During an interview with RT's "World's Apart", former Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel - also a former head of the European Council - urged Europe to defend itself from US policies that "undermine the international system of norms".

For example, when the US violates World Trade Organization rules and brings sanctions against the European Union, European states should push back at the WTO or even at the United Nations Security Council (which brings to mind President Trump's insistence that trade is a national security matter).

"You can bring the issue to the United Nations Security Council and you can challenge sanctions at the WTO. This is to say that not only Europe but other parts of the world are standing up against these sanctions...I think it has an impact. We should stand up and defend our interests - no doubt about it."

Italian capital markets are en fuego (or whetever 'on fire' is in Italian) following, as we detailed earlier, Italy's new finance minister, Tria, gave a strong endorsement of the euro in comments over the weekend, prompting UBS to suggest that Italy's disagreements with the EU seem more likely to focus on immigration than on economics.

Over the weekend, Italy once again roiled Europe, only this time not with its plunging bonds but with its drastic shift in immigration politics, when the country's new populist leader, Matteo Salvini, now operating as Minister of the Interior, made good on his warning last weekend that "the good times for illegals are over", writing an urgent letter ordering Malta to accept a ship carrying 629 shipwrecked North African migrants currently sitting off the Italian coast - calling Malta the "safest port" for the passengers, and advising that Rome will no longer offer refuge.

For years American officials have variously demanded, urged, and begged European governments to increase military outlays. For years the Europeans have instead reduced their spending, manpower, and procurement. There has been a slight uptick in their defense efforts under President Donald Trump, but most NATO members, including large and important nations such as Germany, Italy, and Spain, aren’t coming close to meeting the official standard of spending 2 percent of their GDPs on defense.

Now Poland, which fell just short of that level last year, is requesting that Washington establish a permanent base and garrison. Warsaw says it will kick in a couple billion dollars, while Washington can pick up the change on its way to confronting nuclear-armed Russia in a crisis.

European Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini has cancelled an official visit to Israel, which was scheduled for Sunday, Israeli media reported Friday.

According to Israel’s Channel Two, Mogherini was scheduled to participate in an international conference organised by the Jewish-American Committee (a pro-Israeli non-governmental organisation) next Monday in Jerusalem.

“Mogherini cancelled her trip to Israel after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declined to meet her,” the channel said.

It said Mogherini had requested Netanyahu’s office to arrange an appointment with him, but the latter did not respond.

Channel Two quoted an Israeli political source as saying that Netanyahu had refused to meet Mogherini because of his “full agenda”.

The source said “Netanyahu in fact cancelled his meeting with the foreign minister of the European Union because of her very hostile position on Israel”.

Building two command centers in the US and Germany, NATO is either preparing to take on Russia or executing its “suffocation” strategy against Moscow, military analysts told RT.

“NATO had 33 military commands during the Cold War, but they reduced the number of those commands to seven,” Alexander Bartosh, former Russian diplomat and military expert told RT.

The EU as a political construction is in a state of terminal decay. We know this for one reason and one reason alone: its core principle is the state is superior to its people. A system of government can only work over the longer term if it recognises that it is the servant of the people, not its master. It matters not what electoral system is in place, so long as this principal is adhered to.

The EU executive in Brussels does not accept electoral primacy. It shares with Marxist communism a belief in statist primacy instead. The only difference between the two creeds is Marx planned to rule the world, while Brussels is on the way to ruling Europe.

The accelerating feud between the EU and Washington over the Iran nuclear deal has been correctly identified as a pivotal crisis of Atlanticism. With the threat of a full-blown trade war between the Continent and its Island offspring-cum-hegemon and the exchange of a number of antagonistic signals, the question increasingly begs itself: if Atlanticism is on its way out, then what’s next?

In order to answer this question and forecast the future of Washington-Brussels relations and the European Union as a whole, it is necessary to first clarify what Atlanticism is and what it has entailed for Europe up to this critical point.

The top U.S. military chief met Friday in Finland with his Russian counterpart to exchange views on U.S.-Russia military relations, Syria and the international security situation.

The meeting between Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Russia’s chief of the military’s General Staff, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, took place in Konigstedt Manor, a Finnish state-owned venue north of the capital, Helsinki.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Gerasimov and Dunford discussed European security issues and the situation in Syria.

A brief statement on the Joint Chiefs of Staff website stressed, without elaborating, that U.S. and Russian militaries “have undertaken efforts to improve operational safety and strategic stability.”

DOWNING Street insisted yesterday there will not be a second European Union referendum after an anti-Brexit pressure group formally launched its bid to get one staged.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has delivered his annual Direct Line session with the country's citizens today. Dr. George Szamuely, political analyst and author of "Bombs for Peace: NATO's Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia," has shared his take on the widely covered event in an interview with Sputnik.

The US ruling establishment is seeking to split Russia from Europe at all costs, Jon Hellevig, geopolitical analyst and managing partner at Awara Group told Sputnik, commenting on Washington's growing pressure against the Russian-led Nord Stream 2.

The US push against Nord Stream 2 is not primarily about the US endeavor to grab the gas trade for itself, says Jon Hellevig, geopolitical analyst and managing partner of the Awara Group, a leading business administration and outsourcing firm in Russia.

UK Prime Minister Theresa May will use the G7 summit in Canada to sound out fellow leaders on a multinational rapid reaction force to counter Russia’s alleged aggression, US media said.

The Russian Embassy in London reacted to the proposal of a new anti-Russian bloc, the creation of which British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson allegedly intends to discuss at the forthcoming G7 summit.

ATO aircraft have started policing Montenegro's airspace, a year after the small Adriatic state became a member of the Western military alliance despite strong opposition from Russia.

Italian and Greek warplanes held an exercise in the skies over Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, on Tuesday. They intercepted an "intruder" aircraft and forced it to land in a symbolic start of the mission.

Defense Minister Predrag Boskovic said "from now on, our skies and the sea are protected."

Montenegro joined NATO a year ago as the military alliance's 29th member despite opposition from Moscow which considers the Adriatic country a historic Slavic ally and is opposed to NATO's enlargement.

For all of Europe's bluster, and increasingly vocal "resistance" to Trump unique approach to international politics, especially when it comes to Iran when Brussels swore it would defy the US president and continue business as usual with Tehran, it took Europe about a month to fold, and as Reuters reports European refiners are now unofficially winding down oil purchases from Iran, closing the door on a fifth of the OPEC member’s crude exports.

And since the only true leverage that Iran had vis-a-vis Europe was its deeply discounted crude oil, the shuttering of crude purchases from the Islamic republic will suddenly make European governments especially ambivalent whether to continue fighting Trump in hopes of salvaging the Iranian nuclear, when there is only downside left.

Der Spiegel magazine has aggravated tensions between Germany and Italy with a contemptuous article accusing the Italians of being ungrateful “moochers” who are pulling Europe into a crisis reminiscent of Greece’s.

“In Rome, populists with their anti-euro course seriously endanger the European project,” Der Spiegel announces in this week’s issue. “They are dragging their country and Europe into the next big crisis after the Greek drama and the Brexit decision.”

The scornful cover depicts spaghetti twirled on a fork, hanging down in the shape of a noose, with the caption “Ciao Amore: Italy is destroying itself and dragging down Europe with it.”

The escalating tariffs conflict between the United States and the 28-nation European Union (EU) is accelerating the process of the disintegration of the Atlantic alliance, analysts told Sputnik.

The College of EU Commissioners endorsed on Wednesday the decision to impose rebalancing duties on the set of US products it had submitted to the World Trade Organization (WTO) effective from July, as part of EU response to the steep US tariffs on imported steel and aluminum, the European Commission’s press release said.

The filed complaints came in response to President Donald Trump’s decision announced on Friday to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports from the European Union, Canada and Mexico while aluminum imports were subject to a 10 percent duty.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday issued a statement directed at allied governments, and private companies operating out of allied countries, warning them against any trade with Iran, warning they “face substantial risks” if they are caught.

Undersecretary of the Treasury Sigal Mandelker says that the world must “harden your financial networks,” and make sure they have “airtight” procedures in place to prevent even accidental business ties to Iran. He added that nations must make sure “Iran and its proxies are not exploiting your companies to support their nefarious activities.”

Radio Sputnik discussed Benjamin Netanyahu's European tour and current tensions in the Middle East with Dr. Gil Murciano, Middle East expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs think tank in Berlin.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's main goal at the upcoming negotiations with European leaders is to present Iran as a threat to regional stability, political analyst Gil Murciano told Radio Sputnik.

"According to Netanyahu, he is going to speak about two topics: the first one is Iran and the second one is Iran. And while it seems that this repetition is made for emphasis, we actually speak about different issues," Murciano said.

"First of all, the future of the JCPOA, the nuclear deal with Iran following the withdrawal of the US. And the second one is the Iranian build-up in Syria and the Israeli-Iranian conflict in Syria," the scholar explained.

Girls travelling in Gothernburg are being told to tuck a spoon in their underwear if they fear being taken abroad for forced marriage or female genital mutilation (FGM).

Airport staff at Sweden's second-largest city have been told how to respond in such circumstances.

'The spoon will trigger metal detectors when you go through security checks,' said Katarina Idegard, who tackles honour-based violence there.

'You will be taken aside and you can then talk to staff in private.'

The founder of Ukip has claimed Mrs May doesn’t really “believe” in Brexit.

Mr Sked, who has started a movement called Clean Brexit, has said “anyone” could do a better job than Mrs May in delivering what Brits voted for in June 2016.

He said: “The negotiations are obviously going appallingly. I’m not blaming the EU for all of this.

“The Prime Minister has a divided cabinet. She can’t make up her mind on what she wants. She is apparently going to postpone the publication of the white paper on UK-EU relations, again.

THE EU has “lit a bomb” underneath the car manufacturing industry as European governments are being advised not to use UK parts in vehicles for export ahead of Brexit.

The Dutch government has advised all Dutch businesses that if a “large part of your product consists of parts from the UK" domestic exporters may lose free trade access under existing deals.

Israel's intelligence minister has called for a military coalition against Iran if the Islamic Republic were to defy world powers by enriching military-grade uranium. Yisrael Katz's remarks came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu began visiting European leaders to discuss Tehran’s regional involvement and nuclear program.

Iran earlier said it plans to increase its capacity for uranium enrichment but it would remain within the rules of the deal.

In their ongoing trade dispute with the United States European countries now realize the need to mend fences with Russia.

Europe needs to join forces with Russia and China to effectively stand up to US pressure, Rupert Sternath wrote in Sunday’s issue of Suddeutsche Zeitung, underscoring the need for Germany work in sync with the other signatories to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

Sternath believes that Washington’s attitude towards Europe is unlikely to change any time soon and if Europeans keep kowtowing to the US, this attitude will only change for the worse.

“All the countries that signed the nuclear agreement with Iran, including Russia and China, should come together and if they do, other countries, such as India and those in Asia and South America, will join in,” Rupert Sternath wrote, adding that this also called for lifting sanctions on Russia.

A clear majority of preschools in migrant-heavy areas across Sweden have admitted to the fact that they can fully imagine forcing children to wear the Islamic veil, should the parents want it, provoking fierce rebuttals from politicians and strong reactions from ordinary Swedes.

Recently, we learned that Poland is ready to pay up to $2 billion for a permanent US military base on its territory. The Pentagon has reportedly agreed to consider the deal.

International experts are divided as to whether or not it makes sense to deploy an American armored division to Poland, just 250km from the Russian border. The proposal by the Poles raises certain concerns, as not everybody agrees that it would be expedient or even advisable for the US. A recent Defense News publication speaks to that effect.

Poland is prepared to invest in the construction of the base, including its service buildings, housing, military equipment hangars, and warehouses to store everything that is needed for the deployment of a US division.

LABOUR was accused of betraying Brexit voters last night after senior figures pledged to fight to keep Britain tied to the EU's single market. In a fresh policy u-turn ahead of next week’s crunch Commons votes on Theresa May's Brexit plans, Labour frontbenchers yesterday tabled a string of amendments to the Government's flagship departure legislation designed to keep Britain closely linked to Brussels.

A feud has broken out between liberal billionaire activist and fervent Clinton supporter, George Soros, and Italy's anti-immigrant League party, which on Friday formed a populist movement in coalition with the 5-Star party, and whose leader Matteo Salvini stepped into his new job as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior on Friday, pledging to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Salvini's League and the 5-Star Movement struck a deal Thursday on a coalition government which will work towards "putting Italians first" (and potentially making life for Europe a living hell with the ongoing threat of Quitaly, which according to JPMorgan may be Rome's best outcome), ending five days of market volatility and political chaos.

In response, George Soros flipped out, openly suggesting that Salvini might be financed by Vladimir Putin, saying he is "very worried about Russia's influence on Europe in general and on the new Italian government."

Theresa May has reaffirmed Britain’s commitment to Europe’s security post-Brexit as she prepares to become the first Prime Minister to visit Macedonia in almost 20 years.

Mrs May will tell the 27 other national leaders that Britain is unconditionally committed to maintaining Europe’s security when they meet at the EU-Western Balkans summit in Sofia.

Following Thursday’s summit in the Bulgarian capital she will travel to Skopje for talks with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, the first visit to the country by a serving British premier since Tony Blair in 1999.

Municipalities which boycott Israel’s illegal settlements do not violate Norway’s international obligations, a foreign ministry official has insisted, dealing a blow to right-wing parties that tried to have two such municipal boycotts rescinded.

Audun Halvorsen, state secretary at the foreign ministry, said early May that a boycott of “goods and services produced in settlements does not contradict Norway’s international commitments.”

His comments came after three right-wing parties had appealed boycotts in Trondheim and Tromsø.

Three local right-wing opposition parties filed a complaint with the Tromsø county governor’s office, requesting a ruling on the resolution’s legality. In addition, the World Jewish Congress urged the Norwegian government to oppose Trondheim’s settlement boycott.

The U.S. Army Europe said Monday that Saber Strike 18 exercise has commenced, and "brings full-scale battle simulations for the service members involved to enhance their real-world military occupations and deployment logistics strategies.

The war drill will take place in the Baltic states from June 03-15 as “a demonstration of the commitment and solidarity of the Alliance" at a time when Russia’s military is "increasingly threatening NATO members."

The White House is on the verge of introducing penalties against companies engaged in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will deliver Russian natural gas to the EU across the Baltic Sea.

The US government is planning to sanction European corporations that joined the pipeline project, which is led by Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, three sources close to the issue told Foreign Policy news magazine. Apart from Gazprom, the project is being undertaken by German energy firms Wintershall and Uniper, French multinational Engie, British-Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, and Austrian energy company OMV.

A Palestinian-Dutch citizen is suing two senior Israeli military commanders for the bombing of his family’s home during Israel’s 2014 attack on the Gaza Strip.

On 20 July of that year, without warning, an Israeli airstrike destroyed the house in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, killing six members of Ismail Ziada’s family and a seventh person who was visiting them.

Ziada, who lives in the Netherlands where he is married to a Dutch citizen, could not attend the funerals of his family members due to Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

He lost his mother, 70-year-old Muftia Ziada, three brothers, a sister-in-law and a 12-year-old nephew.

Ziada holds Benny Gantz and Amir Eshel, respectively the Israeli chief of staff and the chief of the air force at the time of the attack, responsible for the decision to drop the bomb.

A Palestinian from the occupied West Bank is suing the Dutch company that supplied the dogs Israeli soldiers used to attack him when he was a child.

For more than 20 years, Four Winds K9, a company based near the city of Nijmegen, has annually provided the Israeli army with dozens of dogs trained to attack civilians.

The military dogs “are intentionally used by Israeli occupying forces to terrorize and bite Palestinian civilians, especially during protests and night house raids,” according to Shawan Jabarin, director of the human rights group Al-Haq.

This cruel tactic is reminiscent of how police in the United States and apartheid South Africa set attack dogs on Black citizens demanding their rights.

Barcelona becomes largest city to heed the Palestinian civil society call for an end to arms trade and military and security cooperation with Israel’s regime of apartheid, settler colonialism and occupation.

ANGELA Merkel has issued a devastating criticism of Emmanuel Macron’s ambitious dreams of Eurozone reform, according to an analysis of an interview the German leader has given.

Mrs Merkel’s refusal to get on board with Macron’s reforms comes at a time when there is renewed concern over the future of the bloc because of political issues in Spain and Italy.

The German Chancellor revealed she wants to keep changes to a minimum and maintain surveillance over spending, ban systems and debt resolution.

She told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung: “Solidarity among euro partners should never lead to a debt union, but must come in the form of help towards self help.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Austria on Tuesday – a country that traditionally has good relations with Moscow. His trip, however, might have wider implications for a Europe that seems to be at a crossroads.

Austria has had constructive and pragmatic –if not friendly– relations with Russia and its predecessor, the Soviet Union, since the establishment of the Second Republic back in 1955. Vienna has also strived to keep it that way through the recent turbulent years, marked by increased tensions between Russia and Europe.

Even though it had to join anti-Russian sanctions after Russia’s reunification with Crimea and the start of the Ukraine crisis, Austria repeatedly called for easing or even lifting the restrictions, pointing at their ineffectiveness and utter futility.

Jews lived in the Polish lands for centuries, and lived very well, until they moved to new pastures – to America, to Germany, to Russia, to Israel. My father was a Polish citizen, and he cherished his memories of the land and its folk, and so felt other Jews of his generation. However, organised Jewry had different ideas.

The conflict between the Jews and Poland began with anti-Polish publications in the US media a few years ago. The Jews began to goad Poland. They reminisced about Polish clashes with Jews in the 1930s and 1940s, not exactly a unique Polish story. Many nations have clashed with Jews, lately the people of Gaza.

Any possible stabilization of the situation in Kosovo and Metohija has been put into question by the increasingly frequent attacks by Albanians on the Serbian population in this southern part of Serbia.

The first in a series of attacks occurred in Petric, when Albanians stoned Serbians; Serbs returned to their homeland for the first time since they were expelled by Albanian terrorists during the ethnic cleansing of Serbs which took place, and is still taking place, similarly to occupied Palestine.