US President Trump has yet to articulate his foreign strategy, Russian political analyst Alexei Martynov said, commenting on the White House's "mixed signals" on Crimea. Apparently therefore new UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres's statement on the peninsula's status was rather ambiguous. [...]

A report published by leading consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) points to a significant tectonic shift in the global economy in the years leading up to 2050 - China will supplant the US as the world's largest, and Russia will rise to supremacy in Europe. The report, The Long View, ranks 32 countries based on their projected 2050 GDP by Purchasing Power Parity, finding China's GDP w [...]

Last week, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, paid a visit to Ankara during which she called on Turkish authorities to adhere to the principle of freedom of speech and stop their crackdown on opposition media. However, Bundestag MP from the German Die Linke Party Sevim Dagdelen believes that Merkel's speech was an attempt to improve her image in the eyes of the German public, rather than a r [...]

Austria has proposed tough new anti-migrant measures, with its Defense Minister calling for a pan-European cap on migration, external application centers for refugees and “protective zones” to hold and deport illegals from the EU. [...]

The government in Vienna is working on amendments to Austrian laws that would allow troops to be sent to other European countries to help them "protect their borders" from illegal migrants and refugees, the Austrian defense minister has said. [...]

German intelligence was unable to produce any conclusive evidence of Russia waging a disinformation campaign against Berlin, and not for lack of trying. Having spent nearly one year on a joint investigation, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) have failed to produce any conclusive evidence of Russia perpetrating [...]

The editor-in-chief of German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel has defended a highly controversial cover depicting US President Donald Trump beheading the Statue of Liberty. He also called on Germany “to build an alliance” against the US leader. [...]

Riding on the coattails of far-right victories in the U.S. and U.K., France's Marine Le Pen officially launched her bid for president on Sunday with a speech and manifesto full of populist talking points and anti-immigrant fervor."The impossible has suddenly become possible...Other countries have shown us the way," the head of the Front National (NF) party declared in Lyon, pointing to the surpris [...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the situation on the contact line in eastern Ukraine is causing concern. The security situation on the line of contact in eastern Ukraine is causing concern and the work on the Ukrainian settlement should continue, including within the 'Normandy Four' format, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Monday. [...]

The US shares responsibility for the ongoing migrant crisis, according to Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern. Speaking on the sidelines of an EU summit in Malta, he stated that American “interventions” are in part to blame for the refugee flows. [...]

Bavarian prime minister said that the sanctions imposed on Russia should be lifted before the end of 2017. Horst Seehofer, the prime minister of Germany's state of Bavaria, said on Sunday that the sanctions imposed on Russia should be lifted before the end of 2017 and Moscow should return to the Group of Eight (G8) that brings together world’s largest economies. [...]

A new study from the Austrian Academy of Sciences shows that 40 percent of refugees in Austria believe religious commandments take precedence over the nation’s laws, prompting the country’s foreign minister to push for a rigorous new integration package. [...]

Germany is to get rid of the lèse-majesté law protecting heads of state or government from being publicly offended. The decision came after last spring the law was evoked by Turkish President Erdogan who tried to sue a German comedian for a satirical poem he found too insulting. [...]

Austrian police have arrested eight people in anti-terrorist raids conducted in Vienna and Graz, the country’s APA news agency reports. According to the local Kronen Zeitung newspaper, all of those detained were from the former Yugoslavia. [...]

Austria remains in favor of border controls and an upper limit on refugees, Interior Minister Wolfgang Subotka told German newspaper Die Welt. Having imposed controls at its border with Germany in September 2015 at the height of Europe's migrant crisis, Austria wants to continue with them indefinitely, Interior Minister Wolfgang Subotka told German newspaper Die Welt on Friday. [...]

Women in several cities have reported sex attacks committed during New Year's Eve celebrations, the Austrian press reports. The number female victims of sex attacks in the Austrian city of Innsbruck has risen to 19 after the parents of several teeenage girls reported the crimes to police, Austrian media reported on Tuesday. [...]

About 1,000 protesters participated on Saturday in a demonstration against NATO bases in the city of Vicenza, located in northeastern Italy. "The problem of the presence of NATO in Italy is a problem felt all around Italy. If you want to have an image of what NATO means in Europe, you have to think about Spartan troops in Athens in ancient times," the journalist told Sputnik. [...]

“Trump or no Trump, Europe needs to build a defense system of its own,” the center-right presidential candidate, said in an interview with Le Monde. François Fillon wants to make Europe less dependent on the United States and favors the idea of a European-Russian conference to discuss new security provisions in Europe. [...]

As Russian producers reap the rewards of import substitution, Austrian exporters are ruing the EU's decision to impose sanctions. Imposing sanctions against Russia was a mistake which has cost Europe as much as Russia, Vienna's former trade ambassador to Moscow Dietmar Fellner told Austria's Kurier newspaper. [...]

How will US-EU relations develop, and what changes could we expect as Donald Trump takes office? RT discussed with some European politicians. The EU’s relationship with Donald Trump will see “a huge shift,” says Beatrix von Storch MEP, deputy leader of the Alternative for Germany party. [...]

US President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that NATO is an obsolete organization since it is not much engaged in fighting terrorism and its members are not contributing enough. In an interview with Sputnik Germany, German politician Tobias Pflueger commented on Trump's statements and his position toward the military alliance. [...]

French presidential candidate and leader of the right-wing National Front party Marine Le Pen is gaining more support, leading with 25 to 26 percent of the vote, according to the latest Ipsos Sopra Steria survey, carried out for Cevipof and Le Monde. [...]