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Germany expects Ukraine to ‘vigorously pursue the fight against corruption’, says Merz – Europe live | Europe

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Merz talks with Zelenskyy on anti-corruption efforts, push for peace talks with Russia

German chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy this morning, discussing the latest corruption allegations against (now former) members of the Ukrainian government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) shake hands after addressing a joint press conference in August. Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP/Getty Images

Merz’s spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, said Zelenskyy “informed [Merz] about the corruption investigations against members of his government who have since resigned, pledging full transparency and long-term support for independent anti-corruption agencies,” and “further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners, and international donors.”

Merz, in turn, “emphasises the German government’s expectation that Ukraine would vigorously pursue the fight against corruption and further reforms, particularly in the area of ​​the rule of law.”

The leaders also spoke about the need to “increase pressure on Moscow to compel Russia to enter into serious negotiations” on a peace settlement, notedly referencing “a more effective use of Russia’s immobilised state assets.”

The pair also spoke about continued aid for Ukraine, helping with air defence and energy infrastructure, and the growing number of young Ukrainian men seeking to leave the country for the European Union.

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UK, Canada open to replicating EU approach to reparation loans for Ukraine, EU’s Dombrovskis says

Oh, that’s interesting.

Dombrovskis reveals that UK and Canada have indicated to the EU that they would be ready to “replicate reparation loan-style approach linked with Russian immobilised assets in their territories,” effectively using them to fund further aid to Ukraine.

“We are also in touch with, for example, Japanese authorities on the same issue,” he says.

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Risks of inaction higher than potential risks from reparations loan, EU’s Dombrovskis says

Asked further, Dobrovskis concedes that “obviously, there are risks to be addressed, and specifically, in case of Belgium, and that is clearly something which European Commission is working on very seriously, and it’s acknowledged.”

But he adds:

“This engagement and work also with Belgian authorities in this regard is ongoing, but it has to be said that there are always risks associated with action and with containing the aggressor, but the risks of inaction and not containing aggressor are even greater.”

Denmark’s Lose also picks up that line, as she says:

“It’s completely fair and in its place to discuss the consequences of doing something, but it’s important to remember that the consequences of not doing anything, the consequences of Europe failing Ukraine, will also have an impact on Europe, so we need to take everything into account moving forward in the dialogue with all the member states.”

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‘Productive’ talks on funding Ukraine, with engagement to continue to ‘address remaining concerns,’ EU’s Dombrovskis says

EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis says the ministers had a “productive” talk on further funding for Ukraine, with “broad support from member states for the commission to continue its work on the reparation loan.”

“There was a wide recognition that this option is the most feasible mean of quickly bridging Ukraine’s funding gap without placing additional substantial fiscal burden on member states,” he said.

Without naming Belgium, he added there will be further “engagement with member states to address remaining concerns.”

“An alternative option would be for the EU to fund the reparation loan to Ukraine through borrowing, instead of using the cash balances associated with immobilised Russian assets. However, member states would help to cover the interest cost of the loan until it’s paid to maintain a grant like support for Ukraine,” he said.

He added that “yet another option would be to provide a similar level of support to Ukraine, but in form of grants, which would entail a large direct cost to member states over the short period of time.”

The three options will be spelled out in a separate paper “shortly.”

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Updated at 08.57 EST

EU’s reparations loan backed by frozen Russian assets ‘best and most realistic option’ for funding Ukraine, Danish economy minister says

Danish economy minister Stephanie Lose is now briefing reporters after today’s meeting of EU ministers in Brussels, which discussed – among others – the issue of EU’s continuing support for Ukraine.

The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) meeting in Brussels, Belgium. Photograph: Olivier Matthys/EPA

She said the ministers “continued our discussion on new EU support to Ukraine and exchanged views and options for support, including the Commission’s proposal on the reparations loan based on the immobilised Russian assets.”

“My takeaway is that the Commission’s proposal is the best and most realistic option, and should be treated as a matter of highest priority, and will continue working closely with all the member states to explore the best way forward from here,” she said.

“It remains clear that continued EU leadership and unity is essential in supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression, and [we] will remain fully engaged to facilitate a decision at this European Council meeting in December,” she said.

Expect her and the EU economy commissioner, Valdis Dombrovskis, standing alongside her to face questions on the details of how they want to get to that agreement, overcoming legal concerns from Belgium in particular.

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‘Pain remains,’ Macron says as he marks 10th anniversary of 2015 Paris attacks

Marking the tenth anniversary of the 2015 Paris terror attacks that killed 130 people, French president Emmanuel Macron has paid tribute to the victims saying that “the pain remains” ten years on.

French president Emmanuel Macron, center, lays a wreath of flowers to victims near Le Bonne Biere cafe. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AP

“The pain remains. In solidarity, for the lives lost, the wounded, the families and loved ones, France remembers,” he said on X.

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In the meantime, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has put out his statement on the call with Germany’s Merz earlier today.

Striking a markedly different tone to Merz’s statement earlier (11:52), he said the pair discussed “the current situation” on the frontline, and “discussed the key steps that could strengthen our defence.”

“I am grateful to Germany for its support – since the start of the full-scale war, German assistance has saved thousands of our people’s lives,” he said.

He also thanked Merz “for the political backing for opening an export office for Ukrainian weapons in Berlin,” and said the pair “coordinated our positions on the European track and in bilateral relations.”

In a hint that the pair discussed the corruption allegations, the main focus of the readout from Merz’s spokesperson earlier, Zelenskyy said he “assured Friedrich that Ukraine will do everything necessary to strengthen partners’ trust.”

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Putin opponents criticise EU ban on multi-entry visas for Russians

Shaun Walker

in Warsaw

Russian opposition figures have reacted with anger and dismay to a decision by the European Union to introduce a ban on multi-entry visas to the Schengen zone for Russian citizens, announced in recent days.

EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said the tightened rules were a response to Russian drone incursions into European airspace. Photograph: Ton Koene/Alamy

“Starting a war and expecting to move freely in Europe is hard to justify,” said the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, when announcing the decision last Friday. She added that the tightened rules were a response to Russian drone incursions into European airspace and sabotage attacks linked to Russia.

Many in the Russian opposition, however, said the move would be counterproductive. “You can’t blame a whole country for the actions of its government,” said Ilya Yashin, a Russian opposition politician who was jailed in late 2022 for opposing the war in Ukraine, in a telephone interview. Yashin was freed in a prisoner exchange last year and now lives in Germany.

Yashin said the visa decision was part of a trend of targeting ordinary Russians in the west with restrictions, while members of Putin’s elite would “always find loopholes if they need to”.

Schengen visas were already hard to obtain for Russians, and some EU countries such as Poland and Finland have banned entry to all Russian nationals who do not hold residence permits. Additionally, many Russian exiles have found their European bank accounts closed or frozen in recent months.

“There are many anti-war Russians and people who want to see changes in Russia. It would be more sensible to be allies with these people and combine forces with them to make a joint front against Putin,” said Yashin.

The exiled Russian journalist Sergey Parkhomenko agreed, describing the visa decision as “extraordinary in its idiocy, ineffectiveness and demonstrative helplessness”, and saying it was a sign of a European elite who wanted to show they were doing something, but did not know what to do.

The rules are already in force, and while individual countries in the Schengen free movement zone have leeway to interpret the rules, a source in Moscow said even Hungary, the friendliest country towards Russia in the zone, had this week stopped issuing any multi-entry visas.

A foreign ministry spokesperson in Italy, favoured holiday destination for wealthy Russians, said Rome would also abide by the EU policy. “Member states do retain the right to exceptionally issue multi-entry visas in justified cases, provided the applicants demonstrate particular integrity and reliability,” said the spokesperson.

The EU has said there may be some limited exceptions to the rule for those with close relatives living in exile, human rights activists or independent journalists, but opposition figures have dismissed this as unhelpful, as it means Russian authorities would automatically know to class anyone with a multi-entry Schengen visa as an enemy of the Putin regime.

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Rutte says Nato presence in Europe ‘demonstrates our resolve’ to defend alliance territory

Visiting a Nato base in the Netherlands, the alliance’s secretary general Mark Rutte thanked Nato soldiers for “making sure that Nato’s posture in this region remains strong and credible, no matter the threat or provocation.”

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte delivers his speech to the Nato-Industry Forum 2025 in Bucharest last week. Photograph: Daniel Mihăilescu/AFP/Getty Images

“Nato has responded quickly and decisively to Russia’s airspace violations, and every day, our strong presence on the ground demonstrates our resolve,” he said on a visit to the Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands,

He added that military presence sends “a strong signal to any adversary that Nato takes its mission to protect each and every ally very seriously” and is determined to “make sure that every inch of allied territory is safe.”

“No adversary can have any doubt about that,” he said.

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Updated at 08.02 EST

Ukrainian investigation shows anti-corruption bodies ‘in place and functioning’

The European Commission has insisted that the Ukrainian corruption probe into former government ministers has proven that the anti-corruption institutions in the country “work,” stressing that continous efforts to fight corruption are a key requirement in the EU accession process.

Speaking at the midday press conference, EU chief spokesperson Paula Pinho said:

“I think it’s really important to underline that [these] investigations which are taking place in Ukraine show that the anti corruption [measures] work, and institutions are there to precisely fight against it.

And this is obviously an area to which we pay particular attention – also, in the context of the accession process.”

EU enlargement spokesperson Guillaume Mercier earlier said:

“This investigation shows that anti-corruption bodies are in place and functioning in Ukraine. The fight against corruption has been central to our enlargement package, which provides a general position on the matter.

Let me stress that the fight against corruption is key for a country to join the EU, it requires continuous efforts to guarantee a strong capacity to combat corruption and the respect for the rule of law.”

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EU investigates Google over ‘demotion’ of commercial content from news media

Lisa O’Carroll

The EU has launched an investigation into Google Search over concerns the US tech company has been “demoting” commercial content from news media sites.

A Google logo is pictured at a press conference in Berlin. Photograph: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images

The bloc’s executive arm announced the move after monitoring found certain content created with advertisers and sponsors was being given such a low priority by Google that it was in effect no longer visible in search results.

European Commission officials said this potentially unfair “loss of visibility and of revenue” to media owners could be a result of an anti-spam policy Google operates.

Under the rules of the Digital Market Act (DMA), which governs competition in the tech sectors, Google must apply “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory conditions of access to publishers websites on Google Search”.

Commission officials said the investigation was not into the overall indexing of newspapers or their reporting on Google Search, just into commercial content provided by a third parties.

Media partnerships with businesses selling goods or services ranging from holidays to trainers were “normal commercial practice in the offline world” and they should also exist in a fair online marketplace such as Google, officials said.

For example a newspaper may have teamed up with Nike to offer discounts, but there was evidence that under a Google search, that sub-domain of the newspaper would be “demoted to a point that users will not be able to find it any more”. That in turn affects the newspaper.

“We are concerned that Google’s policies do not allow news publishers to be treated in a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory manner in its search results,” said Teresa Ribera, the executive vice-president for clean, just and competitive transition policies at the European Commission.

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EU ‘must stop sending money of European citizens to Ukraine,’ Hungarian leaders say

Most senior Hungarian leaders were quick to jump on the latest corruption allegations in Ukraine, arguing that the EU should stop supporting the country.

Hungary has long been an ardent critic of the bloc’s support for Ukraine, repeatedly calling for urgent re-engagement with Moscow to end the war, seeking to delay further sanctions on Russia, and engaging with Russian counterparts outside EU formats.

In a sign of growing tensions, the country’s prime minister Viktor Orbán said in a highly-confrontational post this morning that “the golden illusion of Ukraine is falling apart” after “a wartime mafia network with countless ties to President @ZelenskyyUa has been exposed.”

He said:

“The energy minister has already resigned, and the main suspect has fled the country. This is the chaos into which the Brusselian elite want to pour European taxpayers’ money, where whatever isn’t shot off on the frontlines ends up in the pockets of the war mafia.

Madness. Thank you, but we want no part of this.”

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán arrive to make press statements after their talks in the Kremlin in Moscow in July 2024. Photograph: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

He said “we will not send the Hungarian people’s money to Ukraine,” and threatened to block further aid for Ukraine.

“After all this, we certainly won’t give in to the Ukrainian president’s financial demands and blackmail. It’s high time Brussels finally understood where their money is really going,” he said.

Separately, Hungary’s foreign minister Péter Szijjártó also struck a similar tone.

In a post on X, Szijjártó – who regularly visits Russia – said:

“For years now, the functioning of the Ukrainian state has been financed with the money of European citizens.

Meanwhile, corruption is out of control in Ukraine, so it’s no surprise that no one has ever seen a clear accounting of how the EU funds were actually spent. And what does Brussels want to do now? Send even more money to Ukraine, to @ZelenskyyUa, whose closest circle has just been exposed as running a major corruption network.

It’s time to put an end to this madness. We must stop sending the money of European citizens to Ukraine!!!”

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (L) and Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó (R) during a meeting in Moscow, Russia in July 2022, months after Russia’s full-scale invasion on Ukraine. Photograph: Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry Handout/EPAShare

Updated at 06.28 EST

Merz-Zelenskyy call on corruption shows concern from European partners – snap analysis

Jakub Krupa

The Merz-Zelenskyy call is significant as show the level of concern among some of Ukraine’s closest allies about the reported corruption investigation and Kyiv’s determination to fight corruption – an issue also highlighted in a recent EU progress report.

The European Commission’s daily midday briefing is about to get under way in the next few minutes, and it’s more likely than not that we will hear from them on this very point, too.

Separately, the latest corruption allegations about the government in Kyiv also meant Merz could face some criticism domestically, particularly from the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, over his continued support for Ukraine, so he needed to send a clear message here: highlighting his serious concern and his strong demand for Kyiv to urgently act on this issue.

They will be hoping in Berlin that this call achieves just that.

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Updated at 06.02 EST

Merz talks with Zelenskyy on anti-corruption efforts, push for peace talks with Russia

German chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy this morning, discussing the latest corruption allegations against (now former) members of the Ukrainian government.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (L) and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) shake hands after addressing a joint press conference in August. Photograph: Ralf Hirschberger/AFP/Getty Images

Merz’s spokesperson, Stefan Kornelius, said Zelenskyy “informed [Merz] about the corruption investigations against members of his government who have since resigned, pledging full transparency and long-term support for independent anti-corruption agencies,” and “further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners, and international donors.”

Merz, in turn, “emphasises the German government’s expectation that Ukraine would vigorously pursue the fight against corruption and further reforms, particularly in the area of ​​the rule of law.”

The leaders also spoke about the need to “increase pressure on Moscow to compel Russia to enter into serious negotiations” on a peace settlement, notedly referencing “a more effective use of Russia’s immobilised state assets.”

The pair also spoke about continued aid for Ukraine, helping with air defence and energy infrastructure, and the growing number of young Ukrainian men seeking to leave the country for the European Union.

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France pays tribute to victims on 10th anniversary of 13 November 2015 terror attacks

Meanwhile, over in Paris, France pays tribute to the victims of the 13 November 2015 terror attacks today in which 130 people were killed.

French president Emmanuel Macron is taking part in events commemorating the 10th anniversary of the attack, as is the country’s prime minister Sébastien Lecornu, and other current and former officials, including Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo former president François Hollande.

A wreath from the Mayors’ Association prior to a ceremony to pay tribute to victims outside the Stade de France stadium, during ceremonies across Paris marking a decade since the terror attacks of 13 November 2015. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/ReutersSaint-Denis’ mayor Mathieu Hanotin (R) welcomes President of France Emmanuel Macron as he arrives to attend a ceremony to pay tribute to victims outside the Stade de France stadium in Saint-Denis. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty ImagesFrench National Assembly President Yael Braun-Pivet, Member of parliament from the Socialistes et Apparentes François Hollande and Paris’ mayor Anne Hidalgo talk prior to a ceremony outside Stade de France stadium. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/EPAShare

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