Category: Russian Federation

MIL-OSI Europe: REPORT on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Bosnia and Herzegovina – A10-0108/2025

Source: European Parliament

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Bosnia and Herzegovina

(2025/2018(INI))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina initialled in Dayton on 21 November 1995 and signed in Paris on 14 December 1995 (the Dayton Peace Agreement),

– having regard to the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States of the one part, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, of the other part [1], which entered into force on 1 June 2015,

– having regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s application for EU membership, submitted on 15 February 2016,

– having regard to the Commission opinion of 29 May 2019 on Bosnia and Herzegovina’s application for membership of the European Union (COM(2019)0261),

– having regard to the European Council conclusions of 15 December 2022 granting EU candidate country status to Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to the European Council conclusions of 22 March 2024 on opening accession negotiations with Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/1529 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 September 2021 establishing the Instrument for Pre-Accession assistance (IPA III)[2],

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/1449 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2024 on establishing the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans [3],

– having regard to the Presidency conclusions of the Thessaloniki European Council meeting of 19 and 20 June 2003,

– having regard to the declarations of the EU-Western Balkans summits of 6 May 2020, 13 December 2023 and of 18 December 2024 in Brussels,

– having regard to the Berlin Process, launched on 28 August 2014,

– having regard to Council Decision (EU) 2021/1923 of 4 November 2021 on an Assistance Measure under the European Peace Facility to support capacity building for the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina [4],

– having regard to Council Decision (EU) 2022/2353 of 1 December 2022 on an assistance measure under the European Peace Facility to strengthen the capacities of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina [5],

– having regard to the Commission communication of 5 February 2020 entitled ‘Enhancing the accession process – A credible EU perspective for the Western Balkans’ (COM(2020)0057),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 6 October 2020 entitled ‘An Economic and Investment Plan for the Western Balkans’ (COM(2020)0641),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 8 November 2023 entitled ‘2023 Communication on EU Enlargement Policy’ (COM(2023)0690), accompanied by the Commission staff working document entitled ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina 2023 Report’ (SWD(2023)0691),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 8 November 2023 entitled ‘New growth plan for the Western Balkans’ (COM(2023)0691),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 12 March 2024 entitled ‘Report on progress in Bosnia and Herzegovina – March 2024’ (COM(2024)0129),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 20 March 2024 on pre-enlargement reforms and policy reviews (COM(2024)0146),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 30 October 2024 entitled ‘2024 Communication on EU enlargement policy’ (COM(2024)0690), accompanied by the Commission staff working document entitled ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina 2024 Report’ (SWD(2024)0691),

– having regard to the Commission’s overview and country assessments of 31 May 2023 and of 13 June 2024 of the Economic Reform Programme of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to the fifth EU-Bosnia and Herzegovina Stabilisation and Association Council of 19 July 2023 and the seventh EU-Bosnia and Herzegovina Stabilisation and Association Committee meeting of 19 September 2024,

– having regard to the outcomes of the third, fourth, fifth and sixth meetings of the EU-Bosnia and Herzegovina Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee, held on 30 and 31 October 2023, 13 and 14 March 2024, 30 October 2024 and 12 and 13 March 2025 respectively,

– having regard to the expert report of 5 December 2019 on rule of law issues in Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to the European Council’s political agreement of 12 June 2022 on a on principles for ensuring a functional Bosnia and Herzegovina that advances on the European path,

– having regard to the 63rd, 64th, 65th and 66th reports of the High Representative for Implementation of the Peace Agreement on Bosnia and Herzegovina to the Secretary-General of the UN of 9 May 2023, 2 November 2023, 15 May 2024, 1 November 2024 respectively,

– having regard to UN Security Council Resolution 2757 (2024) of 1 November 2024, which extends the mandate of the EU Force in Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) until 2 November 2025,

– having regard to UN General Assembly Resolution 78/282 of 23 May 2024, designating 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica,

– having regard to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), ratified by Bosnia and Herzegovina on 6 March 1992, and to its three Optional Protocols, namely: the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, ratified on 10 October 2003; the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, ratified on 4 September 2001, and the Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure, ratified on 19 October 2018,

– having regard to the UNESCO resolutions on the right of education in the mother tongue, the UNESCO Convention of 17 October 2003 for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, as well as the UNESCO Convention of 20 October 2005 on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions,

– having regard to the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to the amended Election Law of Bosnia and Herzegovina imposed by the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina on 26 March 2024,

– having regard to the visits of the Vice-President of the European Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (VP/HR) Kaja Kallas and of NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte to Bosnia and Herzegovina in March and April 2025,

– having regard to the statement of the President of the European Council António Costa to the political leaders of Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 2025,

– having regard to its recommendation of 23 November 2022 to the Council, the Commission and the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy concerning the new EU strategy for enlargement [6],

– having regard to its report of 17 January 2024 on the ‘Role of preventive diplomacy in tackling frozen conflicts around the world – missed opportunity or change for the future?’[7],

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Bosnia and Herzegovina,

– having regard to Rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A10-0108/2025),

A. whereas enlargement is one of the EU’s most effective foreign policy instruments and a geostrategic investment in peace, democracy, stability, security and prosperity on the European continent, and remains of crucial importance, particularly in the context of rapid major geopolitical shifts and growing competition with authoritarian regimes;

B. whereas each country is judged on its own merits in fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria, including full respect for democracy, the rule of law and fundamental EU values, human rights, minority rights and media freedoms;

C. whereas the EU remains the main political and economic partner of the Western Balkan countries; whereas the EU continues to be largest trade and investment partner of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), accounting for the majority of its foreign trade flows and playing a central role in its economic integration process;

D. whereas Bosnia and Herzegovina is a candidate country and the clear majority of its citizens aspires to Euro-Atlantic integration for sustainable peace, democracy and prosperity; whereas 2025 marks the 30th anniversary of the Dayton Peace Agreement, which continues to form the foundation of BiH’s institutional set-up and that was intended as a safeguard for the equality of its three constituent peoples;

E. whereas public support remains fragile owing to anti-EU narratives promoted by illiberal actors from the region and beyond;

F. whereas the Dayton Peace Agreement despite its shortcomings, has fostered peace and the subsequent stabilisation in BiH by creating the key institutions that enabled the country to progress along the path of EU and NATO integration;

G. whereas 30 years after the end of the war, BiH remains dysfunctional and finds itself again in a deep political and security crisis, with attempts at secession, and a high degree of corruption;

H. whereas the EU strongly supports the territorial integrity and sovereignty of BiH and will not accept any attempts to undermine it; whereas the Strategic Compass stated that as a matter of security and stability it is of a particular interest to support the sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of BiH;

I. whereas the President of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity, Milorad Dodik, and politicians from the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) have initiated unconstitutional actions to nullify state laws within the RS entity and attacked the key institutions of the state, namely the Office of the High Representative, the BiH Constitutional Court, and the judiciary; whereas the authorities of the RS entity participated in the ‘All-Serb Assembly’ held on 8 June 2024 in Belgrade under the slogan ‘One people, one assembly’; whereas a process of forming a new pro-EU majority has been initiated;

J. whereas EUFOR Althea is an EU CSDP mission helping BiH to maintain a stable and secure environment in the country and is supporting the armed forces’ efforts to align with NATO standards, while serving as a deterrent against any foreign threats;

K. whereas BiH’s EU path is increasingly targeted by malign foreign actors, notably the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, which exploit ethnic divisions and institutional fragility to obstruct reforms, undermine the constitutional order and erode public trust in the EU; whereas Russian state-controlled media, including Sputnik Serbia and RT Balkan, continue to operate in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially in the RS entity, spreading disinformation and pro-Kremlin narratives in violation of EU sanctions on Russian propaganda outlets;

L. whereas BiH is a multi-ethnic state in whose territory different religious and ethnic groups have lived for centuries, demonstrating that peoples with different views can coexist in an environment of tolerance and mutual respect; whereas linguistic and cultural diversity is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union, as enshrined in Articles 21 and 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights;

M. whereas, for the 2022 general elections, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) Election Observation Mission concluded that the electoral process remained vulnerable to external interference, including the misuse of administrative resources and biased media coverage influenced by foreign-backed platforms, and called for enhanced protections against disinformation, transparency in campaign finance, and safeguards for journalists and civil society;

Commitment to EU accession

1. Reaffirms its support for BiH’s EU accession through a merit-based process based on the Copenhagen criteria, grounded in unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity, and equality among its citizens;

2. Welcomes the European Council’s decision to open accession negotiations with BiH in the context of the changed geopolitical reality following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine; welcomes the adoption of several key laws in the run-up to this decision, but regrets that the positive reform dynamic has stalled, and notes the inadequate implementation and enforcement of the adopted laws; regrets that the legislative process has been marred by a lack of transparency and limited access for key stakeholders; notes the recent adoption of the Laws on Border Control and on Personal Data Protection and calls for their thorough implementation; calls for preparations to establish the institutional and financial basis for this enlargement to ensure sustainable EU integration;

3. Urges BiH’s legitimate political leaders at all levels to take all relevant steps set out in the Commission’s recommendation of 12 October 2022, in full respect for proper democratic, transparent and inclusive procedures within the competent institutions, with a view to the negotiating framework being adopted by the Council once these conditions are met, and to step up the efforts to deliver on the 14 key priorities set out by the Commission in 2019; calls on all political actors to uphold BiH’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from all divisive rhetoric and acts, including secessionist rhetoric and acts, incitement to ethnic, religious and racial intolerance, denial of genocide and other war crimes, and the glorification of war crimes and their perpetrators;

4. Reiterates that BiH’s accession process needs to be rooted in functioning democratic institutions, the rule of law, the fight against corruption and organised crime, as well as respect for fundamental rights and non-discrimination for all citizens, including constituent peoples, regardless of ethnic, religious or other affiliations;

5. Strongly condemns the repeated use of inflammatory rhetoric and the adoption of secessionist laws and policies by Milorad Dodik, President of the RS entity, the SNSD party, and the Assembly of the RS entity, including the celebration of the so-called ‘Day of Republika Srpska’ and the Day of the State of the Republic of Serbia; emphasises that such actions undermine BiH’s constitutional order, territorial integrity and sovereignty, and are incompatible with its EU accession process and undermine the Dayton Peace Agreement;

6. Urges all the Member States – and calls for their unity – as well as he European External Action Service (EEAS) and the Commission, to act more decisively to respond to these direct threats to European security and reiterates its call for targeted sanctions against all destabilising actors, notably Milorad Dodik, as well as other high-ranking RS entity and Serbian officials providing political and material support for secessionist policies; calls on all Member States to ensure that such sanctions can be adopted by the Council and to impose them bilaterally or in concert with other Member States if their adoption in the Council is not possible; condemns the Hungarian Government’s role in blocking sanctions; endorses the statements made by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on 10 March 2025 in Sarajevo and by VP/HR Kaja Kallas on 8 April in Sarajevo and calls for stability in the country to be safeguarded; believes that high-level EU officials should not engage with actors undermining the constitutional order of BiH in order not to harm the credibility of the EU in supporting BiH state institutions and welcomes the travel bans imposed on high-ranking RS individuals by some Member States;

7. Takes note of the ruling of the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the case of Milorad Dodik on 26 February 2025 and is highly alarmed by the escalating tensions and actions he has since led, including unprecedented attacks on BiH institutions and intimidation of opposition in the RS; deplores the support given to such policies by Russian and Serbian authorities, and calls upon all internal, regional and international actors to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of BiH; calls for the international isolation of Milorad Dodik; condemns the recent decision of the RS entity’s government to declare a senior German foreign ministry official as persona non grata; notes with concern that Interpol refused to issue a Red Notice for an international warrant and calls on EUFOR to provide concrete support to the BiH authorities to put an end to the continued efforts to undermine the country’s legal and political stability, and to demonstrate the EU’s and EUFOR’s commitment and ability to uphold peace, enforce the rule of law, and maintain the integrity of legal institutions;

8. Deplores that Milorad Dodik’s policies and actions, including frequent blockades of State-level bodies and decision-making and the hollowing out of the BiH institutions necessary for the technical work on alignment with the EU acquis, are a major factor in BiH’s troubled EU accession path and a clear violation of the 12 June 2022 political agreement; welcomes the work of the competent BiH institutions and calls on them to follow due procedures and to execute and implement all decisions in full respect for the rule of law; urges all political actors, notably in the RS entity, to reject all secessionist steps undermining of the country’s unity, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security; urges the RS National Assembly to ensure that its Official Gazette reflects the decisions of the BiH Constitutional Court regarding RS legislation, which has been found to undermine the constitutional order and been taken out of effect;

9. Urges the Commission, in close cooperation with the Member States and international partners, including the Office of the High Representative, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Council of Europe, to take stock of the lessons learned over the past 15 years of European engagement in BiH and to recalibrate its strategy accordingly, with a renewed focus on delivering tangible progress and reforms that accelerate the country’s path toward EU membership, thereby reaffirming the EU’s unwavering commitment to the full integration of BiH into the Union;

10. Welcomes BiH’s formal full alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy, including restrictive measures in response to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and urges the effective implementation of these measures; welcomes BiH’s continued participation in EU crisis management missions and operations; condemns the pro-Russian stance of the RS entity’s leadership and its frequent meetings with Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials; expresses serious concerns about the security risks posed by these ties; urges the EU to investigate the use of the RS entity as a gateway for Russian intelligence operations and hybrid attacks on EU Member States; calls for support to BiH in countering disinformation campaigns originating from Russia as part of a joint effort against hybrid threats; strongly supports BiH’s sustained aspirations towards Euro-Atlantic integration and NATO membership and calls on all political actors to take concrete political action to achieve them;

11. Reiterates its support for the Office of the High Representative and EUFOR Operation Althea in overseeing the implementation of the Dayton Peace Agreement in accordance with their mandates based on political neutrality and full respect for the Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, until the country has fulfilled the ‘5+2 agenda’ and its international supervision ends; welcomes the renewal of the mandate of EUFOR Operation Althea; regrets that BiH is still heavily reliant on the mandate of the Office of the High Representative, and the presence of EUFOR Althea, but acknowledges and values it as a crucial institution in safeguarding not only peace, but also the bare functioning of the country;

12. Recalls that EUFOR Operation Althea plays a key role in safeguarding the security, territorial integrity, stability, sovereignty and political independence of BiH, while ensuring that local stakeholders act in accordance with these fundamental principles as outlined in the Dayton Peace Agreement and UN Security Council resolutions; urges EUFOR to communicate this mandate unequivocally to the citizens of BiH as a confidence-building measure;

13. Further welcomes the Council’s decision on an assistance measure under the European Peace Facility worth EUR 10 million to the benefit of the Armed Forces of BiH (AFBiH) and the Cooperation and Training Contract for 2023 between the AFBiH and EUFOR; calls on the Council and VP/HR to enable all eligible Member States to participate in the EU peacekeeping missions, such as EUFOR’s Operation Althea in BiH; calls on the BiH authorities, NATO and EUFOR Althea to launch a reform process of the BiH armed forces;

14. Remains concerned by malign foreign interference and disinformation campaigns by foreign actors in BiH, notably Russia and China, as well as their transmission through local media and political structures, particularly by the RS entity; expresses grave concern over Kremlin support for secessionist rhetoric, attempts to delegitimise state institutions, and interference in judicial and electoral matters; highlights recent Russian efforts at the UN Security Council to defend unconstitutional actions by RS entity authorities;

15. Calls for further steps, inter alia aligning BiH legislation with the EU acquis, and EU support to effectively counter malign foreign interference and disinformation campaigns; calls on the EEAS and the EU Delegation to BiH to intensify efforts in promoting the benefits of closer integration and to invest in communication campaigns to fight anti-democratic narratives and other forms of foreign influence;

16. Deplores the participation of RS entity authorities in the ‘All-Serb Assembly’ held on 8 June 2024 in Belgrade under the slogan ‘One people, one assembly’ and rejects its declaration which undermines the sovereignty of BiH and other Western Balkan countries and fails to promote good neighbourly relations; condemns Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic’s interference in the affairs of BiH, including by expressing support for the illegitimate actions of Milorad Dodik and organising the Russia-backed ‘All-Serb Assembly’ which undermines the sovereignty and territorial integrity of BiH;

17. Condemns the increase in Iran’s malign influence in the country and in the Western Balkans, which poses a threat to security for the EU and its Member States;

18. Welcomes BiH’s renewed and sustained engagement in the EU-BiH Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee in fulfilment of one of the 14 key priorities set out by the Commission;

19. Urges the BiH authorities to reform the coordination mechanism for EU matters, which has proved to be ineffective and inefficient in addressing EU integration-related tasks; calls on the authorities to submit a national programme for the adoption of the EU acquis (NPAA) in accordance with the Commission’s comments and to ensure coordinated alignment with the EU acquis throughout the country; highlights the need to establish an operational negotiating structure following the European Council’s decision to commence accession negotiations, including nomination of a negotiation team and a chief negotiator who is fully authorised to present the country’s position;

Democracy and the rule of law

20. Regrets the fact that political actors have still not enacted the necessary changes to the constitution and the electoral law to align them with the European Convention on Human Rights and to implement relevant rulings of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Court of Human Rights to eliminate all forms of inequality and discrimination in the electoral process and ensure non-discrimination, protection of fundamental rights, and equality for all BiH citizens to ‘move from Dayton to Brussels’; reiterates that failing to implement these rulings is incompatible with EU values and BiH’s EU integration; stresses the need for all constitutional and electoral reform processes to be inclusive, based on comprehensive consultations with citizens, civil society and independent experts and all relevant stakeholders in the country, and in line with European standards and principles; reiterates that any electoral reform must not deepen or cement ethnic division;

21. Regrets that the BiH authorities have not been able to unite society or to create a just and functional system in the country, but rather have largely contributed to deepening divisions; calls on the EU and its Member States to initiate a transparent and inclusive reform process that would enable a sustainable transformation of the Dayton Peace Agreement into a constitution, fully in line with European standards and principles, with a view to ensuring a functional, accountable, representative, and popularly legitimate governance system, to overcome ethno-nationalistic divisions and achieve sustainable progress on the path towards the EU;

22. Notes the changes made to the Election Law by the High Representative in March 2024 that introduced important integrity standards and confidence-building measures, aiming to restore voters’ trust in the overall election process; calls on the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH to urgently address all outstanding recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR, of the Venice Commission and of the Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) especially on matters regarding election administration, the conduct of polling and counting, campaigning and campaign finance, explicit prohibition of indirect buying of votes, election dispute resolution, countering disinformation and foreign interference, increasing protection of journalists and sanctioning the misuse of administrative resources;

23. Welcomes the fact that the local elections of 6 October 2024 were competitive and effectively managed; regrets that they were held in an environment lacking social and political cohesion;

24. Strongly condemns the RS entity’s actions undermining BiH’s constitutional order and the competences of state bodies, and its obstructionism towards the Constitutional Court of BiH; condemns all illegal actions that conflict with the constitutional framework and calls on all political actors in BiH to pursue a pro-European approach;

25. Notes the limited progress on justice reforms in Bosnia and Herzegovina, particularly in relation to the independence, professionalism, efficiency and accountability of the judicial system; calls for urgent measures to accelerate reforms in these areas, ensuring full alignment with EU standards and strengthening the capacity of the judiciary to effectively serve justice and uphold the rule of law;

26. Remains seriously concerned about corruption, notably high-level corruption, in BiH, which is a structural problem deeply embedded in the country’s highly complex governance system, and urges the relevant authorities to take a more decisive, coordinated, transparent and proactive stance in fighting it, including by improving anti-corruption legislation fully in line with international standards and recommendations and ensuring the effective implementation of laws, such as those on preventing conflicts of interest and protecting whistleblowers; encourages BiH to engage in structured cooperation and exchange of best practices with Member States; welcomes the Anti-Corruption Strategy 2024-2028 and the adoption of the action plan for its implementation, as well as ongoing international cooperation efforts;

27. Regrets that the laws on public procurement, conflict of interest and the High Judicial Council are still not in line with European standards and urges the adoption of a new law on the High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC) in accordance with the recommendations of the Venice Commission; calls for the establishment of an independently functioning Asset Declarations Department within the HJPC, and advocates for the impartial and effective prosecution of high-level corruption cases;

28. Stresses the need to strengthen the system for managing conflicts of interest among individuals holding top executive functions, in particular by ensuring that statements of interests are subject to regular and substantive verification; underlines that all individuals holding top executive functions, whether elected or appointed, should be subject to uniform disclosure obligations, and that all such declarations should systematically be made public and easily accessible online, in the interest of transparency and public accountability;

29. Urges BiH to step up the fight against organised crime; is deeply concerned by vulnerabilities to criminal infiltration in the political, legal and economic systems; commends the BiH authorities for signing a Cooperation Agreement on Eurojust on 24 October 2024 to increase the efficiency of investigations and prosecution in the fields of organised crime, terrorism, trafficking in human beings, cybercrime and other criminal activities;

30. Stresses that cooperation with the EU in the fight against drugs trafficking must be improved; calls for BiH to appoint a correspondent agent as part of its cooperation with the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA);

31. Welcomes the new Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering Terrorism Financing and urges BiH to strengthen measures in this area, including the adoption of the necessary by-laws required for the effective implementation of the law, with particular attention to effective enforcement and monitoring; stresses, in particular, the need to fully align the anti-terrorism legislation with the EU acquis and international law; calls for the establishment of stricter sanctions for terrorism offences;

32. Welcomes the adoption of BiH’s Law on Border Control aimed at improving compliance with European standards, and calls for full alignment with the EU’s visa policy as part of a controlled migration policy; stresses that BiH must uphold security at its borders and cooperate with Frontex and neighbouring countries to prevent irregular migration while ensuring sufficient access to asylum procedures for those eligible for international protection;

33. Stresses the need to ensure that the appointment of senior police officials, particularly in the Border Police and the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA), is based on merit and conducted through open, standardised and transparent selection procedures;

34. Recalls the need for a professional and depoliticised civil service; welcomes the steps taken in public administration reform; calls for the administrative burden in public administration to be reduced; calls on the BiH authorities to improve public authorities’ responsiveness to information requests;

Fundamental freedoms and human rights

35. Strongly condemns discrimination, violence and hate speech against all minorities; calls for the effective prosecution of such incidents; urges BiH to promote and safeguard the human rights, non-discrimination and protection of all minorities; calls for enhanced implementation of anti-discrimination mechanisms in BiH, with a particular focus on combating intolerance, hate speech and all forms of inequality; calls on the authorities to improve access to social, housing, education and healthcare services for all minorities and vulnerable groups; emphasises the importance of protecting the cultural and linguistic expression of all minorities in BiH;

36. Expresses deep concern over the sharp increase in violence – including emerging forms of digital violence – against women, children, seniors and other vulnerable groups, including the LGBTIQ community; urges the BiH authorities to align their policies, legislation and practices on combating sexual and digital violence against women and girls with Council of Europe standards, particularly the Istanbul Convention, relevant ECtHR case law and the EU acquis; calls for targeted support to key institutions, for training professionals to provide victims with effective support, and for increased public awareness and institutional capacity to prevent and combat all forms of gender-based violence; stresses the key role of women’s associations in reaching out to the most vulnerable; calls on BiH to establish an official centralised data collection system on femicide; welcomes the 9 April 2025 decision of the government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH) to include femicide in the criminal code and calls on the Parliament to urgently approve this new law;

37. Regrets that the 2023-2027 gender action plan has so far lacked funding and monitoring; calls for an increase in the public and political participation of women in BiH; recognises the additional barriers and discrimination faced by women from ethnic minorities, particularly in accessing services;

38. Condemns the RS entity’s adoption of legislative amendments that have removed gender identity as a protected characteristic, and those that no longer guarantee protection for children of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities;

39. Calls on the relevant BiH authorities to develop and adopt the pending national action plan on the protection of the rights of the child; stresses that poverty and social exclusion affect a high percentage of children in the country, especially children from vulnerable groups, including Roma, children with disabilities, children in conflict with the law, and children on the move; recalls that BiH must uphold its international commitments so that no child is left behind;

40. Emphasises the importance of inclusive and quality education, including the right to education in the mother tongue, and inter alia the importance of systematically reforming divisive curricula that seriously hamper internal mobility and limit critical thinking skills; reiterates its call for an end to the segregation practice of the ‘two schools under one roof’ system, which hampers social cohesion and equal opportunities, and stresses the need to favour reconciliation and integration and protect the right of every national community, including minorities, to their culture, language and identity; calls for the adoption of a common curriculum in history textbooks based on court-established facts related to the war as a means of avoiding historical revisionism and encourages the EU to support this initiative;

41. Calls on BiH to guarantee the freedoms of assembly, association and expression, enabling the inclusion of civil society in policymaking; calls on the authorities to ensure meaningful, systematic and inclusive public consultation processes; condemns the RS entity’s reintroduction of a Russian-style law on ‘foreign agents’ and urges the authorities to repeal it; condemns the RS entity authorities’ use of criminalised defamation laws as a tool to stifle freedom of expression and calls for restoring criminalised defamation solely to the domain of civil law to prevent its misuse in restricting freedom of expression; calls on the Commission to attach strict conditionality to the revocation of these laws;

42. Encourages the BiH Council of Ministers to adopt the Strategy for the Development of an Enabling Environment for Civil Society, ensuring that it unequivocally focuses on improving the legislative framework and securing more substantial and transparent funding for CSOs; calls for stronger protection of human rights defenders in BiH, including women activists, journalists and NGOs;

43. Stresses the key importance of independent media and of respecting freedom of expression standards; calls on BiH to ensure the financial sustainability, emphasising the urgent financial crisis of the state-level public broadcaster BHRT, and political independence of public broadcasters and the Communications Regulatory Agency of BiH; calls on BiH to adopt legislation on media ownership transparency and public funding of the media; urges the state to accelerate the adoption of the Law on Electronic Communications, in line with the Digital Services Act [8] (DSA) and the new EU Media Freedom Act [9]; calls for ensuring pluralism in public media throughout the territory of BiH, including equal representation of all minorities; notes the appointment of the Public Broadcaster Board in FBiH after 12 years of blockages and calls on it to ensure impartial and objective information;

44. Is strongly concerned by Russian propaganda in the RS entity’s public broadcaster and deplores the broadcasting of the RT (formerly Russia Today) channel, in violation of EU sanctions;

45. Condemns the political pressure, attacks, intimidation, threats, demeaning remarks and strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) against journalists and media workers, especially by high-level politicians or their proxy organisations, and by foreign-aligned actors; regrets the lack of progress in guaranteeing freedom of expression and in amending the criminal laws to strengthen the protection of journalists from threats and attacks, in line with EU requirements, and calls on the authorities to adopt laws that effectively protect journalists, NGOs, human rights defenders, environmental activists and other stakeholders against SLAPPs; stresses the importance of ensuring appropriate judicial follow-up in cases of threats and violence against journalists;

46. Urges BiH to ensure and effectively enforce relevant laws on general human rights; urges BiH to prosecute discriminatory crimes;

47. Recalls the need for solidarity-based and fair migration and asylum management that combines upholding human rights with effective border control; calls on the EU to help BiH to take full responsibility for the management of reception centres, which are often at the border with the EU, to ensure sufficient reception conditions, and to guarantee access to effective and feasible asylum procedures in full respect for international law and human rights; is concerned about reports of insufficient reception conditions in the EU-funded centre in Lipa; stresses the need to increase transparency and democratic scrutiny in the allocation and implementation of EU funds in the field of migration; welcomes BiH’s upgraded status agreement with the Frontex and calls for its prompt signature; recalls that any eventual agreement with this agency should fully respect fundamental rights and international standards; urges BiH to step up its efforts against cross-border crime, especially human trafficking;

Reconciliation, regional cooperation and good neighbourly relations

48. Recalls that good neighbourly relations and regional cooperation are essential elements of the EU enlargement process;

49. Stresses the importance of reconciliation in BiH and urges all authorities to actively promote and guarantee access to truth, justice and inclusive redress, including the adoption of a state-level law establishing minimum rights for wartime victims across the country, and the promotion of a women’s culture of remembrance; recognises that accountability as well as mutual respect among individuals and communities, and the promotion of mutual understanding, particularly among young people, can have a positive effect towards reconciliation; urges the BiH authorities to adopt a national transitional justice strategy; calls for further efforts to address the issue of missing persons; urges the Commission to invest additional efforts in promoting, supporting and facilitating reconciliation processes in BiH;

50. Calls on the authorities of BiH to accelerate the prosecution of war crimes in accordance with the Revised State Strategy for Prosecuting War Crimes; highlights the importance of enhanced regional cooperation through the extradition of suspects, as well as cooperation between judicial authorities and exchange in all relevant formal aspects aimed at prosecution; encourages BiH authorities to align their legislation to ensure that all victims of war crimes have equal access to rights and protections;

51. Recognises the extremely important role played by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), including by ensuring the institutional capacity, supporting families and providing evidence to Courts; urges the EU to ensure that the ICMP has access to sufficient funding to continue its activities;

52. Reiterates its call for additional measures and concrete programmes to be implemented with regard to the sustainable return of refugees and internally displaced persons, access to healthcare and employment, social protection and education, and for full respect of all their rights to compensation for non-returnable property;

53. Deplores all forms of historical revisionism, genocide denial, irredentism, glorification of war crimes and criminals, and contestation of facts or the independence and impartiality of international and domestic tribunals, especially by political leaders;

54. Is concerned about the adoption of the ‘Declaration on the Protection of National and Political Rights and the Common Future of the Serbian People’ which is in violation of several aspects of the Dayton Peace Agreement and undermines BiH’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity; notes that the ideas of Srpski Svet are incompatible with aspirations to join the EU; calls on Serbia to be constructively committed to the stability and territorial integrity of BiH and actively support BiH’s accession path;

55. Emphasises the importance of preventive diplomacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina; calls on the EEAS to strengthen skills development among staff to improve the EU’s understanding of the local historical, cultural and religious contexts, as emphasised in the report on the role of preventive diplomacy adopted by Parliament in January 2024;

56. Welcomes the UN General Assembly’s decision to designate 11 July as the International Day of Reflection and Commemoration of the 1995 Genocide in Srebrenica; calls on the authorities to ensure the security of the Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial Centre; emphasises that the Memorial Centre has had to temporarily close as a result of security concerns;

57. Emphasises that regional cooperation via the common regional market is a beneficial attribution to promoting economic growth; calls on BiH to swiftly ratify all regional mobility agreements under the Berlin Process and to further strengthen economic cooperation through this market, in line with the objectives of EU enlargement;

Socio-economic reforms

58. Welcomes the Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, which includes the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans, envisaging an indicative allocation for more than EUR 1 billion for BiH; regrets that BiH remains the only country in the Western Balkans that has not adopted a reform agenda; urges the Council of ministers and the cantons of BiH to unblock the adoption of its reform agenda without further delay in order to avoid its funding allocation being distributed among the other Western Balkan countries, and to establish a robust mechanism for transparent, inclusive and timely monitoring of its implementation; emphasises the need to prioritise key areas such as public administration, the rule of law, anti-corruption, decarbonisation, digitalisation, connectivity and human capital development, while also addressing social challenges; believes that embracing the opportunities of the Growth Plan would enhance BiH’s economy; calls on the Commission to explore ways of cooperating with willing and committed regional authorities, making more flexible use of the Reform and Growth Facility;

59. Recalls that EU funding for projects in the RS entity should remain frozen until the reversal of democratic backsliding by the RS entity and until full alignment with the CFSP;

60. Encourages BiH to make best use of all EU financial support; calls on the Commission to continue providing financial and technical support for BiH’s EU integration based on clearly defined conditionality and rigorous monitoring of spending and results, in line with the EU objectives of efficient and accountable budget management; believes that EU funds should better support the democratic reforms of the country; in that context, calls for the relevant EU funding to be reprogrammed to redirect more funds towards supporting technical assistance in absorbing the funds, judiciary reforms and anti-corruption measures; calls, furthermore, for the EU and the Western Balkan countries to establish a framework for fruitful cooperation with the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) in order to ensure that the EPPO can effectively exercise its competences in accession countries; encourages BiH to swiftly conclude bilateral working arrangements with the EPPO;

61. Regrets that sustainable improvement and progress in this area is also hindered by the governance structure and a lack of country-wide strategies in all areas and on all levels; calls for the swift appointment of an IPA III coordinator and calls for better absorption of IPA III funds in BiH, including at local and regional levels; calls for the capacity of local and regional authorities to implement socio-economic reforms and manage projects co-financed from EU funds to be strengthened, in order to increase absorption and reduce regional inequalities;

62. Urges BiH to prioritise measures aimed at improving competitiveness and the business environment, while improving economic and social cohesion, including progress towards the European Pillar of Social Rights, boosting economic diversification, promoting the digital and green transitions, addressing the informal economy and tackling unemployment;

63. Expresses concern at the extremely negative demographic trends in the country, prompted in particular by the large number of young people leaving, and stresses the importance of the urgent adoption of additional measures to address this challenge; calls for a focus on youth as the driving force for EU integration in the country; calls on BiH to finalise and adopt the Youth Guarantee to improve access to employment, education, training and apprenticeships for young people, address high youth unemployment and skills mismatches and to promote social inclusion;

64. Encourages EU institutions to work with civil society and experts to develop avenues to make health and social protections flexible and portable, to ensure equality and mobility within BiH;

65. Welcomes the calls for the prompt integration of all Western Balkans into the EU’s Digital Single Market before actual EU membership, which would crucially benefit the creation of safe digital environment;

Energy, the environment, biodiversity, sustainable development and connectivity

66. Encourages BiH to accelerate the diversification of energy sources, particularly regarding ending its gas dependence on Russia; urges BiH to enhance energy security and efficiency by strengthening its electricity transmission and distribution grids, coupling with the European market and transitioning to renewables, particularly to solar and wind, while ensuring meaningful public consultations and effective environmental safeguards;

67. Urges BiH to adopt its long-overdue national energy and climate plan and implement countrywide environmental protection strategies, including by legally protecting its candidate Emerald sites, improving the adequacy of its Emerald network, and ensuring the full implementation of the Habitats Directive [10], the Birds Directive [11] and the Water Framework Directive [12], while improving the quality and transparency of environmental investments; reiterates the need for effective air and water quality protection and improvement, and for effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties for breaches of environmental law; notes that progress in the area of environmental and climate protection as well as alignment with the EU standards has remained low, and therefore urges BiH’s authorities to ensure greater alignment with EU standards and policy objectives on climate protection and energy in line with the 2020 Green Agenda and the Paris Agreement;

68. Calls on the BiH authorities to reduce transboundary air pollution, especially in the case of Bosanski Brod oil refinery; recalls that BiH is a signatory party of the Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context (Espoo, 1991) and is bound by its obligations;

69. Underlines the need to improve ex ante comprehensive strategic environmental assessments with the meaningful involvement of local communities, civil society organisations and independent experts; highlights the need to increase the transparency of procedures for infrastructure projects across eco-sensitive sectors; stresses the importance of increasing environmental mainstreaming across sectoral policies;

70. Urges the country to implement measures to protect the biodiversity and ecologic integrity of rivers in line with the Espoo Convention;

71. Expresses deep concern about the harmful impact of mining activities, including those conducted by foreign companies, on the environment in BiH and the health of its citizens; calls on all mining entities operating in BiH to fully comply with national legislation and to prioritise environmental protection and public health;

72. Stresses the urgent need for the FBiH to adopt a fair, modern and expert-driven law on forests; further calls for stronger protection of forests and rivers through improved inspection oversight and the creation of a stringent legal framework in line with environmental and systemic standards; calls for the abolition of the provision in the relevant regulation in the FBiH that permits the release of waste water into rivers with minimal oversight, thereby posing a significant threat to public health and the environment;

73. Calls upon BiH to urgently finalise and adopt the legal designation of Livanjsko Polje as a Category V Protected Landscape, ensure appropriate monitoring;

74. Stands in solidarity with BiH and all victims of the devastating floods and landslides of 3-4 October 2024; calls on the Federation of BiH authorities to increase support for those affected and ensure that any shortcomings in law enforcement and forest management that may have exacerbated the disaster are addressed;

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75. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the Commission, the Presidency, Council of Ministers and Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the governments and parliaments of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republika Srpska entity and the Brčko District, and the Office of the High Representative.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: REPORT on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Albania – A10-0106/2025

Source: European Parliament

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on the 2023 and 2024 Commission reports on Albania

(2025/2017(INI))

The European Parliament,

– having regard to the Stabilisation and Association Agreement between the European Communities and their Member States, of the one part, and the Republic of Albania, of the other part [1],

– having regard to Albania’s application for EU membership, submitted on 24 April 2009,

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2021/1529 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 September 2021 establishing the Instrument for Pre-Accession assistance (IPA III)[2],

– having regard to Regulation (EU) 2024/1449 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2024 on establishing the Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans [3],

– having regard to the Commission communication of 5 February 2020 entitled ‘Enhancing the accession process – A credible EU perspective for the Western Balkans’ (COM(2020)0057),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 8 November 2023 entitled ‘2023 Communication on EU Enlargement Policy’ (COM(2023)0690), accompanied by the Commission staff working document entitled ‘Albania 2023 Report’ (SWD(2023)0690),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 8 November 2023 entitled ‘New growth plan for the Western Balkans’ (COM(2023)0691),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 20 March 2024 on pre-enlargement reforms and policy reviews (COM(2024)0146),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 24 July 2024 entitled ‘2024 Rule of Law Report’ (COM(2024)0800), accompanied by the Commission staff working document entitled ‘2024 Rule of Law Report – Country Chapter on the rule of law situation in Albania’ (SWD(2024)0828),

– having regard to the Commission communication of 30 October 2024 entitled ‘2024 Communication on EU enlargement policy’ (COM(2024)0690), accompanied by the Commission staff working document entitled ‘Albania 2024 Report’ (SWD(2024)0690),

– having regard to the Reform Agenda of Albania submitted under the EU’s Reform and Growth Facility, as approved by the Commission on 23 October 2024,

– having regard to the final report of 29 September 2023 by the Election Observation Mission of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) on Albania’s local elections of 14 May 2023,

– having regard to the final report of 26 July 2021 by the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE/ODIHR on Albania’s parliamentary elections of 25 April 2021,

– having regard to the Joint Opinion of the Venice Commission and the OSCE/ODIHR of 11 December 2020 on the amendments to the Albanian constitution of 30 July 2020 and the amendments to Albania’s electoral code of 5 October 2020,

– having regard to the Sofia Declaration adopted at the EU-Western Balkans summit of 17 May 2018, and the Sofia Priority Agenda annexed thereto,

– having regard to the Zagreb Declaration adopted at the EU-Western Balkans summit of 6 May 2020,

– having regard to the declarations of the EU-Western Balkans summits held in Brussels on 13 December 2023 and 18 December 2024,

– having regard to the Berlin Process launched on 28 August 2014,

– having regard to Reporters Without Borders’ 2024 World Press Freedom Index,

– having regard to Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index,

– having regard to the 2024 Global Gender Gap Report of the World Economic Forum,

– having regard to its previous resolutions on Albania,

– having regard to Rule 55 of its Rules of Procedure,

– having regard to the report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (A10-0106/2025),

A. whereas enlargement is the most effective EU foreign policy instrument and a geostrategic investment in long-term peace, democracy, stability and security throughout the continent;

B. whereas the EU remains the main political and economic partner of the Western Balkan countries; whereas the EU continues to be by far Albania’s biggest trade and investment partner and its largest provider of financial assistance;

C. whereas enlargement is a merit-based process based on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights; whereas Albania’s EU accession depends on lasting, in-depth and irreversible reforms across fundamental areas, starting with the rule of law and the functioning of democratic institutions;

D. whereas Albania has been an EU candidate country since 2014, began accession negotiations in July 2022 and successfully completed the screening process in November 2023;

E. whereas Albania opened negotiations on ‘Cluster 1: Fundamentals’ on 15 October 2024 and on ‘Cluster 6: External Relations’ on 17 December 2024;

F. whereas Albania is a reliable foreign policy partner and is fully aligned with the EU’s common foreign and security policy;

G. whereas Albania has been a target of foreign malign influence campaigns aiming to sow discord, provoke tensions and violence and destabilise the whole region, including Russian disinformation and election meddling, as well as questionable investments from non-EU actors such as China; whereas Russian and Iranian cyber attacks against Albania in 2022 and 2023 disrupted critical government functions, illustrating the hybrid threat environment Albania faces as it progresses toward EU integration;

H. whereas electoral shortcomings and serious vulnerabilities persist in Albania’s electoral system; whereas the OSCE/ODIHR recommendations to further improve the conduct of elections in Albania have not yet been fully addressed;

I. whereas Albania participates in EU common security and defence policy missions and operations, including in EUFOR Althea in Bosnia and Herzegovina;

J. whereas protection of national and ethnic minorities is crucial for aspiring EU Member States; whereas the implementing legislation on free self-identification and the use of minority languages has been adopted in Albania;

K. whereas the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine highlights the critical importance of EU enlargement for ensuring security and stability on our continent;

1. Welcomes Albania’s unwavering commitment to EU integration, reflecting consensus among all political parties, both governmental and opposition, and overwhelming support among citizens, and commends its consistent full alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy and promotion of the rules-based international order, including its categorical response to the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine through its alignment with the EU’s restrictive measures against Russia and Belarus; acknowledges the country’s active role in the region and in regional initiatives;

2. Welcomes Albania’s ambition of closing accession negotiations by the end of 2027 and the swift progress made in recent years, notably the opening of two clusters of negotiating chapters in 2024; recalls that candidate countries undergo in-depth transformations to fulfil membership criteria during accession negotiations, which last as long as it takes to implement the necessary reforms; stresses the need to strengthen the transparency, accountability and inclusiveness of the accession process, including its parliamentary dimension; cautions against any actions that could undermine the system of checks and balances;

3. Notes that the pace of EU accession is determined by the candidate country’s progress on aligning with the EU acquis, its track record on implementing it and the due functioning of all the country’s institutions, and is grounded in the rule of law, good governance and fundamental rights; urges Albania to accelerate reforms to strengthen the rule of law and economic growth, counter corruption and organised crime, prevent human trafficking, ensure the protection of fundamental rights and make progress in the areas of freedom of expression, freedom of information and media pluralism and independence;

4. Welcomes the EU’s new Reform and Growth Facility for the Western Balkans, which will provide EUR 922 million in grants and loans to Albania when it meets the conditions set out in its ambitious Reform Agenda;

5. Takes note of Albania’s adoption of the National Plan for European Integration 2024-2026; welcomes the fact that Albania has established the bodies in charge of the integration process; calls for greater efforts to increase transparency and engage in public communication on EU integration;

6. Welcomes the decision to open the European Parliament’s antenna office for the Western Balkans in Tirana; notes that the office will serve as a key contact point between the European Parliament and national parliaments, civil society and local partners from across the Western Balkans region;

7. Welcomes the involvement of 18 Albanian participants in the Enlargement Candidate Members initiative launched by the European Economic and Social Committee, which aims to foster closer ties with candidate countries and facilitate their gradual integration into the EU;

Democratic institutions, media and civil society

8. Insists on the importance of constructive political debate and orderly parliamentary conduct as key aspects of democratic governance; reaffirms the joint responsibility of Albania’s political forces to strengthen constructive and inclusive political dialogue and overcome ongoing high political polarisation in the country; deplores the continued confrontations and inflammatory rhetoric by politicians from all parties and the clashes between the ruling majority and the opposition; underlines the need to foster a political culture based on mutual respect and adherence to democratic norms, ensuring that political competition does not undermine institutional stability, and to demonstrate full respect for the role of parliamentarism, by putting an end to political attacks; calls for genuine dialogue to promote political stability and progress, emphasising the need for cross-party consensus on the EU integration agenda and the meaningful involvement of civil society; emphasises the need for more effective parliamentary oversight and improved functioning of institutions;

9. Recognises the growing threat of foreign malign influence and hybrid interference in Albania’s democratic institutions; highlights that Kremlin-aligned narratives have sought to erode public confidence in democratic institutions and promote anti-Western sentiment; calls on Albania to enhance institutional resilience against covert political funding, media manipulation and cyber threats that directly impact its EU accession process; calls for the EU institutions to closely monitor Albania’s exposure to foreign malign influence;

10. Welcomes Albania’s blocking of Russian disinformation domains but stresses the need for a coordinated EU-Albania disinformation response mechanism, modelled on the EUvsDisinfo platform, to rapidly debunk and counteract Kremlin narratives; advocates for increased regional cooperation among Western Balkan countries to share best practice and develop joint strategies in combating disinformation and foreign interference; warns of the increasing footprint of Chinese state-backed media in Albania;

11. Emphasises the Albanian Parliament’s duty to respect the rulings of the Constitutional Court without delay; stresses the fundamental and irreplaceable role of parliament in safeguarding checks and balances; calls on Albania to ensure genuine democratic accountability and stronger, more transparent governance;

12. Takes note of the July 2024 amendments to Albania’s electoral code, which enable out-of-country voting by the Albanian diaspora and introduce partially open candidate lists; takes note of the parliamentary elections of 11 May 2025 and underlines that, based on the preliminary conclusions of the OSCE/ODIHR, the elections were competitive and professionally conducted but took place in a highly polarised environment and contestants did not enjoy a level playing field; expresses concern that the ruling party benefited from the widespread use of administrative resources; calls on all parties to demonstrate political will for a comprehensive and inclusive electoral reform to implement all recommendations from the OSCE/ODIHR and the Venice Commission fully and in a timely manner, including those on the electoral and party financing framework;

13. Regrets that the environment for free media and independent journalists has been declining in recent years; notes with concern that media independence and pluralism in Albania continue to be affected by high market concentration, the overlap of business and political interests, lack of transparency of funding and ownership, intimidation and precarious working conditions for journalists; notes that, according to the 2024 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index, Albania ranks 99th, reflecting ongoing issues related to media ownership concentration, political interference and threats against journalists; highlights that the lack of transparency in media financing and ownership structures increases the risk of editorial bias and foreign propaganda penetration and undermines public trust in journalism; calls on the Albanian authorities to ensure media ownership transparency and enforce a policy of zero tolerance for the intimidation of journalists; calls on the Albanian Government to support independent fact-checking platforms as a means to ensure public access to accurate information and to uphold the integrity of the information space;

14. Recalls that any revision of media laws should be in line with the Venice Commission recommendations and should take place in a transparent and inclusive manner in consultation with media organisations, with the aim of improving media freedom and self-regulation; welcomes the Platform to promote the protection of journalism and safety of journalists launched by the Council of Europe, together with the EU and a network of prominent press freedom organisations; regrets that there has been no progress in aligning the legislative framework with the EU acquis and EU standards, including the European Media Freedom Act [4]; recalls the need to strengthen investigative journalism, fact-checking and media literacy and to tackle hate speech, disinformation and fake news; expresses concern over enduring inflammatory anti-media rhetoric, including by high-level politicians, public officials and other public figures, which fuels the culture of intimidation; strongly condemns the increasing verbal attacks against journalists reporting on rule of law and corruption matters, as well as misogynistic online harassment targeting women journalists, smear campaigns, violence and rioting, and calls for the final convictions of the attackers to be ensured; regrets that the criminal code does not provide protection to journalists against threats and violence, calls on the authorities to adopt a legal framework that efficiently protects journalists, human rights defenders, environmental activists and other stakeholders against the concerning increase of strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs), to decriminalise defamation and to respect the role of independent journalism as a crucial check on power and to engage with the media in a manner that upholds democratic principles;

15. Recalls the responsibility of national and local authorities to improve transparency, accountability and inclusiveness by conducting meaningful and regular public stakeholder consultations; notes with concern that the Albanian Parliament’s implementation of the legal framework for public consultations remains predominantly formal; stresses the need for greater transparency regarding public data and key legislative projects; insists that the financial resources, administrative capacity and fiscal autonomy of local authorities should be improved;

16. Welcomes Albania’s vibrant and constructive civil society, which plays a crucial and positive role in the reform process; welcomes the improvement of electoral monitoring and the increasing participation of civil society in overseeing the democratic process; underlines that civil society is vital in fostering democracy and pluralism and promoting good governance and social progress; encourages the Albanian Government to bolster the role of civil society, including women’s rights organisations, in the EU accession process, from an early stage and in a transparent legislative process; regrets that civil society organisations operate in a challenging environment and receive limited public funding; insists that the groundwork for an effective VAT exemption system be laid in compliance with the commitments taken by Albania under the EU-Albania Cooperation Agreement and the IPA III; urges the authorities to speed up the drafting of the 2024-2027 roadmap for the government policy towards a more enabling environment for civil society development and to closely monitor the implementation of this roadmap;

17. Welcomes the establishment of the new position of Minister of State for Public Administration and Anti-Corruption and underlines the importance of its effectiveness and of delivering public administration and anti-corruption reforms; remains concerned, however, that there has been limited progress in public administration reform; insists that the Albanian authorities effectively implement provisions on merit-based recruitment and review the effectiveness of the current monitoring structures for the new public administration and anti-corruption reforms; underlines the need to foster a culture of accountability, non-partisan access to public information and scrutiny of public institutions, including with regard to the implementation of the Reform Agenda; notes that public entities need to improve their compliance with transparency requirements and their responsiveness to information requests;

18. Regrets that limited progress has been made in aligning the legal framework for procurement with the EU acquis; expresses concern over the newly introduced temporary exemptions in public procurement law; calls on the Albanian authorities to improve competitive procurement procedures in line with the EU acquis;

19. Welcomes the progress made by Albania in improving data transmission to Eurostat;

Fundamental rights

20. Notes that Albania’s legal framework for gender-based violence is not yet fully aligned with the Istanbul Convention; expresses serious concern that violence against women remains a pressing issue, with the number of femicides remaining high; welcomes the establishment of a femicide watch by the Ombudsperson; urges the enhancement of support services for victims, particularly healthcare, shelter funding, free legal aid, and victim reintegration and rehabilitation; stresses the need for increased financial and institutional support to be given to prevention programmes, public awareness campaigns, and specialised training for law enforcement and judicial authorities to ensure a victim-centred approach;

21. Expresses concern about persistent shortcomings, such as non-alignment or partial alignment with the EU acquis, regarding persons with disabilities and gender equality; recognises the need for Albania to fully align its legal framework on gender-based violence with the Istanbul Convention; notes that, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap Report, Albania has fallen six places to rank 23rd globally, indicating a widening gender gap; expresses serious concern that violence against women remains a pressing issue, with the number of femicides remaining high; calls for the full and effective implementation of existing legislation, including stricter enforcement of protective measures and enhanced judicial responsiveness to gender-based violence cases, as highlighted in the European Commission’s 2024 report on Albania;

22. Welcomes the adoption of a new and better-financed national action plan for LGBTI+ persons; regrets, however, that there has been no progress in initiating the necessary legislation in this field and calls on the authorities to adopt the necessary legislation on the recognition of gender identity and sex characteristics, as well as on same-sex partnerships/marriages; deplores the fact that LGBTI+ persons continue to face threats and derogatory media campaigns, with public institutions failing to provide adequate protection; notes that women living in rural and remote areas, Roma and Egyptian women and LGBTI+ individuals continue to face limited access to primary healthcare; urges public institutions to demonstrate strong commitment to protecting LGBTI+ rights and to act decisively against discriminatory and hateful language towards the LGBTI+ community;

23. Welcomes the adoption of the pending implementing legislation on the rights of persons belonging to minorities, specifically on self-identification and the use of minority languages, and underscores that these by-laws have to be fully and effectively implemented in order to render the exercise of minority and education rights feasible in practice; calls on the authorities to increase the capacity of the State Committee on National Minorities; expresses concern over persistent issues of discrimination and social exclusion affecting minority groups in Albania; calls on the Albanian Government to fully respect and protect human rights, including the rights of minorities, and to ensure that all allegations of human rights abuses, including hate speech, are promptly and thoroughly investigated; urges the Albanian authorities to enhance institutional mechanisms to prevent discrimination and ensure the meaningful political participation of all communities, in line with the recommendations of the Commission’s 2024 report on Albania; calls on Albania to protect and promote the cultural heritage, languages and traditions of its national minorities; calls on Albania to provide education for national minorities in minority languages and to ensure adequate access to state primary, secondary and higher education for all of its citizens;

24. Recalls that Albania should safeguard the right to property, in particular, by making decisive progress on first registration and compensation, improving the transparency of the state cadastre and the quality of the property register cadastral data, and ensuring that the right to a fair trial and the right to effective remedy are respected in cases of expropriation and removal of properties;

25. Calls for increased investment in the modernisation of the education system, ensuring its quality and inclusiveness; calls on Albania to implement measures to foster opportunities in employment and education for persons with disabilities;

26. Commends the successful 2024 census held in an atmosphere of trust and transparency and its results; believes that Albania should serve as a positive model for conducting a population census in the region;

27. Welcomes the adoption of the law on personal data protection, aimed at full alignment with the EU acquis; commends the Albanian authorities for the adoption of the implementing legislation on the procedure and fair compensation for the use of orphan works and the database of copyright works, but expresses serious concern about the handling of personal data and weaknesses in IT systems; calls on the Albanian authorities to strengthen safeguards against data breaches, enhance prevention and public awareness, and improve institutional capacity in order to effectively implement the new Law on Personal Data Protection; calls on Albania to further collaborate with the EU Intellectual Property Office;

28. Recognises the closer cooperation between Albania and the EU in managing migration flows and border control processes, in particular through the new national strategy on migration for 2024‑2026 and cooperation with Frontex; takes note of the Italy-Albania Memorandum of Understanding;

Rule of law

29. Commends the progress Albania has achieved in the implementation of the justice reforms aimed at strengthening the independence, transparency and accountability of the judiciary, including on the vetting process, completed at first instance; welcomes the new reform process ‘Good governance, rule of law and anti-corruption for Albania 2030’ launched by the Albanian Parliament; stresses that any initiative to strengthen governance, rule of law and anti-corruption efforts must be built on inclusivity, transparency and collaboration;

30. Expresses concern about continued political interference with and pressure on the judicial system; notes with concern shortcomings in the merit-based appointments of non-magistrate members of the High Judicial Council and the High Prosecution Council and their integrity;

31. Calls for urgent steps to ensure judicial independence and institutional integrity;

32. Highlights that Albania ranked 80th in Transparency International’s 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index, indicating the need for substantial progress in combating high-level corruption and ensuring judicial independence; underscores the key work of Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption and Organised Crime Structure (SPAK) in building up a track record of investigating, prosecuting and convicting in high-level corruption cases as well as cases involving the protection of the EU’s financial interests; stresses the importance of ensuring the full independence of anti-corruption institutions and encourages the strengthening of their operational and investigative capacity; welcomes high-level corruption investigations and proceedings; stresses that increasing the number of final convictions of high-level officials remains an important priority; urges all actors to refrain from any actions that undermine the work of independent institutions such as SPAK; expresses its regret at the environment of intimidation that the judiciary operates in, and at instances of undue pressure that it endures, which pose a serious threat to judicial independence; expresses concern that the lack of institutional support for magistrates facing threats weakens public trust and seriously jeopardises the rule of law and Albania’s EU integration process;

33. Notes the challenges concerning the quality and efficiency of the justice system, including the high number of judicial vacancies, insufficient court staff, the quality of initial and continuous judicial training, the consistency of case-law and the lack of a modern integrated case management system; notes that budget allocations are insufficient, particularly for the court component; underlines that reducing the backlog of unprocessed files in the judicial system should remain a priority; welcomes, however, the fact that the Constitutional Court of Albania has improved its efficiency by reducing its backlog and continues to uphold institutional checks and balances;

34. Welcomes the adoption of national legislation to align with the EU acquis on anti-money laundering; notes the need to establish a strong asset recovery office and to improve vetting procedures and the processes for investigating, prosecuting and obtaining convictions in high-level corruption cases, including through the seizure and final confiscation of criminal assets;

35. Calls on Albania to continue aligning its legal framework, and notably the criminal code, with the EU acquis on the fight against organised crime and the trade in drugs and firearms, as well as combating cybercrime, extremism and terrorist threats; notes the appointment of additional prosecutors to the Special Prosecution Office as well as the establishment of a financial investigation unit; commends Albania’s participation in joint operations and cooperation under the European multidisciplinary platform against criminal threats (EMPACT) on drug trafficking, money laundering and cybercrime; further acknowledges the intensified cooperation with EUROPOL, EUROJUST, FRONTEX, INTERPOL and the CARIN Network in fighting organised crime and dismantling transnational crime networks; encourages Albania to strengthen its mechanisms for sharing intelligence with EU agencies to enhance regional stability; calls for sustained efforts to align Albania’s security policies with EU strategies, fostering a more integrated and resilient regional security framework; calls on Albania to strengthen the fight against human trafficking in cooperation with the Member States and EU agencies; stresses the need to counter the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons, as Albania remains both a destination and a transit country; welcomes the adoption of a new strategy for the protection of victims of crime; emphasises the importance of continuous training for migration control personnel to ensure the effective implementation of European regulations and a stronger response to human trafficking networks;

36. Encourages the European External Action Service and the Commission to further help boost Albania’s resilience against hybrid threats in the area of cyber security, information manipulation and protection of critical infrastructure; calls on Albania to assess the risks associated with foreign direct investment and to screen such investment, particularly in strategic sectors such as energy, mining and telecommunications, in order to avoid economic dependencies and debt traps and protect national interests, enhance security and ensure consistency with EU standards;

37. Calls for the EU and the Western Balkan countries to establish a framework for effective cooperation between the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and the accession countries with a view to facilitating close cooperation and the prosecution of misuse of EU funds; welcomes the fact that Albania has concluded a bilateral working arrangement with the EPPO;

Socio-economic reforms

38. Welcomes Albania’s engagement in implementing the EU’s Growth Plan for the Western Balkans, encompassing EU single market integration, regional economic integration, fundamental reforms and increased financial support;

39. Reiterates the importance of improving the public infrastructure within the Western Balkan countries and developing connections with EU Member States; recalls the potential of the economic and investment plan for the Western Balkans to enhance regional connectivity through rail and road infrastructure; in that respect, urges the authorities in all countries to complete Corridor VIII connecting Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria; recalls the importance of improving flight connections between the Western Balkan countries and with the EU Member States;

40. Welcomes Albania’s Reform Agenda addressing the business environment, human capital, digitalisation, energy and the green transition, fundamental rights and the rule of law; welcomes, furthermore, Albania’s participation in the EU’s Digital Europe programme; welcomes the fact that Albania has been ranked as a regional leader in public administration and digital public procurement by the Support for Improvement in Governance and Management programme, run by the EU and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development;

41. Encourages the Albanian authorities to reduce the risk of poverty and social exclusion by further improving access to education and housing, as well as social and healthcare services, especially for disadvantaged populations and minority groups, including Roma and Egyptians; calls for the implementation of Albania’s National Social Protection Strategy 2024-2030 and National Employment and Skills Strategy 2023-2030; calls on Albania to adopt further measures to fight against youth unemployment and calls on the Albanian authorities to effectively implement the National Agenda for the Rights of the Child by providing assistance to children facing exclusion and poverty;

42. Commends the Albanian authorities for the adoption of legislative acts to reform higher education and for the implementation of the National Strategy for Education 2021-2026; calls on Albania to expand media literacy as a core subject in school curricula while ensuring that teachers receive dedicated training and modern resources to deliver high-quality programmes; encourages collaboration with EU educational initiatives and regional networks such as the Western Balkans Media Literacy Observatory to implement best practices in critical thinking and digital literacy education;

43. Welcomes the progress made by Albania in concluding bilateral agreements with EU Member States on social security and in its preparations to enable the connection of its employment services system to EURES, the European network of employment services;

44. Welcomes the fact that Albania joined the Single Euro Payments Area in November 2024, which reduces costs for citizens and businesses and will contribute to Albania’s further integration into the single market; commends the Albanian authorities on the alignment with the EU acquis on payments (Payment Accounts Directive [5]) and on their actions that have resulted in Albania’s removal from the grey list of the Financial Action Task Force; recognises Albania’s efforts to improve economic competitiveness and calls on the government to continue with structural reforms to foster a more attractive business environment in line with EU standards; regrets that the inefficiency in public administration, an excessive regulatory framework, corruption and large informal economy undermines the business environment and impedes competition;

45. Commends the improvement of Albania’s fiscal performance; calls on the Albanian authorities to further enhance fiscal risk analysis by strengthening the relevant Ministry of Finance department; calls for greater transparency and accountability of state-owned enterprises through annual financial reports; calls on Albania to strengthen its public internal financial control and to ensure that the recommendations of the Supreme Audit Institution (ALSAI) are implemented;

46. Welcomes the further alignment of legislation with the EU acquis on private pension funds, bank recovery and the resolution framework; calls on Albania to complete its alignment with the EU acquis on insurance, capital markets, securities markets, investment funds and financial market infrastructures;

47. Welcomes the agreement reached at the Tirana Summit on reduced roaming costs; in this respect, calls on the authorities, private actors and all stakeholders to work towards achieving the agreed targets of substantially reducing roaming charges for data and further reducing prices for roaming between the Western Balkans and the EU to levels close to domestic prices by 2027; welcomes the implementation of the first phase of the roadmap for roaming between the Western Balkans and the EU;

48. Is concerned about the lack of progress in company law legislation in Albania; calls on the Albanian authorities to complete the alignment of company law legislation with the EU acquis;

Environment, biodiversity, energy and transport, sustainable tourism

49. Stresses that more efforts are needed for Albania to align with the EU acquis on the environment; calls for its alignment with the EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment [6] and Strategic Environmental Assessment [7] directives; underlines the need to strengthen the fight against environmental crime;

50. Highlights the need for transparent and inclusive public consultations in line with the Aarhus Convention, ensuring the active involvement of local communities, NGOs and scientific institutions in environmental decision-making processes, especially on projects with large environmental and socio-economic repercussions; warns that the lack of proper stakeholder engagement undermines governance standards and Albania’s compliance with its obligations under the EU acquis; expresses concern about the economic and environmental impact of non-competitive foreign-funded development projects;

51. Recalls that substantial efforts are needed for Albania to achieve the goals relating to climate protection, energy efficiency, diversification and greening of energy supply and transport; notes that air and water quality and waste management remain particularly challenging issues for the country; urges the central government and local authorities to step up their efforts to improve air quality and reduce potentially lethal pollution; urges the Albanian Government to prioritise the implementation of climate adaptation strategies, the development of renewable energy sources and the modernisation of the country’s waste management system to meet EU standards and support sustainable economic growth; encourages the Albanian authorities to strengthen measures and investments to expand the public transport and railway systems;

52. Firmly believes that environmental protection and sustainable tourism development must go hand in hand; welcomes the establishment of the first wild river national park in Europe, the Vjosa Wild River National Park, and calls for sufficient resources to be allocated to its protection; calls on the authorities to fully respect the national park’s ecological integrity and to reconsider infrastructure projects, notably the water abstraction project on the Shushica river, in line with international biodiversity conservation standards and best practice to ensure that the park’s biodiversity, habitats and ecological functions remain intact; reiterates its concern over the construction of the Vlora airport in the Vjosa-Narta Protected Area, in violation of national and international biodiversity protection norms, and calls on the Commission to address the issue in chapter 27 of the accession negotiations; calls on the Albanian authorities to adopt the implementing legislation for the Law on Cultural Heritage and Museums;

53. Expresses serious concern regarding recent amendments to Albania’s Law on Protected Areas that allow large infrastructure and tourism projects in ecologically sensitive zones; calls for these legislative amendments to be reversed with a view to ensuring full and strict compliance with national and international legal frameworks and conservation standards and addressing marine waste pollution affecting neighbouring countries;

54. Calls on the Albanian authorities to designate and effectively manage key protected areas for the survival of critically endangered species, in particular the Balkan lynx, including through comprehensive biodiversity monitoring programmes, and to implement and strictly enforce anti-poaching legislation; urges Albania to abandon the plans for the Skavica hydropower plant on the Black Drin river, given its severe ecological, social and cultural impacts, including the displacement of local communities;

Regional cooperation and foreign policy

55. Welcomes the Security and Defence Partnership between the EU and Albania, adopted on 19 November 2024, which establishes a platform for enhanced dialogue and cooperation on security and defence issues and represents a significant step forward; stresses the importance of ensuring that this partnership translates into concrete actions, including joint training initiatives, shared intelligence capabilities and enhanced border security measures to address regional and global security challenges; underlines the need for deeper security cooperation within the Western Balkans, fostering closer coordination among regional partners to combat organised crime, cyber threats, and hybrid challenges; calls for strengthened EU support for regional security initiatives that enhance stability and resilience across the Western Balkans; acknowledges that this partnership represents a significant step forward in strengthening Albania’s role as a reliable security partner of the EU; further emphasises that the partnership will, among other things, facilitate joint initiatives and capacity-building efforts, thereby contributing to a more resilient and integrated security architecture in the Western Balkans;

56. Welcomes the adoption of the national security strategy in 2024 to further fight hybrid threats and the new law on cybersecurity; welcomes the joint declaration signed by Albania, Kosovo and Croatia, which aims to improve cooperation and strengthen defence potential, while providing full support for Euro-Atlantic and regional defence integration;

57. Commends Albania’s full alignment with the EU’s common foreign and security policy, including its support for EU sanctions against third countries, and its positive contribution to common security and defence policy missions, particularly EUFOR Althea, which underlines the country’s commitment to contributing to regional and international security and stability, and welcomes Albania’s participation in operations led by the EU and by NATO, and its collaboration with Europol and Interpol; calls for its further participation in EU-led crisis management operations and common security and defence policy missions such as the maritime security operation EUNAVFOR Aspides; recognises the strategic importance of the Adriatic-Ionian region for European security and economic stability; calls on Albania to enhance its maritime security capabilities in coordination with the EU and NATO;

58. Welcomes the Albanian Government’s continued efforts in promoting good neighbourly relations; recalls, in this respect, the importance of Albania’s undertaking to resolve any border disputes in conformity with the principle of the peaceful settlement of disputes and in accordance with the UN Charter and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, including, if necessary, by following the judgments of the International Court of Justice; welcomes Albania’s active contribution to the Berlin Process; further encourages sustained and constructive engagement in regional cooperation initiatives, in line with EU values and enlargement objectives, as it contributes to peace, security and stability in the Western Balkans; cautions against any actions, such as the Open Balkans initiative, that could undermine the common regional market or deviate from the Berlin Process, to the extent that they create obstacles to EU integration and cohesion, potentially jeopardising Albania’s progress toward deeper regional and European integration;

59. Welcomes the ratification by Albania of bilateral agreements on the coordination of social security systems with Croatia, Montenegro and Bulgaria;

60. Emphasises Albania’s constructive role in promoting stability and cooperation in the Western Balkans, particularly through bilateral dialogue with neighbouring countries and its engagement in regional organisations;

°

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61. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the President of the European Council, to the Council, to the Commission, to the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, to the governments and parliaments of the Member States, and to the President, Government and Parliament of the Republic of Albania.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 26, 2025

MIL-OSI Russia: IMF Executive Board Concludes 2025 Article IV Consultation with Jamaica

Source: IMF – News in Russian

June 25, 2025

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the 2025 Article IV consultation with Jamaica on June 12, 2025.
Over the last decade, Jamaica has established an enviable track record of investing in institutions and prioritizing macroeconomic stability which allowed it meet recent shocks and natural disasters in an agile, prudent, and growth-supportive manner.
The continued reforms will increase resilience to future shocks and natural disasters. They need to combine with a multipronged approach to overcome supply-side constraints to growth in support of growth.

Washington, DC: On June 12, 2025, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation^[1] with Jamaica and considered and endorsed the staff appraisal without a meeting. The authorities have consented to the publication of the Staff Report prepared for this consultation.^[2]

Over the last decade, Jamaica has successfully reduced its public debt, firmly anchored inflation and inflation expectations, and strengthened its external position. It has built an enviable track record of investing in institutions and prioritizing macroeconomic stability. Jamaica has met recent global shocks and natural disasters in an agile, prudent, and growth-supportive manner. GDP declined in FY2024/25 due to hurricane Beryl and tropical storm Raphael which damaged agriculture and infrastructure and undermined tourism. Nonetheless, economic activity is projected to normalize as these effects wane. Unemployment has fallen to all-time low levels (3.7 percent in January 2025) and inflation has converged to the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ)’s target band of 4-6 percent. The current account has been in surplus for the last two fiscal years with strong tourism revenues and high remittances. The international reserves’ position has continued to improve.

The outlook points to growth settling at its potential rate once the FY2025/26 recovery is complete, with inflation stabilizing within the BOJ’s target range. Nonetheless, global developments require continued close monitoring as downside risks emanating from tighter global financial conditions, lower growth in key source markets for tourism, and trade policy disruptions remain high. Finally, extreme weather events could negatively affect economic activity. The Jamaican authorities are implementing sound macroeconomic policies in the context of strong policy frameworks. A prudent fiscal stance supports a reduction in public debt towards the target in the Fiscal Responsibility Law. The Bank of Jamaica has anchored inflation around the mid-point of the inflation target band and inflation expectations have declined to close to the upper band of the BOJ’s target range. The lowering of the policy rate in 2024 was justified in view of the temporary nature of the weather-related shocks and the expected convergence of inflation to the BOJ’s target. The current fiscal-monetary policy mix places Jamaica in a good position to respond to the various downside global risks, should they realize.

Executive Board Assessment

“In concluding the 2025 Article IV consultation with Jamaica, Executive Directors endorsed staff’s appraisal, as follows:

“Over more than a decade, Jamaica has been implementing sound macroeconomic policies supported by strong policy frameworks. These efforts have allowed Jamaica to accumulate meaningful policy buffers, reduce public debt, anchor inflation, and improve its external position.

“Recent policy efforts have further strengthened fiscal responsibility, improved the effectiveness of public sector compensation, bolstered tax and customs administration, enhanced financial oversight, and built resilience to climate change including in the context of the recently completed PLL/RSF arrangements. These advances allowed agile, prudent, and growth-supportive responses to recent global shocks and natural disasters.

“The economy, which declined in FY2024/25 due to the weather events, is rebounding this year and is projected to grow at its potential rate with risks broadly balanced. The recovery is supported by a rebound in agriculture and tourism and its spillovers to other sectors. Risks comprise extreme weather events posing downside risks for tourism and agriculture, trade policy shocks, and disruptions to tourism or the flow of remittances. Upside risks include a faster-than-expected recovery from recent weather events, favorable tourism trends, and favorable commodity price developments.

“Maintaining primary fiscal surpluses to reach the FRL’s ceiling of 60 percent of GDP by FY2027/28 remains essential. However, fiscal policy could become too pro-cyclical in the face of severe shocks when the debt-to-GDP ratio reaches the FRL’s target. Incorporating an explicit operational medium-term debt anchor in the FRL at a level below 60 percent of GDP would help guide policies and ensure that debt is kept at moderate levels, creating fiscal buffers to respond to adverse events. The timeline for the eventual adoption of an operational debt anchor should be assessed in the context of heightened uncertainties, which could limit the country’s ability to meet a lower debt anchor in the medium-term.

“The authorities continue to improve the fiscal policy framework. The IFC became operational in January 2025 and assessed the consistency of current fiscal plans with the FRL. The A-PEFA assessment was completed in June 2024, providing recommendations to enhance public financial management. Reforms of tax and customs administration are supporting revenue mobilization, and sound debt management continues. The wage bill reform eliminating distortions and improving the transparency and competitiveness of the public pay to help retain skilled employees was completed last FY.

“Ongoing efforts to bolster the monetary and financial policy frameworks should continue. Staff supports the BOJ’s cautious data-dependent monetary policy, noting that there should be scope to lower the policy rate but the heightened global uncertainties call for a cautious approach. An inflation targeting regime with a strong international reserves’ position and stable FX markets have served Jamaica well. Going forward, there is scope to deepen FX markets by reducing surrender requirements and scaling back the BOJ’s FXI. Deepening capital markets, further de-dollarizing the economy, and boosting banking sector competition would improve resource allocation and help strengthen monetary transmission. The adoption of Basel III, the expansion of the BOJ supervisory remit, and unification of financial supervision under a twin-peaks regime are all going in the right direction. Jamaica exited FATF’s increased monitoring (grey list) in June 2024. Building on this achievement, the authorities continue to strengthen AML/CFT and are preparing for the fifth round of the Mutual Evaluation Process (expected by mid-2026).

“A multipronged approach is required to overcome supply-side constraints to growth. Low productivity resulting from the misallocation of resources is amplified by structural impediments including high crime, barriers to competition, poor educational outcomes, inadequate infrastructure, and barriers to trade. The authorities are addressing these barriers through product and labor market reforms, education, infrastructure, trade, and climate-aware reforms including by completing reform measures under the RSF completed last September. These reforms have the potential to catalyze private sector financing for climate-related investment.”

Table. Jamaica: Selected Economic Indicators


Population (2023): 2.84 million	Per capita GDP (2023): US$6,850
Quota (current; millions SDRs/% of total): 382.9/0.08	Literacy rate (2022)/Poverty rate (2021): 91.7%/16.7%
Main products and exports: alumina, tourism, chemicals, mineral fuels, bauxite	Unemployment rate (January 2025): 3.7%
Key export markets: U.S., U.K., Canada
		2022/23	2023/24	2024/25	2025/26
		Act.	Act.	Proj.	Proj.
Output
Real GDP growth (%)		4.7	1.8	-0.8	2.2

Employment
Unemployment (%) 1/		4.5	4.2	3.7	…

Prices
Inflation, end of period (%)		6.2	5.6	5.0	5.0
Inflation, average (%)		9.5	6.2	5.1	5.0

Central government finances 2/
Budgetary revenue (% of GDP)		30.1	30.6	33.3	31.7
Budgetary expenditure (% of GDP)		29.8	30.5	33.0	31.7
Budget balance (% of GDP)		0.3	0.0	0.3	0.0
Of which: central government primary balance		5.8	5.7	5.9	5.2
Public entities balance (% of GDP)		1.4	2.3	1.7	0.0
Public sector balance (% of GDP)		1.7	2.3	2.0	0.0
Public debt (% of GDP)		77.0	73.4	69.2	64.9

Money and credit
Broad money (% change)		9.8	9.1	6.2	9.1
Credit to the private sector (% change)		10.5	9.4	6.1	9.4
Treasury bill rate, end-of-period (%)		8.3	8.1	5.7	…
Treasury bill rate, average (%)		8.2	8.1	7.1	…

Balance of payments
Current account (% of GDP)		1.9	3.1	2.6	1.3
FDI, net (% of GDP)		1.9	1.5	1.0	1.3
Gross international reserves (months of imports)		5.6	6.4	7.2	6.8
External debt (% of GDP)		78.8	69.6	62.6	58.5

Exchange rate
End-of-period REER (appreciation +)		5.4	-0.7	…	…
Sources: Jamaican authorities; UNDP Human Development Report; Information Notice System; and Fund staff estimates and projections.
1/ As of April. In FY2024/25 January 2025.
2/ Fiscal year: April 1 to March 31. Government finances according to the authorities’ definitions.

[1] Under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, the IMF holds bilateral discussions with members, usually every year. A staff team visits the country, collects economic and financial information, and discusses with officials the country’s economic developments and policies. On return to headquarters, the staff prepares a report, which forms the basis for discussion by the Executive Board.

[2] Under the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, publication of documents that pertain to member countries is voluntary and requires the member consent. The staff report will be shortly published on the www.imf.org/Jamaica page.

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

PRESS OFFICER: Brian Walker

Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/06/25/pr25219-jamaica-imf-executive-board-concludes-2025-article-iv-consultation-with-jamaica

MIL OSI

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025

MIL-OSI Russia: Djibouti: Staff Concluding Statement of the 2025 Article IV Mission

Source: IMF – News in Russian

June 25, 2025

A Concluding Statement describes the preliminary findings of IMF staff at the end of an official staff visit (or ‘mission’), in most cases to a member country. Missions are undertaken as part of regular (usually annual) consultations under Article IV of the IMF’s Articles of Agreement, in the context of a request to use IMF resources (borrow from the IMF), as part of discussions of staff monitored programs, or as part of other staff monitoring of economic developments.

The authorities have consented to the publication of this statement. The views expressed in this statement are those of the IMF staff and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF’s Executive Board. Based on the preliminary findings of this mission, staff will prepare a report that, subject to management approval, will be presented to the IMF Executive Board for discussion and decision.

Washington, DC: Djibouti has been navigating regional tensions well, with robust growth, moderate inflation, and recovering reserves. In response to global uncertainties and domestic debt challenges, the authorities plan significant fiscal consolidation, including leveraging state-owned enterprises (SOE) dividends meaningfully, and advancing creditor dialogue. The authorities remain dedicated to investing in human capital and creating favorable investment conditions for job creation.

Djibouti’s economic resilience and contribution to regional stability

Djibouti helps maintain regional stability by supporting maritime security and facilitating humanitarian responses during crises. Djibouti’s GDP per capita has effectively doubled over the past decade thanks to significant investments that have contributed to the modernization of the economy. However, declining government revenues and increasing debt service have placed considerable strain on public finances, leading to unsustainable levels of public debt and diminishing reserves. Growth has not created enough jobs in the formal sector, while fiscal space to finance development needs is limited.

The authorities are leveraging Djibouti’s growth resilience to advance fiscal consolidation and rebuild reserves. Growth is expected to have exceeded 6.5 percent in 2024 due to increased transshipments amid Red Sea tensions, while moderate international food and energy prices kept inflation in check. The government deficit was reduced from 3.5 percent of GDP in 2023 to 2.6 percent in 2024 following a brief period of fiscal overruns and deficit monetization, and reserves have begun to recover partially offsetting the decline observed since late 2023, though they remain below the monetary base.

The outlook is positive but subject to risks in an uncertain global context. Growth is projected to remain dynamic at around 6 percent this year and to continue over the medium term, albeit at a slower pace. Ethiopia’s robust economy is expected to boost Djibouti’s port activities; however, fiscal consolidation and the phasing out of large-scale investments may temper growth. Key risks include regional conflicts potentially increasing migration and affecting social stability amid a constrained fiscal space, and trade policy shifts that could depreciate the dollar and Djibouti franc, enhancing service exports but also raising inflation. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that Djibouti has successfully navigated several shocks over the past few years, including COVID-19, the 2022 Tigray crisis, the Ukraine war, and the 2024 Red Sea maritime disruptions.

Leveraging resilience for fiscal sustainability and rebuilding reserves

In the face of high global and regional uncertainty, Djibouti needs to quickly strengthen its economic resilience by restoring debt sustainability, safeguarding the currency board, and fostering inclusive growth. To this end, the authorities intend to strengthen fiscal consolidation and enhance financial transparency and governance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to unlock sustainable and meaningful dividend contributions to the national budget, restore reserves, and encourage private sector growth while protecting vulnerable populations.

Durable fiscal consolidation is essential for restoring debt sustainability. The substantial fiscal adjustment frontloaded in the 2025 budget and the balanced budget target for 2026 onward are welcome steps. To sustain progress, it is essential that all governmental entities endorse annual fiscal targets that align with a medium-term fiscal consolidation strategy. Success depends on robust expenditure management via the diligent operationalization of the recently approved Public Financial Management Reform Strategy and Action Plan 2024–27. Furthermore, a comprehensive fiscal roadmap should continue to broaden the tax base by enhancing VAT and capital income taxation, rationalizing tax exemptions included in the investment code and the Free Zones regime, and finalizing the digitization of tax agencies. The effective establishment of the tax policy unit remains a priority for accurately assessing tax bases and enhancing tax reform efficiency. Operationalizing the recently created large taxpayer office will also bolster compliance and revenue collection.

As Djibouti negotiates new terms for debt liabilities with creditors, well-managed and profitable SOEs can significantly aid national fiscal consolidation and restore reserves at the Central Bank of Djibouti (CBD), particularly following the dissolution of the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). Building on ongoing efforts to improve SOE transparency and governance, it will be critical for the Executive Secretariat in charge of the State Portfolio (SEPE) to collect all SOEs’ financial statements and monitor their performance. Swiftly implementing the Code of Good Governance is also essential for establishing a more transparent dividend policy tied to SOE performance, thereby mobilizing dividends more consistently and meaningfully for the budget, improving SOE efficiency and services, and appropriately right-size them. Additionally, fiscal transparency can be strengthened by discontinuing financial settlement practices for clearing government arrears with SOEs, and by improving coordination among the Ministry of Budget, line ministries, and SEPE for more effective budget risk management.

Alongside fiscal consolidation, completing ongoing debt negotiations and addressing outstanding arrears with external partners are critical for debt sustainability. Equally important is implementing binding limits on borrowing for the central government, SOEs, including their participation in public-private partnerships, and ensuring these are enforced by the Public Sector Debt Committee.

The mission is encouraged by the recent recovery in reserves and urges continued progress. To strengthen the currency board, the authorities plan to amend the CBD law to enhance its autonomy, which will help sustain reserves, exchange rate, and inflation stability. They also plan to introduce reserve requirements as a prudential tool, with implementation expected to follow a phased approach. Additionally, under MENAFATF’s enhanced monitoring, Djibouti is reforming its AML/CFT framework, improving the business climate, and enhancing oversight of the banking sector due to its significant offshore component and rising government exposure. To facilitate policy making, the authorities are leveraging technical assistance provided by the IMF to enhance their coverage and quality of statistics relevant to surveillance, with a focus on national accounts, the fiscal and external sectors.

Advancing inclusivity through private sector development and employment creation

The government aims to foster economic growth and social equity. They aim to improve the existing targeting of the current fuel subsidy scheme. In order to create a more effective and equitable social protection system and reduce budget exposure to international energy prices, the authorities should gradually replace the current subsidy system with the strengthening of targeted cash transfers to the most vulnerable households, relying on the national social register. To attract investments and create jobs, they are enhancing access to education and job training under the 2021–35 education master plan. They aim to diversify the economy in sectors such as logistics and connectivity, tourism, agribusiness, and fisheries. To enable economic diversification, it is essential to develop a comprehensive roadmap with specific actions aimed at enhancing access to finance, streamlining administrative procedures, and expanding reliable and affordable internet services and electricity, including through increased bill collection, technical efficiency, and the adoption of cost-efficient renewable energy. These initiatives will enhance Djibouti’s business environment, which is already supported by a stable macroeconomic climate, a currency board, ports infrastructure, and connectivity to Ethiopia’s large market, all aligning with the objectives of Djibouti Vision 2035.

“The mission team expresses deep appreciation to the Djiboutian authorities and other counterparts for their warm hospitality, excellent cooperation and candid discussions, and looks forward to continuing close engagement.”

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

PRESS OFFICER: Wafa Amr

Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

@IMFSpokesperson

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/06/25/djibouti-staff-concluding-statement-of-the-2025-article-iv-mission

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MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI USA: Government Technology recognizes 2024 Oregon Summer EBT for best practices

Source: US State of Oregon

he Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) was recognized in a national Government Technology Case Study for its excellence in the use of smart technology in rolling out the Summer EBT program. As a result, more than 362,000 children were able to get more food during summer 2024.

About Summer EBT

Thousands of children in Oregon rely on free or reduced-price school meals. But what happens in the summer months when these meals are gone? This is called the summer hunger gap. To address this gap, the federal government last year rolled out a new program to provide food to school-aged children during the summer months.

Oregon was one of 35 states to pick up on the federal Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program, which provided a total of $120 in nutrition benefits for each eligible child when school is out.

Summer EBT qualification is based on income. For families to qualify, the household income needs to be under 185 percent of the federal poverty level.

“The majority of the people we served are working. It could be part time or they’re just starting off – they are bringing in income but it’s just not enough. The Summer EBT helps supplement their food budget for their children,” Singer said.

A tight timeline

It was go-time for ODHS in early 2024. There was only 16 weeks to set up a new program, bring in community partners, identify and reach out to eligible families, create communication plans and products, and establish the innovative technology needed to accomplish this task. ODHS is the lead agency and administers this program in partnership with the Oregon Department of Education (ODE).

“It was a very short amount of time to build an entire system. The challenge was to quickly build a system to deliver quality services not only for this year but next year also,” Nate Singer, ODHS Oregon Eligibility Partnership (OEP) Director, said. OEP is responsible for determining eligibility for people applying for benefits and processing applications to deliver those benefits.

Goal setting

Initial estimates in 2024 projected that Oregon would provide Summer EBT to at least 294,000 children.

“The one thing I wanted for the project was to exceed that expectation because that would mean we would be providing more services for families and we could increase our outreach for all the of the services ODHS offers,” said Christine Doody, Self-Sufficiency Programs Policy Business Manager and Program Manager for Summer EBT.

The expectation was exceeded about 68,000, meaning more than 362,000 children were able to get food benefits last summer.

Innovation in action

To identify eligible children, OEP used data from ODHS and ODE. Most children who received the benefit were “automatically eligible” because they receive other benefits. These families didn’t need to apply, and the benefit was automatically added to their Oregon EBT card.

Other families needed to apply. ODHS brought in contractors Amazon Web Services and Deloitte Consulting to help with the technology and planning to make applying easy.

“We tried to make it simple as possible. People could apply with a paper application or online. The online application could be done on a mobile phone. If someone had questions about whether they needed to apply or needed help to apply, they could call the Summer EBT Call Center to talk to someone. The call wait time was below five minutes. People could hear right then, on the phone, they would get their benefits if they applied. It took minutes,” Singer said.

The Oregon Summer EBT Call Center included an Interactive Voice Response system offering self-service options for supported languages: English, Spanish, Russian, Vietnamese, Somali, Mandarin, Cantonese, Arabic, Ukrainian, and Chuukese. For other languages, or for other assistance, the calls could be routed to help.

“This gave families the ability to take control of their case. They could use voice activation to say, ‘I want text messages’ from us, or they could change their demographic information or ask for a new card. The family could do that on their own,” Doody said.

This population of customers – families with children in school – are used to getting texts and email from their schools, so they were already familiar with getting information this way. In fact, 99 percent of families that needed to apply chose to use the online application rather than a paper application. Those that used the online caption reported a 96 percent satisfaction rating.

Communications and community engagement

There was also communications and community engagement support, as well as an effective feedback loop. A workgroup with community representatives, such as the Oregon Food Bank and Partners for a Hunger Free Oregon, was in place. The community partners advised on all communication products such as news releases, the application design and social media kits.

“We worked together to get the information as far out to communities as we could. We were also able to get good data from the Call Center to let us know how we were doing. We had a strong feedback loop that we responded to quickly,” Christy Sinatra, ODHS Senior Communications Advisor, said.

For example, people asked if children in charter, private schools, or home schools could be included in Summer EBT. The answer was, yes, if they are found to be eligible. It was also important to communicate to people that the Summer EBT benefits expired after 122 days – so it was important to use them before then.

“We are trying to increase equity and access. There’s not just one approach. We pushed many communications and engagement levers – technology, in-person outreach, digital communications, community partnerships, media exposure. All those things working together to make the program successful and making sure every eligible kid gets this,” Sinatra said.

“The Oregon Summer EBT program demonstrated the strength of cross-agency collaboration and intentional program design. Staff were equipped with thoughtful tools and invited to shape how the program would operate, ensuring that those on the ground had a voice in critical decisions. That partnership—from planning to implementation—meant that families and children not only received meaningful support but also felt seen, heard, and cared for. The feedback from the community speaks volumes about the impact of that collective effort,” Singer said.

“The project was just overwhelmingly amazing. I just hope that people read this and apply for this summer,” Doody said.

2025 Summer EBT began May 22

The 2025 Summer EBT launched Thursday, May 22, 2025. Applications will be accepted through Wednesday, September 3, 2025.

ODHS will be running the whole program this summer – setting a goal of serving 375,000 children.

“We will be doing additional outreach, based on data and staff feedback, and providing new ways to engage with people such as going out to more schools and community events,” Doody said.

The program is set to: expand tactics to better reach people and communities that data showed were underserved; help schools connect families to Summer EBT; and increase strategic partnerships that serve priority audiences.

Resources:

Learn more about Summer EBT including how to apply for this benefit for your children: https://www.oregon.gov/odhs/food/pages/sebt.aspx.

Double Up Food Bucks Oregon: Visit https://doubleuporegon.org/ to learn how to double your SNAP and Summer EBT dollars at farmer’s markets, produce stands, community supported agriculture programs and grocery stores.

MIL OSI USA News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Bombing Iran: has the UN charter failed?

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Caleb H. Wheeler, Senior Lecturer in Law, Cardiff University

The recent US attack on Iran’s nuclear sites has prompted renewed questions about whether the UN charter’s prohibition on the use of force is meaningful.

Considered one of the keystones of international law, article 2(4) of the charter specifically forbids member states from using force – or threatening to do so – against the territorial integrity or political independence of another state, or “in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations”.

A significant amount of commentary exists about what the prohibition entails. This tries to clarify ambiguities around the terms “force”, “threats of force”, “territorial integrity” and “political independence”. Although no absolute consensus has been reached, it is commonly thought that member states are prohibited from launching armed attacks against other states, or threatening to do so, unless acting in self-defence or with the authorisation of the UN security council.

Other exceptions have been suggested. These include use of force as part of a larger humanitarian intervention operation. There’s also a question of whether it’s permissible when a state is rescuing its nationals abroad. But the legality of either of these situations is contentious and remains unsettled.

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Early in its existence, the UN made concerted efforts to protect and respect article 2(4) and to comply with its provisions. In 1950, the security council authorised UN member states to provide South Korea with the assistance necessary to repel the armed attack launched by North Korea, triggering the increased internationalisation of the Korean war.

While article 2(4) was not explicitly mentioned in resolution 83, it was alluded to through repeated references to North Korea’s “armed attack” against South Korea. As such, it can be interpreted as an effort by the security council to use its authority to address a violation of article 2(4), even if it did not clearly frame it in those terms.

The security council also authorised member states in 2011 to take all necessary measures to protect civilians in Libya. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that the member states may have exceeded their authority in Libya and carried out acts that could themselves be construed as violations of the UN charter.

Rather than just protecting civilians, as the security council resolution instructed, legal experts were concerned they had effectively intervened in a civil war. Any possible violations went unpunished by the security council.

Security council actions taken with regard to Korea were, in many ways, the high watermark for the prohibition of the use of force, given the scale of the conflict. There are two reasons for that. First, a significant proportion of the wars taking place after 1945 have been domestic and not subject to the provisions of article 2(4). The prohibition specifically applies to a member state’s international relations so is not inapplicable when a member state attacks a group within its own borders.

Second, the UN has failed to address many of the acts occurring after 1945 that might fall under the provisions of article 2(4). The reason for this inaction lies primarily in the flawed structure on which the UN is built.

Chapter VII of the charter makes the security council responsible for addressing acts of aggression that would constitute uses of force under article 2(4). But it has repeatedly failed to fill that role, allowing states to commit these acts without meaningful response.

The UN veto problem

UN security council decisions can only be enacted when at least nine members vote in favour. This must also include the affirmative vote or abstention of all five of the permanent members: the US, Russia, China, the UK and France. This essentially gives each of the permanent members the right to veto security council resolutions.

Permanent members have commonly used the threat of their veto in their own political interests. This can be seen in a variety of instances, most notably the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Both situations clearly involved uses of force prohibited by article 2(4), and in both situations the security council was prevented from acting by some of its permanent members.

This inaction is consistent with the UN’s failure to address many other acts that might fall under the provisions of article 2(4), including US involvement in south-east Asia in the 1960s and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The security council’s failure to adequately perform its role has caused some to try and find a workaround. The Council of Europe, disappointed at the lack of accountability for Russia’s acts of aggression against Ukraine, has entered into an agreement with Ukraine to establish a special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.

In the special tribunal’s draft statute, an act of aggression is defined to almost exactly mirror the type of conduct that would constitute a use of force under the UN charter.

Bombing Iran

Which brings us to the current situation in Iran. There is little question that the US violated article 2(4) when it bombed Iranian nuclear sites in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan on the evening of Saturday June 21. This is a clear use of force against the territory of another state.

But even if the attacks themselves were not enough to establish a violation, they were also accompanied by US president Donald Trump’s suggestion that a regime change in Iran might be appropriate. These comments, coming immediately after the initial attack, could be construed as a threat of further force against Iran’s political independence should such a change not occur.

Under the UN charter, such threats and uses of force should elicit a response from the security council. But just as with Iraq in 2003 and Ukraine in 2022, none will probably be forthcoming as the US will block any efforts to hold it to account.

But equally chilling is the lack of condemnation of the US actions by its allies. German chancellor Friedrich Merz saw “no reason to criticise” the bombings, and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte insisted that the bombings did not violate international law.

As the respected Dutch scholar of international law André Nollkaemper suggests, this refusal to condemn a clear violation of the prohibition of the use of force creates a real danger that the bar for when a state can legally use force will be lowered.

Should that be allowed to happen it could further hollow out the prohibition, effectively making it less likely that states will be held to account for violating international law. Further, it could also lead to the return of a world where “might makes right”. This would undo more than a century of legal evolution.

Caleb H. Wheeler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Bombing Iran: has the UN charter failed? – https://theconversation.com/bombing-iran-has-the-un-charter-failed-259751

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Chinese Premier Attends Symposium with Industry and Business Representatives as Part of Summer Davos 2025

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

TIANJIN, June 25 (Xinhua) — Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended a symposium with industry and business leaders at the 16th annual meeting of emerging global leaders of the World Economic Forum, also known as “Summer Davos,” in north China’s Tianjin Municipality.

After listening to the speeches, Li Qiang noted that the current international situation is undergoing profound and complex changes, creating serious challenges for the economic development of all countries.

The symposium was attended by about 160 business representatives from more than 30 countries and regions.

As the head of the Chinese government stated, the Chinese economy maintains the dynamics of stable growth, which is due not only to steadily improving basic indicators and active macroeconomic policy, but also to increased attention to the use of the potential of the market and enterprises. Companies with foreign capital also make an important contribution to this, Li Qiang added.

China, the Premier of the State Council continued, offers broad opportunities for the development of enterprises with foreign capital.

Li Qiang pointed out that in a chaotic and unstable world, it is necessary to act in accordance with the trends of the times, actively and effectively confront various challenges and uncertainties, and create a favorable environment for the development of enterprises.

Against the backdrop of the profound restructuring of the global industrial chain architecture, the quality and efficiency of the industrial complex are particularly important, the Premier of the State Council noted. He added that China has strong industrial complex potential, and its industrial and supply chains are constantly being optimized.

Stressing the importance of the speed of industrial adoption of new technologies and the capacity for incremental technological upgrading, Li Qiang pointed to China’s large initial user base of various products and services, which facilitates effective interaction between scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation.

The Premier stressed that there is ample space and great opportunities for foreign enterprises to participate in scientific and technological cooperation and joint innovation in China.

Noting that a stable environment for business development is of utmost importance, Li Qiang said that China’s economy has demonstrated stability that can withstand external shocks and maintain its own momentum. This stability, he added, is also reflected in China’s unwavering commitment to opening up, allowing multinational enterprises to achieve greater success and make greater progress in China.

The Premier expressed the hope that enterprises from various countries will supply more high-quality products and services to the Chinese market, strengthen scientific, technological and industrial cooperation with Chinese companies, more effectively match supply and demand for mutual benefit and win-win results, and jointly promote technological progress and enhance industrial competitiveness.

The Chinese side will, as before, encourage foreign enterprises to invest in China and establish business here, the head of the Chinese government assured.

The symposium participants stressed that they remain confident in China’s economic prospects and open cooperation. They expressed their willingness to increase investment in scientific and technological innovation and ensure the smooth operation of industrial and supply chains, thereby achieving greater progress for enterprises in integrating into China’s high-quality development. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: The meeting of the chairman and vice-chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee considered draft amendments and resolutions

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) — The 46th meeting of the chairman and vice-chairmen of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People’s Congress (NPC) of China was held at the Great Hall of the People on Wednesday to discuss draft amendments to the Law on Punishment for Disrupting Public Order and the Law on Combating Unfair Competition, as well as a draft decision on ratifying the Convention Establishing the International Mediation Organization.

In addition, a draft resolution on the approval of the financial report on the execution of the central government budget for 2024 was considered.

At the meeting, chaired by NPC Standing Committee Chairman Zhao Leji, it was decided to submit the above-mentioned documents for consideration at the ongoing 16th session of the 14th NPC Standing Committee.

In addition, the meeting heard reports on the powers of individual deputies and on personnel changes. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Promoting the establishment of the International Day of Dialogue Among Civilizations has become China’s important contribution to promoting peace and development around the world – Chinese Ambassador to Belarus Zhang Wenchuan

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

MINSK, June 25 (Xinhua) — Promoting the establishment of the International Day of Dialogue Among Civilizations has become a successful practical step by China in implementing the Global Civilization Initiative put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as an important contribution to stimulating exchanges and dialogue among civilizations and promoting peace and development throughout the world, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People’s Republic of China to Belarus Zhang Wenchuan said in an article published in the Belarusian newspaper Zvyazda.

The ambassador recalled that in June 2024, the 78th session of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted a resolution proposed by China jointly with more than 80 countries to establish June 10 as the International Day of Dialogue among Civilizations.

“Over the year, China has worked with various parties to actively implement the spirit of the General Assembly resolution on the establishment of the International Day of Dialogue among Civilizations. China has made efforts to build platforms for dialogue among civilizations, from the SCO Dialogue of Civilizations in 2024 to the BRICS Dialogue of Civilizations, from the China-Latin America and the Caribbean Dialogue of Civilizations in 2024 to the 4th China-Africa Dialogue of Civilizations. China has always been the driving force for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations,” Zhang Wenchuan said.

He noted that, in general, the Global Civilization Initiative has already found a broad response throughout the world. As the ambassador pointed out, this happened because, firstly, it calls for replacing coercion and pressure with dialogue and consultations. The initiative rejects the approach to inter-civilization interaction as a confrontation between “us” and “them,” emphasizing the need to create regular and specialized mechanisms for global dialogue between civilizations.

“Secondly, it calls for replacing the zero-sum game with win-win cooperation. Sustainable development of the world is not the exclusive prosperity of a handful of countries or the dominance of one civilization, but the lush flowering of the entire garden of world civilizations. The initiative emphasizes the need to overcome differences in ideologies and social systems, adheres to the concept of a community with a shared destiny for mankind, and, guided by the principles of common benefit and win-win, promotes harmonious interaction and common prosperity of various civilizations,” the Chinese diplomat noted.

Third, according to Zhang Wenchuan, the Global Civilization Initiative calls for replacing insularity and exclusivity with openness and inclusiveness. “The Global Civilization Initiative advocates that, based on respect for the diversity of civilizations, we properly address the differences among ourselves, learn from each other’s strengths to fill our own gaps, and adopt the best through exchange and mutual learning to achieve positive interactions among civilizations,” the ambassador added. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: V. Zelensky met with D. Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

KYIV, June 25 /Xinhua/ — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit in The Hague /Netherlands/ on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader’s Telegram channel reported.

V. Zelensky noted that “all truly significant issues” were raised at the meeting. In particular, according to him, the parties discussed ways to establish peace in Ukraine and protect Ukrainian citizens from Russian attacks.

V. Zelensky stressed that Ukraine appreciates the attention of the United States and its readiness to help end the Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: MINEX Central Asia 2025 forum held in Tashkent

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

Tashkent, June 25 (Xinhua) — The MINEX Central Asia 2025 forum on “Enhancing the Role of Central Asia in Ensuring the Security of Critical Mineral Resources” was held in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, from June 24 to 25.

The event was initiated by the Ministry of Mining and Geology of Uzbekistan and the Uzbek Technological Metals Plant.

The forum discussed legislative reforms in the mining sector and incentives established for investors in Uzbekistan in recent years. In addition, it considered how governments and financial institutions can reduce investment risks, adapt the regulatory system to international standards, strengthen institutional capacity and increase investor confidence through open, consistent and reliable processes.

The forum participants paid special attention to issues of regional cooperation, financing of infrastructure projects and creation of added value at the local level. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: The Presidents of Belarus and Cuba Discussed Trade and Economic Cooperation in Minsk

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

MINSK, June 25 (Xinhua) — Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko met with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Minsk on Wednesday, the press service of the Belarusian head of state reported.

During the meeting, the leaders of the two countries discussed ways to strengthen bilateral dialogue with an emphasis on developing trade, economic, scientific and technical cooperation. The parties also considered issues on the global and regional agenda, and the interaction of the two states on multilateral platforms.

A. Lukashenko noted that Belarus offers Cuba not only the export of goods and services, but also active participation in the work to develop all mutually beneficial areas and directions based on a comprehensive and strategic partnership. “We are ready to introduce modern scientific achievements and technologies into the Cuban economy for the successful implementation of joint projects designed for a long-term economic and, above all, social effect,” the Belarusian president said.

M. Diaz-Canel, in turn, pointed out that Cuba has the political will to give impetus to bilateral relations with Belarus in all areas, especially in the trade and economic sphere. “We are interested in stimulating and encouraging trade in goods. We strive for Belarusian companies to participate more in the implementation of the national plan for the socio-economic development of Cuba until 2030,” the President of Cuba emphasized. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: “There is no goal to say what is right. We aim to explore variability.”

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

Photo: Maxim Melenchenko

Works at HSE University International Laboratory of Language Convergence, which focuses on the interaction of languages of different peoples living in regions with a mixed multi-ethnic population. Research by HSE scientists helps to better understand the history of language development and study the features of perception and use of languages in a multilingual environment. Georgy Moroz, head of the laboratory, spoke about this in an interview with HSE.Glavnoe.

— How did the laboratory start working?

— It was opened in 2017, Nina Dobrushina became the head, and the scientific director was University of Berkeley professor Johanna Nichols, who is now working remotely. Most of the research staff studied the languages of the peoples of the Caucasus and their interaction: for example, Nina Dobrushina, Mikhail Daniel, Timur Maisak were interested mainly in Dagestan, Yuri Lander and Anastasia Panova studied the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages.

One of the central areas of work is typology. Typological studies in linguistics involve classifying languages by various features (for example, by the number of vowels and consonants). For this purpose, samples are created that can include dozens of languages. Our laboratory is one of the few scientific centers in Russia where such studies are conducted, and perhaps the only one that focuses specifically on the processes of language interaction. The laboratory also continues to study the languages of the Caucasus and create linguistic resources for them.

In the Caucasus, the Russian language comes into contact with languages of different groups: in addition to the Nakh-Dagestani languages, these are the Turkic languages (which include many languages of the peoples of Dagestan, for example Kumyk and Azerbaijani), as well as the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages (Abkhaz, Abaza, Adyghe and Kabardian), Kartvelian (Georgian, Megrelian, Svan and Laz languages) and Indo-European (Armenian, Ossetian, Tat).

The main goal of creating the laboratory is to study the mutual influence of languages on each other. A striking example of such influence is the Ossetian language, which is Indo-European, but unlike other Indo-European languages, it has eruptive consonants. These are sounds in which the vocal cords close and rise during pronunciation, creating a pressure difference, for example, кI, пI, тI, цI, чI. In addition, during an expedition to Azerbaijan, the laboratory staff studied the dialects of the territories bordering Dagestan, and Mikhail Daniel discovered a dialect of the Azerbaijani language that had eruptive sounds (although there were reports of it in previous works). Apparently, this can be explained by the fact that the ancestors of the inhabitants of the village of Ilisu spoke a certain Nakh-Dagestani language, presumably Tsakhur, and then switched to the Azerbaijani language, preserving such an eruptive trace. Most likely, this happened due to language contacts.

Our leader Johanna Nichols put forward a similar hypothesis about the inhabitants of some villages in Dagestan. The fact is that the Avar language is widespread in the north of Dagestan, and it is widespread mainly in the lowlands. However, one can find speakers of the Avar language in highland villages surrounded by non-Avar villages. And here the assumption arises whether they previously spoke languages other than Avar, and then switched to Avar under the influence of its prestige.

The process by which such borrowings and even transitions from one language to another occur, and as a result, the convergence of languages or dialects, is called linguistic convergence. It is important that this process is easier to see in the example of genetically unrelated languages, but a similar phenomenon can also occur with related languages or dialects.

— Is convergence of neighboring languages necessary?

— It happens in most cases, but there are also opposite cases, when languages and their speakers “try” to be different from each other. This process is called divergence. For example, last year we invited John Mansfield to speak at our seminar, who, together with his colleagues, published a typological study of divergent processes based on 42 languages from around the world.

— You mentioned Dagestan, where many languages are spoken. Could you tell us more about this region and your research related to it?

— Dagestan is wonderful for its multilingualism and the mutual influence of local languages on each other; in addition, at some point they began to change under the influence of the active penetration of the Russian language into the local environment.

Recently, my research intern Victoria Zubkova, research assistant Chiara Naccarato and I submitted an article to one of the leading international linguistic journals about the adaptation of Russian borrowings in Andean languages. Earlier borrowings were mainly through the Avar language, through its peculiar mediation. Now words are borrowed directly, and we are trying to model in which languages the influence of Russian is greater and on what factors the degree of its influence depends.

The study revealed that Avar and Botlikh have recently seen fewer phonetic changes in borrowings from Russian than other Andic languages (see, for example, Akhvakh кIебетIи — “kopeck”). The main reason: these languages have already come under the strong influence of Russian. Avar used to play an important role in the north of Dagestan; it was and remains a kind of regional lingua franca. The results of our study show that the process of adaptation of Russian borrowings in other Andic languages was slower than in Avar, but it is obvious that this process has been decreasing over time. Now, of course, any borrowing will most likely enter all of these languages without any phonetic adaptation.

— How do you obtain materials for research?

— We regularly go on expeditions to collect data; for us, this is the most important source of material. Our colleagues recently returned from Armenia, another group – from AdygeyaRecently, we have begun to make more active use of data collected by scientists outside the lab.

Thus, the laboratory collected 10 speech corpora of bilinguals, that is, people for whom Russian is not their native language, but they learned it and regularly use it in everyday life. Their speech – both pronunciation and grammar – differs from the speech of monolinguals.

Corpora of individual dialects of the Russian language are also being created. The main difficulty in collecting such material is that Russian dialectologists were previously reluctant to share their data. Thanks to Nina Dobrushina, this has changed, and now placing some dialect corpora with us is considered a common thing. In total, 26 dialect corpora have been created in the laboratory.

We are also collecting corpora of minor languages of Russia; there are currently 14 of them.

— Can you clarify what a “corpus” is for linguists? How and why do you create new corpora?

— Corpora appeared as written records of speech of various types or simply marked-up collections of texts. A corpus differs from a collection of texts by morphological or other markings. In particular, you can set up a search by categories: for example, which nouns come before infinitives. For example, the National Corpus of the Russian Language is a collection of a large number of texts that can be searched morphologically. When we prepare oral corpora — bilingual and dialectal — we use text transcripts in literary Russian, which makes automatic morphological search possible. Corpora also contain audio recordings, thanks to which we can understand the features of dialects. Sometimes you need to listen to the recordings again to understand more precisely whether certain sounds are used.

The corpus is one of the central tools of modern linguistics. It is by analyzing the frequency of use of different constructions in it that we make certain generalizations, on the basis of which we publish articles.

One of the options for using corpora is to compare dialects or small languages with each other: using vector models, one can obtain intersections of corpora of corresponding languages and thus understand which dialects and languages are closer and which are further from each other.

Thus, according to our observations of bilingual corpora, Karelians, unlike Dagestanis, speak Russian, which is closer to the literary language. In Dagestan, local languages are influenced by both the standard literary Russian and the regional Dagestan Russian that emerged in the republic and is developing in its own unique way. For children, the amount of language use is important. And if, for example, Lezgins speak Lezgin, and Adyghe speak Adyghe or Kabardian and then switch to Russian, then we can ask which Russian exactly – the literary Russian or a specific local version with local features caused by native languages. Such comparisons of features are possible precisely thanks to our corpora.

— What other resources do you create?

— As mentioned above, one of the important resources of the laboratory is the linguistic atlases of small languages of Russia.

We also compile dictionaries of such languages. For example, we recently publishedDictionary of the Kininsky dialect of the Rutul language, whose speakers live in Dagestan and Azerbaijan; the dictionary size is about 1200 words. I analyzed the Zilov dialect, one of the dialects of the Andian language, which for a long time had no written language, and also posted it on the laboratory’s page dictionaryabout 1,500 words. However, this is a significantly smaller volume compared to dictionaries published by linguists from the regions where the corresponding language is spoken. They have a better command of the languages and can usually devote more time to this task.

Dictionaries published in Dagestan include at least 5,000–6,000 units, and recently our colleague Majid Sharipovich Khalilov published a dictionary of the Tsez (Didoi) language containing 11,000 words. For an unwritten language, this is something phenomenal.

— What are the key areas of the laboratory’s current work?

— Our main focus is linguistic typology, within the framework of which research is conducted on a sample of unrelated languages from all over the world.

Another long-term project is the Typological Atlas of the Languages of Dagestan, which already has 58 chapters, each of which is devoted to a separate linguistic phenomenon, such as the presence or absence of some eruptive sounds. Researchers from our laboratory, Samira Verhees and Chiara Naccarato, studied how people speaking different languages greet each other in the morning and wrote a chapter on the subject. It turned out that in 17 languages, the greeting is “Good morning!”; the rhetorical question “Are you awake?” and “Are you up?” are also common greetings, and, for example, in the Lak language, you can find both of these options.

The project of electronic Dagestani dictionaries plays an important role now. We are trying to create a unified database that would contain lexical material of the Nakh-Dagestani languages. The database was created thanks to a series of coursework by students of the educational program “Fundamental and Computer Linguistics”, who digitalized, cleaned up the data, created a transliterator. These works contain phonetic and morphological marking and marking of borrowings from Russian, Arabic, Persian and Turkic languages. Now we have unified materials on the Andic and Avar languages.

This greatly simplifies a number of studies that required looking at different dictionaries. The already mentioned article by Victoria Zubkova and Chiara Naccarato was made possible thanks to this database, which also opens up the field for new research. This is a project with great potential, which I hope will continue.

Another important area is the study of non-standard Russian, in which we study both dialects of Russian and the peculiarities of the Russian language of those for whom it is not native. We call our group DiaL2: dia — dialects and L2 — the standard designation for the second language. We are interested in any variants that are not similar to the literary ones. We do not aim to say which is correct. We seek to study the variability that we observe. Our group includes laboratory researchers and students. For example, our research intern Anna Grishanova recently had an article accepted for publication on the loss of prepositions in the speech of bilinguals whose first native language is Chuvash.

There is a separate one Rutulian project. As part of the “Rediscovering Russia” grant, we visited 12 Rutul villages and releasedatlas, similar to the Typological Atlas of the Languages of Dagestan, which I mentioned earlier. The Rutul Atlas contains 425 separate chapters devoted to various topics of Rutul dialectology: phonetic, grammatical and lexical. For example, one of the chaptersis dedicated to the lexeme hedgehog, which is designated by different variants – both by borrowing from Russian and by our own g’yllentsI, kirpik, zh’uzh’ya or k’yng’yr.

There are also two other small projects: one on the Aramaic languages used in Russia, for which a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (24-28-01009) was received – “Areal-typological description of the neo-Aramaic idioms of Armenia” under the direction of Yuri Koryakov – and the second on the Abkhaz-Adyghe languages.

In general, documenting languages is very important for the culture of the peoples we work with, because some unwritten languages can disappear, and if we manage to somehow record them, then people will be able to see how their grandparents spoke, even if they do not understand their native language.

— How is the laboratory’s work organized?

— One of the pillars of the laboratory seems to me to be ours weekly seminar. It takes place every Tuesday at 16:00. During the laboratory’s operation, more than 230 seminars have been held, with almost 300 papers presented. Almost all seminars are held in English, which allows us to more actively involve foreign colleagues in our work and maintain scientific contacts. We are visited by various well-known linguists, for example, Martin Haspelmath, one of the leading specialists in linguistic typology. During his trip to Moscow last December, he spoke at the HSE with lecture, which attracted great interest. The seminars also show our interns how to give a report, ask questions, and conduct themselves during a report in English. In addition, when I became the head of the department, we began to use the seminars more actively as a platform for discussing new scientific articles. This is due to my deep conviction that it is easy to stop reading or limit reading to only your narrow specialization and switch to churning out articles. It is reading and discussing articles, even those far removed from your research topic, that allows you to keep the general state of modern linguistics in focus, rather than drowning in specifics, as in the parable of the elephant and the blind wise men.

— How actively do you collaborate with other universities and HSE campuses?

— As part of the project “Mirror Laboratories» We collaborated with the Southern Federal University in 2022–2024. It included three subprojects: a project to study Russian as a foreign language, a dialectological project, thanks to which we have a corpus of Don dialects, which we support and, if necessary, can continue to study dialects, as well as a digital humanities research project, or Digital Humanities (DH).

The current inter-campus project with the National Research University Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg is focused on DH: my colleagues and I are engaged in applied computational linguistics. In particular, in St. Petersburg we created a corpus of Russian short stories from the 1930s to 2000s, a corpus of Soviet songs, and even developed a chatbot for the Hermitage.

— How does this chatbot work?

— For example, a visitor asks to show a painting of a woman with her head on a plate, meaning Judith with the head of Holofernes; the bot is supposed to give the desired painting. But hardly anyone will be surprised if it is Herodias with the head of John the Baptist.

— What other applied work can you imagine?

— We have various applied research. For example, we have started developing transliterators for the Nakh-Dagestani languages. We dream of creating a hub where transliterators of texts in different languages would be presented, which would be very useful for linguists.

In addition, we are developing morphological analyzers for small languages, collecting corpora and dictionaries. All this is ultimately rich material for verifying machine learning models of various modalities: both audio and text. Such models often suffer from a lack of expert data labeling.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Global: Moving Notting Hill Carnival to Hyde Park would wrench it from the community and history at its heart

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Maggie Inchley, Reader in Contemporary Theatre and Performance, Queen Mary University of London

Shutterstock/JessicaGirvan

Today’s Notting Hill Carnival, first held in its streets in 1966 when it was led by a Trinidadian steel band, is a glorious cultural blend. It’s a hotch-potch of traditions, music, dancing and food which commemorates the history of black British communities and integrates others.

But the future of Notting Hill Carnival is now in doubt amid concerns that the event doesn’t have the funding to ensure the safety of attendees.

One touted solution is to move the carnival to another location. Writing in the Guardian last year, retired black Met superintendent Leroy Logan recommended a more open space, such as Hyde Park. Policing would be far easier there, with walled boundaries removing escape routes for potential “trouble makers”.

But holding the carnival in Hyde Park could alter the way that the carnival is enjoyed in ways that would be fundamental to the community it comes from.

My research in creative performance with communities explores the joy that comes from participating in events and activities that celebrate our collective strengths and differences. I look at the important issues of lived experiences and cultural heritage in events like Carnival.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

The Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin (1895-1975) wrote of a “carnival sense of the world”. For Bakhtin, carnival was an unleashing of energies, in which hierarchies disappeared, and people were free to mix with each other.

For his critics, the liberating energy that Bakhtin describes can be too easily co-opted to dominant cultures, especially where carnival can be made to serve the market’s insatiable appetite. While the democratising dynamics of carnival are valuable, it is also important to consider the particular histories and places in which its traditions and practices have developed. Even joy is contingent on place and context.

The Notting Hill Carnival is currently free to over 1.5 million visitors. Controlling access would severely contract its size and almost certainly lead to commercial exploitation, reducing its renowned inclusivity.

What’s more, the right to be publicly seen and heard carries intense symbolic significance for the Caribbean community. This is profoundly important in the wake of the 2018 Windrush scandal, in which the government tried to remove many black citizens who had lawfully lived and worked in Britain for decades under the terms of the British Nationality act of 1948.

Read more:
Unravelling the Windrush myth: the confidential government communications that reveal authorities did not want Caribbean migrants to come to Britain

Many of this Windrush generation, a large number of whom lived in Notting Hill and north Kensington, made a huge contribution to the rebuilding of the British economy, having been invited to the country in the wake of the second world war. In their daily lives however, they suffered racism and harassment which undermined the right they had to make their homes as British citizens.

The history of the carnival

It is important to recognise that the sights and sounds of the Notting Hill Carnival are tied to the history of black people’s displacement and exploitation by white enslavers and colonialists. An exuberant street presence is a culturally distinctive statement of resistance and heritage.

Author Dan Hancox has written about the fact that enslaved people in the Caribbean were not permitted to take part in the European colonialists’ Mardis Gras balls.

Crowds at the Notting Hill Carnival.
Shutterstock/Turgut Cetinkaya

In 18th century Trinidad, a ritual called Cannes Brulees (sugarcane burning), in which sticks were used to perform the rhythms of African drumming, reconnected these transplanted peoples with their places of origin, and sounded an act of resistance.

Liberation is still enacted today in the right to make music and dance through the streets. Interviewed by Hancox in 2023, CEO of the Notting Hill Carnival Trust, Matthew Philip, pointed to the significance of the newly emancipated black presence in Trinidad’s streets, from which they had been banned by their colonial masters, and their joyful mockery of the white governing class.

Any considerations of safety at the Notting Hill Carnival must also consider how – despite this exuberantly joyful community celebration of black diasporic culture – the event has been commonly portrayed as a flash-point of racial tensions.

Social geographer Peter Jackson has pointed to the racialised media representation of “black youth” after unrest in 1976, during which carnival goers clashed violently with a heavy police presence.

Steve McQueen’s 2020 drama Mangrove portrayed the tensions with the police in the 1970s. In a notable scene outside Trinidadian immigrant Frank Crichlow’s restaurant, the film captured the combination of resistance and joy expressed in West Indian music and dancing. Crichlow was part of the Mangrove Nine, the group of black activists who were tried in 1971 at the Old Bailey for inciting a riot, after repeated police raids on Crichlow’s restaurant.

The trailer for Mangrove.

The group’s acquittal was an important milestone in the history of the rights of black people to live and work without harassment in the London area they were trying to make their home under difficult conditions.

When West Indian migrants came to Notting Hill they were housed in slum conditions. They were charged extortionate rents, often in dilapidated properties once built for the wealthy. Having lived through this and built a thriving community, black residents have in recent decades been forced to move out following the area’s “regentrification”. The trend again points to the displacement of black and working class populations, this time at the housing market’s convenience.

To relocate the carnival from the streets of Notting Hill would risk continuing these histories of displacement of black communities, and ignore the huge symbolic significance of street celebration to black people in Britain and beyond.

Unquestionably, the government must act in the interest of public safety. As it considers the best ways to protect attendees, it will no doubt also assess the carnival’s considerable social and economic benefits

To guarantee these, officials must work with communities whose heritage and citizenship is bound up with the carnival. They need to balance issues of safety with those of access and heritage, and with the need to express a joy that emerges not entirely spontaneously, but from long and complex histories of displacement, relocation and resistance.

Maggie Inchley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Moving Notting Hill Carnival to Hyde Park would wrench it from the community and history at its heart – https://theconversation.com/moving-notting-hill-carnival-to-hyde-park-would-wrench-it-from-the-community-and-history-at-its-heart-259587

MIL OSI – Global Reports –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Europe: Meeting with the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, the NATO Secretary General and the President of Ukraine

Source: Government of Italy (English)

Vai al Contenuto Raggiungi il piè di pagina

25 Giugno 2025

Following the NATO Summit in The Hague, the President of the Council of Ministers, Giorgia Meloni, had a meeting today with the leaders of France, Germany, Poland and the United Kingdom, together with the NATO Secretary General and the President of Ukraine.

The meeting provided an opportunity for an in-depth discussion on the ongoing efforts and support for the action being taken by the United States in favour of a ceasefire, for a negotiation process that can lead to a just and lasting peace in Ukraine. Russia needs to demonstrate that it wants to seriously commit to talks, unlike what it has done so far.

The leaders went on to reaffirm that they would continue to support Ukraine and its self-defence and defence industry, also in light of Russia’s brutal attacks against civilians, and that they would keep pressure on Russia through new sanctions.

MIL OSI Europe News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Mainland China warns against sending wrong signals to separatist forces pushing for ‘Taiwan independence’

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) — State Council Taiwan Affairs Office spokesperson Zhu Fenglian on Wednesday called on individual countries to abide by the one-China principle in practice and refrain from sending wrong signals to separatist forces advocating “Taiwan independence.”

Zhu Fenglian made the call at a briefing, commenting on statements by participants at the recent Group of Seven (G7) summit, who noted the “importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

“We firmly oppose relevant countries making irresponsible statements on the Taiwan question and grossly interfering in China’s internal affairs,” Zhu Fenglian said, stressing that the Taiwan question is an exclusively internal matter for China and does not tolerate interference from any external forces.

She called on the relevant states to recognize the danger and harmfulness of provocative actions aimed at achieving “Taiwan independence.”

The spokeswoman also warned the island’s administration, led by Lai Qingde, that any such provocation would be met with harsh countermeasures, and that any attempts to collude with outside forces in pursuit of “independence” were doomed to failure.

Zhu Fenglian also answered questions from media representatives regarding recent actions and statements by the United States, including the House Appropriations Committee’s passage of a defense spending bill that allocates US$500 million for the “Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative.”

The official representative called on the US side to actually fulfill its political commitments to China on the Taiwan issue, adhere to the one-China principle and the provisions of the three China-US joint communiqués, and approach the Taiwan issue with the utmost caution. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Security: Record 769 arrests and USD 65 million in illicit pharmaceuticals seized in global bust

Source: Interpol (news and events)

25 June 2025

Operation reveals growing demand for semaglutides and peptides as ‘lifestyle enhancers’

SINGAPORE – An INTERPOL-coordinated operation across 90 countries has resulted in the seizure of 50.4 million doses of illicit pharmaceuticals worth USD 65 million, highlighting the alarming scale of the global trade in unapproved and counterfeit medicines.

Operation Pangea XVII, which took place from December 2024 to May 2025, saw the arrest of 769 suspects and the dismantling of 123 criminal groups worldwide.

The seizures and arrests are the largest in the operation’s 17-year history.

Nervous system agents, including psychostimulants, anti-anxiety drugs, and medications for Parkinson’s disease, topped the list as the most seized product type, with erectile dysfunction medicines, the second highest.

Other commonly seized product types include anabolic steroids, anti-diabetic medicines, anti-smoking products, dermatological agents, health supplements, herbal products and psychotherapeutic agents.

David Caunter, Director pro tempore of Organized and Emerging Crime at INTERPOL, said:

“Fake and unapproved medications are a serious risk to public health. They can include dangerous or illegal ingredients potentially resulting in severe illness, or even death.

“The rapid growth of online platforms has made it easier for these unsafe drugs to reach people as well as opening new opportunities for criminal networks to exploit.

“Working together through Operation Pangea, countries are taking action to protect people’s health and keep healthcare systems safe.”

Ethiopian authorities discovered illicit pharmaceuticals hidden inside a container.

Seizures of anti-diabetic medication in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Customs inspection at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Malaysia.

Inspection at a warehouse in Malaysia.

Illicit pharmaceuticals seized in Türkiye.

Illicit pharmaceuticals seized in Malaysia.

Growing demand for anti-diabetic medications and peptide supplements

The operation revealed growing demand for anti-diabetic drugs and peptide supplements, driven by increasing self-medication, among other factors.

This trend is being driven by the widespread promotion and availability of these medicines across social media and online marketplaces, creating lucrative and relatively low-risk opportunities for criminal networks selling low-quality or counterfeit products.

Data from participating countries indicate increasing circulation of illicit anti-diabetic medicines globally due to their off-label weight loss effects, with unapproved and potentially fake drugs seized in the Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America.

Estimates suggest that a single semaglutide pen may sell for several hundred US dollars on the secondary market.

The seizures corroborate recent alerts from the World Health Organization and various national health regulatory agencies warning of emerging risks associated with GLP-1-related injectable drugs.

Operation Pangea XVII revealed another emerging trend – growing demand for peptide supplements for their perceived cosmetic and performance-enhancing benefits, especially in high-income countries across Europe, North America and Oceania.

These supplements, such as BPC-157, ipamorelin, and melanotan, remain unapproved in many regions due to potential health risks and the lack of sufficient human trials, and until recently, seizures of such peptide-based biologically active substances were rare.

Ethiopian authorities discovered illicit pharmaceuticals hidden inside a container.

Illicit pharmaceuticals seized in Argentina.

Unapproved pregabalin medicines seized in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom.

Suspected counterfeit tramadol and other medicines seized in Gabon.

Illicit pharmaceuticals found in a clandestine clinic in Mozambique.

Illicit erectile dysfunction medicines seized in Bulgaria.

Operational highlights

In total, law enforcement agencies worldwide launched 1,728 investigations and issued 847 search warrants targeting criminal networks engaged in the illicit distribution of pharmaceutical products.

93 per cent of the illicit pharmaceuticals seized lacked regulatory approvals from national health authorities.

Such products may contain counterfeit, substandard or falsified substances which have not been identified.

The remaining seven per cent were confirmed as either counterfeit, diverted, or misbranded products.

Australia recorded the largest seizures globally, with psychostimulants such as modafinil and armodafinil being the most common category seized nationally. This was followed by anti-smoking pouches and erectile dysfunction medicines.

Professor Tony Lawler, Head of Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said:

“During this operation, the TGA assessed over 9,500 imports referred by the Australian Border Force and facilitated the seizure of over 5.2 million units of unlawfully imported therapeutic goods, including products that were found to be substandard or falsified.

This operational partnership represents a significant disruption of dangerous medicines from entering our community, and diversion of profits from those that would usually benefit from the illegal sale and supply.”

Large seizures of various illicit pharmaceuticals were similarly reported in Canada, Ireland, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, among other countries.

Operation Pangea XVII also saw the shutdown of approximately 13,000 criminal-linked websites, social media pages, channels, and bots used to market and sell illegal or falsified medicines.

Malaysia removed the greatest number of online listings (7,000), followed by Russia, Ireland, Singapore and Iran. The five countries collectively accounted for 96 per cent of all listings taken down.

In Burkina Faso, 816,000 tablets including analgesics and anti-inflammatories were discovered hidden in vehicles.

In Mexico, authorities intercepted 27,000 clonazepam tablets and 20,000 alprazolam tablets passing through a courier facility in Tijuana.

In Portugal, anabolic steroids were discovered in eight prisons across the country, unveiling evidence of a criminal network smuggling illicit substances into correctional facilities.

Notes to Editor

Operation Pangea is an annual INTERPOL operation targeting the online sale of illicit pharmaceuticals. The 17th edition of the operation marked a departure from previous iterations with enforcement action taking place over six months instead of the traditional one week. This extended duration allowed for a more comprehensive and sustained effort to disrupt criminal networks.

Additional support was provided by national health regulatory agencies, Europol, the International Narcotics Control Board, the Pharmaceutical Security Institute, the Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the Universal Postal Union, the World Customs Organization and the World Health Organization.

The following countries participated in Operation Pangea XVII: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Curacao, Cyprus, Czech Rep., Democratic Rep. of Congo, Denmark, Dominican Rep., Ecuador, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Gabon, Georgia, Greece, Guyana, Hong Kong (China), India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Kuwait, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom), Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestine, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Rep San Marino, Romania, Russia, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, South Africa, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, St Lucia, Sweden, Thailand, Togo, Türkiye, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

MIL Security OSI –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: The United Kingdom is deeply concerned about the worsening situation for children in conflicts around the world: UK statement at the UN Security Council

Source: United Kingdom – Government Statements

Speech

The United Kingdom is deeply concerned about the worsening situation for children in conflicts around the world: UK statement at the UN Security Council

Statement by Ambassador James Kariuki, UK Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, at the UN Security Council meeting on children and armed conflict.

The UK remains committed to supporting Syrians as they rebuild after years of suffering, with an inclusive transition that reflects a wide range of voices, including those of Syria’s youth.

I will make three points today.

First, the United Kingdom is deeply concerned about the worsening situation for children in conflicts around the world.

The Secretary-General’s report highlights a shocking 25% increase in grave violations against children in the past year.

We call on all parties to armed conflict to immediately end and prevent grave violations against children. Perpetrators need to be held to account.

We also echo the Secretary-General’s call for all listed parties to engage with the United Nations to develop and implement action plans to end and prevent grave violations.

Second, as we’ve heard today, cases of rape and other forms of sexual violence against children have increased by over a third in the past year.

In Sudan, children as young as one are reportedly subject to sexual violence.

The United Kingdom unequivocally condemns sexual violence against children and has championed the rights of child survivors and rallied global action through the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative.

Third, in too many conflicts, children are bearing the brunt of violence.

The conflict in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is having a catastrophic impact on children, with thousands killed and maimed as a result of Israeli military action.

Palestinians, desperate to feed their families, have been killed as they try to reach the few aid sites permitted by Israel.

This is unacceptable.

We call on Israel to abide by its obligations under international humanitarian law to protect children and urgently lift restrictions to enable aid to enter Gaza at scale.

Israeli children have also suffered as a result of Hamas’ despicable crimes, with children killed and taken hostage on 7 October.

The UK repeats its call for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all remaining hostages.

And Russia continues to kill and maim children and attack schools and hospitals in its illegal war in Ukraine.

We call on Russia to cease this unprovoked war and return forcibly deported children to Ukraine.

President, the United Kingdom remains steadfast in its commitment to the Children and Armed Conflict mandate and ending grave violations against children.

We need to do more to protect children. They are the next generation of leaders and peacebuilders. They are our future.

Updates to this page

Published 25 June 2025

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: HSE held the fifth School on Financial Technologies

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University Higher School of Economics – State University Higher School of Economics –

At the beginning of June Faculty of Computer Science HSE held its fifth anniversary Fintech School, organized basic department of PJSC Sberbank “Financial technologies and data analysis”More than 200 students, teachers and practitioners gathered in the HSE building on Pokrovsky Boulevard to listen to presentations by experts from major companies.

On the first day, Yevgeny Solovyov, Deputy Director of the Innovation Department of the National Payment Card System, and bachelor’s degree graduates presented their reports. “Software Engineering” Timofey Looze, Head of Product Analytics Group for Factoring at Ozon Bank, and Ekaterina Karavaeva, Research Intern Cloud and Mobile Technologies Labs Faculty of Computer Science at the Higher School of Economics, engineer-developer of the platform solutions department at T-Bank.

The second day of the school was opened by Sber’s Senior Vice President, Head of the Risks Block, Dzhangir Dzhangirov. He told how Sber makes decisions around the clock, what technologies operate “under the hood” of the company and what role AI plays in this. Sber was also represented by Evgeny Sokolovsky, Executive Director, Leader of the Antifraud in Lending to Individuals product and a Master’s degree teacher “Financial Technologies and Data Analysis” HSE Faculty of Computer Science. He gave a lecture entitled “Antifraud in the Age of AI Accomplices.”

At the end of the school, the participants listened to lectures from Fedor Pakhurov, a research intern project-training laboratory “Artificial Intelligence in Mathematical Finance” HSE Faculty of Computer Science, and speakers from Alfa-Bank – Victoria Baykova, head of the LLM development projects program, and Artem Karavaev, head of advanced analytics projects.

The presentations focused on the most relevant topics — financial innovations and technologies, including the use of artificial intelligence, blockchain, and APIs in fintech. Experts spoke about low-code solutions for accelerating business processes and data approaches that transform traditional banking. Special attention was paid to combating fraud in the AI era, as well as diffusion generative models and RAG systems. Automatic machine learning and its role in automating data analysis for business monetization were also discussed.

During the breaks between lectures, participants had the opportunity to get to know each other better, discuss the knowledge they had gained, and ask questions to industry experts.

Speakers and participants shared their impressions of the school.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
Trump signals willingness to send Ukraine more Patriot missiles after meeting Zelenskiy

Source: Government of India

Source: Government of India (4)

U.S. President Donald Trump indicated he would consider supplying Ukraine with more of the Patriot air-defence missiles Kyiv relies on to defend itself from mounting Russian strikes, after meeting his Ukrainian counterpart on Wednesday.

Both leaders said the 50-minute meeting on the sidelines of a NATO summit in The Hague was a positive step in a war now in its fourth year, and which Trump described as “more difficult than other wars”.

Trump, during a press conference, said the weapons are “very hard to get” but that “we are going to see if we can make some of them available.”

The U.S. leader also left open the possibility of providing more military aid to Kyiv, which has struggled to fend off grinding Russian advances on the battlefield in recent months.

Trump had previously shown no signs of resuming the donations of weaponry to Ukraine against Russia’s invasion that his predecessor Joe Biden had instituted.

Zelenskiy described the meeting as “long and substantive”, saying it covered “all the truly important issues”.

“We discussed how to achieve a ceasefire and a real peace,” he wrote on X. “We spoke about how to protect our people.”

Trump added that he would speak to Vladimir Putin again soon, saying the Russian president “really has to end that war”.

Zelenskiy has worked to rebuild relations with Washington after a disastrous White House meeting in February with Trump, whose overtures to Russia in recent months have concerned officials in Kyiv.

(Reuters)

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Our support to Ukraine remains unwavering: UK statement to the OSCE
Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments

Speech

Our support to Ukraine remains unwavering: UK statement to the OSCE

Speaking at the Annual Security Review Conference, Head of Security Policy Department, Jason Rheinberg, outlines why the UK remains committed to the OSCE and its principles.
Thank you, Mr Chair. I am pleased to be here at the OSCE, particularly on the fiftieth anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. Then, just as now, the Organisation and the Decalogue are foundation stones of strategic stability and security in the Euro-Atlantic area.

Let me begin by reiterating the United Kingdom’s unwavering support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity.

Russia’s full-scale invasion, now in its fourth year, remains the most serious threat to European security in decades. It is a blatant violation of the UN Charter and the core principles of this Organization – principles that every singe one of us has committed to uphold.

Despite the immense human and economic toll, Ukraine continues to resist. And I salute their bravery. Ukraine has also shown it is committed to peace: Ukraine has agreed to a full, unconditional ceasefire, as proposed by the US. Russia has failed to agree to the same and has instead ramped up its attacks on civilians in Ukraine – including yesterday’s ballistic missile strikes on the Dnipro region, which killed at least 20 civilians and injured nearly 300 others. Hitting nurseries, apartment blocks and bakeries, as we heard earlier today from the Ukrainian First Deputy Foreign Minister.

Here in Vienna, the UK continues – week in, week out – to hold Russia to account at the Permanent Council and Forum for Security Cooperation. We challenge the lies used to justify this illegal war and expose the brutality with which it is being waged.

As Chair of the Security Committee, the UK has also continued the good practice of using meetings to support Ukraine and its neighbours in dealing with the impacts of this war. Our workplan covers policing, border security, child protection and empowerment, critical infrastructure and cyber resilience. And it serves as a platform for sharing perspectives, best practice, and establishing a common security picture.

And listening to the interventions of our distinguished colleagues from Georgia and the Republic of Moldova, we call on Russia to withdraw all of its forces from the internationally recognised territory of both States.

Meanwhile, we are also responding to a broader and increasingly complex threat landscape. Many of the transnational threats we face are intensifying:

Malign hybrid activities – including information manipulation – are intensifying.

Cyber threats, in some cases enabled by AI, are targeting critical national infrastructure.

Organised criminals – more sophisticated than ever – are smuggling drugs, weapons, cultural property, and people across borders.

And the threat from terrorism and violent extremism has not diminished. The Islamic State Khorasan Province is growing in strength. At the same time, extreme right-wing groups are proliferating in online spaces.

Three key themes permeate these challenges: they highlight the wide-ranging impact of emerging technologies; they do not respect borders; and they demand a coordinated, and cross-dimensional response.

Mr Chair, the OSCE’s comprehensive approach to security has therefore never been more relevant. We must remain vigilant to the full spectrum of threats facing our region; of which, Russia’s illegal war against Ukraine remains the most urgent and serious.

Our Leaders mandated the OSCE to continue politico-military dialogue even in the hardest of times because they saw – and see – it is essential to manage risk, reduce misunderstanding and avoid miscalculation for the benefit of all our citizens. The OSCE has an extensive acquis and toolkit to do this work. But it relies on political will to be effective.

The UK has that will. We remain committed to the OSCE and to the principles that underpin it. We believe in the potential of this Organization to do much more to support peace, security, and cooperation. We need the will of all States to be able to do that.

And we are looking forward to continuing these conversations at the Helsinki Plus 50 forum later this summer. Thank you.

Updates to this page

Published 25 June 2025

Invasion of Ukraine

UK visa support for Ukrainian nationals

Move to the UK if you’re coming from Ukraine

Homes for Ukraine: record your interest

Find out about the UK’s response
MIL OSI United Kingdom –
June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress stressed the need for legislative guarantees for the development of productive forces of new quality

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

BEIJING, June 25 (Xinhua) — Zhao Leji, chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC), on Wednesday called on lawmakers to put forward more targeted and well-thought-out bills and initiatives to promote the development of new productive forces.

Zhao Leji, also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, made the remarks during an exchange of views with deputies attending the 16th session of the 14th NPC Standing Committee as non-voting participants.

Developing productive forces of new quality is of great significance for promoting high-quality development and advancing Chinese-style modernization, the NPC Standing Committee chairman noted.

According to him, deputies must always maintain close contact with the masses, carefully summarize, analyze and study the real situation on the ground, as well as the aspirations and expectations of the population, put forward practical and feasible proposals, reflect the opinion and wisdom of the people in their bills, initiatives and speeches during discussions.

Zhao Leji called on legislators to broaden their horizons to properly fulfill their parliamentary duties, implement the Constitution and laws in an exemplary manner, and voluntarily submit to the supervision of voters and the masses. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Two citizens planning a terrorist attack have been neutralized in Russia

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

St. Petersburg, June 25 (Xinhua) — Russia’s Federal Security Service on Wednesday reported the neutralization of two Russian citizens who were preparing a terrorist attack in the Moscow region.

Two Russian citizens were found near one of the gardening non-profit partnerships in the Moscow region. They were removing from a cache a homemade explosive device, which was planned to be used to commit a sabotage and terrorist act against one of the servicemen.

When detained, they offered armed resistance and were neutralized by return fire. At the scene, law enforcement officers found Makarov pistols and ammunition for them, as well as a ready-to-use homemade explosive device and communications equipment containing correspondence discussing the planned terrorist act. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: US President vows to strike Iran again if nuclear facilities are restored

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: People’s Republic of China in Russian – People’s Republic of China in Russian –

Source: People’s Republic of China – State Council News

THE HAGUE, June 25 (Xinhua) — The United States will strike again if Iran restores its nuclear facilities, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday.

D. Trump issued a corresponding warning on the sidelines of the NATO summit held in the Netherlands’ The Hague. Answering the question whether the US would strike again if Iran resumed its uranium enrichment program, D. Trump replied: “Of course.”

The American leader assured that Washington will not allow Tehran to continue enriching uranium, including allowing the possibility of preventing this by military means.

“We will not allow this. First of all, by military means. I think that eventually we will have some kind of relationship with Iran,” he said. –0–

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025

MIL-OSI Russia: IMF Executive Board Concludes the 2025 Article IV Consultation with Libya

Source: IMF – News in Russian

June 25, 2025

The continued political division and widespread fragilities have hindered the authorities’ capacity to control public expenditure and enact necessary reforms
The outlook is dominated by developments in the oil sector, and the country remains exposed to global downside risks
Controlling expenditure will be key to ensure sustainability and to achieving intergenerational equity

Washington, DC: The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV Consultation with Libya.^[1] The Executive Board’s decision was taken on a lapse-of-time basis.

Real GDP growth is estimated to have declined to around 2 percent in 2024 from 10 percent in 2023, driven by a contraction in the hydrocarbon sector. At the same time, non-hydrocarbon growth remained robust on the back of sustained government spending. Both the current and the fiscal accounts have swung from a surplus in 2023 to a deficit in 2024. Reported inflation remained low.

The outlook continues to be dominated by developments in the oil sector. Real GDP growth is projected to rebound in 2025, primarily driven by an expansion of oil production, before moderating to about 2 percent over the medium term. Non-hydrocarbon growth is set to remain between 5 and 6 percent in the medium term, supported by sustained government spending. The current account is slated to post a small surplus in 2025 (0.7 percent of GDP) before turning into a small deficit over the medium term, as oil prices remain subdued. The fiscal balance is projected to remain in deficit—albeit at a much lower level than in 2024—under the weight of continued large government spending.

Risks are tilted to the downside. Domestic risks stem from political instability, potentially evolving into active conflict, disrupting oil production and exports, and preventing progress on much-needed economic reforms. The economy is exposed to global downside risks through its heavy dependence on oil exports and a large import bill.

Executive Board Assessment^[2]

Economic activity and fiscal and external accounts are poised to remain heavily dependent on developments in the oil sector and subject to downside risks. Following a rebound in oil production, economic growth is expected to be in double digits in 2025, before moderating over the medium term. Despite the expected increase in oil exports, the current account and fiscal balances are set to remain in deficit over most of the forecast horizon, weighed down by the projected softening of oil prices and large fiscal spending. The outlook is subject to downside risks, including the potential intensification of domestic political tensions, which could disrupt oil production and exports, and adverse global economic and geopolitical developments, which would put additional downward pressure on oil prices. To mitigate these risks, accelerating reforms aimed at restraining fiscal spending and diversifying the economy away from oil will be crucial.

Controlling expenditure will be key to ensure sustainability and to achieve intergenerational equity. The authorities should remain steadfast in their efforts to agree on a unified budget that outlines priority spending and enhances the transparency and credibility of government fiscal operations. Until such an agreement is reached, pressures to increase spending on salaries and subsidies should be resisted. Over the medium term, a sizable adjustment will be required to set the fiscal position on a sustainable trajectory and preserve intergenerational equity. The adjustment should be carefully designed to rationalize current spending, particularly wages and energy subsidies, and mobilize non-oil revenues, while maintaining capital expenditures at levels that support economic diversification.

A well-designed monetary and exchange rate policy framework will be essential to help manage economic cycles and mitigate the depreciation pressures. Introducing a well-defined policy rate will enhance the CBL’s capacity in smoothing the economic cycle and alleviating pressures on the dinar and provide a benchmark for the pricing of credit by both conventional and Islamic banks. Phasing out the foreign exchange tax alongside other exchange restrictions in line with Libya’s Article VIII obligations will reduce distortions, lower economic agents’ need to resort to the parallel market and help unify the exchange rate.

Reforms are needed to reinforce the banking sector’s contribution to economic activity. Impediments to a more active role by banks in the economy remain pervasive. Introducing well-designed savings plans will help to reduce cash hoarding, expand banks’ deposit base, establish bank-customer relationships, and support the provision of credit to the private sector. Enhancing transparency and accountability within the banking sector and promoting financial literacy among the public would foster confidence in banks and increase their footprint in Libya’s economy. Strengthening the AML/CFT framework, including by aligning it with international standards, will be paramount to support the stability of correspondent banking relationships and to ensure that Libyan banks’ operations remain uninterrupted.

Structural and governance reforms would foster the emergence of a diversified, sustainable, and private sector-led economy. Forging a comprehensive reform program aimed at reducing dependence on oil revenues should be at the top of the authorities’ agenda. Key elements of the reform program should promote a more active engagement of the private sector in economic activity, including by enhancing the business environment and access to finance and introducing labor market measures that encourage private sector employment. Taking decisive actions to tackle corruption, strengthen governance, and enhance the rule of law will support economic diversification further.

There is a need to enhance data provision and statistical capacity. Data gaps continue to significantly hamper staff’s ability to conduct analysis and provide policy advice. There is a need for the authorities to implement the technical assistance recommendations in the areas of national accounts and external sector statistics, and monetary and financial statistics, and improve data collection and reporting.

Libya: Selected Economic and Financial Indicators, 2021-2030

(Main Export: Crude Oil)

				Est.	Proj.
	2021	2022	2023	2024	2025	2026	2027	2028	2029	2030
(Annual percentage change, unless otherwise indicated)
National income and prices
Real GDP (at market price)	28.3	-8.3	10.2	1.9	16.1	4.4	1.6	1.7	1.9	2.2
Nonhydrocarbon	5.9	7.9	-0.6	14.3	2.9	5.9	4.2	4.4	4.8	5.3
Hydrocarbon	45.0	-17.0	17.8	-5.5	25.6	3.6	0.0	0.0	0.0	0.0
Nominal GDP in billions of Libyan dinars 1/	159.0	208.2	211.9	234.3	251.2	254.2	265.5	277.9	292.0	306.6
Nominal GDP in billions of U.S. dollars 1/	35.2	43.3	44.0	48.4	47.2	47.7	49.8	52.2	54.8	57.6
Per capita GDP in thousands of U.S. dollars	5.2	6.4	6.4	7.0	6.8	6.8	7.0	7.3	7.5	7.8
GDP deflator	90.4	42.7	-7.6	3.6	-3.3	-3.1	2.8	2.9	3.1	2.8
CPI inflation
Period average	2.9	4.5	2.4	2.1	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3
End of period	3.7	4.1	1.8	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3	2.3
(In percent of GDP)
Central government finances
Revenues	79.5	85.8	73.6	69.8	67.9	61.1	58.5	56.6	54.5	52.4
Of which: Hydrocarbon	78.1	83.9	71.6	55.4	62.1	59.2	56.7	54.7	52.6	50.4
Expenditure and net lending	64.7	62.2	65.4	94.8	73.2	64.6	61.8	59.5	57.1	54.8
Of which: Capital expenditures	10.9	8.4	8.7	34.6	20.1	12.8	12.1	11.4	11.0	10.9
Overall balance	14.8	23.6	8.2	-25.1	-5.3	-3.5	-3.3	-2.9	-2.7	-2.5
Overall balance (in billions of U.S. dollars)	5.2	10.2	3.6	-12.1	-2.5	-1.7	-1.6	-1.5	-1.5	-1.4
Nonhydrocarbon balance	-63.3	-60.3	-63.4	-80.5	-67.5	-62.7	-60.0	-57.6	-55.2	-52.9
(Annual percentage change unless otherwise indicated)
Money and credit
Base Money	2.8	-16.9	47.9	6.6	36.8	9.0	9.2	10.0	10.2	16.7
Currency in circulation	-20.0	-1.4	37.6	13.3	10.5	2.2	1.5	5.0	5.0	5.0
Money and quasi-money	-20.3	12.0	28.3	12.2	4.0	4.5	4.5	5.0	5.0	5.0
Net credit to the government (Libyan Dinar, billion)	-94.1	-114.9	-110.9	-128.8	-130.4	-121.4	-112.7	-104.6	-96.8	-89.3
Credit to the economy (% of GDP)	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.1
(In billions of U.S. dollars, unless otherwise indicated)
Balance of payments
Exports	25.9	32.1	30.9	28.4	32.0	31.3	31.6	32.0	32.5	32.9
Of which: Hydrocarbon	24.5	30.0	28.8	26.3	29.9	29.1	29.2	29.7	30.3	29.9
Imports	17.0	17.2	17.7	21.6	21.9	20.5	20.6	20.8	21.0	21.2
Current account balance	5.7	10.0	8.0	-2.0	0.3	-0.3	-0.2	-0.2	-0.1	-0.1
(As percent of GDP)	16.1	23.2	18.3	-4.2	0.7	-0.5	-0.4	-0.3	-0.3	-0.1
Capital Account (including E&O)	-7.0	-5.3	-3.8	6.5	-2.8	-1.4	-1.4	-1.4	-1.3	-1.3
Overall balance 2/	1.1	4.7	4.3	4.5	-2.5	-1.7	-1.6	-1.5	-1.5	-1.4
Reserves
Gross official reserves	69.4	74.1	78.4	82.9	81.1	79.4	77.8	76.3	74.8	73.4
In months of next year’s imports	32.2	32.8	34.2	29.6	31.0	32.3	31.5	30.5	29.6	28.8
Gross official reserves in percentage of Broad Money	317.0	318.2	261.3	250.3	262.9	246.4	230.9	215.6	201.4	188.2
Total foreign assets	79.7	84.2	88.5	93.6	91.6	89.7	87.9	86.2	84.5	82.9
Exchange rate
Official exchange rate (LD/US$, period average)	4.5	4.8	4.8	4.8	…	…	…	…	…	…
Parallel market exchange rate (LD/US$, period average)	5.1	5.1	5.2	6.9	…	…	…	…	…	…
Parallel market exchange rate (LD/US$, end of period)	5.0	5.2	6.1	6.4	…	…	…	…	…	…
Crude oil production (millions of barrels per day – mbd)	1.2	1.0	1.2	1.1	1.4	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	1.5
Of which: Exports	1.0	0.8	1.0	0.9	1.1	1.2	1.2	1.2	1.2	1.2
Crude oil price (US$/bbl) 3/	64.4	89.6	75.0	73.6	66.9	62.4	62.7	63.6	64.3	64.9

Sources: Libyan authorities; and IMF staff estimates and projections. 1/ Nominal GDP data are at market prices. 2/ Includes revaluation of gold holdings of U$10.5 billion in 2024. 3/ The crude oil price was adjusted for Libya up to 2024.

[2] The Executive Board takes decisions under its lapse-of-time procedure when the Board agrees that a proposal can be considered without convening formal discussions.

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

PRESS OFFICER: Mayada Ghazala

Phone: +1 202 623-7100Email: MEDIA@IMF.org

https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2025/06/25/pr-25217-libya-imf-executive-board-concludes-the-2025-article-iv-consultation

MIL OSI

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025

MIL-OSI China: Chinese defense minister meets with guests attending SCO Defense Ministers’ Meeting 2025-06-25 23:08:14 Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun on Wednesday held individual meetings in east China’s Qingdao city with his counterparts from Belarus, Iran, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia.
Source: People’s Republic of China – Ministry of National Defense
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MIL OSI China News –
June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Potential for the development of Russian business education: a meeting with representatives of the VkusVill company was held at the State University of Management

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: State University of Management – Official website of the State –

On June 25, 2025, an introductory meeting of the university management with representatives of the VkusVill Joint Stock Company was held at the State University of Management.

During the meeting, the founder and co-owner of the Vkusvill retail chain Andrey Krivenko briefly spoke about the company’s history and its main principles, cooperation with Roskachestvo and clients among medium-sized businesses, which today is about 500-600 companies. The guest expressed interest in cooperation with universities in the field of business education.

Rector of the State University of Management Vladimir Stroyev expressed a reciprocal interest and spoke about the history of the business school at our university, in particular about the Business Games Center, which operated in the 1980s, about the outstanding economists Dmitry Lvov, Georgy Kleiner and Sergey Glazyev, who always focused on the domestic economy in their work.

“Unfortunately, many universities of the new era that were engaged in business education were oriented towards the West. GUU was always against such a scheme, although it established strong partnerships. For example, we had a Russian-Dutch faculty for a long time. But we never worked for the brain drain,” the rector said.

Vice-Rector Dmitry Bryukhanov also recalled that it was at our university that the first Russian textbook on business management was written. Dmitry Yuryevich spoke about the foreign internships that the State University of Management offers to graduates of the presidential management training program, and expressed interest in opening a master’s program taking into account the VkusVill methodology.

The parties exchanged contacts and agreed to define working groups to specify areas of potential cooperation in the development of Russian business education. After which the guests were given an introductory tour of the SUM territory.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI United Kingdom: Climate Innovation Forum 2025: keynote speech by Ed Miliband

Source: United Kingdom – Executive Government & Departments 2

Speech

Climate Innovation Forum 2025: keynote speech by Ed Miliband

Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Ed Miliband, speaks at the Climate Innovation Forum during London Climate Action Week.

Thank you, Mark so much for that introduction.

And I want to thank Climate Action for hosting us here.

And I’m really excited to be part of London Climate Action Week this year – this is the biggest yet.

700 events.

Nearly 50,000 attendees.

Governments, cities, civil society, businesses, investors and trade unions from all around the world, particularly those from overseas you are so welcome to be here.

And the Climate Innovation Forum, I’m told is the headline event of the week – the Superbowl of LCAW – and I’m delighted to follow the star-studded cast of speakers you’ve heard from this morning.

And I know you have many more ahead of you this afternoon, which I think makes me the half-time show – they tried for Beyonce but they couldn’t get her so they ended up with me.

The argument I want to make today is this:

First, in the UK we are doubling down on climate action because it is the right choice for today’s generations as well as those of the future.

Climate action is how we protect our way of life and make people better off today with energy security, lower bills, good jobs and economic growth.

Second, despite the challenges, we should be determined not defeatist about the future.

Many countries are acting on this crisis because they recognise the opportunities it presents, as well as the gravity of the threat.

Third, to keep making progress on the road to COP30 and beyond we need to build the global coalition for climate action.

That means the actions and voices of the people in this room – the people delivering this transition – really really matter.

This is a fight for the future involving civil society, trade unions, businesses, and the public at large.

And we intend to win it.

So first, just to say something about the UK, the starting point for our government here is our mission to make Britain a clean energy superpower by delivering clean power, a clean energy system, by 2030 and accelerating to net zero across the economy.

Our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer says this mission is in our government’s DNA.

And why does he say that?

Because we know the urgency of the threat to our way of life.

In the last decade we’ve had the 10 hottest years on record globally.

We should be clear what this means here and around the world:

Floods, heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires.

Over the last week in this country, we’ve seen much hotter weather than was normal a few decades ago as many of you will have experienced.

Communities across the UK are already facing the consequences of flooding, including last year.

And we have seen thousands of heat-related deaths in recent summers.

So the urgency of the climate imperative is clearer than ever.

But that urgency is not the only reason to act.

It has now been matched by the urgency of an energy security and bills imperative.

Here in the UK, family finances, business finances and the public finances were hit after Russia invaded Ukraine and fossil fuel prices rocketed. And we’ve seen in recent weeks that instability globally breeds instability in the energy markets here at home.

So ours as a government is a hard-headed determination to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets with cheaper, clean, homegrown energy that we control. This is an essential part of the argument to make for climate action and energy security that’s not just true for Britain, it’s true for many countries around the world.

And that’s not the only argument you can make.

There is also a once in a generation opportunity to create a new generation of good, well-paid jobs with strong trade unions and give existing industries a long-term future.

And in the UK if you’ll allow me again, it is an incredibly exciting time – we recently had our Spending Review which set spending budgets for the coming three years. Our Chancellor Rachel Reeves showed her commitment with the most significant investment in homegrown clean energy in the UK’s history.

We’ve got the biggest nuclear building programme in a generation.

With Sizewell C on the Suffolk coast.

Small Modular Reactors with Rolls Royce.

On the site of an old coal-fired power station, a new prototype nuclear fusion plant at West Burton in Nottinghamshire.

Britain’s carbon capture industry, I know there’ll be people here from the carbon capture industry, in Scotland and Humberside, alongside Teesside and the North West.

A new regional hydrogen network for transport, storage, industry and power.

Our new publicly owned energy company Great British Energy supporting clean energy supply chains from offshore wind to cable manufacturing.

A Warm Homes Plan upgrading millions of homes across Britain – delivering jobs as we cut bills and emissions.

And investing in tree planting, peatlands and nature recovery across our countryside and towns.

And the reason I say this is that this is relevant not just to the UK but also to people here from other parts of the world.

Place by place.

Town by town.

City by city.

This is the sound of the jobs of the future arriving.

This is how we as a government intend to win the argument for the clean energy revolution.

And together with you we will make it happen.

The second point I want to make is that, while our ambition is to lead at home it is also in our national interest to lead globally.

The UK is less than 1% of annual emissions.

But for this government, this is not an excuse for inaction but an imperative to work with other countries.

The UK passed the world leading Climate Change Act in 2008 when I was last Energy Secretary and now nearly 60 countries across the world have similar legislation.

That is the power, I believe, of example.

And I say to everyone in this room it’s time, if I can say this gently, to talk about the progress we have made together as a world as well as how far we have to travel.

Of course, we should be deeply alarmed about the scale of the climate crisis.

And we must acknowledge that we are way off track from where we need to be as a world.

But we should not be defeatist because look at the progress we have already made.

And the reason I say this, and I’ll talk about the progress in a minute, is because the challenge we face is no longer just responding to people who deny the problem of the climate crisis or the people wanting to delay action, but also those who say:

“There’s no point in acting because people have been talking about this for decades and nothing ever seems to change.”

We have a duty to explain the reasons for hope not despair.

And let me just give you some examples of why I think we can do that. Ahead of the Paris Agreement in 2015, the projections were for up to 4 degrees of warming. Actually, in 2010, up to 5 degrees.

Today, these estimates are no longer credible because the world has moved.

In 2015 when the Paris Agreement was negotiated no major economy had a net zero target, now 80% of global GDP is covered by net zero commitments.

At the time of Paris the majority of energy investment was in fossil fuels, last year over $2 trillion was invested in clean energy – twice as much as fossil fuels.

That is the progress we have made.

And I say this very directly, if we don’t talk about that progress, nobody else is going to – we have a duty to do so.

But we know how much further we have to travel. So as a country, the UK is determined to lead with the power of example again.

COP30 is now less than five months away and we haven’t got a moment to waste.

Every organisation represented in this room has a role to play.

Governments in providing direction and leadership.

Businesses in driving action in the real economy.

Investors in helping unlock the finance we need.

Trade unions and civil society in holding us all to account. And that’s a really important role.

A whole economy effort.

Working together across borders.

Global North and Global South.

And I pledge the UK will play our part.

That is why the Prime Minister announced an ambitious, 1.5 aligned NDC of 81% reductions by 2035 at COP29 last year.

That is why we are helping to scale climate finance, including through our Global Clean Power Alliance.

And today here at the Guildhall I can announce another step forward.

We will take the next steps on implementing our manifesto commitment on mandatory 1.5 degrees-aligned transition plans for major companies and financial institutions.

Today we are launching consultations on how transition planning and sustainability reporting can ensure public and private investors drive our country and the world towards climate and clean energy. For those of you who don’t work in this space, this is incredibly important. If we can get private finance driving in the right direction, not just in the UK, across the world including the Global South, we can make a real difference.

And I believe, speaking from the City of London, it is time to mobilise the City of London, secure its place, which it already has, as the sustainable finance capital of the world and drive private investment into clean energy.

The right thing for Britain and the right thing to do for the world.

Let me just end with this:

We obviously live in uncertain and unstable times.

All of us in this room are very aware of the challenge to the agenda we are talking about today.

But I want to end by saying to everyone here today, every one of whom can make a difference, we don’t just have a choice we have a duty to choose hope over despair.

There are many people in our country and our world who see the climate and nature crisis affecting their lives but have no power in their hands to make a difference. All of us in this building have the power in our different ways to make a difference.

Pessimism is a luxury we cannot afford.

To despair, to step back, to lose confidence would be to let down the people who depend on us—today and in future generations.

Despair and defeatism will not create a single job or protect a single person from the effects of the climate crisis.

And turning our back on action would not only be a betrayal of future generations but today’s generations too.

Now there are those in Britain who would turn their backs on the opportunities of the clean energy transition and what it can do for energy security, good jobs and doing the right thing by future generations.

The UK government, I pledge to you, will face down these defenders of a failed status quo in our country and merchants of misinformation.

And the way we will do this is show how together we can ensure better lives for people today and protect future generations.

Governments, civil society, businesses, trade unions.

This is the coalition, all of you, that gives me the greatest cause for hope about the future.

I thank you so much for being in London. And I look forward to working with you in the months and years ahead to do great things for our country and great things for the world.

Thank you so much.

Updates to this page

Published 25 June 2025

MIL OSI United Kingdom –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: Marat Khusnullin: The building of the Baltic Higher School of Musical and Theatre Arts as part of the cultural cluster was put into operation

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Government of the Russian Federation – An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.

Marat Khusnullin at a meeting with the President on the progress of creating cultural, educational and museum complexes.

On Oktyabrsky Island in Kaliningrad, as part of a cluster, a building of the branch of the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts – the Baltic Higher School of Musical and Theatre Arts – was put into operation. Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin reported this to President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on the progress of creating cultural, educational and museum complexes.

“In general, the project, in terms of its parameters – the size of the area, the number of objects, architectural solutions, the geography of implementation, the latest multimedia and technological equipment – is the largest cultural construction project in the history of the country. We hope that all the objects that are being created within the cluster will become new cultural symbols of Russia. One of such clusters is being developed in Kaliningrad. Another building, a branch of RGISI – the Baltic Higher School of Musical and Theatre Arts, has been put into operation there. It will soon begin accepting its first students,” said Marat Khusnullin.

Earlier, a branch of the Tretyakov Gallery opened as part of the cluster in Kaliningrad. In addition, branches of the Moscow State Academy of Choreography and the Central Music School – the Baltic Academy of Performing Arts, a comprehensive school with a swimming pool, two boarding schools for students and a dormitory for students, as well as five apartment buildings for teachers and artists of the cultural cluster are ready. Construction of a branch of the Bolshoi Theater with a production and warehouse complex is ongoing. All cluster facilities with a total area of about 127 thousand square meters will create a single urban space with a zone for walking and recreation.

The customer for the construction of the clusters is the National Cultural Heritage Foundation for Social and Cultural Projects, and the general contractor is the Stroytransgaz group of companies.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025
MIL-OSI Russia: ADF graduate Igor Mikhnevich is among the best graduates of St. Petersburg universities

Translation. Region: Russian Federal

Source: Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering – Saint Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering –

On June 25, the traditional ceremony of honoring the best graduates of higher educational institutions of St. Petersburg took place in the atrium of the Commandant’s House of the Peter and Paul Fortress. Among them was Igor Mikhnevich, a graduate of the Automobile and Road Faculty of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering.

Recognition Ceremony

Let us recall that this event has been held since 2003 to recognize the merits of university graduates. Its organizers are the Committee on Youth Policy and Interaction with Public Organizations and the Council of Rectors of Universities of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region.

This year, 60 universities in the city selected their best graduate to participate in the ceremony. The selection criteria included academic, scientific and social success, as well as initiative and leadership qualities.

The gathering was greeted by the Vice-Governor of St. Petersburg Natalia Chechina. The graduates were presented with letters of gratitude and commemorative bronze statues in the form of a sphinx – a symbol of wisdom, intelligence and fortitude.

In honor of the graduates, a midday shot was fired from the Naryshkin Bastion cannon.

Igor Mikhnevich: “A favorite thing always leads to success”

Igor Mikhnevich admits that four years ago he chose his future profession and university consciously: he realized that he wanted to work and develop in the transport sector, and SPbGASU is the best specialized university that will give him the opportunity to obtain all the necessary professional competencies.

“I chose the “Transport Process Technology” program based on my experience: I have been working at the St. Petersburg State Institution “Transport Organizer” since my first year and have worked my way up from a motor transport dispatcher to a specialist in the transport infrastructure department, so I plan to dedicate my work to the passenger transport of St. Petersburg. I got into this organization after winning the first grant competition of St. Petersburg State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Then my academic supervisor suggested taking statistical data from the “Transport Organizer”, where the head of the department where I now work not only provided me with the data, but also offered me a job. During my studies, I combined my studies with work: it was often not easy, but over the years I was able to grow professionally,” Igor said.

The student also managed to engage in scientific work related to urban passenger transport, including rapid bus transportation and on-demand transport. Both topics are very relevant, since such services are just beginning to appear in our country. The essence of his research was to study foreign experience in implementing such transport systems, to derive certain dependencies and to assess the feasibility of implementing them in our country and in St. Petersburg in particular.

“High-speed bus transportation is a “metro” on the ground, where instead of the usual trains, a bus rolling stock is used. This is convenient in the conditions of a modern metropolis, since less money needs to be spent on the infrastructure for such transport. The essence of on-demand transport is fast and convenient delivery of passengers by buses without a fixed route, a kind of symbiosis of taxi services and a regular bus. Such a service is convenient in suburban areas, where the frequency of public transport is low, but the demand for transportation is quite high,” Igor explained.

He is sure that you just need to love your work, perceive it not as something due, but as a hobby, because when you do what you love, it is much easier to achieve results. And he will remember his studies for their eventful semesters and the acquisition of many new friends.

Please note: This information is raw content directly from the source of the information. It is exactly what the source states and does not reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.

MIL OSI Russia News –

June 26, 2025

Category: Russian Federation

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

About Summer EBT

A tight timeline

Goal setting

Innovation in action

Communications and community engagement

2025 Summer EBT began May 22

Resources:

The UN veto problem

Bombing Iran

The history of the carnival

Growing demand for anti-diabetic medications and peptide supplements

Operational highlights

The United Kingdom is deeply concerned about the worsening situation for children in conflicts around the world: UK statement at the UN Security Council

Updates to this page

Our support to Ukraine remains unwavering: UK statement to the OSCE

Updates to this page

Invasion of Ukraine

IMF Communications Department

MEDIA RELATIONS

Climate Innovation Forum 2025: keynote speech by Ed Miliband

Updates to this page

Recognition Ceremony

Igor Mikhnevich: “A favorite thing always leads to success”