"Ukraine war has seen Poland shed its EU ‘problem child’ tag

Dear readers,

Welcome to EU Politics Decoded, where Benjamin Fox and Eleonora Vasques bring you a round-up of the latest political news in Europe and beyond every Thursday.

In this edition, we look at how the fallout from the war in Ukra"

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"ine has prompted Poland to gradually abandon its status, alongside Hungary, as one of Europe’s problem children.

Editor’s Take: Ukraine war has seen Poland shed its EU ‘problem child’ tag

There’s nothing like an emergency to change the political direction. Case in point is Poland, now at the centre of international attention following the missile attack that killed two people on Tuesday (15 November).

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the attack was “likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory,” a theory that Poland backs. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine’s forces did not fire the missiles.

Further investigations will provide a clearer picture of what happened and who was responsible, but the reaction of world leaders, all of which expressed solidarity with Poland, points a suspicious finger at Russia.

It is easy to forget that less than a year ago, Poland and Hungary were the ‘problem children’ of the EU, waging a long-running battle with the European Commission on the rule of law and a culture war encompassing migration, abortion and identity.

Just over a year ago, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg accused the EU, particularly the Court of Justice, of a “creeping revolution” that was undermining Polish sovereignty.

That defiance, coupled with the Polish judiciary proclaiming the superiority of its national law over that of the EU, prompted the likes of liberal MEP Guy Verhofstadt to compare Poland’s stance to Brexit.

In January, Belarus became the latest EU neighbourhood state to weaponise migration by driving migrants, many of them from Iraq and Afghanistan, to the border with Poland to enter the EU.

We can contrast the Polish government’s angry and hostile approach to those migrants with the welcome it has given to the 1.4 million people fleeing Ukraine who had registered for Temporary Protection in Poland as of 19 September.

Morawiecki’s administration is no less conservative than it was a year ago – particularly on abortion rights – and its dispute with the EU executive over its judiciary has meant almost €36 billion in post-pandemic recovery funds for Poland remain blocked.

But relations with Brussels are now far warmer, particularly in comparison with Viktor Orbán’s government in Budapest, which continues to publicly blame the EU’s sanctions on Russia for its own economic difficulties.

Commission Vice President Věra Jourová said this week that Warsaw is moving “in the right direction” towards receiving its recovery funds in full following “constructive” talks with Poland’s Europe minist

"Study identifies primary source of community-acquired legionnaires’ disease risk

Despite being one of the most prevalent types of Legionnaires’ disease, tracking the source of cases of community-acquired Legionnaires’ disease (CALD) is notoriously difficult. An in-depth study in Berlin over three y"

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"ears found that the presence of a virulent type of Legionella pneumophila in household water was a significantly greater predictor for CALD than the overall concentration of all Legionella species.

Alyssa Danigelis is a professional freelance journalist who covers business, sustainability, energy, science, and technology.

Led by a group of German researchers from 2016 to 2019, the study was presented in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One. Although it was originally published in November 2020, the study recently garnered attention at the 10th Annual Conference on Legionella in Yokohama, Japan this past September

As public health professionals and regulators around the world work to mitigate potentially deadly Legionella risks, the three-year study takes on new significance. In Europe, member states continue to adapt national legislation to the updated EU Drinking Water Directive before the Jan. 12, 2023, deadline. Knowing how to best utilize environmental testing to minimize risk could make an enourmous difference for labs and public health.

Focus on residential drinking water

The study, called LeTriWa after the German terms for “Legionella in drinking water,” was a massive collaborative effort involving the Robert Koch Institute, the German Environment Agency, the national Legionella lab, the State Department for Health and Social Affairs in Berlin, and a dozen health authorities and hospitals across the city.

CALD cases account for at least 70% of reported cases in Germany—more than the total cases associated with travel and hospitals combined, according to the study. CALD’s sporadic nature and the difficulty of environmental sampling make it especially challenging to link known cases with the source of infections.

The researchers adopted a novel methodology to pinpoint sources, using what they referred to as an analytical comparative approach. Over three years, 111 patients with confirmed cases of CALD agreed to participate in the study. Several weeks after each participant’s symptoms began, researchers took standard water samples from the household. They also requested additional urine and lower respiratory samples for further testing.

Besides analyzing patient samples and water samples, the research team conducted questionnaire-based interviews. For each case, the group recruited two control patients in the same age range who had been admitted to the same hospital for an illness other than pneumonia. Control patients also filled out the questionnaire, and the researchers took standard household water samples from these patients’ homes.

Type vs. Amount

Using an appraisal matrix that grouped source and evidence types, t

"Ukraine seeks EU integration for war-torn livestock sector

The Ukrainian government is preparing its livestock industry to ramp up exports across the European market despite the acute problems the sector currently faces due to Russia’s war in the country.

Read the original German article here.

Ru"

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"ssia’s war in Ukraine has led to the destruction of many stables and other facilities in the country, many of which are located in occupied or contested areas.

Despite this, Ukraine is working to pave the way for more exports of animal products to EU countries, representatives of the Ukrainian agriculture ministry told an event during the EuroTier livestock trade fair in Hanover on Wednesday (16 November).

The agriculture ministry is working on “further development and EU integration” for the sector, Deputy Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi emphasised.

In June, the EU decided to grant Ukraine candidate status for membership of the bloc.

While accession is expected to take years according to observers, harmonising legislation with that of the EU, including on agricultural matters, is among the conditions for access.

As such, Olena Dadus from the Ukrainian Agriculture Ministry’s animal production department explained that, in the field of animal husbandry, “intensive” work is already being undertaken to adapt national laws to ensure Ukrainian products meet the requirements needed for goods to be exported to the EU internal market.

Kyiv hopes this will open up new markets in the EU, she added.

No tariffs on exports?

To assist the Ukrainian economy in view of the war, the EU also decided in May to suspend all tariffs and quotas on Ukrainian exports to EU countries – including agricultural products and foodstuffs – for one year.

This suspension should be maintained for at least 10 years, according to Andrey Dykun, the president of the Ukrainian agriculture council. He explained that, while the suspension of customs duties is important, it can hardly be used by Ukrainian producers at the moment because of the war.

It remains questionable, however, whether this would be welcomed with open arms by EU livestock farmers, as they would then have to compete with duty-free imports from Ukraine.

Though Dadus admitted to EU producers often being wary of the prospect of Ukraine expanding its exports and thus increasing competition in the EU, she argued that the volume of Ukrainian exports would not position them as competition but rather as a complement to intra-European supply.

This should be clearly communicated to the European partners, she added.

Germany tightens animal transport rules, urges EU-wide follow-up

Germany will further restrict the transport of live animals to countries outside the EU, but without EU-wide regulation, the Agriculture Ministry’s push could remain ineffective.

Affected by the war

For the time being, however, Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine continues to pose major challenges for livestock producers in the

"The Brief — Missile scare aftermath

NATO officials were undoubtedly relieved to learn that the missile that hit Polish territory on Tuesday was more than likely Ukrainian and not Russian.

Indeed, had the missile been Russian, this would have been the first attack on NATO territory in the 70-year h"

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"istory of our alliance, with heavy consequences for the countries committed to collective defence under Article 5.

On my way to Belgian broadcaster LN24 TV to comment on the unfolding situation, I had already bet that it was Ukraine’s anti-missile defence that had fired the missile. My gut feeling was that Russia would have no interest in brazenly firing missiles at NATO soil.

So, I encouraged people to stay calm while remaining aware that such things may happen again. This is war, after all.

I also said Russia would make the most of it by mocking the reactions, including from political heavyweights, all quick to point the finger at Moscow.

Of course, the biggest ‘prize’ in this case was Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy himself, who called on the West to “act” against this “attack on collective security”. Russians will undoubtedly repeat that he tried to drag the West into World War Three, for as long as it suits them.

Many people deleted tweets and other reactions where they blamed Russia once more information came to light, but Zelenskyy is yet to backtrack.

But I still believe that the side responsible for the death of two Polish citizens is ultimately Russia. Ukraine didn’t fire the missile for fun. It fired it to protect its population from a massive Russian missile attack, which was obviously a retaliation for the humiliating loss of Kherson.

I was shocked to watch later in the afternoon, on LNC TV, Russian diplomat Alexander Makogonov delivering the narrative that not all civil casualties in Ukraine could be blamed on Russia, as many died because of Ukrainian missiles.

It was not what he said that made me furious but more the attitude of the French anchor, who appeared to accept that Makogonov had a point. She did not counter that if Russia had not started this war, Ukraine would not have to fire missiles that risk harming its own population, or that of Poland.

Then, we arrive at the dilemma of whether Western media should at all be giving the floor to Russian officials, who are often better than the hosts at pushing through their narrative.

My instinct as a journalist is that we should hear from each side. But in the context of the Russian war in Ukraine, I am not so sure.

When we give the floor to someone ill-intentioned with a penchant for propaganda, we risk giving them precisely the reach and credibility they crave.

For now, Article 5 will remain un-triggered, but perhaps we must consider how we report, who we give a platform to and how we impart crucial information. After all, it is said that the pen is mightier than the sword, and in times of war, it can be a very dangerous weapon.

Today’s edition is powered

"EU cohesion funds must keep serving long-term goals, says local admin chief

Long-term investment tools of the EU should be used for ‘strategic’ planning instead of ‘tactical’ operational targets, the president of the EU’s peripheral maritime regions told EURACTIV.

The debate around the future of t"

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"he cohesion policy – the EU’s main investment policy to tackle regional disparities – has already started, three years from the Commission’s expected proposal on the matter for the next EU programming period of 2028-2034.

The EU executive scheduled a revision of the multi-financial framework (MFF) for the second quarter of 2023, which will likely also deal with the issue as cohesion policy represents a consistent part of the EU budget.

“I have very much confidence that we take lessons from the past and come up with a very good proposal to make these instruments more agile and more up to the task,” said Cees Loggen, president of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPMR), in an interview with EURACTIV.

For Loggen, who is also the regional minister of the Dutch province of Noord-Holland, the best solution is a single investment tool for all shared management funds in the EU budget with the cohesion policy at its core.

“For almost 25 years, I have heard the calls for simplifying instruments, downscaling rules etc […] and in these 25 years, I only saw increasingly more complex rules,” he said.

In a reflection paper published in October, CPMR presented five potential settings for the post-2027 cohesion policy – each named after a famous film.

The proposed scenarios ranged from ‘The Matrix’, that is with an innovative architecture for EU’s territorial funds, to ‘Frozen’, meaning the preservation of the status quo.

The worst option – called ‘Titanic’ – implies the end of cohesion policy as we know it, with an increased renationalisation and less involvement of local and regional authorities.

Regions warn of bottleneck risks, double spending with EU recovery funds

Implementing the EU’s €750 billion recovery plan in addition to regular regional spending at European level is likely to prove a challenge, the bloc’s politicians admitted at an informal meeting of EU cohesion ministers in Lisbon on Tuesday (18 May).

Competition with RFF

The other main aspect of the ‘Titanic’ scenario is the abandoning of the shared management approach in favour of a direct management one similar to the Recovery and resilience facility (RFF) used for the disbursement of NextGenerationEU, the EU flagship initiative to mitigate the economic and social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A certain competition started to arise between the payment-by-result model of the recovery funds and the traditional cost-related approach of the cohesion policy, which could be less easy to spend.

But according to Loggen, cohesion policy serves long-term goals and cannot be compared to recovery funds as they’re intrinsically two different things.

“If your house is on fire,

"Dutch court sentences three to life in prison for 2014 downing of MH17

Dutch judges on Thursday (17 November) convicted three men of murder for their role in the 2014 shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over Ukraine, and sentenced them to life in prison.

A fourth man was acquitted.

MH1"

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"7 was a passenger flight that was shot down over eastern Ukraine on 17 July 2014, killing all 298 passengers and crew.

“Only the most severe punishment is fitting to retaliate for what the suspects have done, which has caused so much suffering to so many victims and so many surviving relatives,” Presiding Judge Hendrik Steenhuis said, reading a summary of the ruling.

Families of victims stood weeping and wiping away tears in the courtroom as Steenhuis read the verdict.

The three men convicted were former Russian intelligence agents Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Leonid Kharchenko, a Ukrainian separatist leader.

A fourth, Russian Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges.

At the time, the area was the scene of fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces, the precursor of this year’s conflict.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February and claims to have annexed the Donetsk province where the plane’s wreckage and victims’ remains were once scattered across cornfields.

Steenhuis said the men did not enjoy any immunity from prosecution as they were not members of the Russian armed services.

“There is no reasonable doubt” that MH17 was shot down by a BUK missile system, Steenhuis said.

Victims’ representatives said the ruling is an important milestone, though the suspects remain fugitives. They are all believed to be in Russia, which will not extradite them.

Moscow denies any involvement or responsibility for MH17’s downing and in 2014 it also denied any presence in Ukraine.

In a briefing in Moscow on Thursday, Deputy Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ivan Nechaev told reporters the government would examine the court’s findings.

“We will study this decision because in all these issues, every nuance matters,” he said.

The four men were charged with shooting down an airplane and with murder in a trial that was held under Dutch law.

Phone call intercepts that formed a key part of the evidence against the men suggested they believed they were targeting a Ukrainian fighter jet.

Of the suspects, only Pulatov had pleaded not guilty via lawyers he hired to represent him. The others were tried in absentia and none attended the trial.

Victims of MH17, which had been en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, came from 10 different countries. More than half were Dutch.

The investigation was led by the Netherlands, with participation from Ukraine, Malaysia, Australia and Belgium.

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"Self-regulation for sustainability: Combatting greenwashing in ads

As concerns about the climate crisis grow, demand for products that cause minimal environmental harm is also rising, leading to a proliferation in sustainability claims from the companies selling them.

Trust in the veracity of thes"

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"e claims is low, however, and members of the marketing sector are now calling for greater efforts to address this issue and boost the validity of environmental labels and consumer confidence in them.

A number of EU-level and national initiatives have in recent years focused on the issue of greenwashing and potential solutions, but those in the advertising industry stress the need for this to be combined with self-regulatory actions that offer guidance and set standards for businesses to ensure that positive climate action can become more widespread.

Marketers promote industry standards to combat greenwashing

News | Technology Nov 17, 2022

As greenwashing undermines trust in sustainability claims, marketers are looking into ways to self-regulate to promote credibility.

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"

"Marketers promote industry standards to combat greenwashing

This article is part of our special report Self-regulation for sustainability: Combatting greenwashing in ads.

As greenwashing undermines trust in sustainability claims, marketers are looking into ways to self-regulate to promote credibil"

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"ity.

As public attention towards the climate crisis grows, consumers are increasingly seeking out verifiably sustainable products. As the EU begins to address false environmental labels, the advertising industry is looking at how it could self-regulate.

If the EU’s climate goals are to be met, the marketing industry must play a part in promoting both sustainable products and practices. That was the consensus reached at the event on Responsible Marketing for the Green Transition, hosted by the European Advertising Standards Alliance on Wednesday (16 November) to mark the organisation’s 30th anniversary.

The push for more trustworthy climate action within the industry comes amid similar efforts at the EU level, where the Commission has recently introduced several initiatives designed to enforce specific standards regarding green claims in advertising.

Speakers at EASA’s event, however, emphasised that, while an important component, legislation alone would not be enough to ensure a more responsible turn within the sector and that broad self-regulatory efforts, particularly those that encompassed digital platforms, would also be vital for success.

Greening and greenwashing

“We have a duty to step up as marketers” to contribute to reducing emissions and reaching climate goals, said Stephen Loerke, CEO of the World Federation of Advertisers.

Companies should not see this as a restriction, he said, adding that “we want to get brands to embrace the climate transition as an opportunity” beyond the planetary and social benefits of an increased focus on genuine sustainability.

In the three decades since the founding of EASA, which advises standards bodies and advertising organisations on self-regulatory action, “what has changed is the urgency of the green transition and the need to ensure that consumers are on board”, said the EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders.

However, greenwashing is high in prevalence, as is consumer concern about it, he added, meaning that trust in environmental claims, in general, is being eroded. This comment was echoed by MEP Biljana Borzan, who told the event’s audience that “we live in a jungle of unsubstantiated environmental claims”, for which further regulation is needed.

Legislation and self-regulation

Recent years have seen the rollout of several initiatives by the European Commission to address the issue of unsubstantiated and false claims, with comparable action also being undertaken at a national level in many countries.

Among them, the importance of substantiation is outlined in both the European Green Deal and Brussels’ 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan, and in March this year, the Commission pu

"35,000 annual deaths in Europe due to superbugs, says EU agency

As deaths due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) rise, public health actions aimed at tackling AMR are insufficient, according to a report by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) published Thursday (17 November)"

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".

The report also states that “AMR will be an increasing concern unless governments respond more robustly to the threat.”

In 2020, more than 800,000 infections due to resistant bacteria occurred in the EU/EEA, which directly resulted in the deaths of 35,000 people.

“This means that every day nearly 100 people die in the EU, Norway, and Iceland,” ECDC director Andrea Ammon said at a press briefing presenting the report.

“The burden of AMR in the EU remains similar to the burden of influenza, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS combined,” Ammon added.

Antimicrobials include the subcategories antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals and antiparasitics, and are used to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and plants.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites change over time and stop responding to medicines. This complicates the treatment of infections.

AMR is driven by many factors, including widespread mis- and overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals worldwide.

AMR is a slow, silent pandemic, according to Ammon, who warned that we continue to see “high levels of AMR for several very important bacterial species” and that “new ones continue to emerge”.

In July, the Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) identified AMR as one of the top three health threats requiring coordinated EU action.

In 2019, it was estimated that AMR cost the healthcare systems of EU/EEA countries approximately €1.1 billion every year. This cost is bound to increase as AMR is on the rise and the development of new antimicrobials is slow.

Antibiotics

List of antimicrobials still disputed despite endorsement by member states

The EU member states have now formally given their support to the list of antimicrobials reserved for human use proposed by the Commission. Despite this, the criticism has not died down.

Burden in healthcare settings

According to Ammon, around 70% of the AMR burden is linked “with healthcare-associated infections”.

“[This] could be easily minimised through adequate infection prevention and control measures, as well as antibiotic stewardship in healthcare settings,” she said.

One positive development shown by the report is that the last 10 years have shown a decrease of 23% of the total antimicrobial consumption in humans in primary care and hospital sectors.

While this could show that we are moving in the right direction, Ammon advised keeping in mind that there could be missed factors lost in the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. This included considering how pandemic measures have affected healthcare-seeking behaviour and prescription beh

"MEPs urge EU response over Algeria’s military ties to Moscow

A group of 17 MEPs urged European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen to re-open the EU’s association agreement with Algeria in a letter which expresses ‘deep concern’ at the North African country’s close political and economic ties to "

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"Russia.

Algeria’s regime is “among the top four buyers of Russian arms worldwide, culminating with a more than €7 billion arms deal in 2021,” the MEPs warned.

“This military transfer has made Algeria the third largest recipient of Russian arms in the world,” the letter stressed.

The letter also criticised Algeria’s decision to abstain on a United Nations resolution censuring Russia’s attempts to annex Ukrainian regions, a move the MEPs described as “astonishing taking into account that Algeria has always tried to abide by international law and it respects nations’ sovereignty. However, it seems that is all about Algerian double standards,”

Algeria has long been one of Russia’s closest African allies and has repeatedly refused to criticise Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. The government of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was one of the main international recipients of Russia’s Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine, and recently agreed to purchase 16 Sukhoi Su-30 jet fighters to replace its ageing fleet of MiG-29 aircraft.

This week, the Tebboune government hosted a joint military exercise with Russian troops in the Bechar region near the Moroccan border. Morocco and Algeria are in a long-running diplomatic Cold War, primarily over the status of the disputed territory of Western Sahara.

The 2005 EU association agreement with Algeria covers tariff-free trade and political relations.

However, the EU’s relationship with Algiers has been complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has left a number of EU governments scrambling to find new sources of natural gas supplies, with Algeria near the top of the list.

In October, EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said that the bloc had a “long-term strategic partnership” with Algeria during a visit to Algiers.

“As the relationship with Russia, so far EU’s biggest gas supplier, is irreversibly broken, we are turning to the EU’s reliable suppliers to fill in the gap,” said Simson.

“In this respect we are offering Algeria a long-term strategic partnership.”

Simson is the latest in a string of top European officials to visit Algeria, Africa’s largest gas exporter, in search of alternative supplies of natural gas, following the collapse of Russian supplies

Italy has been at the front of the queue, in July signing a deal to import billions of additional cubic metres via an undersea pipeline from the North African coast.

The letter from MEPs, which represent the centre-right European People’s Party, Socialist and Democrat group, liberal Renew Europe and far-right Identity and Democracy groups, follows a similar bipartisan missive from members of the US Congress in September.

A letter, signed b