According to Reuters' sources, the meeting will solely focus on the implementation issues and details of the Iran nuclear deal. Diplomats from Germany, France, Britain, led by senior EU diplomat Helga Schmid, and also from Russia and China, will be meeting in Vienna next week to discuss a new agreement with Iran similar to the 2015 deal, but one that would put curbs on Tehran's ballistic [...]

France’s economy minister has suggested that the EU may compensate European companies affected by US sanctions on Iran, stressing that the bloc should not accept Washington as “the economic gendarme of the planet.” [...]

Capital investment in 24 of the EU’s 28 member states has fallen dramatically over the past ten years, according to Eurostat. Countries in Europe’s east and south experienced the biggest drops in investment after the 2008 crisis. Investment decreased on average by 2.3 percent, falling to 20.1 percent of GDP last year. It stood at 22.4 percent from 2007 to 2017 period. [...]

The project is beneficial both for Russia and European countries and doesn't pose any threat in terms of the EU's dependence on Moscow's energy supplies, the director general of the Austrian oil and gas concern OMV, Rainer Seele, told DPA. Decisions on the issue of the remaining permits for the construction of the Nord Stream-2 gas pipeline are likely to be made in late summer 2018, Rainer Seele s [...]

In spite of US threats, the EU is all set to protect its economic interests in Iran and has started implementing a 1996 law that would prohibit European companies from complying with any sanctions the US would reintroduce against Tehran. “Europe should be grateful to President Trump, because thanks to him we have got rid of old illusions,” European Council President Donald Tusk said at the sta [...]

The attacks by European leaders against US President Donald Trump are getting sharper by the day. On the day Trump announced that he was ripping up the Iran deal, and that the US would impose sanctions on European companies trading with that country, the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said that European states refused to be treated like "vassals" of the US [...]

The former boss of the NSA and CIA, Michael Hayden, predicts that the decision to re-impose sanctions on Iran despite protests from EU leaders will harm US relations with its allies and lead to a trans-Atlantic argument. Commenting to German media outlet Spiegel on the recent decision of the US president to abandon the 2015 JCPOA, the former head of the NSA and CIA, General Michael Hayden, stated: [...]

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 in [...]

The European Union has moved to protect the interests of its companies that do business in Iran, following the United States decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal. President Donald Trump’s announcement that the US was withdrawing from the landmark pact unleashed a wave of criticism from the international community. Now the EU has threatened to take the US to the World Trade Organizatio [...]

In late May, President Donald Trump warned that if the European Union does not remove tariffs and trade barriers against the United States soon, his administration will place a 20 percent tariff on all cars coming from the EU. [...]

The European Union was formed to rip off the US, President Donald Trump said during a rally, as he vowed to “take on” the bloc and China, saying that the days of “disastrous trade deals” are over.  Trump unleashed a tirade aimed at the European Union at a campaign-style rally in Michigan on Saturday. [...]

Russia's Crimea is hosting the 2018 Yalta Economic Forum. The event is being held just a few weeks after several European nations decided to expel Russian diplomats and to follow Washington’s lead in toughening sanctions against Moscow. Austria wasn’t among the «hardliners». Sputnik sat down with Detlef Wimmer – the deputy mayor of Austria’s Linz. [...]

The EU won't support the Nord Stream 2 project as it attaches great significance to the gas pipelines going through Ukraine in context of diversification of supply routes, that's the message from the head of the European Energy Commission Dominik Ristori. Sputnik discussed this with Justin Dargin, global energy scholar at the University of Oxford. [...]

On Monday, a number of European countries, as well as the United States and Canada, announced they were expelling Russian diplomats over the Skripal case. Radio Sputnik discussed the significance of the diplomatic response by the Western powers with Srdja Trifkovic, a US journalist and writer on international affairs. [...]

It didn’t take much effort for the US and UK to make the EU fall in line in the Skripal case, Virginia State Senator Richard Black told RT. The bloc is a “soft dictatorship” in which only key players need to be swayed, he said. The White House’s claims that it played a key role in making European countries act in unison when punishing Russia with expulsions over the Skripal saga might not [...]

The UK must provide solid evidence of Russia's alleged involvement in the Skripal case, the Czech president has said. While he did not oppose the country’s move to expel Russian diplomats, he believes it to be “a bit superfluous.” “I want to see the facts. I will certainly welcome if the United Kingdom presents some evidence that the Russians wanted to kill the double agent Skripal,” Cz [...]

Moscow won’t leave the provocative acts against Russian diplomats unanswered, the Foreign Ministry said, adding that several countries blindly copied the UK’s “hypocritical” stance on the Skripal case in the absence of evidence. The decision of a number of NATO and other European countries to expel Russian diplomats over the poisoning of the former double-agent Sergei Skripal amounts to a [...]

Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Germany, France, Denmark, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Canada, Romania, Finland, Croatia, Albania, Sweden, Spain and the US have decided to expel Russian diplomats amid the Skripal case. "We express a decisive protest over the decision taken by a number of EU and NATO countries to expel Russian diplomats. [...]

After accusing the Kremlin of being behind the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal, the UK government expelled 23 Russian diplomats from the country. Moscow, in turn, has strongly denied the "baseless" claims and responded with tit-for-tat measures. "Therefore, the British Government has violated its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations by denying consular access for the Em [...]

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s extremely polite letter of congratulations to Vladimir Putin on his election win has enraged Britain’s Twitterati and other senior EU officials. Jean-Claude Juncker’s call for positive relations and a security deal proved too much to swallow for many commentators who want to see Russia punished over the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skrip [...]

Former NSA employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden speculated on Twitter that the nominee for CIA director, Gina Haspel, could face arrest if she sets foot in the European Union because she allegedly was involved in a torture program at a secret CIA prison. "Interesting: The new CIA Director Haspel, who ‘tortured some folks,' probably can't travel to the EU to meet other spy chiefs without fac [...]

The EU's top trade official has employed strong rhetoric as the row with US President Donald Trump over steel and aluminum tariffs heats up following fruitless talks. European Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem has promised that Europe would fight back against those who intimidate its trade after joint talks with US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Minister of Economy, Trade and I [...]