Cooperation In Europe News

HGK Shipping and the Port of Rotterdam signed a long-term cooperation agreement to promote sustainable concepts for inland waterway services leading to and from seaports. The document primarily focuses on the energy revolution and logistics for hydrogen as well as reducing CO2 emissions by using innovative drive concepts and digitalization. These topics are crucially important to ensure reliable and sustainable supplies for industry. The agreement therefore ensures that stable…

Russia said on Thursday the flagship of its Black Sea fleet was seriously damaged and its crew evacuated following an explosion that a Ukrainian official said was the result of a missile strike.Russia's defence ministry said a fire on the Moskva missile cruiser caused ammunition to blow up, Interfax news agency reported.It did not say what caused the fire but Maksym Marchenko, the Ukrainian governor of the region around the Black Sea port of Odesa, said the Moskva had been hit…

The Dutch Finance Ministry said on Thursday it was "disappointed" with an EU Commission order to do away with corporate tax exemptions for six ports, including Rotterdam, Europe's largest. The measure puts the Netherlands at a disadvantage, the government said in a statement, calling on the Commission to ensure fair competition. European Union regulators told Dutch authorities on Thursday to scrap a corporate tax exemption for the ports and also ordered Belgium and France to align their port taxation systems with the bloc's state aid rules. "The Commission's decisions today regarding the Netherlands, Belgium and France make clear that if port operators generate profits from economic activities these should be taxed," European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said.

Ukraine reinforced its defenses at the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov on Thursday in anticipation of a rebel attack amid reports that pro-Russian separatists were advancing on the city with tanks and artillery. Further north, in the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, renewed shelling killed at least one woman and blew huge holes in residential buildings, a day before talks between Kiev and the separatists on a possible ceasefire. A Ukrainian soldier told Reuters he had seen the separatists advancing on Mariupol, a city of about 500,000, with tanks, armored personnel carriers and artillery. His comments could not be independently confirmed. A Reuters witness heard about a dozen blasts and saw plumes of black smoke rising a few km (miles) to the east of Mariupol.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday dismissed talk of a new Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine and denied trying to rebuild the Soviet Union after reclaiming Crimea. In an interview with Reuters and other international news agencies in a grandiose palace outside St Petersburg, Putin blamed the violence and political instability in Ukraine on the West and warned that sanctions would rebound on the United States and the European Union. The crisis has plunged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War ended in 1991. But making a new pledge to work with whoever is elected president in Ukraine on Sunday, Putin called for dialogue with the West and hoped the European Union and the United States were ready for compromise.

The European Union imposed sanctions on Monday on a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the commander of Russian paratroopers as well as two confiscated Crimean energy companies, raising pressure on Moscow over its actions in Ukraine. Putin's first deputy chief of staff, Vyacheslav Volodin, and Vladimir Shamanov, the commander of Russian airborne troops that took part in Russia's occupation ofUkraine's Crimea region in March, were among 13 people added to the EU's sanctions list. Volodin, a wealthy former lawyer and veteran political strategist, is already on the U.S. sanctions list. The latest additions bring to 61 the number of Russians and Ukrainians the EU has targeted with asset freezes and visa bans.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has dispatched a negotiating team to try to secure the release of observers being held by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, a German government source said on Saturday. "A negotiating team from the OSCE is on the way to the region," said the source, declining to give further details, including exactly where they were heading. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Writing by Madeline Chambers; Editing by Victoria Bryan)

A mediator from Europe's OSCE security body headed to eastern Ukraine on Saturday seeking the surrender of pro-Russian separatists as the Kiev government declared an Easter truce following a peace accord with Moscow. Gunmen occupying public buildings in Donetsk and other Russian-speaking border towns refuse to recognise an accord in Geneva on Thursday by which Russia, Ukraine and Kiev's U.S. and EU allies agreed that the OSCE should oversee the disarmament of militants and the evacuation of occupied facilities and streets. The coming days may determine whether unrest following the overthrow ofUkraine's pro-Moscow president can be contained. Russia, which annexed Crimea last month in the worst East-West crisis since the Cold War, denies running the separatists or planning to invade.

Moscow stocks fall 10 pct, rouble down 2.5 pct over war jitters. Ukraine border guards say build-up of Russian armoured vehicles near Crimea. EU ministers meet but no immediate sanctions expected. Russia took a financial hit over its military intervention in neighbouring Ukraine, with its markets and currency plunging on Monday as President Vladimir Putin's forces tightened their grip on the Russian-speaking Crimea region. The Moscow stock market fell by 10 percent and the central bank spent $10 billion of its reserves to prop up the rouble as investors took fright at escalating tensions with the West over the former Soviet republic.