EU

Slovak lawmakers have passed a constitutional amendment that further restricts LGBTQIA+ rights.⁠

⁠On 26 September, the amendment, proposed by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s populist-nationalist government, moved forward after it narrowly secured a three-fifths majority vote (90) in the 150-seat National Council.

The recent development comes nearly five months after the lawmakers proposed the changes to parliament. 

Under the amended constitution, same sex couples have been effectively banned from adopting children, with only married heterosexual couples permitted to adopt.

It asserts that only two genders – male and female – will be recognised, excluding trans, intersex and non-binary identities.

Lastly, the draconian amendment bans surrogacy and gives national law precedence over European Union (EU) law, declaring that “the Slovak Republic maintains sovereignty above all in issues of national identity, culture and ethics.”

According to the BBC, Fico embraced the vote, exclaiming that he would have a shot of liquor to celebrate.

“This isn’t a little dam, or just a regular dam – this is a great dam against progressivism,” the conservative PM added.

Since the news was announced, a range of human rights groups have slammed the Slovak parliament for passing the archaic amendment, including Amnesty International Slovakia.

“This is devastating news. Instead of taking concrete steps to protect the rights of LGBTI people, children, and women, the Slovakian parliament voted to pass these amendments, which put the constitution in direct contradiction with international law,” the group said in a statement.

“Today is another dark day for Slovakia, which is already facing a series of cascading attacks on human rights and the rule of law. The situation of marginalised groups in Slovakia – including LGBTI people – is already dire. These amendments rub salt into the wound.

“Today, the Slovak government chose to follow the lead of countries, such as Hungary, whose policies have led to an erosion of human rights. The only way to stop this decline is to comply with international and European law and introduce proposals to protect human rights for all, while rejecting those that jeopardise these efforts.” 

The editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily SME, Beata Balagova, echoed similar sentiments in a statement to the BBC.

“The Slovak constitution has fallen victim to Robert Fico’s plan to dismantle the opposition and divert attention from the real problems of society, as well as the austerity measures he had to pass,” she said.

“Fico does not genuinely care about gender issues, the ban on surrogate motherhood or even adoptions by LGBTQ people.

The president of Slovakia, Peter Pellegrini, is expected to sign the anti-LGBTQIA+ amendment into law.

AARHUS, Denmark — In the windswept gardens of a Danish chateau, President Volodymyr Zelensky and some of Ukraine’s main European backers weighed options Thursday for filling the gap after the Trump administration paused weapons shipments to his country.

The U.S. move affects high-demand munitions, including Patriot missiles, the AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missile and shorter-range Stinger missiles. They are needed to counter incoming missiles, bring down Russian aircraft or counter drone attacks.

But they are in short supply, none are cheap, and some simply can’t be sourced elsewhere.

“We count on the continuation of American support because there are some items which Europe … doesn’t have for today,” Zelensky told reporters in Aarhus, Denmark, as a military helicopter hovered above and security personnel watched nearby woods.

Chief among them: Patriot missile systems and interceptors. “This is crucial,” he said.

Russia’s new push to capture more territory has put Ukraine’s defenses under severe strain, with the war now in its fourth year. Russian missiles and drones are battering Ukrainian cities. U.S.-led efforts to find a peace settlement have stalled.

It’s still unclear even to Zelensky what the White House intends for the weapons shipments. “I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with President Trump,” he said.

Europe’s reason to act

Many in the European Union are keen to step up. They see Russia’s invasion as a threat to their own security. Officials have warned that President Vladimir Putin could try to test Europe’s defenses in three to five years.

“All of us hope that the U.S. will continue the support for Ukraine,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said, flanking Zelensky. “But if there are any gaps, then I personally believe that we should be willing to fill in.”

Denmark — a key Ukraine backer — has just taken over the EU presidency for six months.

“The war in Ukraine has never only been about Ukraine. This is a war about the future of Europe,” she said. Most EU countries are members of NATO, which has just agreed that allies should invest 5% of the gross domestic product in defense.

Russia is the chief threat that warrants such spending, although Trump did cajole the Europeans and Canada into agreeing on the figure, which will require them to spend tens of billions of dollars more over the next decade.

Sourcing defense funds

Since the Trump administration warned that its security priorities lie elsewhere and that Europe must fend for itself, the European Commission’s priority has been to find extra money.

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched the EU’s big funding gun with $176 billion that countries, including Ukraine, can use to make joint purchases of priority weapons.

The EU’s executive branch also has loosened the rules on countries running up debt if they use the money for defense purposes. It hopes that hundreds of billions of extra euros could be made available, if members use the opportunity to spend more.

Then there are sanctions against Russia. EU nations are working on yet another raft of measures, but they are getting harder to agree on. It now falls to Denmark to try to chaperone the latest sanctions through.

“Russia is on the brink of recession,” noted von der Leyen, standing next to Zelensky. “Russia’s overheated war economy is coming to its limits. So for us, it is important to increase the pressure so that [Putin] comes to the negotiation table.”

Investing in Ukraine, the Danish way

Frederiksen’s government has led the way in investing in Ukraine’s defense industry, which can produce arms and ammunition more quickly and cheaply than elsewhere in Europe. She believes it’s the most effective way to help.

She also recently invited Ukrainian companies to set up shop on safer ground in Denmark, and the first companies could start production there in September. Danish officials are urging their European partners to follow suit.

Ukraine estimates that about 40% of its defense industrial capacity could be capitalized on if more European money were spent there.

Security and EU membership

Frederiksen said that helping Ukraine to join the EU is a security priority, but Hungary stands in the way. Prime Minister Viktor Orban insists that Ukraine should remain a buffer zone between Russia and NATO countries.

EU membership is meant to be a merit-based process, and Denmark has said that “all political and practical means” will be used to persuade Hungary — a small EU country and the only one standing in Ukraine’s way — to lift its veto.

Zelensky said Thursday that Ukraine has made significant progress in aligning with the EU’s rules despite the war, and called for the first phase of membership negotiations to begin as soon as possible.

“Sometimes it’s just difficult to be together in one building, all the government [and] the parliamentarians because of the attacks,” he explained.

Less palatable options

Calls are mounting for the Europeans to use Russian assets that they froze after the full-scale invasion in 2022 to help Ukraine. At the end of March, about $320 billion worth — the bulk of the assets — was being held by Belgian clearing house Euroclear.

The interest earned on those assets is being used to fund a $50-billion scheme set up by the Group of Seven powers to keep Ukraine’s economy afloat.

Some European leaders worry that confiscating Russia’s assets would deprive Ukraine of those profits — estimated at more than $3.5 billion a year. They fear it would also be fraught with legal obstacles and could harm the reputation of the euro single currency on international markets.

Another possibility might be for the Europeans to buy weapons directly from the United States but asked Thursday about that possibility — as well as the confiscation of Russian assets — neither Frederiksen nor von der Leyen would comment.

Cook writes for the Associated Press.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Top officials at the European Union’s executive commission say they’re pushing hard for a trade deal with the Trump administration to avoid a 50% tariff on imported goods. Trump had threatened to impose the tariffs on June 1, but has pushed back the deadline to July 9, repeating an oft-used tactic in his trade war.

European negotiators are contending with Trump’s ever-changing and unpredictable tariff threats, but “still, they have to come up with something to hopefully pacify him,” said Bruce Stokes, visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Stokes also sees more at play than just a disagreement over trade deficits. Trump’s threats “are rooted in frustration with the EU that has little to do with trade,’’ Stokes said. “He doesn’t like the EU. He doesn’t like Germany.”

What exactly does Trump want? What can Europe offer? Here are the key areas where the two sides are squaring off.

Buy our stuff

Over and over, Trump has bemoaned the fact that Europe sells more things to Americans than it buys from Americans. The difference, or the trade deficit in goods, last year was 157 billion euros ($178 billion). But Europe says that when it comes to services — particularly digital services like online advertising and cloud computing — the U.S. sells more than it buys and that lowers the overall trade deficit to 48 billion euros, which is only about 3% of total trade. The European Commission says that means trade is “balanced.”

One way to shift the trade in goods would be for Europe to buy more liquefied natural gas by ship from the U.S. To do so, the EU could cut off the remaining imports of Russian pipeline gas and LNG. The commission is preparing legislation to force an end to those purchases — last year, some 19% of imports — by the end of 2027.

That would push European private companies to look for other sources of gas such as the U.S. However the shift away from Russia is already in motion and that “has obviously not been enough to satisfy,” said Laurent Ruseckas, a natural gas markets expert at S&P Global Commodities Insights Research.

The commission doesn’t buy gas itself but can use “moral suasion” to convince companies to turn to U.S. suppliers in coming years but “this is no silver bullet and nothing that can yield immediate results,” said Simone Tagliapietra, an energy analyst at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.

Europe could buy more from U.S. defense contractors as part of its effort to deter further aggression from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, says Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING bank. If European countries did increase their overall defense spending — another of Trump’s demands — their voters are likely to insist that the purchases go to defense contractors in Europe, not America, said Stokes of the German Marshall Fund. One way around that political obstacle would be for U.S. defense companies to build factories in Europe, but “that would take time,’’ he said.

The EU could also reduce its 10% tax on foreign cars— one of Trump’s long-standing grievances against Europe. “The United States is not going to export that many cars to Europe anyway … The Germans would be most resistant, but I don’t think they’re terribly worried about competition from America,’’ said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ”That would be a symbolic victory for the president.’’

A beef over beef

The U.S. has long complained about European regulations on food and agricultural products that keep out hormone-raised beef and chickens washed with chlorine. But experts aren’t expecting EU trade negotiators to offer any concessions at the bargaining table.

“The EU is unwilling to capitulate,” said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The EU has repeatedly said it will not change its sanitary rules, its rules on (genetically modified) crops, its rules on chlorinated chickens, things that have been longtime irritants for the U.S.’’

Backing down on those issues, she said, would mean that “the U.S. gets to set food safety (standards) for Europe.’’

Value-added tax

One of Trump’s pet peeves has been the value-added taxes used by European governments, a tax he says is a burden on U.S. companies.

Economists say this kind of tax, used by some 170 countries, is trade-neutral because it applies equally to imports and exports. A value-added tax, or VAT, is paid by the end purchaser at the cash register but differs from sales taxes in that it is calculated at each stage of the production process. In both cases, VAT and sales tax, imports and exports get the same treatment. The U.S. is an outlier in that it doesn’t use VAT.

There’s little chance countries will change their tax systems for Trump and the EU has ruled it out.

Negotiating strategy

Trump’s approach to negotiations has involved threats of astronomical tariffs – up to 145% in the case of China – before striking a deal for far lower levels. In any case, however, the White House has taken the stance that it won’t go below a 10% baseline. The threat of 50% for the EU is so high it means “an effective trade embargo,” said Brzeski, since it would impose costs that would make it unprofitable to import goods or mean charging consumers prices so high the goods would be uncompetitive.

Because the knottiest issues dividing the EU and U.S. — food safety standards, the VAT, regulation of tech companies — are so difficult “it is impossible to imagine them being resolved by the deadline,’’ Alden said. ”Possibly what you could have — and Trump has shown he is willing to do this — is a very small deal’’ like the one he announced May 8 with the United Kingdom.

Economists Oliver Rakau and Nicola Nobile of Oxford Economics wrote in a commentary Monday that if imposed, the 50% tariffs would reduce the collective economy of the 20 countries that use the euro currency by up to 1% next year and slash business investment by more than 6%.

The EU has offered the US a “zero for zero” outcome in which tariffs would be removed on both sides industrial goods including autos. Trump has dismissed that but EU officials have said it’s still on the table.

Lovely of the Peterson Institute sees the threats and bluster as Trump’s way of negotiating. “In the short run, I don’t think 50% is going to be our reality.’’

But she says Trump’s strategy adds to the uncertainty around U.S. policy that is paralyzing business. “It suggests that the U.S. is an unreliable trading partner, that it operates on whim and not on rule of law,’’ Lovely said. “Friend or foe, you’re not going to be treated well by this administration.’’

McHugh and Wiseman write for the Associated Press. Wiseman contributed to this report from Washington.