay for the recovery whether it pleases foreign powers or not.

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Why is the European Commission doing Washingtons bidding on taxation? - POLITICO Europe