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Theresa Fallon “Many people would like to see China play a constructive role, but I think now that we're in the third year of the war, this idea is wearing a bit thin.” 26 minutes ago
Mahjoob Zweiri “What we have witnessed in the past few hours is that they talk about an agreement on the first stage. It could be understood that Hamas wants to release itself from the pressure globally, including the United States. So, they are giving concessions on the first stage, which leads to 40 days of ceasefire and exchange of captives. I think 33 old and sick captives. And then moving on to other stages. But we are seeing that we are going back to the main conditions, which means we are still talking about the main principles [complete ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza] that Hamas talked about. As the time of some sort of agreement on the first stage came, the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to say actually, there is no agreement: We will go to Rafah regardless of any agreement. It reflects the divisions within the Israelis and crisis within the Israeli politics. On the other hand, Hamas has been more cautious. They do not want to show real progress made but they also do not want to say things have not changed. I think it's obvious some change has happened otherwise we would not expect [CIA chief] William Burns to be in the region.” 33 minutes ago

Theresa Fallon “Many people would like to see China play a constructive role, but I think now that we're in the third year of the war, this idea is wearing a bit thin.” 26 minutes ago
Mahjoob Zweiri “What we have witnessed in the past few hours is that they talk about an agreement on the first stage. It could be understood that Hamas wants to release itself from the pressure globally, including the United States. So, they are giving concessions on the first stage, which leads to 40 days of ceasefire and exchange of captives. I think 33 old and sick captives. And then moving on to other stages. But we are seeing that we are going back to the main conditions, which means we are still talking about the main principles [complete ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza] that Hamas talked about. As the time of some sort of agreement on the first stage came, the Israeli military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came to say actually, there is no agreement: We will go to Rafah regardless of any agreement. It reflects the divisions within the Israelis and crisis within the Israeli politics. On the other hand, Hamas has been more cautious. They do not want to show real progress made but they also do not want to say things have not changed. I think it's obvious some change has happened otherwise we would not expect [CIA chief] William Burns to be in the region.” 33 minutes ago

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“There are many internal issues, from battling the coronavirus pandemic, to rise of populism, to the rebellion of individual member states and to ultimately confusion about when the EU can join forces and think strategically about Europe as a whole. The EU accession process has become hostage to the crisis of individual states. EU does not have a mechanism to deal with internal issues, because the consensus of all 27 member states is needed for such decisions, such as confirming the negotiations framework for the two countries. So if any problem arises, there are no inside mechanisms, except diplomacy and background diplomacy, to unblock such problems. It also shows that the accession process itself is not separated from bilateral problems that maybe exist between two countries, and because not separated, that is one of the biggest issues. Any of these problems can affect and is affecting the EU’s accession process at any point for candidate countries.”

europeanwesternbalkans.com/2020/12/21/...
Type of Source: News

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EU enlargement

EU enlargement - Issues

EU membership for the countries of the Western Balkans