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Nightly protests in North Macedonia over the past week have left dozens injured. At the heart of the turmoil is the small Balkan countrys long-running quest to join the European Union, a process that has faced one hurdle after the other.

The most recent obstacle is a veto by EU member Bulgaria. A French proposal for a compromise to address Bulgarias concerns has divided North Macedonia, sparking the sometimes violent protests. Frances plan also met deep objections in Bulgaria and helped to bring down the government, which had accepted the compromise.

What is the dispute about?

North Macedonia has been an EU candidate for 17 years. The country emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and sought to forge a strong national identity. But in a region where borders and ethnicities have shifted and overlapped over centuries, it was beset by problems from the start.

The countrys chosen name, Macedonia, sparked outrage in neighboring Greece, which said the term harbored expansionist aims against its own province of the same name and was an attempt to usurp Greek history and culture. Athens held up Skopjes EU and NATO membership bids for years, until a 2019 deal was reached that included the smaller country changing its name to North Macedonia.

But the following year, neighboring Bulgaria blocked the renamed nations attempts to join the EU, accusing Skopje of disrespecting shared cultural and historic ties. Among Bulgarias key demands were acknowledgment that the language of North Macedonia derived from Bulgarian, and the recognition of a Bulgarian minority.

The size of the Bulgarian community in North Macedonia is a matter of contention. Official data from the 2021 census put it at 3,504 people, or about 0.2% of the population. Bulgaria has doubted the figure, noting that about 90,000 of North Macedonias roughly 2 million population received dual Bulgarian citizenship over the last two decades based on their family roots. About 53,000 more applications are pending.

Why does it matter?

North Macedonias EU bid is tied to a similar bid by neighboring Albania. Both countries see joining the 27-nation bloc as a means of securing stability and prosperity in an increasingly unstable world. The EU prospects of the Western Balkan countries gained increased attention in the wake of the blocs efforts to bring Ukraine closer following the Russian invasion.

What is the French proposal?

France held the rotating EU presidency between January and June and so has been deeply involved in negotiations to break the deadlock. EU leaders held a summit with Western Balkan nations last month, during the same week they made Ukraine and Moldova candidates for EU membership.

French President Emmanuel Macron hoped to present unblocking the EU bids of North Macedonia and Albania as a major success. On Thursday, the French Embassy in Skopje posted a message from Macron.

Once again, North Macedonia has reached a crucial moment in its history. Seventeen years after receiving candidate status, a historic opportunity has opened: . The choice is yours, he said.

Macrons proposal envisages concessions from both sides. The government in Skopje would commit to changing its constitution to recognize a Bulgarian minority, protect minority rights and banish hate speech.

The French leader stressed the proposal doesnt question the official existence of a Macedonian language, but he noted that, like all deals, it rests on compromises and on a balance.

How was the proposal received?

The compromises in the French proposal led to rifts in both countries.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkovs centrist government was toppled in a no-confidence vote on June 22. A junior governing partner quit the fragile four-party coalition, describing Petkovs willingness to lift the veto of North Macedonia as a national betrayal. An early election could result in a stronger presence in parliament of nationalist and pro-Russia lawmakers.

The National Assembly already has approved the proposal, but legislators set additional conditions for agreeing to North Macedonias EU membership. They included proper constitutional protection for Bulgarians living in North Macedonia, and no assumption that Bulgaria would recognize Macedonian as a separate language from Bulgarian.

In North Macedonia, both President Stevo Pendarovski and the government of Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevsk backed the proposal as a reasonable compromise. Accepting it will be neither a historic triumph, as one camp would call it, nor a historic failure or debacle, as those in the other camp say, Pendarovski said.

The government has stressed the proposal does not endanger national interests or identity. But the center-right main opposition party, the VMRO-DPMNE, as well as others, disagree, saying the deal favors Bulgarian demands that question North Macedonias history, language, identity, culture and heritage.

Biljana Vankovska, a law professor at the Saint Cyril and Methodius Universitys Institute for Security, Defense and Peace, slammed the French proposal as bowing to the nationalistic and chauvinistic demands of Bulgaria.

It is unbelievable that a small nation was asked to give up its language, history and constitution-making powers to external powers in order to start the EU accession process, she said.

Political analyst Albert Musliu, head of the Association for Democratic Initiatives think tank, argued the proposal offers North Macedonia a chance to start membership talks with the EU.

If you ask me whether it is fair, then yes, the proposal is unfair, but international order is not based on fairness, he said.

Whats next?

Bulgaria has accepted the French proposal, which now requires the backing of North Macedonias parliament. The text is now at committee level in parliament. No plenary session has been scheduled.

Read more from the original source:
Explained: What's behind North Macedonia's long road to the European Union? - The Indian Express

This is an opinion editorial by Beautyon, the CEO of Azteco and a contributor at Bitcoin Magazine.

A group of bitter, twisted computer illiterates in the beleaguered European Union have managed to convince the European Council that bitcoin is money, that Bitcoin wallets are actual wallets that hold actual balances of money and that they should be regulated. This is of course totally insane and an idea borne out of profound ignorance.

Since it is not possible to have a rational argument with people like this, another, better strategy of dealing with these violent types must be formulated and implemented. Theyre fixated on the idea that bitcoin is money and, from the seed of this mistaken idea, a monstrous Pandoras Box of evil has been opened.

Bitcoin is not money. If you seek compliance you are asking for trouble. People who want to see the widespread and rapid adoption of Bitcoin should not seek tight regulation and the blessing. Beautyon

In order to avoid the unethical attacks of the dribbling geriatrics in the United States and the delusional EU socialists, Bitcoin wallet software developers must devise a strategy to stay out of the crosshairs of the very misguided apparatchiks hell-bent on damaging Bitcoin businesses.

Every law that touches Bitcoin uses deceptive language as definition and pretext. These definitions come from ambulance chasers and not computer scientists or software developers. By re-contextualizing Bitcoin wallets, it will be possible to totally escape the onslaught of destruction being planned by the EU and U.S. legislators.

This is how you do it.

Bitcoin wallet developers, quite naturally, have centered on using the conventions of money to translate what is happening under the hood into something ordinary people can understand. There is no coin management or UTXO information displayed to users in the consumer grade Bitcoin wallets: BlueWallet, Wallet of Satoshi, Samourai, Pine, Phoenix, Muun; all of that is hidden away because it is of no use to consumers.

No normal person can deal with coin control, UTXOs or anything like that.

Instead, a set of familiar, easy to understand and simple conventions has been borrowed from the world of banking to make everything in Bitcoin understandable to normal people.

This is why Bitcoin wallets have taken on the appearance, nomenclature and styling of banking apps, which normally look something like these apps from Halifax and Lloyds respectively.

Bank apps from Lloyds and Halifax. Obviously bought off the shelf from the same developer.

Below is a picture of Coinbases phone app, which looks exactly like a bank app.

Coinbase phone app

Now Airbitz:

Airbitz dashboard

When a normal, ignorant, computer-illiterate person from the EU government looks at any Bitcoin app, they recognize it as a financial tool because it looks exactly like the financial apps theyre familiar with. As for what is going on under the hoods of these very different classes of tools, they have absolutely no clue. They only see the surface and make all their judgements based on that alone. This is why they reflexively conflate Bitcoin with money and think that the balance in a Bitcoin wallet is analogous to the fiat balance in a banking app.

There is a lot of talk about using Blockchains to improve data integrity, but what all these solutions fail to address is what I call The Flat Screen Dilemma. Just because something is displayed on a screen, it does not follow that it is true. The Flat Screen Dilemma

The fact of the matter is very different, however. Bitcoin apps show you the total of the UTXOs that you have control over by virtue of you being in possession of the private key. That is a sum of UTXOs; it is not a single balance. Furthermore, that money is not on the device. What is on the users device is an app that stores a cryptographic key (a string of text) that allows you to sign messages for broadcast to the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin wallets do not contain or receive bitcoin. They simply tell you what your private key can sign for on the block chain.

By saying this, I am obviously simplifying the process. But the simplification I am presenting here is more accurate than saying a Bitcoin wallet receives and stores bitcoin, which never, ever happens and never has happened. It is also wrong to characterize a Bitcoin wallet as unhosted if it can sign a message on command of a user without reference to anyone else. There are no wallets in Bitcoin at all. Its just another analogy.

Bitcoin is a database. It is not a payment network nor is value sent over it at all. There are no wallets either. Signed messages are what are sent to the network for inclusion in the public database. It is a database used to keep a record of who controls which outputs. It is not and never has been money in the conventional sense. Just because people use this database as money doesnt mean that bitcoin is money. Just because people use the word wallet does not mean that there are actual Bitcoin wallets that hold bitcoin the way a leather wallet holds cash.

Using the word wallet for the sake of user experience is a convention to help make the primary function of tools understandable for users. Those conventions are a choice, not a rule and they are not a universal truth, either. That means that anyone can choose any convention or any analogy they want to compare what happens in their Bitcoin app. It is entirely possible that oil traders could use the block chain to denominate barrels of oil using barrels as measurement. Today, one barrel of oil is 0.0048 bitcoin/barrel. In an oil traders wallet this would be represented as 100 if the trader had one hundred barrels showing on his device as allocated to his private key in a UTXO.

In this scenario, which is totally plausible, no one would claim that bitcoin is oil but maybe they would? Apparatchiks are completely insane and insane thinking is what youd expect from them.

BlueWallet does nothing more than present the user with conventions users can understand. It is not an unhosted wallet; it is a block chain viewer and signing device. In no way, shape or form is a Bitcoin wallet on a mobile phone a financial tool of any kind. If very stupid people were to classify a signing device as a financial tool, then many other software tools would be captured by that insanity immediately. BlueWallet could pivot to the oil industry tomorrow and start calling itself OilWallet. The fact that people use bitcoin as money is irrelevant to bitcoins nature. They exchange it for goods and services and money while OilWallet is used to manage the exchange of barrels of oil. Common to all of this is Bitcoin is only a database; what you impute to it is up to you and has nothing to do with its fundamental nature.

WhatsApp uses exactly the same encryption techniques as Bitcoin does to authenticate users to each other. You have a pair of cryptographic keys that you use to encrypt, decrypt and sign messages so that the other person receiving your call or texts or pictures knows it came from you and could have only come from you. Users of WhatsApp are not exposed to how all of this works, in the same way that users of Bitcoin wallets are not shown the text of their private keys. The software takes care of all of that for the user and simply gives them information that is useful to them. In the case of WhatsApp, that useful information is text messages. In Bitcoin it is the sum of UTXOs that are associated with your private key that are written into the public database of the chain of blocks.

So what is the answer? I hear you bleating.

The answer is to call Bitcoin wallets viewers and signers.

If wallets were to rebrand as bitcoin viewers, to better reflect their function and distance themselves from the language of the financial industry, no one could argue that they are financial tools or unhosted wallets.

That is literally what all Bitcoin wallets do: they act as viewers or, to analogize, Windows on the block chain, showing you which outputs are controllable by you.

When you send bitcoin to someone (note how I put send in quotes, because bitcoin is never sent anywhere; it is not like money) you take their public key (what is called a Bitcoin address) and use your private key to sign a message granting control of those bitcoin to the recipients address. Had the money convention been taken to the logical conclusion, Bitcoin addresses might have been called Bitcoin account numbers. This signing of a message has more in common with contracts than it does with money handling. This further breaks the absurd Swiss bank account in your pocket imagery. Sent, received, deposit, payment, account all of these words must be abolished from Bitcoin wallet interfaces, the Bitcoin Lexicon and the overall nomenclature or the reckless, dangerous and very harmful conflation of bitcoin with money will continue.

When these messages are broadcast to be added to the public chain of blocks, either from your own full node, which is a copy of all the messages ever incorporated into the block chain, they are incorporated once the network of database administrators decide the addition should be made. Database administrators not miners. Are you starting to understand? Mining is what companies do to extract precious metals from the earth. Precious metals like gold, which actually is money, unlike bitcoin. All of these analogies and the language from the financial world must be abolished from the lexicon of Bitcoin companies.

Once the message is accepted as legitimate by the network, your block chain viewer will be able to see that the signature you made has been added to the public record and the sum of your UTXOs will be smaller than they were before the message was sent. In the current wallet convention, this is expressed as a single number, sometimes juxtaposed with a conversion into fiat with the approximately equal to sign (). All of this is to help you understand but is not a reflection of what is really happening, or an absolute prerequisite or necessity.

Is Liquid bitcoin money?

There are already watch-only tools from Bitcoin companies like the great Samourai Wallet. Sentinel allows you to scan your keys and then whenever the chain of blocks is updated, it will show you the status of the UTXOs you control on the block chain.

By the bizarre, irrational and stupid thinking of the EU, Sentinel is an unhosted financial services application because it shows you a balance in bitcoin as a single number. If it is not a financial services application, why not? Are they going to claim that a tool that watches a database is a wallet? No one is asking these questions because they dont understand how Bitcoin works at any level other than analogies.

Samourai Wallet Sentinel app

And dont get me started on metal storage devices.

Is this an unhosted Bitcoin wallet? (Photo/Cryptosteel)

In the end, there is going to have to be a U.S. Supreme Court case to force the venal and stupid legislators to obey their oaths and stop interfering with the free speech of American software developers. Bitcoin is not money it is speech and no lawmaker can interfere with the speech of U.S. citizens. I explain more about this in Why America Cant Regulate Bitcoin

Once this is settled by case law, the benefits for the U.S. will be enormous. All software developers working in Bitcoin will run to incorporate in the country and base their operations in Florida. No one anywhere in the EU will dare to start a Bitcoin wallet company because the ignorant apparatchiks there cant tell the difference between a chat app and a Bitcoin app (pro tip: there is no difference).

When this happens, hundreds of billions of dollars from all over the world will flow through Bitcoin wallet companies being run from America, and those companies will be paying taxes in the U.S. The entire worlds financial infrastructure and tooling will come from America and flow through America for Uncle Sam to get his slice. America wins again.

Upon reading this, there will be many stupid people out there who will cry, This is just semantics! Those people dont use Bitcoin wallets, dont have any bitcoin, dont run Bitcoin businesses of any kind and are as ignorant as the EU idiots and U.S. geriatrics who want to cripple Bitcoin.

When this goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, it will not be them paying the legal bill, though they will reap the world-changing benefits of software developers working with the Bitcoin database free of arbitrary, unethical and unconstitutional restrictions hampering their ability to display the UTXOs you can assign with your block chain viewer and signer.

This is a guest post by Beautyon. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.

Read more here:
The European Unions Attack On Bitcoin Is An English And Math Comprehension Problem - Bitcoin Magazine

On 16thJuly, theEuropean Union Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia) turns ten years old. For the past decade, the mission has contributed to strengthen Somali institutional capacities in the maritime and police domains, as well as progressed with legal reform and rule of law.

First established as EUCAP Nestor, a regional civilian maritime capacity building mission focused on counter-piracy, in July 2012, the mission was renamed as EUCAP Somalia in 2016, with a focus on Somali partner and based in Mogadishu. Currently the mission is composed by 173 members and benefit from the direct contribution of 15 European countries that are seconding a part of the staff.

The mission is part of the EUs comprehensive approach to Somalia and was launched to complement the two other EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) operations: the military training mission EUTM Somalia and the counter-piracy EUNAVFOR Operation Atalanta.

EUCAP Somalia gave the maritime authorities the necessary skills and equipment to conduct a basic coast guard function. Away from the coast, it also helped train some 700 federal Darwish, a robust police force mandated to secure territories freed from Al Shabbah control.Today, Somalia still faces massive internal security challenges. But thanks to our CSDP efforts, piracy is no longer a major threat to international shipping off the Horn of Africa stressed the HR/VR Josep Borrell in the occasion of the 15th CSDP Anniversary in May 2022.

Certainly, mission accomplishments were only possible thanks to the fruitful collaboration with Somali actors, including Ministry of Internal Security (MoIS), Ministry of Port and Maritime Transport, Somali Police Force (SPF), Somali Maritime Administration (SMA), INTERPOL, National Central Bureau (NCB). Additionally, with other international partners such as UNODC, UNSOM, UNOPS, IMO and INTERPOL.

In the Maritime domain, the mission has provided Vessel Boarding Search and Seizure training facilities the so-called ship-in-a-box , training and equipment in the three main ports (Mogadishu, Bossaso and Berbera) and contributed to the construction of the Somali Police Forces maritime unit Headquarters in Mogadishu in collaboration with EU partners.

The Mission has also strengthened the Somali Maritime Administrations (SMA) capacity to set the framework for its initial operational capabilities, with the provision of technical maritime, and supported the accession and domestication of international maritime conventions into Somalias legal framework. More recently, EUCAP Somalia was the first EU Mission to deploy a specialized team for the provision of tailored maritime training, including on how to maintain maritime equipment.

In the Police domain, in conjunction with other international partners, the mission has promoted police development and increased Somali Security Forces interoperability.

On the strategic level, the Mission has contributed to the revision of the Somali Transition Plan 2021-2022 in light of the withdrawal of African Union Forces (AMISOM) and African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), with a focus on transitioning from military to police to an enhanced provisioning of security through civilian policing.

The Mission has been working with Somali INTERPOL NCB to increase their ability in combating transnational organized crime and achieving compliance with all 19 INTERPOL policies, of which 11 have already been achieved.The Mission is also supporting the development of the Action Plan for Empowering of Women in the Maritime and Marine Sector. The plan was consolidated and endorsed by the Ministry of Women and Family Affairs in Somalia (MoWFA) and is being implemented at Federal and Federal Member State Level.

We are delighted to have reached this milestone, through hard work and dedication, but also thanks to the fruitful collaboration and the commitment of Somali institutionsremarked Chris Reynolds, Head of Mission of EUCAP Somalia.

The missionis undergoing a strategic review to assess progress and identify needs and areas of support for the next mandate, starting from January 2023, with the aim to continue consolidating on its gains in the next years, strengthen its mandate, and foster the capabilities of the Police and Maritime Security sectors.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of European Union External Action: The Diplomatic Service of the European Union.

This Press Release has been issued by APO. The content is not monitored by the editorial team of African Business and not of the content has been checked or validated by our editorial teams, proof readers or fact checkers. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

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European Union Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia): The European Union's civilian mission in Somalia celebrates its 10th anniversary...

Immigration has been a hugely contentious issue across Europe for decades, as many migrants, particularly from the Middle East and Africa, have illegally entered the continent in search of a better life. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has likely exacerbated this crisis, sending millions of Ukrainians fleeing west to Central and Western Europe via Poland. Europeans in general have rather mixed feelings towards migrants some think that immigrants have taken their jobs, while others believe that it is their duty to support migrants and other refugees. Even though some countries may not be so welcoming to refugees and illegal migrants, many immigrants still attempt to enter Europe every day.

In recent days, there has been a reported increase in the number of people arriving into Europe via the Western Balkans. The European Unions Border Agency, Frontex, reported that the number of irregular migrants detected in the region more than doubled to 12,088 in the month of May. In addition to an increase in the month-on-month figure, Frontex also discovered that the number of migrants who have entered Europe on this route has tripled in 2022 compared to 2021. The rise could be attributed to the Talibans complete control of Afghanistan compelling many Afghans to leave the country.

The new migrants have chosen the Western Balkans because they seem to be less dangerous than the alternatives. Entering Europe via the Mediterranean is treacherous, with many migrants dying when they attempt the crossing, and the refugee camps on the Greek islands are also relatively unsafe, not to mention at capacity. Many Sub-Saharan and North African refugees enter Europe through Spains enclaves in Africa, but there are many border guards patrolling there to deter illegal crossings.

In addition to migrants arriving from countries like Syria and Afghanistan, many Ukrainians have also sought refuge in Europe. The latest data shows that more than 5.5 million Ukrainians have arrived in Europe since the beginning of the Russian invasion.

Many European countries seem to be unable to handle the sheer amount of new arrivals. Therefore, the European Union and the United Nations must work together to properly solve the crisis. Distributing refugees globally would reduce the pressure on European countries.

See the original post here:
Western Balkans Route Brings Immigrants to Europe The Organization for World Peace - The Organization for World Peace

In an effort to reduce the CO2 emissions to zero, the European Union recently made a huge announcement in regards to the sale of internal combustion engines (ICE). The 27-member union announced that it has approved a plan to phase out the sale of automobiles with combustion engines in Europe by 2035. The policy, initially suggested in July 2021, will result in a de facto end to sales of petrol and diesel automobiles, as well as light commercial vehicles, across the European Union, beginning in 2035. According to the EU, this strategy is meant to aid in the achievement of the continents climate goals, particularly carbon neutrality by 2050 by making a permanent shift to a future with electric mobility.

The EU-27 also decided, at the request of nations such as Germany and Italy, to consider a future green light for the use of alternative technologies such as synthetic fuels or plug-in hybrids. While approval would be conditional on completely eliminating greenhouse gas emissions, environmental NGOs have raised concerns about the technology. Environment ministers meeting in Luxembourg also agreed to extend until the end of 2035 the exemption from CO2 responsibilities provided to so-called niche producers, or those producing less than 10,000 vehicles each year.

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Many believe that this provision which sometimes has been dubbed the Ferrari amendment, will favour luxury brands in particular. Although these proposals must now be negotiated with European Parliament members. French Minister of Ecological Transition Agnes Pannier-Runacher, who presided over the gathering stated, This is a big challenge for our automotive industry, But she called it a necessity in the face of competition from China and the United States, both of which have invested heavily on electric vehicles as the industrys future.

These measures would enable for a planned and assisted transition, added the minister. Runacher further stated that Thanks to this agreement, Europe is putting itself at a leading position in terms of addressing climate challenges and technology. Were also ensuring a just transition for each member state, each territory and each citizen.

The EU however, also added that they are willing to be open-minded to other technologies like synthetic fuels, which are also referred to as e-fuels. Frans Timmermans, the EU Commission Vice President in charge of the European Green Deal, during the conference said, The overwhelming majority of car manufacturers have chosen electric cars, but we are technology neutral. What we want are zero-emission cars, He added, At the moment, e-fuels do not seem a realistic solution, but if manufacturers can prove otherwise in the future, we will be open.

Synthetic fuels technology is presently being researched and consists of manufacturing fuel from CO2 from industrial operations using low-carbon power in a circular economy approach. The automobile industry, like the oil business, has great aspirations for these new fuels, which would extend the usage of internal combustion engines, which is presently challenged by the introduction of fully electric cars. However, environmental organisations are opposed to the implementation of this technology in automobiles since it is both costly and energy-intensive. They claim that the synthetic-fuelled engines release the same amount of nitrogen oxide (NOx) as their fossil-fuel counterparts.

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European Union will end internal combustion engines by 2035 - CarToq.com