The European Commission plans to bolster its military-industrial complex; US President-elect Donald Trump chooses nominees for Secretary of State and National Security Advisor; and the UN Climate Forum in Baku (COP29) seeks to raise financing for new low-carbon technologies. These stories topped the headlines across Russia on Wednesday, according to TASS News Agency.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Europe Commission charts path toward militarization
The European Commission intends to redirect around €400 bln from the EU budget, initially earmarked for the development of underdeveloped regions, in order to spend it on strengthening the military-industrial complex of member states and providing military aid to Ukraine, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. The resolution of these issues will be supervised by the European Commissioner for Defense - a position that will be created for the first time in the new composition of the European Commission, which will begin work on December 1.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the European Commission will release €392 bln from the so-called Cohesion Fund to increase military spending. This amount is allocated in the EU budget for 2021-2027 to reduce economic inequality within the community. After all, the Cohesion Fund is one of the largest budget programs designed to finance the most underdeveloped regions of EU states and bring them closer to the advanced ones in terms of development.
Re-elected for a second five-year term, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen promised to turn the EU into a defense union. Thus, the new initiative of the European Commission is fully in line with her promises, Nezavisimaya Gazeta notes. It also includes the development of a common European air defense system, a threefold increase in the number of coast and border guards, and the creation of a European defense commissioner.
"Europe is in an increasingly combative mood. Suffice it to say that on November 11, during the Paris celebrations of the 106th anniversary of the end of World War I, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer discussed how to convince the Joe Biden administration to allow Kiev to strike with long-range weapons deep into Russian territory. Perhaps with British Storm Shadow missiles or French Scalp missiles," Alexey Fenenko, a professor at the Faculty of World Politics at Moscow State University, told the newspaper.
According to the expert, it is wrong to claim that the Americans are pushing the Europeans into a conflict with Russia. On the contrary, the Franco-British alliance itself is pushing the US to act more decisively. "Russia will probably have to come to terms with a new reality - the awakening of militarism in European countries. This new European militarism may turn out to be even more hostile to Russia than American policy," Fenenko believes.
Vedomosti: Donald Trump starts assembling his foreign policy team
US President-elect Donald Trump plans to nominate Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mike Waltz from Florida for the positions of Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources. However, the publication believes that the decision regarding Rubio is not final. According to Vedomosti, their views on the Ukrainian conflict have changed and now align with Trump’s.
Secretary of State and National Security Advisor are the two most important foreign policy positions in the United States. The former is the US president’s chief envoy on the international stage. The latter is responsible for briefing the president daily on the state of the world and coordinating the work of the National Security Council, which includes key cabinet members.
Both politicians hold similar positions to Trump on the Ukrainian conflict, Vedomosti writes. Initially, Rubio was a supporter of providing aid to Kiev, but later declared additional aid packages hopeless.
Lev Sokolshchik, leading researcher at the HSE Center for Comprehensive Economic and Social Studies, believes that American diplomacy will still use sanctions pressure. In his opinion, sanctions can be expected to be used as a bargaining and pressure tool. The personalities of the appointees matter, but they will still be guided by Trump’s priorities, who demonstrated during his first term that he acts solely in his own opportunistic interests.
Waltz is an advocate of increasing the financial involvement of the US’s European allies in the Ukrainian conflict and increasing sanctions pressure on Russia, Director of the Institute of International Studies at MGIMO University Maxim Suchkov told Vedomosti. The expert does not rule out that Trump is using Waltz as a "bad cop" in possible negotiations on Ukraine. "Waltz is needed to extract concessions from uncompromising opponents," the expert believes.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta: Developing nations need $1 trillion for green transition
The central initiative of the UN Climate Forum in Baku (COP29) was the demand from developing countries to raise financing for new low-carbon technologies to $1 trillion. Developed countries have not yet been able to create an economically attractive model for the green transition, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reports. Experts told the newspaper that plans for securing additional financial resources could be formulated at the meeting.
The climate summit in Baku is being attended by 80 heads of state and government. Ruslan Edelgeriev, the Special Representative of the Russian President for Climate Issues, was appointed as the head of the Russian delegation. Earlier, the Special Representative of the Russian President for Relations with International Organizations, Boris Titov, said that Moscow would present its proposals for establishing an international carbon market at COP29.
On Monday, COP29 countries agreed on quality standards for carbon credits, which are necessary to the launch of the UN-backed global carbon market that will finance projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is expected that the agreement reached on Monday will enable the launch of the UN-backed global carbon market as early as next year.
Experts say the first days of the summit have been promising. "One result has already been achieved - there is a consensus on a set of fundamental rules for the global trading of CO2 emission allowances. This is a key element of the future global system for trading quotas for greenhouse gas emissions," Pavel Sevostyanov, associate professor at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. He also hopes that the Baku meeting will provide an opportunity to formulate plans to raise additional financial resources.
"One of the most important steps is to agree on a number of renewable energy initiatives, including a plan to develop energy storage and distribution infrastructure, as well as a declaration on reducing methane emissions," Kirill Chernovol, research fellow at the Russian Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Center at the Presidential Academy, said. However, mobilizing funds from both countries and the private sector remains essential to achieve these goals, he added.
Izvestia: Palestinians assess prospects of cooperation with Trump administration
The Palestinian authorities will reject any proposals from the future administration of US President Donald Trump if they do not consider the rights of their people, which include the end of the Israeli occupation and the creation of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. This was stated by Abd al-Fattah al-Dawla, the official representative of Fatah, the largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in an interview with Izvestia.
"The Palestinian side will not consider any proposals that do not meet the aspirations and rights of our people. Therefore, the American administration has to change its policy of supporting the occupier (Israel - Izvestia) and preventing a two-state solution [to the conflict]," the Fatah representative emphasized.
According to him, the criterion for the success of any proposal and the Palestinian side’s interaction with it is the degree to which it aligns with the rights of the Palestinian people and the international legal framework.
"If the policy of the US President-elect Trump follows the same logic that denies the rights of the Palestinian people and supports the policy of occupation, then it will not lead to success. If he pursues a policy consistent with the international legal framework and the full realization of the rights of the Palestinian people, then we will welcome it," he stressed.
"Trump’s Middle East policy is still forming and will partly depend on the members of the team that the Republican president will appoint to be responsible for this region," Middle East expert Leonid Tsukanov told Izvestia.
According to him, Trump’s personal involvement may play a role here, especially since he has repeatedly emphasized that he is ready to make "personal proposals" on any of the crises, including the Palestinian one.
It is highly likely that the Trump administration will try to revive the Abraham Accords, which the Democrats failed to expand during the Biden presidency. "However, this requires resolving the hot phase of the crisis in Gaza, and it is highly likely that Washington will defend the interests of the Jewish state in this conflict more firmly, which will lead to the final curtailment of the deal on the sector proposed by the Democrats," the expert concluded.
Vedomosti: China increases imports of copper ore from Russia by 36%
Exports of copper concentrate from Russia to China rose by 36% year-on-year to 310,000 tons in January-September 2024, according to data from the General Administration of Customs of China. In September, shipments grew 1.5-fold to 35,000 tons, while exports of finished copper and copper products from Russia to China dropped by 18% year-on-year to 226,700 tons in the reporting period. Experts told Vedomosti that demand for copper raw materials in China is growing due to a shortage of local smelting capacities.
China is the world’s largest consumer of copper, but only the fourth-largest producer of copper ore. This forces the country to import copper concentrate, which is then processed into refined metal to meet domestic demand, Vedomosti reports. The total volume of copper concentrate imports into China in the first nine months increased by around 4% year-on-year to 21.06 mln tons.
According to British consulting company CRU, around 3.2 mln tons of new copper smelting capacity will be added in China by 2030. Nornickel’s copper smelter could be one of the new production facilities in China.
Maxim Khudalov, Chief Strategist of Vector Capital, explained that the increase in supplies to foreign countries is due to Nornickel’s Bystrinsky Mining and Processing Plant and Udokan Copper reaching their full capacity. According to the expert, the volume of supplies from Russia to China will hit 405,000-410,000 tons of copper concentrate by the end of 2024. Demand for the metal is growing, especially in the production of electronics, solar panels, and electric cars, he added.
China consumes about 60% of the world’s copper production, Boris Krasnozhenov, head of securities market analysis at Alfa Bank, told Vedomosti. About two-thirds of this volume is covered by imports, but high copper prices make new projects economically unfeasible, the expert suggests.
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