First, we heard Banque de France Governor Villeroy de Galhau confirm that the European Central Bank intends to continue reinvesting its portfolio of securities indefinitely. This means continued low interest rates in Europe and, significantly, increasing monetary policy divergence between the EU and the US.

Second and following from the first point, the banking system in Europe remains extremely fragile, this despite happy talk from various bankers we met during the trip. The fact of sustained quantitative easing by the ECB, however, is a tacit admission that the state must continue to tax savings in order to transfer value to debtors such as banks. Overall, the ECB clearly does not believe that economic growth has reached sufficiently robust levels such that extraordinary policy steps should end.

The May 16-17 EU-Western Balkans summit did address the problems of integration, but it was eclipsed by another issue. The meeting turned out to be a landmark event that will go down in history as the day Europe united to openly defy the US. The EU will neither review the Iran nuclear deal (JPCOA) nor join the sanctions against Tehran that have been reintroduced and even intensified by America. Washington’s unilateral withdrawal from the JPCOA was the last straw, forcing the collapse of Western unity. The Europeans found themselves up against a wall. There is no point in discussing further integration or any other matter if the EU cannot protect its own members. But now it can.

Five-year Italian debt blew out over 1%, CDS spreads have moved over 20 basis points in a week. The markets are trying to scare these outsiders now in charge in Italy to soften their stances on reform and maintain a status quo which is destroying a great country and culture.

The League and Five Star Movement leaked demands for $250 billion in debt relief from the ECB. There was also a demand for developing a mechanism for countries to leave the euro, according to a, now discredited, report from Reuters.

The final proposal doesn’t have any of this inflammatory language, but don’t think the leak wasn’t part of their negotiating strategy or part of where they are ultimately going to push things.

Because the rest of the proposal is already hostile enough to Brussels (see below). And with ECB President Mario Draghi now signaling the need to consolidate European sovereign debt under its umbrella, it isn’t necessary at the moment.

ITALY’s President is expected to confirm a coalition between the League and the Five-Star Movement (M5S) today, cementing the nation as having one of the most Eurosceptic governments on the continent.

While previous reports have indicated that there was little interest in talking about a new nuclear deal with Iran, the withdrawal of the US from the existing deal appears to have changed things. Now, Russia, China, and the European Union are to hold talks on a major revision of the deal later this week.

This new deal would keep Iran’s requirements the same as the existing deal, but would increase the incentives guaranteed by the other powers. This is an attempt to keep Iran complying with the deal as the US ratchets up sanctions.

While the US was the one pushing for a “new” deal in the first place, the other nations have kept the US completely sidelined in these new talks. This is unsurprising, as many see the US trying to undermine any such deals.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said a naval standing force, including warships with Kalibr long-range land attack cruise missiles, will be permanently deployed in the Mediterranean Sea. The statement was made at a meeting with top military officials and defense industry leaders that took place in Sochi on May 16. One of the missions is delivering strikes against terrorist targets in Syria.

102 expeditions of ships and submarines are planned in 2018. The force will go through intensive training.

ONE of the leaders of the expected Italian coalition has warned he will go to Brussels backed by "political weight" in the country to renegotiate EU rules in order to put Italians first.

Luigi Di Maio sent a stark warning shot to Brussels yesterday in a set of remarks that could set a hostile tone between the two powers for months to come.

The leader of the 5 Star Movement (M5S) was speaking to the press about Italy's new approach to the European Union as he voted on the deal for a new coalition.

Mr Di Maio and Matteo Salvini, the leader of potential coalition partners the League, have offered the Italians an informal vote on a 58-page policy document that will hand them the mandate to govern.

France is looking to see if the European Union could compensate European companies that might face U.S. sanctions for doing business with Iran, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said on Sunday.

Le Maire referred to EU rules dating back to 1996 which he said could allow the EU to intervene to protect European firms against any sanctions imposed by the United States, adding that France wanted the EU to toughen its stance in this area.

In 1996, when the United States tried to penalize foreign companies trading with Cuba, the EU forced Washington to back down by threatening retaliatory sanctions.

All Theresa May needs to do at the moment is hold her nerve and prove the EUnatics wrong. If she continues to water down British independence, she will go down as the Prime Minister who snatched EU defeat from the jaws of Brexit victory…as, to all intents and purposes, a traitor. This is strong but appropriate language.

In a written response to Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, Orban said of Soros, who is Jewish, that:

“I would respectfully call your attention... to the fact that the Foundation and its founder bear personal responsibility for the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe.

They have brought people to Europe - among migrants - whose political and religious views have dramatically increased the vulnerability of our Jewish communities.

In contrast, Hungary and its government protects European Jewish communities when it prevents the uncontrolled entry of migrants into the European Union.

...

Our policy has moral and theoretical reasons, and also serves the idea of Jewish-Christian coexistence, in which we continue to believe with conviction. For this we do not expect any recognition, or gratitude from the World Jewish Congress, of course."

The re-imposition of US sanctions on Iran and Washington’s threat to punish European companies for doing business there provides a good opportunity for ditching the dollar, according to RT’s Keiser Report host, Max Keiser.

“The US uses the dollar as a weapon to promote US dollar hegemony and the US Empire. The world now sees clearly that the US dollar is a Central Bank enabled Ponzi scheme backed by the extraordinarily violent Pentagon whose multi-trillion dollar budget can only be justified via wars of convenience, torture, and election meddling around the world,” Keiser wrote.

As protests continued for a third day in the southern Iranian city of Kazerun, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted his support for the protesters in that country.

Pompeo, who is due to give his first major policy speech on Iran next Monday, tweeted, “We support the Iranian people who are demonstrating against an oppressive government. 3 deaths & Internet interruption show the regime’s true nature."

Following Pompeo’s tweet, Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio followed suit.

Icelandic citizens sign petition to boycott next year's Eurovision Song Contest, taking place in Israel, following Gaza border riots; Iceland's national public broadcasting organization convenes to discuss issue; Icelandic human rights organization attempts harnessing other European countries to boycott next year's contest.

A GERMAN banker claimed “not a single person” in Europe wants Brexit to happen as he called for the referendum result to be reversed.

Stefan Hoops, head of global markets at Deutsche Bank in Germany, said “it’s a waste of time” for Europeans to focus on Brexit.

Speaking on CNBC, Mr Hoops said: “My personal perspective is that I sincerely hope that Brexit will be reversed, which I think is an interesting statement to make.

“But I think it’s important for everybody to understand that there is not a single person on the continent that wants Brexit to happen.”

THE EUROPEAN Union is poised to refuse Theresa May’s plan to keep Britain tied to the bloc’s customs union beyond 2021 with the Prime Minister expected to propose extending a last-resort solution for the Irish border to the whole of the UK.

The growing rift in the transatlantic alliance is set to blow wide open after US President Trump used a top-level meeting with NATO this week to blast Germany and other European members for being “disloyal”.
Sounding like a Mafia don, Trump warned that such NATO members “will be dealt with”.

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has confirmed that beginning Friday, a 1996 “blocking statute” aimed at preventing the enforcement of the US sanctions against Iran will be brought back into effect. The law was initially passed to prevent the US blocking EU companies from trading with Cuba.

French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and British Prime Minister Theresa May
EU officials have been negotiating the matter all week, as an attempt to try to save the P5+1 nuclear deal with Iran after the US withdrew, and started re implementing sanctions. EU leaders have agreed that the entire union will work together in protecting the deal.

The blocking statute explicitly forbids European companies from complying with any nuclear-related US sanctions against Iran. It also mandates that the EU states will not recognize any foreign court rulings trying to enforce the sanctions against those companies.

The Russian economy is proving to be resilient and showing a strong recovery from the initial shock of the latest round of US sanctions targeting the business sector.

The ruble-traded MOEX reached 2,358 points this week, which is very close to an all-time high of 2,376.96 seen in February. The dollar-traded RTS index is still over 10 percent down from the February highs, but has also been recovering.

Analysts are pointing at the good signs in the Russian economy and growing price in crude oil. “The victorious march in the market goes on. In my opinion, this happens because of the influx of new investors in shares following the good situation in commodities and stable macroeconomic indicators,” said Freedom Finance analyst Georgy Vashchenko in a note. “If the trend does not break, MOEX can reach record high 2,400 points.

Donald Trump singled out Germany in renewing his criticism of Nato members he accuses of not contributing enough, saying laggards would be “dealt with”.

Speaking alongside Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, at the White House, Mr Trump reiterated a longstanding charge that America bears a disproportionate share of supporting the military alliance’s activities.

Germany “has not contributed what it should be contributing and it’s a very big beneficiary”, said the president, who has long had a frosty relationship with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel.

Two Italian anti-establishment parties on Friday agreed on a joint government program that includes the mass deportation of immigrants and slashing taxes, according to the leader of one of the parties.

Luigi Di Maio, leader of the populist, eurosceptic Five-Star Movement (M5S), said in a video posted to his Facebook account that an agreement had been reached with the far-right, anti-immigrant and regionalist Lega Nord (LN), headed by Matteo Salvini.

"Today, the contract for the government of change has finally been defined in all its parts," Di Maio said. "I'm really happy. It has been 70 very intense days, so many things have happened, but in the end we managed to achieve what we announced during the campaign."

Di Maio said he was satisfied with what had been done and encouraged all M5S members to vote online to ratify the pact.

EU President Donald Tusk has openly broken with Washington over Trump's pullout from the Iran deal, Gaza, and looming tariffs, Tweeting recently that "with friends like these who needs enemies?" Will this expanding US/EU rift be the good kind of "blowback" from Trump's "capricious assertiveness" in foreign policy?

It was an obscene spectacle. A short while after around 60 people were killed in Gaza on Monday, Israel’s embassy to the European Union threw a party.

Samsung has released a new ad poking fun at the iPhone ahead of the launch of 128GB and 256GB editions of the Galaxy S9.

Samsung's marketers appear to figure that the most likely group of iPhone owners to upgrade to a Galaxy S9 instead of an iPhone X are iPhone 6 owners, who feel cheated by Apple's iPhone slowdown controversy.

The ad, which uses the same music as last year's creepy Notch guy ad, homes in on the performance of the iPhone 6, which constantly lets its owner down, causing her stress, suffering, and envy.

EU Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulus has conformed on Wednesday that the EU is fully prepared to pass legislation to block US sanctions targeting Iran. The US has threatened to punish EU-based companies for doing business with Iran, despite the P5+1 nuclear deal, which European nations are a party to, obliging sanctions relief.

Iran has warned that staying in the deal hinges on the remaining signatories ensuring that Iran’s sanctions relief still happens despite the US withdrawing from the pact. Already, two major companies, France’s Total S.A. and Germany’s Siemens, have suggested that barring EU legislation, they’re going to stop deals with Iran out of fear of US retaliation.

Avramopoulos indicated that the legislation being considered by the EU would be straight-forward, outright making it illegal for EU companies to comply with US sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. Other EU officials have hinted at other measures to support Iran economically.

BRITAIN will tell Brussels it is willing to stay in the EU customs union beyond 2021 as the government ended up with another stand-off over the contentious issue in the Brexit debate.

The Brexit "war cabinet" broke up without an agreement early this week as ministers continued to openly challenge the post-EU withdrawal trade agreement but settled on a new “backstop” to avoid a hard Irish border.

Despite the disapproval of lead Brexiteers Boris Johnson and Micheal Gove, the ministers signed off the plans on Tuesday.

The news immediately concerned Eurosceptics with Jacob Rees-Mogg saying: "The risk of the Government using all its mental energy on the fallback position is that they create a position that is more attractive than a permanent deal.

Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to travel to Brussels to meet with senior European Parliament politicians behind closed doors to address their concerns about his company’s handling of personal data.

MEPs have long wanted to question the Silicon Valley CEO about Facebook’s data practices, with a particular interest in how the social network’s advert targeting might be affecting elections.

Mr Zuckerberg is expected to visit the EU capital as early as next week, though no specific date for his trip has yet been announced. He will meet with the leaders of the Parliament’s political groups, the so-called conference of presidents.

An anonymous diplomatic source in Brussels has revealed to RIA Novosti that the European Union intends to discontinue paying for Iranian oil in US dollars. This is a major development which confirms a series of articles in global media which reveal the growing positive developments indicating that Atlanticism is in a serious crisis. It has cracked. Analyses by CSS and FRN’s own experts going back a number of years have forecasted that these events would eventuate.

This comes on the heels of the “Euro-troika” of France, Germany, and the UK agreeing with Iran to develop a support program and strengthen economic ties in response to the US’ withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal proclaimed by Trump on May 8th.

RUSSIANS might not be able to eat imported French fries anymore as Putin is considering to ban them completely from the market in a furious response to sanctions the US and other Western countries have imposed against Moscow.

HUNGARY and Poland have dug in their heels over the European Union’s plans to settle refugees across the bloc and demanded member states have the final say over who enters their countries - not Brussels.

All the Palestinians, including children, killed in the violence at the Israeli-Gaza border were “terrorists,” Israel’s ambassador to Belgium said. She was called to the foreign ministry shortly after the statement.

Brussels slammed the Israeli envoy to Belgium, Simona Frankel, as she did not mince words in the aftermath of the widely-condemned violence in Gaza, where at least 60 people were killed and more than 2,700 protesters were injured by Israeli fire on Monday.

An investigation by the country’s police academy revealed that 1052 asylum seekers were suspected of crimes in 2016, with two thirds of them being Iraqis.

The figures also show that out of 116 suspects of sexual offenses, 108 came from Islamic countries like Iraq (83), Afghanistan (14) and Morocco (6).

32 per cent of the crimes were rapes, while 16 per cent were gang rapes and 16 per cent were sexual harassment. Nearly half of the crimes were committed against Finnish girls under the age of 18.

Finland has a foreign born population of around 5.5 per cent, the majority of whom are Russian, Swedish, Estonian and from the former Soviet Union, meaning Muslim migrants do not make up anywhere near a majority of the immigrant population yet are responsible for the vast majority of sex crimes committed by migrants.

The United Kingdom’s EU withdrawal bill is being currently debated in the country's parliament and is due for the final vote in the House of Commons in the coming weeks. The current disagreements between the UK government and Scotland threaten to put Britain on the verge of a constitutional crisis.

The majority of Scottish lawmakers — 93 people — cast their ballots against the bill which defines post-Brexit sharing of power between regional authorities. Members of the Scottish National Party, the Labor Party, the Liberal Democrats and Scottish Greens showed a rare unity, approving the proposal of the Scottish government to reject the EU withdrawal bill. Meanwhile, 30 lawmakers supported the proposal on post-Brexit power sharing.

Trump’s plans are not about starting a war with Iran but trying to bring about regime change by draining it financially. It’s a plan which is doomed to fail, and could also create a costly trade war with the EU.

You have to go back quite some time in contemporary history to find a policy decision taken by a superpower so spectacularly wrong, that it compares to the decision by Donald Trump to pull out of the so-called Iran deal. One tends to think more recently of the decision by George W. Bush to not only invade Iraq with no real plan, but to also cancel all pay to the Iraqi army – a move which perhaps our grandchildren will still feel the impact of, in decades to come. Another one, perhaps, could be the decision in 1956 for Britain to plough ahead with the military campaign in Suez, an all-time low in British history which still produces red faces from bewildered politicos and historians today.

The president of the European Commission says the the EU needs to replace the U.S. as a global superpower because President Trump has announced that the U.S. will pull out of the Iran nuclear deal.

Jean-Claude Juncker had strong words. But is he right?

Let’s give it a Reality Check you won’t get anywhere else.

The US, Swedish, and Finnish defense ministers signed a trilateral Statement of Intent (SOI) to expand defense cooperation on all fronts. The signing ceremony took place in Washington on May 8. In 2016, the two Scandinavian nations finalized separate defense SOIs with America. Now they have signed a joint document to unify those previous agreements and enhance their interoperability.

The Scandinavian visitors claimed this was just a starting point for a more mature relationship. The agreement emphasizes the countries’ combined joint exercises and streamlines the procedures that have been established to manage them.

It’s called “Vollgeld Initiative” – in German, meaning more or less “Referendum for Sovereign Money”. What is “Sovereign Money”? – Its money produced only by the Central Bank, by the “Sovereign”, the government, represented by its central bank. Money created in accordance with the needs of the economy, as contrasted to the profit and greed motives of the banking oligarchy – wat it is today; money creation at will, by private banking.

The U.S. Army is fast-tracking newly configured Stryker armored vehicles with helicopter and drone-killing weapons to counter Russia in Europe and provide more support to brigade combat teams. “We are looking for a rapid solution for the near-term fight,” Maj. Gen. John Ferarri told Warrior Maven in an interview.

The Strykers will fire a wide range of weapons to destroy close-in air threats attacking ground units, to potentially include Hellfire or Stinger missiles. The program, which plans to deploy its first vehicles to Europe by 2020, is part of an Army effort called Short-Range Air Defense or SHORAD.

Senior leaders say the service plans to build its first Stryker SHORAD prototype by 2019 as an step toward producing 144 initial systems.

The DUP would "happily bring down" Theresa May as Prime Minister if she continues to backtrack on Brexit, according to Brexit Central deputy editor David Scullion.

The Brexiteer told Julia Hartley-Brewer that the Prime Minister needs to be careful about "backsliding" on Brexit, amid growing frustration on the DUP and Tory benches.

Speaking on talkRadio, he warned Mrs May against pushing for the "trade-destroying" customs partnership, which "no-one really wants".

This comes ahead of a crucial Brexit sub-committee meeting led by the Prime Minister today, tasked to resolve the customs union dispute.

THERE are a few t’s to be crossed and i’s to be dotted – not least who will be Prime Minister – but by the end of today Italy will have its first out-and-out populist right wing government since Mussolini was executed by partisans in 1945.

Andrew Parker's visit to Berlin on Monday is being held up as historic, the first public speech outside Britain by a serving head of MI5. However, rather than a spy, Germany got a politician with a Brexit begging letter.

The basic message was that Russia and Muslim terrorists are coming to get you, and you need Britain to help, so please don't hold Brexit against us. The structure of the speech from Parker to other intelligence agencies was classic political theory. Introduce an enemy (Russians and Islamic terrorists), create fear (the Reds are in your Twitter feed), offer a solution (just be our friend after Brexit).

Iran’s nuclear chief said on Tuesday that the European Union should make up for the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal or Tehran would ramp up its nuclear program to a level more advanced than before the accord, Reuters said.

Greece said Tuesday it was “far away” from resolving a decades-long dispute over Macedonia’s name, despite progress in talks between the two neighbors. Greece refuses to recognize the country under the name Macedonia, saying this implies a territorial claim on a northern Greek region of the same name. Athens has also blocked Macedonia’s efforts to join NATO and the European Union.

Catalonia’s president-elect has called on Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to talk with the region’s separatist leaders. Catalan MPs in Barcelona elected separatist Quim Torra on Monday to lead their region. He has vowed to build an independent Catalan republic by working under the leadership of predecessor Carles Puigdemont, who is in Germany fighting extradition to Spain.

THERESA MAY has faced a raft of criticism inside Westminster and across the Channel in Brussels as she tries to secure a customs agreement that will push Brexit beyond the stall created by the Irish border conundrum.

The Prime Minister has had her negotiation team pushing two options – “maximum facilitation” and a “new customs partnership” – but has failed to win much support in Brussels or Westminster for her ideas, including creating a huge divide in her so-called Brexit war Cabinet.

Maximum facilitation – otherwise known as “MaxFac” to negotiators and the desired option for Brexiteers – uses a series of technology to ensure post-Brexit customs checks are at a minimum and virtually frictionless. While this option is not off the table, The EU has signified it will not be sufficient to in the quest to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland and other experts have suggested the technology needed will not be ready for many years after Britain finally leaves the bloc.

The lord mayor of Dublin has called for Ireland to boycott next year’s Eurovision song contest in solidarity with the Palestinian people.

“The horrific ordeal of the Palestinian people needs to be highlighted,” Mícheál Mac Donncha stated. “There needs to be solidarity just as there was with the people of South Africa with the apartheid regime.”

Israel won the right to host the high-profile annual competition after Netta Barzilai won this year’s event on Saturday.

As NRA-ILA reported on April 27, peaceful Switzerland is in the crosshairs of international and domestic gun control advocates who are intent on abolishing the idyllic nation’s tradition of an armed citizenry. Using the 2017 changes to the European Firearms Directive as justification, these foreign and home-grown forces are attempting to burden the tranquil republic with gun controls the Swiss people have continually rejected. However, as was pointed out in a recent Bloomberg article, many Swiss citizens are refusing to take this assault on their inalienable rights and national sovereignty lying down.

In the Swiss tradition of neutrality, Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. However, Switzerland is a member of the Schengen Agreement, which created the Schengen Area. Schengen Area states have abolished the international border checks between them and permit the free movement of people throughout the area.

Firebrand populists of Left and Right are poised to take power in Italy, forming the first “anti-system” government in a major West European state since the Second World War.

Leaders of the radical Five Star Movement and the anti-euro Lega party have been meeting to put the finishing touches on a coalition of outsiders, the “nightmare scenario” feared by foreign investors and EU officials in equal measure.

The unlikely allies vow a blizzard of contentious measures, threatening to cancel VAT rises, overturn key market reforms, introduce a universal “basic income” for the poor, and launch a fiscal blitz in open defiance of EU spending rules.

Iran’s foreign minister embarks on a tour of world powers on Saturday, state media reported, in what is seen as a last-ditch effort to save Tehran’s nuclear deal after Washington’s withdrawal from the accord.

Moldova's integration with the European Union is favored by 38% of the country's citizens; with the Eurasian Economic Union, by 34%, according to the findings of a social survey unveiled by the Centre for Sociological Research of Moldova (CCSM) at a press conference on Friday.

Another 22% said Moldova should unite with Romania, the pollster said.

Donald Trump’s trashing of the Iran nuclear deal this week was not just an attack on Iranian sovereign interests. The US president was also poking European allies in the eye.

In abruptly withdrawing the US from the international nuclear treaty, Trump warned that his administration was preparing to re-impose harsh sanctions on Tehran, and that those sanctions would also hit European commercial interests in Iran.

The American president’s high-handed manner was to be expected towards Iran. He has constantly denigrated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed in July 2015 by his predecessor Barack Obama, along with other members of the UN Security Council, Britain, France, Russia, China plus Germany. Trump’s contempt for Iran as an alleged state terrorism sponsor has also been relentless.

But what stood out more in his dismissal of the nuclear deal this week was Trump’s brazen disregard for European allies.

In 1999 NATO used ordnances containing depleted uranium in their bombardment of then-Yugoslavia in a bid to stop the killings of Albanians in Kosovo. According to Serbian data, they resulted in thousands killed and wounded civilians.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has slammed NATO's bombing campaign against then-Yugoslavia using munitions containing depleted uranium during the opening ceremony of the new Oncological Institute. According to him, Serbian doctors determined that such ordnances have severely affected the health of the country's young population.

"Today in the Oncological Institute I learned that more and more children are diagnosed with cancer in our country. I'll be honest, at first I didn't believe in the depleted uranium theories […] but today, after speaking with doctors, I realized that depleted uranium is among many of the factors that cause cancer during a young age," Vucic said.

Christian Lindner, leader of the Germany Free Democratic Party (FDP) called for a policy of ‘double strategy’ toward Russia which would include both the preservation of dialogue and clearly-defined policy.

"Russia will have its place in the ‘Europa' house, if it abides to a set order," Lindner said at the federal rally in Berlin on Saturday.

Lindner suggested that Russia either be invited back into the G8 or be otherwise included in the association by creating a G7+1 format, and asked for the restoration of regular EU-Russia summits. He also remarked that anti-Russia sanctions should not be removed without conditions.