Brussels

Via GEFIRA,

Two years have passed since Yanukovich was deposed and, as it turns out, another ruthless clan of oligarchs has taken power. No wonder then that Ukraine is heading for a new wave of violence and chaos. Oligarchs are fighting each other, the IMF is pulling out of the country, officials issue laws and regulations only to see them repealed within a day or two by others, and raided European companies are leaving the country after being robbed by the so-called pro-Brussels oligarchic elite. 

Last month, we documented the burgeoning spat between Brussels and Poland over the latter’s move to approve new laws that allow the conservative (and eurosceptic) Law and Justice (PiS) government to name the chiefs of public TV and radio, and select judges for Poland's constitutional court.

In response to a bloc-wide backlash, Polish minister Zbigniew Ziobro sent a letter to EU commissioner Gunther Oettinger in which Ziobro dismissed criticism of the new laws as “silly.”

In the aftermath of another inverse-whirlwind session in Brussels which has set the date of the UK's EU referendum for June 23, below are comments on the vote from British political and business leaders, courtesy of Reuters:

DAVID CAMERON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER

"I do not love Brussels. I love Britain. I am the first to say that there are still many ways in which Europe needs to improve – and that the task of reforming Europe does not end with today's agreement.

 

Outspoken UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who has received numerous death threats during his tenure as a European parliamentarian, spoke for the first time last night about being the victim of an assassination attempt after his car was sabotaged, causing a terrifying motorway crash. As The Daily Mail reports, Farage careered off a French road after a wheel on his Volvo came loose while he was driving from Brussels back to his home in Kent.

“Today sees the start of a new political era,” Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias told supporters gathered in Madrid after Sunday’s largely inconclusive elections in Spain. “The forces of change are making a historic advance.” 

Iglesias is certainly correct that things have changed. Spain’s three-decade old political duopoly was toppled over the weekend with PP and PSOE garnering their lowest combined share of the vote since the eighties.