Brazil’s Lula urges Macron to seal Mercosur trade deal


By AFP
June 5, 2025


Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron remain divided on trade issues - Copyright POOL/AFP

 Christophe PETIT TESSON
Toni CERDÀ, Cécille FEUILLATRE and Erin FLANAGAN

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva urged his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Thursday to “finalise” an EU trade deal with four South American countries, in a visit that underscored key policy differences between the two allies.

France has opposed ratifying the so-called Mercosur agreement, a trade deal between the European Union and four South American nations including Brazil, over fears a flow of lower-cost agricultural goods would outcompete Europe’s farmers.

“Open your heart a little to this opportunity to finalise this agreement with our dear Mercosur,” Lula said during a state visit to Paris.

“This agreement would be the strongest response our regions could offer in the face of the uncertainty caused by the return of unilateralism and tariff protectionism,” he added, referring to sweeping tariffs imposed or threatened by US President Donald Trump.

Trump, who argues that his tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, has hit the EU with multiple waves of levies.

For his part, Macron reiterated his concerns about the deal’s impact on French farmers, citing differences in environmental regulations between the EU and Mercosur countries.

“I don’t know how to explain to my farmers that, at a time when I am asking them to comply with more standards, I am opening up my market on a massive scale to people who do not comply at all,” Macron said.

“Because what will happen? It won’t be better for the climate, but we will completely destroy our agriculture,” he added.

“That is why I said earlier we must improve this deal.”

Germany, Spain, Portugal and others have welcomed the accord with Mercosur bloc members Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, but France has said from the start it is not acceptable in its current form.

To be approved, the deal must receive the backing of at least 15 of the 27 EU states, representing a minimum of 65 percent of the population.



-‘Premeditated genocide’-



This marks the first state visit to France by a Brazilian president since 2012, and comes just months ahead of the United Nations’ COP30 climate conference, which Brazil will host in November.

While both Macron and Lula praised the strong ties between France and Brazil, Thursday’s press conference highlighted diverging views over the war in Gaza and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Lula accused Israel of carrying out “premeditated genocide” in the Palestinian territory of Gaza.

“(It is) a premeditated genocide from a far-right government that is waging a war against the interests of its own people,” he said at the joint press conference with Macron.

While Lula has previously used the term “genocide”, Macron has refused to, saying last month it was not for a “political leader to use to term but up to historians to do so when the time comes”.

France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

Macron said that he expected the conference would take steps “towards recognising Palestine”, without being more specific. Brazil recognised a Palestinian state in 2010.



-‘Aggressor, victim’-



On the war in Ukraine, Macron stressed that Kyiv and Moscow should not be treated as equals, in contrast to Brazil’s proclaimed neutral stance on the conflict.

“There is an aggressor, which is Russia. There is a victim, which is Ukraine. We all want peace, but we cannot treat the two belligerents equally,” said Macron, stressing that Brazil had “a very important role to play” in finding a solution to the conflict.

Lula said he hoped to reinforce Brazil’s ties with Russia during his May 9 trip to Moscow, where he was marking 80 years since the defeat of Nazi Germany alongside some two dozen other world leaders.

“My visit here is to strengthen and rebuild our strategic partnership,” Lula said during a meeting where he exchanged a hug with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

The European Union warned its members not to travel to Moscow for the event.

France has been one of the most vocal supporters of Kyiv since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

 

Noise pollution could cause stress to and disrupt the fauna of Antarctica, according to a study by Udelar and UPF

The study recommends including measures against noise pollution in the management plans of Antarctica’s protected areas

Universitat Pompeu Fabra - Barcelona

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Noise pollution generated by human activity in certain areas of Antarctica could be having a negative effect on the well-being of the area’s fauna, according to a study by the University of the Republic of Uruguay (Udelar) and Pompeu Fabra University (UPF). The study notes that the noise generated by humans could be a significant stressor for the fauna of Antarctica and warns that the negative consequences have been underestimated so far, compared to those caused by other human activities in this part of the planet.

Increasing human activity in the Antarctic, including scientific and logistical operations, has raised concerns about the incidence of human-generated noise on Antarctic ecosystems. The study by Udelar and UPF, published in a recent article in the journal Ecological Informatics (Science Direct), analyses the impact of noise caused by an energy generator on Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) no. 150 on Ardley Island. 

The study focuses specifically on examining whether the noise caused by the power generator, located 2 km from Ardley Island, can be heard from the protected area, inhabited by multiple animal species. The island is an important breeding ground for seabirds (penguins, petrels, terns and skuas). It is also visited by marine mammals (different species of seal, Antarctic sea lions, elephant seals...), which go there to feed or moult.

The results of the research have corroborated that the sound made by the generator is clearly perceptible from the ASPA, but subsequent research will have to corroborate the specific effects that this could be having on the behaviour of the different animal species living there.

One of the study researchers is Martín Rocamora, a member of the Music Technology research group (MTG) of the UPF Department of Engineering, as well as being linked to the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Udelar Faculty of Engineering. The other co-authors of the article are from the Uruguayan university and include Lucía Ziegler as principal investigator (Laboratory of Functional Ecoacoustics of the Department of Ecology and Environmental Management of the Eastern Region University Centre, Udelar, Maldonado); and Maximiliano Anzibar Fialho (Institute of Physics of the Faculty of Sciences, Udelar).

Noise caused by humans can affect animals’ communication and social interaction, which is dependent on acoustic signals

The researchers explain that acoustic signals are fundamental for the communication and social interaction of various species and that previous research had already found that noise made by humans is a major environmental stressor for animals. However, until now most studies on the subject had focused on marine ecosystems, while the present one focuses on the effects of noise pollution on terrestrial species.

To this end, the researchers recorded the sounds of certain areas of Ardley Island during the summers of 2022 and 2023. The island is located very close to the Fildes peninsula, one of the most populated areas of Antarctica due to the fact that several bases of different countries are located there.

For this specific study, two of the recording devices of the extensive network of sensors available to the research team were used. One is on the Fildes peninsula, 300 m from the generator that caused the noise; and the other, on Ardley Island itself, 2 km southeast of the aforementioned sound source. Each device was programmed to record five minutes of audio per hour.

It was thus possible to determine the specific acoustic characteristics of the power generator and the differences with respect to other noise sources such as land vehicles, ships and aircraft. The relationship of the recorded sound with the wind speed and direction at any moment was also analysed.

The research has led to the conclusion that the soundscape of Ardley Island is altered by the presence of the power generator, a source of nearby noise, which may affect the fauna of this protected area. In this regard, Martín Rocamora (UPF) explains: “Animals typically respond to noise exposure by altering their usual behaviour, including changes in the type and frequency of vocalization and efficiency in foraging and responding to predators. They may also develop hearing loss or increased levels of the stress hormone”. Regarding the incidence of the wind, the study establishes that it is the main barrier to sound reaching the island.

Improve the management plans for Antarctica’s protected areas to reduce noise pollution

The researchers warn of the need to increase awareness of the impact of noise pollution on Antarctic ecosystems and to introduce improvements to this end in the management plans of the ASPAs. Therefore, they consider there is a need to introduce acoustic monitoring strategies in environmental monitoring programmes and to implement measures to mitigate the impact of human noise in the region.

Reference article:

Maximiliano Anzibar Fialho, Martín Rocamora, Lucía Ziegler. Detection of anthropogenic noise pollution as a possible chronic stressor in Antarctic Specially Protected Area N°150, Ardley Island. Ecological Informatics, Volume 87, 2025. 103117, ISSN 1574-9541. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoinf.2025.103117

---

Journal

Ecological Informatics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecoinf.2025.103117 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Detection of anthropogenic noise pollution as a possible chronic stressor in Antarctic Specially Protected Area N°150, Ardley Island

U$

Law, Not Crime, Has Come from South of the Border

by David Swanson / June 3rd, 2025

Not so much criminals as the foundations of the rule of law — that is what has infiltrated the United States from Latin America. That seems to be a major thread running through Greg Grandin’s wonderful new history of the hemisphere, America, América: A New History of the New World. It’s a book you can dive back into repeatedly, not to mention fantasize about someone compacting it into a short slideshow for the benefit of the President of the United States.

British settler colonists in North America had their preachers and writers, but those individuals had a tendency to pretend Native Americans were not real, did not exist, perhaps never had existed, or simply didn’t count for much on empty land, or didn’t count because they were to be pushed out or eliminated rather than lived with. Spain, in contrast, generated a tremendous raging debate between supporters and denouncers of its killing, robbery, theft, enslavement, and terrorizing of indigenous people. Spain broke new ground, according to Grandin, in producing criticism of its own atrocities as it conquered South America.

In very rough terms, this is similar to the contrast between U.S. media noncoverage of the genocide in Gaza and Israeli media’s inclusion of denunciations of the same. It’s one thing to live where you can’t escape drunk country musicians singing about being free, and perhaps something else to live where you can hear voices saying some of the things that most need saying. In both cases, the brutal atrocities go on, but in one, there are seeds of some future change planted.

Voices like those of Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas laid the foundations for modern international law, but did so very differently from Dutch and English writers. The Spanish tradition is at least as tied up in religion as the English, and has certainly needed to evolve during these past four or five hundred years. But Grandin identifies a basis for a future pluralistic society, even in the belief that populations were diverse yet all descended from Adam and Eve. One can also, I think, see in the tradition of public confessions something of a precursor of truth and reconciliation commissions. In Latin America, unlike the North, dying conquistadores in the sixteenth century commonly confessed their part in the Conquest and paid restitution. NB: They did not admit to having strayed from proper conquest behavior into illicit atrocities. Rather, they admitted to participation in a Conquest understood to have been wrong and evil in its totality.

Seen from a perspective that includes Latin America, Las Casas — who went beyond Erasmus, Moore, or anybody else — begins to look like the father of international legal standards applied equally to all of humanity, not to mention of self-determination and governance by the consent of the governed. He got there first. He drew the logical conclusions, such as the abolition of slavery. And he acted on those conclusions to as great an extent and for as long as perhaps any other person who has lived.

The world was not, even in the seventeenth century, strictly separated into different legal traditions. The English read Las Casas, but they often read him with an eye to understanding how evil the Spanish were, in contrast to the English, or to get ideas for how to be more evil toward the Irish themselves. Perhaps they could have read him more in order to do as Las Casas recommended, more in order to outgrow dehumanization and division. Defining certain people as not really people was a skill that increased in English culture as colonization and slavery expanded.

Hugo Grotius read Vitoria, but — like Aquinas before him and like all “just war” theory — Grotius was after excuses for wars. War might be regulated, but not banned. John Locke drew heavily on Spanish writers like Juan de Mariana and José de Acosta, but he reached his own conclusions, including that land could be taken from anyone not farming it. For a great many years, Spanish writers denounced war and slavery as parts of the Conquest, whereas Locke, Smith, Hume, et alia, at best wrote rules to regulate such evils as war and slavery, leaving us to this day with a culture that hardly murmurs about the crime of war but chatters endlessly about “possible war crimes” — almost always only mysteriously “possible,” never verified.

Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816) and Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) sought a confederacy of independent nations in Latin America. The United States served as a partial inspiration but was not of much actual help. Thomas Jefferson’s house, just down the road from mine, had numerous books by Las Casas and other Spanish writers in it, yet he flipped their views upside down, declaring that “white” nations had the right to control non-white peoples in lands they claimed and to deny access to other “white” nations. He called this “a kind of international law for America.” The United States has sought its own unique “international law” from that day to this.

The Doctrine of Discovery — the idea that a European nation can claim any land not yet claimed by other European nations, regardless of what people already live there — dates back to the fifteenth century and the Catholic church, but it was put into U.S. law in 1823, the same year as Monroe’s fateful “Doctrine” speech. It was put there by Monroe’s lifelong friend, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. The United States considered itself, perhaps alone outside of Europe, as possessing the same discovery privileges as European nations. Perhaps coincidentally, in December 2022, almost every nation on Earth signed an agreement to set aside 30% of the Earth’s land and sea for wildlife by the year 2030. The exceptions were only the United States and the Vatican, not the nations of Latin America.

While the U.S. had broken free of British rule and thereby rid itself of a mother country that was moving rapidly toward the abolition of slavery, movements for independence from Spain in South America generally sought freedom from slavery as well as from foreign empire. The U.S. tradition of slave-owners like Patrick Henry making speeches about being metaphorically enslaved was a northern hypocrisy where revolution was a rich man’s game. Moves for independence in the South were, to some extent, more of a popular revolt. They were, at the very least, not a revolt to maintain slavery or to expand empire, and not to combine numerous colonies into one, at least not immediately. Rather, Bolivarianism amounted to a push to create simultaneously several free and independent nations, some through violence and some without it. By the early nineteenth century, there were nine of them, newly independent, or 10 counting Haiti.

Latin America was not yet called Latin America and was not some sort of flawless paradise. Wealth extremes (greater than in the U.S. of that day, though not greater than the U.S. of this day) and all kinds of cruelty persisted. But, not only was slavery being abolished, but something else of great potential was being created. Numerous new nations jointly developed means of nonviolently and legally arbitrating boundary disputes, dealing with each other as equals and not enemies.

Bolivar proposed a Congress in Panama among sister nations that would

• agree to mutual defense,
• condemn Spain for the suffering it had caused in the New World (has the U.S. done that yet with regard to England?),
• promote the independence of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, and the Philippines (the U.S. was supporting Spanish rule over Cuba as more likely to lead to later U.S. rule over Cuba),
• repudiate the doctrines of discovery and conquest,
• abolish slavery,
• recognize Haiti, and
• legalize agreed-upon borders.

Here we see an early version of the League of Nations or the United Nations just beginning to come into being.

Slavery had already been ended — and without a horrific U.S.-style Civil War — in Chile, Bolivia, and parts of Mexico. Central America ended it in 1824. Colombia and Venezuela were ending it, but it persisted in Peru and Brazil.

In taking up such matters of domestic policy at an international gathering like the Panama Congress of 1826, something else — another grave evil in the world, one that afflicts the United States — was being prevented from ever being born in Latin America. This evil is the passionate aversion to anyone outside a nation having any say over what that nation does. When you read the Constitutions of various European nations today that describe transferring power to international institutions, you can just feel the veins bursting in the faces of outraged U.S. politicians. In 1826, vicious fury burst forth at the very idea that the United States would send anyone to a Congress in Panama to sit with potentially non-white people to decide anything about the sacred U.S. right to enslave human beings. In the words of Grandin, this “jolted the Age of Jackson into existence.” It hasn’t let up much since. The U.S. would later reject the League of Nations as one among equals and only join the United Nations over which it held a veto.

By 1844, Latin American statesmen had been working on theories and plans for international law for decades, and Juan Bautista Alberdi gave the name “American International Law” to a set of principles that included rejection of the doctrines of discovery and conquest, equality of nations despite their size, non-intervention, usi possidetis, and impartial arbitration. Alberdi also wrote a book in 1870, available online for free in English, titled The Crime of War. This is a book filled with hundreds of pages arguing almost the identical arguments that war abolitionists use today. It’s an outlawry book a half century before the movement to outlaw war. It’s a book making the case for neutrality (see page 262), perhaps a century before the power of neutrality was widely appreciated and 150 years before it disastrously ceased to be. Latin American nations continued to push such a vision on the United States for years.

At the Hague Peace Conference of 1907, 18 of the 44 nations represented were from Latin America, and it was there that Latin American ideas of multilateralism and sovereignty are thought to have really taken hold.

Woodrow Wilson (U.S. president, 1913-1921) may look in retrospect like mostly a talk and not much action, a promising savior who didn’t save us, a warrior to end war who gave us more war, a Barack Obama of his day. But early Wilson, before World War I, had some substance, and some of the talk was well worth hearing, and a lot of it came from south of the U.S. border. Wilson was outraged by and sought to reverse his predecessor’s interference in Mexico. He also apologized to Colombia for the U.S. role in removing Panama from it, and paid Colombia $25 million for the loss. Wilson was unable to resolve crises in Mexico but did not make the usual U.S. move of reaching for larger weapons. Instead, he accepted a proposal from Chile for Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to meet with the U.S. and Mexico and work out a solution. They met for two months on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The United States then joined Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia, and Costa Rica in announcing a new joint policy toward Mexico. (Can you hear the Muricafirsters screaming in outrage?) When World War I got going, Latin American governments favored neutrality. The President of Mexico proposed a collective trade embargo on the belligerents. Wilson wasn’t wise enough to listen.

Imagine if McKinley had listened when Spain had proposed neutral arbitration to resolve U.S. war lies over the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor!

But Wilson did listen to Latin American advocates for international law, whose work increasingly influenced U.S. scholars. Wilson said that “Pan-Americanism” was what he wanted to model the world on, but only after the war.

When the war had ended and the League of Nations was being planned and negotiated, Wilson had in mind a vision straight out of South America, and he wanted to apply it to the Earth. He had three barriers to face, however, and could not overcome them. One was that he was generally lying in bed, sick.

The second was that he was a serious racist — as were others involved — or at least that he felt obliged to please racists back home. When Japan proposed that the covenant to create the League of Nations support “equality of nations and just treatment of their nationals,” the racists wouldn’t stand for it. As a result, some in Japan concluded that their best path forward was not the rule of law but the creation of an empire, or “an Asian Monroe Doctrine.” This was the same conference that viciously punished Germany, thereby laying the groundwork for the other “theater” of World War II as well, and the same conference at which Wilson refused to meet with Ho Chi Minh, just to pile on the future catastrophes being seeded.

The third problem was U.S. exceptionalism. The U.S. insisted on putting the Monroe Doctrine into the League of Nations, giving itself the power to violate the basic premise of the League at will. This was enough to poison the whole project, but not enough to win support for it in the U.S. Senate.

Latin American nations had pushed for a truly equitable League of Nations, and every last one of them joined it, such as it was. But when the League actively supported imperialism, Costa Rica, in 1925, was the first to leave it. Meanwhile, something was infiltrating Latin America from the north: weapons. The arms profiteers were pushing sales hard and encouraging conflicts to boost them. European debts to Latin America for crops and resources supplied during World War I were paid off in left-over weapons, which strikes me as the opposite of paying off a debt. And the United States was still plying its beloved Monroe Doctrine, but it was now joined by imitators in Japan, Italy, England, and Germany, all declaring their own Monroe Doctrines.

President Franklin Roosevelt improved U.S. treatment of Latin America and took Latin American ideas to lay plans for the United Nations. Grandin sadly and typically switches into war supporter mode when it comes to World War II. The fact that Roosevelt was lying when he claimed to have in his possession Nazi plans to take over South and Central America, is relegated by Grandin to a footnote that itself avoids quite telling the story. The U.S. exploitation of Latin America for World War II is recounted quite positively. And then comes the post-war planning. FDR told Stalin and Churchill that Latin America should be the model. FDR’s advisor Sumner Welles drafted plans for the United Nations based on his experiences in Latin America. At the meeting in San Francisco, Latin American delegations pushed for the UN to ban war and create a court of arbitration, among many other positive steps.

But Latin American nations also demanded something I see as far less helpful than Grandin seems to. They wanted to hold onto a regional alliance as a commitment to defend each other. While others rightly feared that this could break the world up into sections, the final UN Charter nonetheless put into Article 51 that nations could act “collectively.”

This became an excuse for institutions seemingly at odds with the very purpose of the UN Charter, most notably NATO. Grandin quotes John Foster Dulles and Winston Churchill praising Latin America for this, and he argues that without this “compromise,” the United Nations might not have been created. But without Latin America demanding something at odds with the basic project, no compromise would have been needed.

After World War II, the U.S. rebuilt Germany with the Marshall Plan. George Marshall took part in a meeting in Bogotá in 1948 at which the nations of Latin America essentially asked, “Where is our Marshall Plan?” Of course, there was none, but can you imagine if there had been, if nations of the whole globe had been aided instead of armed? The post-war U.S. government wanted little to do with laws, rules, morality, or cooperation. Coups, weapons, bases, and invasions would be the order of the day. Pretty much from that day to this, with the addition of demonization.

And yet Latin America goes on showing the way. More than anywhere else in the world, Latin America is a nuclear-free zone, supports the International Criminal Court, opposes the genocide in Gaza, and refuses to support either side of the war in Ukraine. Wearing North American blinders makes it hard even to recognize that as leadership. I hope that such recognition, and appreciation of past efforts too, sets in before it is too late.

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David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and War Is a Crime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook. Read other articles by David.

Trump’s Animosity Is Bringing Europeans Closer Together and to the Rest of the World

There is an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to the E.U. what he is doing to the U.S.—destroy its civil society.



A satyrical float of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed during the Rose Monday celebration in Cologne, Germany.
(Photo: via Ann Wright)

C.J. Polychroniou
Jun 03, 2025

Common Dreams

The European Union came into existence in 1992 with the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which led to a single market, border-free travel, and the euro. Since then, the E.U. has evolved in various ways, although it has stopped short of developing a centralized fiscal authority and setting up a European army. Moreover, the E.U. has long been plagued by a number of legitimacy problems that have given rise to Euroscepticism among both left-wing and right-wing citizens.

Nonetheless, certain recent global developments are forcing the E.U. to upend many long-held ideas and norms about its own security and relations with other countries. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the sudden shift in U.S. policy toward Europe have made both policymakers and citizens across the continent more aware of the need not only for deeper integration and a new European governance architecture but also of the historical necessity to create a new world order. While Russia’s war in Ukraine has forced the E.U. to rethink its energy policy and compelled countries such as Finland and Sweden to become full members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), it is U.S. President Donald Trump’s hostility toward Europe and its institutions that is bringing Europeans closer together and even making them realize that the E.U. is a safe haven when all is said and done.

Indeed, the latest Eurobarometer survey, which was released on May 27, 2025, reveals the highest level of trust in the E.U. in nearly two decades and the highest support ever for the common currency. The overwhelming majority of respondents also displayed support for a common defense system among E.U. member states and opposition to tariffs. Equally impressive is the fact that a huge majority agreed that the E.U. is “a place of stability in a troubled world.”

Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.”

These findings come just days after Trump told a rally in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania that he will double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports to 50%. This move, which will take effect on June 4, prompted the European Commission to announce that Europe is prepared to roll out countermeasures in order to retaliate against President Trump’s plan to increase steel and aluminum tariffs. It said that it “strongly” regrets Trump’s threat and that “if no mutually acceptable solution is reached both existing and additional E.U. measures will automatically take effect on July 14—or earlier, if circumstances require.”

The concern among many Europeans is that U.S.-E.U. relations are not only seriously damaged but that the U.S. has now become Europe’s enemy. Since coming to office, Trump has launched an active campaign against European democracy, with members of his administration not only bashing Europe but openly supporting far-right parties across the continent.

The common perception about Europe is that it is indecisive, too slow to act, even when major crises come knocking at its door. There is an element of truth in that, as the E.U. has shown a proclivity for reactive rather than proactive political behavior. But the Trump shock appears to be rousing Europe from its geopolitical slumber. The E.U. is standing up to the bully in Washington and is looking after Europe’s own interests with greater zeal than ever before. This is because there is indeed an emerging consensus among European policymakers and experts alike that Trump wants to do to Europe what he is doing to the U.S.--i.e., destroy its civil society. MAGA hates Europe for cultural and political reasons. For Trump, as Célia Belin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of the Paris office, aptly put it, “Europeans are an extension of his political opposition at home... and Europe is thus a symbol of the political ideals [that] Trump seeks to eliminate, transform, and subjugate.”

In its attempts to find a new role in world affairs in the Trump era, Europe is not merely reacting to Washington’s whims but seeks to implement policies that reinforce its own strategic autonomy, both internally and externally. The European Commission has updated its industrial strategy by speeding up clean energy and pursuing new trade agreements with reliable partners. While some European leaders see both Russia and China as representing a threat to the rules-based international order, there have been numerous calls by various policymakers across the continent for a closer collaboration between China and the E.U. in light of “Trump’s ‘mafia-like’ tactics.” European Union leaders will travel for a high-stakes summit to Beijing in July after failing to convince Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Brussels for a summit marking the 50th anniversary of E.U.-China diplomatic relations. And France has called for a stronger E.U.-China alignment on climate action amid the U.S.’ withdrawal from the Paris agreement.

China is the E.U.’s second-largest trading partner. Europe is, in fact, not only growing more dependent on China for manufactured goods but, in spite of differences in bilateral relations, such as China’s position on the war in Ukraine, is actually warming up to the idea that the E.U.-China relationship is an essential vehicle for tackling global challenges and safeguarding international multilateralism.

Europe is also looking into other regions of the world as part of a concerted effort to promote ever more vigorously its own strategic autonomy. Since Trump took office, the E.U. concluded a free trade agreement with Mercosur, an economic bloc made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Bolivia, with scores of other countries (among them are Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, and Peru) as associate members. Mercosur, or the Southern Common Market, is the fifth-largest economy and encompasses more than 285 million people.

The E.U.-Mercosur agreement, which had been in the making for 25 years, still needs to be ratified, and Argentina’s far-right Milei government, which is in close political-ideological alignment with the Trump administration, could prove to be a stumbling block to its ratification. Argentinian President Javier Milei is, in fact, more interested in signing a free trade agreement with the United States, which would be in violation of Mercosur regulations.

After many years of negotiations, the E.U. is also close to finalizing a free trade agreement with India. The 11th round of negotiations between India and the E.U. concluded on May 16, and there is a firm commitment by both sides to strike a deal by the end of 2025. As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, this agreement would be “the largest deal of its kind anywhere in the world.”

If ratified, the E.U.-Mercosur free trade agreement will create a market of around 800 million people. When finalized, the E.U.-India free trade agreement will create a market of close to 2 billion consumers.

Trump is trying to remake the United States in his own image and also to destroy the E.U., which he says is “nastier than China.” One would like to believe that it is probably unlikely that he will succeed in remaking the U.S. in his own nasty image, but it is positively certain that he will not succeed in destroying Europe and its institutions, even though there is a lot that needs to be done to create a fairer and more inclusive Europe. In the meantime, however, Trump’s “mafia-like tactics” are bringing Europeans closer together and the continent ever closer to other regions of the world.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


C.J. Polychroniou is a political economist/political scientist who has taught and worked in numerous universities and research centers in Europe and the United States. His latest books are The Precipice: Neoliberalism, the Pandemic and the Urgent Need for Social Change (A collection of interviews with Noam Chomsky; Haymarket Books, 2021), and Economics and the Left: Interviews with Progressive Economists (Verso, 2021).
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REST IN POWER

From jailed guerrilla fighter to President of Uruguay

 

Mike Phipps reflects on the extraordinary life of José ‘Pepe’ Mujica.

MAY 30,2025

Pepe Mujica, who died earlier this month, a week before his 90th birthday, was a remarkable man. A former guerrilla with the Tupamaros, he was tortured and imprisoned for 14 years during the military dictatorship in the 1970s and 1980s, before joining the Broad Front coalition of left-wing parties. In government he served as Minister of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries from  2005 to 2008 and a Senator before winning the 2009 presidential election and serving a five year term as President.

Urban guerrilla

Her was born in 1935. His father died when he was six years old and he was raised by his mother, a hardworking farmer. As a young man, he travelled to Havana a year after the Cuban Revolution, where he was inspired by Che Guevara. Later that decade, he joined the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement, an armed urban guerrilla group, soon rising to its leadership. Mujica later described the group as “not a classic guerrilla organisation, but a political movement with weapons.”

Perhaps one of its most audacious actions was in October1969. To mark the second anniversary of Che Guevara’s execution in Bolivia, the group decided to take over the town of Pando, a city of 15,000 inhabitants, 30 kilometers from Montevideo. They occupied the police station, the fire station, the telephone exchange and several banks, seizing weapons and money.

Some months later, Mujica was in a bar in downtown Montevideo when several police officers entered and asked for their papers. “These are my papers,” he responded, drawing his pistol and firing. He was shot six times but survived, thanks to a sympathetic surgeon.

Mujica was jailed, badly wounded. When he recovered, he and his companions dug a tunnel 40 meters long and 10 meters deep, allowing 106 inmates to escape. The effort made the record books as the joint-largest prison breakout in history. Mujica was soon recaptured, escaped and was recaptured again.

Hostage of the military

In 1973, the Uruguayan military seized power in a coup, dissolving Congress, banning parties and trade unions. The Tupamaros leaders in prison were kept in military custody and told that if further attacks occurred outside, they would be shot, while ‘trying to escape’. For the next twelve years, José Mujica was imprisoned in solitary confinement – for two years in darkness at the bottom of a disused horse-watering trough –  without books, medicine, a bed or a latrine, with little water or food. He lost all his teeth and his mental health suffered.

In 1985, Uruguay’s military leaders were forced to accept the return of democracy. Under a general amnesty for political prisoners, Mujica was freed, his health wrecked. He was surprised by the crowd waiting for him, who recognised his courage and saw him, as Argentine writer Martín Caparrós puts it in an unsurpassed appreciation, as the “quintessential victim of the dictatorship’s barbarity.”

The former Tupamaros prisoners and many thousands more formed a party – the Movement of Popular Participation – that went on to become the largest component of the Broad Front, a center-left alliance that had been formed a generation earlier to challenge Uruguay’s two-party duopoly. Mujica was one of its leaders and lived with his partner Lucía Topolansky on an old farm outside Montevideo, where they cultivated chrysanthemums for sale.

Lucía herself was formerly a member of the Tupamaros, who had helped organise a daring prison escape for her comrades and was eventually captured and tortured under the coup regime. She went on to serve as Vice President of Uruguay from 2017 to 2020.

Elected to office

In 1994, she, Mujica and several other comrades were elected to Congress. Mujica turned up in his old Vespa, dressed in his customary work clothes. Throughout his ministerial office and stint as a Senator, he continued to live simply and his philosophy for doing so resonated widely.

“I belong to a generation that thought socialism was just around the corner, “ he said. “My youth belongs to the world of illusion. The passage of history has shown us that it was much more difficult. And we learned that, to achieve a better humanity, the cultural question is as important, if not more important, than the material question. You can change the material, but if the culture doesn’t change, there is no change. True change is inside the mind. Many who were socialist in their convictions migrated to capitalism… But the solution is not capitalism; we must find something else, other paths. We belong to that search.”

In March 2010, he was sworn in as President. He liberalised abortion and enacted same-sex marriage. But his best-known measure was the legalization of marijuana, in an attempt to separate drugs from the criminal gangs who controlled the trade. It was a trail-blazing measure at the time and greeted with jubilation.

Mujica’s government also managed to lower unemployment, increase real wages and massively expand housing for the poor. Poverty halved under his rule. Uruguay also became at this time the most advanced country in the Americas in terms of respect for basic trade union rights. But he showed little interest in holding the dictatorship accountable for its crimes. “Justice has a stench of vengeance from the mother who gave birth to it,” he said.

Constitutionally unable to run for a second consecutive term as President, “Mujica left office with a relatively healthy economy and with social stability [Uruguay’s] bigger neighbours could only dream of,” opined one BBC correspondent. After leaving the presidency, he criticised the regimes of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela for authoritarianism, while opposing foreign intervention there.

The key to his popularity

“Nothing worked out so well for him as the construction of himself,” writes Caparrós. “Articles appeared all over the planet about ‘the poorest president in the world,’ who donated 90 percent of his salary to social projects and, instead of moving to his official residence, stayed on his farm with his partner, Lucía, and Manuela, his three-legged dog, and his old light blue 1987 Volkswagen. In other words, someone who lived like most of his countrymen.”

And spoke them like them. His plain, colloquial speaking style has been widely credited for his huge popularity, in an era when the left, not just in Uruguay, has not always succeeded in communicating effectively with the very voters from whom it expects support. Mujica encouraged people. “Only he who stops fighting can be beaten,” he would say.

Most obituarists have focused on the evolution of Mujica’s politics from revolutionary idealist to pragmatic gradualist and the quirkiness of being ‘the world’s humblest president’. “But this simplistic narrative obscures a profound truth: beneath his austere lifestyle burned the unyielding spirit of a revolutionary who never abandoned his revolutionary principles,” argues international solidarity activist Ali Abutalebi. “Unlike many former guerrillas who entered mainstream politics and diluted their principles, Mujica transformed his methods while keeping his essence intact.”

The simple fact was that in Uruguay, as in many countries in Latin America, democratic participation was virtually impossible in the 1970s. As in Nicaragua and elsewhere, when democracy was re-established, it was because of the grassroots struggle against authoritarian and military dictatorships – and the guerrilla movement was a central part of that. Mujica certainly changed his tactics in the new conditions of the late 1980s, but he never apologised for his guerrilla past. It was a necessary response to state oppression and injustice for which many of his comrades paid the ultimate price.

“Mujica’s trajectory stands as a powerful counterexample to the narrative that entering state institutions necessarily corrupts revolutionary ideals,” says  Abutalebi. “He demonstrated that one could wield political power without betraying the struggle that made such power possible.” Moreover, his simple lifestyle was an expression of those ideals: “a living embodiment of resistance against capitalist excess and a testament to the enduring relevance of revolutionary values in contemporary politics.”

This had a  resounding impact. Uruguayan historian Gerardo Caetano comments: “By living in alignment with what he said and what he did, he revitalized the legitimacy of politics, not only in Uruguay but also internationally.”

Over 100,000 people attended  Pepe Mujica’s funeral. “In times when the left is timid or dogmatic, authoritarian or fruitless, his words challenged us, made us think, gave us hope,” Caparrós concludes. “That’s why, whether he likes it or not, the former guerrilla, former prisoner, former President, former wise old man, Pepe Mujica, will continue to speak for a long time.”

Mike Phipps’ book Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow: The Labour Party after Jeremy Corbyn (OR Books, 2022) can be ordered here.

Image: President Mujica in 2010. Author: Andrea Mazza,  licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

 

Russian military hackers 'Fancy Bear' target Western aid supply chains to Ukraine, NSA report says

Copyright AP Photo

By Oman Al Yahyai

Published on 23/05/2025 - 

The hacking effort, attributed to the group Fancy Bear, used tactics such as spearphishing and exploiting weak security in small office networks.

Hackers linked to Russian military intelligence have targeted Western logistics and technology firms involved in transporting aid to Ukraine, the US National Security Agency (NSA) said.

The cyber operation, attributed to the notorious Russian military intelligence agency GRU unit 26165, better known as Fancy Bear, sought to gather information on the types and timing of assistance entering Ukraine. 

According to the NSA's report published late Wednesday, the campaign aimed to breach companies in the defence, transport and logistics sectors across multiple Western countries, including the US. It also targeted ports, airports and railway infrastructure.

As part of the operation, hackers attempted to access footage from more than 10,000 internet-connected cameras — both private and public — situated near strategic transit points such as border crossings, ports and rail hubs. 

While the majority of these cameras were located in Ukraine, others were based in neighbouring countries including Poland, Romania and elsewhere in eastern and central Europe.

The cyber attacks reportedly began in 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Authorities have not disclosed how successful the hackers were or how long they remained undetected.

The NSA, along with the FBI and cybersecurity agencies from allied nations, warned that Russia is likely to continue its surveillance efforts and advised companies involved in support delivery to remain vigilant.

“To defend against and mitigate these threats, at-risk entities should anticipate targeting,” the NSA said in the advisory.

The hackers employed spearphishing tactics — sending deceptive, official-looking messages designed to extract sensitive information or install malware — as well as exploiting vulnerabilities in remote access devices typically used in small or home office networks, which often lack enterprise-level protection.

Grant Geyer, chief strategy officer at cybersecurity firm Claroty, said the hackers’ methods were not especially sophisticated but were methodically executed. 

“They have done detailed targeting across the entire supply chain to understand what equipment is moving, when and how — whether it’s by aircraft, ship or rail,” he noted.

Geyer warned that the intelligence gathered could help Russia refine its military strategy or potentially plan future cyber or physical disruptions to Ukraine's aid routes.

Related

• EU will move ahead with new sanctions on Russia without US
• Poland's Tusk says Russian hackers attacked party websites ahead of presidential election

In a related move last autumn, US intelligence agencies issued guidance urging US defence contractors and logistics firms to bolster their cybersecurity, following a series of suspected Russian-linked sabotage incidents in Europe.

Evidence gathered by Western countries over the years has shown that Fancy Bear has been behind a slew of attacks on Ukraine, Georgia and NATO, as well as political enemies of the Kremlin, international journalists and others.

Brazil dismantles Russian 'spy factory' in major counterintelligence operation, NYT reports

The investigation identified spies across multiple countries. A married couple lived in Portugal as Manuel Francisco Steinbruck Pereira and Adriana Carolina Costa Silva Pereira, whilst others operated in Uruguay under Brazilian identities.

By bne IntelliNews May 23, 2025

Brazilian federal agents have exposed a sophisticated Russian intelligence operation that used the South American country as an "assembly line for deep-cover operatives,” according to a report by The New York Times.

The operation unmasked at least nine officers who lived for years under false identities before deploying to targets across the West.

The three-year counterintelligence investigation, dubbed Operation East, represents what independent Russian news outlet Agentstvo described as "one of the biggest failures of the Russian intelligence services," comparable to the exposure of 11 spies in the US 15 years ago.

Russian operatives shed their true identities to become Brazilian citizens, starting businesses, forming relationships and building authentic cover stories over many years.

Rather than spying on Brazil itself, the goal was to acquire credible Brazilian identities before deploying to the US, Europe or the Middle East for actual intelligence work.

CIA tip sparks investigation

The unravelling began in April 2022, weeks after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, when the CIA alerted Brazil's Federal Police to Victor Muller Ferreira – real name Sergey Cherkasov – who had secured an internship with the International Criminal Court in The Hague as it prepared to investigate Russian war crimes.

Cherkasov, whose story was first exposed by investigative outlet Bellingcat in June 2022, was admitted to Johns Hopkins University's graduate school in Washington in 2018 after a stint at Dublin's Trinity College. He had spent nearly a decade building his false identity. During one of his trips, Dutch authorities denied him entry and returned him to São Paulo, where Brazilian agents arrested him on document fraud charges.

His Brazilian passport and identification documents initially appeared authentic, but investigation of his birth certificate revealed fatal flaws.

The document stated he was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1989 to a Brazilian mother who died in 1993, but agents discovered the woman never had a child and couldn't locate anyone matching the father's name.

"Everything started with Sergey," a senior Brazilian official told The New York Times.

Russian authorities later unsuccessfully attempted to "rescue" Cherkasov by issuing an international arrest warrant, claiming that he "was part of a crime group that smuggled drugs from Afghanistan via Tajikistan and sold them to gangs in Russia between 2011 and 2013," according to Bellingcat.

Sophisticated identity creation

The discovery prompted agents to search for "ghosts" – people with legitimate birth certificates who appeared suddenly as adults without prior records in Brazil. The painstaking analysis of millions of identity documents revealed the scope of the Russian operation.

Brazil proved an ideal location for the scheme. The Brazilian passport ranks among the world's most useful, allowing visa-free travel to nearly as many countries as US documents.

The country's multicultural population makes European-featured individuals with slight accents unremarkable.

Yet Brazil's decentralised birth certificate system contains a crucial vulnerability – authorities will issue certificates to anyone declaring a baby was born to at least one Brazilian parent in rural areas, requiring only two witnesses.

One exposed operative, Artem Shmyrev, lived as Gerhard Daniel Campos Wittich, running a successful 3D printing business in Rio de Janeiro. He spoke perfect Portuguese with an accent he attributed to childhood in Austria, fooling his Brazilian girlfriend and colleagues completely.

"He was a work addict," said Felipe Martinez, a former client who befriended the spy, as quoted by The New York Times. "He thought big, you know?"

However, Shmyrev privately expressed frustration with undercover life in text messages to his Russian intelligence officer wife.

"No real achievements in work. I am not where I have to be for two years already," he wrote.

Global network exposed

The investigation identified spies across multiple countries. A married couple lived in Portugal as Manuel Francisco Steinbruck Pereira and Adriana Carolina Costa Silva Pereira, whilst others operated in Uruguay under Brazilian identities.

One posed as a model, another ran a jewellery business featured on Brazilian television.

Intelligence experts believe Russian authorities recalled many operatives as global focus intensified on Russian espionage following the Ukraine invasion.

Only Cherkasov remains imprisoned, serving a five-year sentence for document forgery.

Brazilian authorities used Interpol blue notices to expose the spies' identities globally, effectively ending their intelligence careers. The alerts circulated names, photographs and fingerprints to 196 member countries under the pretext of investigating fraudulent documents.

‘You're going to hear things about me’

Shmyrev escaped Brazil days before agents moved to arrest him in December 2022, leaving behind electronic devices containing crucial evidence and $12,000 cash – suggesting he planned to return. His last known contact was a phone call to his Brazilian girlfriend.

"You're going to hear things about me, but you need to know that I never did anything that bad. Like I never killed anyone or something like that. My past caught up with me,” he reportedly said.

Independent Russian outlet Agentstvo reported on May 22 that some exposed operatives have returned to Russia under their real names, with spy Olga Tyutereva now working as a teacher in the Magadan region.

The operation dealt a devastating blow to Moscow's "illegals" programme, eliminating highly trained officers who will be difficult to replace. With their covers blown, the operatives will most likely never work abroad again, according to intelligence experts.

Brazil's investigation spanned at least eight countries with intelligence cooperation from the US, Israel, Netherlands, Uruguay and other Western security services, demonstrating the global response to Russian espionage following the Ukraine invasion.

We know what Russia is doing and how it does it, EU intelligence centre chief tells Euronews

Copyright Bruno Gonçalves/Nascer do Sol
By Nuno Tiago Pinto
Published on 23/05/2025 - 


In an interview with SOL newspaper and Euronews, the head of European intelligence explained that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has changed the way we think about and use intelligence services and argues that the EU can do more in this area — and that the 27 member states are ready to do so.

Earlier this year, after nine years at the head of Croatian intelligence, Daniel Markić was appointed director of the European Union Intelligence and Situation Centre (EU INTCEN), the closest thing the 27-member bloc has to a European intelligence service.

Reporting to the EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, INTCEN monitors what happens inside and outside the EU and provides analyses and alerts to institutions, decision-makers, and member states regarding security, defence, and counterterrorism.

While in Lisbon to take part in a conference celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Strategic Intelligence and Defence Service (SIED), Markić gave an exclusive interview to Nascer do SOL and Euronews in which he identifies the main threats to the security of the EU, cooperation between intelligence services and explains what he sees as the future of the sector.

Euronews: What is INTCEN's role in the EU?

Daniel Markić: For the last 20 years, INTCEN has been a kind of intelligence fusion centre for the European Union. It used to be part of the (European) Council, but with the different reforms of the institutions, it is now part of the European External Action Service (EEAS).

The people who work at INTCEN come mostly from the security and intelligence services of the member states, and we work very closely with military intelligence (EUMS Intelligence Directorate) under an informal umbrella called SIAC, Single Intelligence and Analysis Capacity — and it works very well.

But now we think that what is being done in terms of intelligence may not be enough.

Euronews: Why is that?

Markić: We need to do more. The EU realised a few years ago that it is not just a global political and economic actor, but that it is potentially a security actor. In 2020, the first threat analysis was carried out, namely by SIAC.

It was revised in 2022 and we did a third version a few months ago. This proves that the EU was trying to think about threats in order to find solutions to deal with them.

Euronews: Are you talking about civilian or military threats? Because when we think about military threats we also think about NATO.

Markić: Globally, about all the threats. And then there's the famous strategic document, the (2022) Strategic Compass, which once again describes the EU's capacity. That's where we find a small part of the document that refers to SIAC as the only entry point for strategic intelligence in the EU.

We have to remember that, in terms of intelligence, for member states there is an important article in the Treaty on European Union, 4.2, which says that national security is a competence of states. Knowing all this, we have to find ways to give more. The EU needs more. And the member states are willing to give more.

Euronews: Are they?

Markić: Yes, they are.

Euronews: Has intelligence sharing always been a sensitive issue?

Markić: It is sensitive. But it exists and it works very well. I say this not only as director of INTCEN, but I've worked for the last nine years as director of a national intelligence and security service. And it works.

But when there's a feeling that the services don't do enough very often, it's because they don't communicate enough. We need to make intelligence more visible.

But to add to what I said earlier, everything is being done, and obviously it has become more than a necessity when we look at the threats, the most obvious of which is February 2022 and Russia's brutal attack on Ukraine.

Daniel Markic, diretor do EU INTCENBruno Gonçalves/Nascer do Sol

Euronews: Do you believe that the attack has changed the way intelligence gathering and sharing is seen in the EU's decision-making process?

Markić: Absolutely. And one of the best examples is not necessarily in the EU. US intelligence and the UK intelligence community have started communicating information publicly, which is an important change. This is something that member states and the EU have a lot to learn from.

Euronews: This was also an attempt at pre-emptive action. As if to say to the other side "we know you're doing this, so don't do it".

Markić: Exactly.

Euronews: And it didn't work.

Markić: It didn't work but... I agree with you. And there are many different opinions in the intelligence community. It's no secret. Many EU services were convinced that (the full-scale invasion) wouldn't happen.

When it did, many people were surprised. But if we try to reflect on the messages sent by our Baltic friends, they told us. We just had to listen to them.

(Russian President Vladimir) Putin was very clear in all his speeches. And the same goes for other parts of Europe, for example, in the Western Balkans.

People like Putin are so proud of their intelligence. He's so proud of his own past in the secret services.

In the EU, intelligence is a bit of a dirty word. When you talk about intelligence, you whisper it. You shouldn't whisper.

When you meet the head of intelligence, you don't have to meet him at night. You have a normal meeting.

The secret services will never be the main tool of any political decision-maker, but they are one of the important specific tools he has. And I think EU decision-makers have to have it too. So we have to find ways to get the intelligence to them.

It's important to note that, even in the European institutions, brilliant people are working on security issues. But intelligence is a very specific area. Specific techniques are used, specific means of obtaining intelligence.

Euronews: Which INTCEN can't do.

Markić: Yes. But we have a very strong community of 27 member states. One of the specificities of security and intelligence in the EU - and maybe that's why it's a bit difficult at times - is that there are big differences.

When you look at any institution in the member states, the ministries, they are similar or the same in every country.

The Ministry of Agriculture in Portugal is similar to the one in Germany. Or the Defence Ministry. The security and intelligence community is different. They all have different legal frameworks.

Euronews: And different capacities and possibilities. There are things that the French can do that the Portuguese can't.

Markić: Exactly. But we have the ability to harness the best of each service for the common good. That's the role of INTCEN and SIAC.

When I was head of my national agency, I worked directly for the president and the prime minister, which is not easy, as you can imagine. But for me, if we have intelligence, it's to act, to use it or to react.

Having intelligence just for the database is useless. It's the same in the EU. We need to give the intelligence to the decision-maker, specifically to EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas, but also to (Commission) President von der Leyen and (Council) President António Costa.

All these actors need to have the right data, at the right time, during the decision-making process. The EU is a strong actor.

Euronews: How do you act when there is a conflict of intelligence sent by different countries?

Markić: In terms of intelligence, it's not something that happens often. We may have different positions, a different political decision.

But in terms of raw information, it doesn't happen very often. What's more, the EU has a specificity. Intelligence in the EU is not as structured as it is in NATO, especially since NATO's reform of its intelligence services 10 years ago.

But we have an advantage. We don't necessarily need intelligence to be agreed upon by all states. We need to be able to use the information provided by a service, a community or a group of services and utilise it. And that's what we're doing.

Euronews: Can you assess whether there were differences in the way intelligence was viewed before and after the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Markić: There was definitely a change. And, once again, going back to the fact that the intelligence is there for all to see and the need to utilise it.

This aggression, which is not just a war, but a long-term civilizational shock, has changed the way we think about intelligence and use intelligence.

Euronews: The Niinistö report on strengthening Europe's civilian and defence preparedness and readiness advocated the need to strengthen intelligence sharing.

Markić: In the report you'll find a section on SIAC. The report was a major effort to find a new solution that analysed the new threats. One of the problems was that the services were not visible enough. And that's the problem.

And that's why, in my communication with all the services, as I did yesterday in your external service, I talked about the need to communicate more.

My service, when I took over nine years ago, was very good, but very closed, without communication, so the image wasn't very good. We changed that through different initiatives. We made a public report, we sometimes communicated with the media. I think that's what the community should do in Europe.

So once again, the substance will always be for the decision-maker. But the fact that we co-operate, that we have intelligence - it's not just the other side, whatever they do, we can do even better - we have to communicate about it.

Euronews: Do you imagine that INTCEN will be a kind of European Intelligence Service?

Markić: It's hard for me to say. Once again, I'd go back to the famous Article 4.2 of the EU Treaty. I don't think it will happen because doing intelligence, especially abroad, requires a lot of elements in addition to know-how.

In the EU environment, it would be difficult. The EU institutions are very transparent, as they should be, but we still need to raise awareness of security issues. Organising missions like that from somewhere in the EU seems difficult to me.

Euronews: We've heard a lot about strengthening European defence, but we haven't heard about intelligence.

Markić: There was an initiative to strengthen intelligence, which was started three years ago by the member states, and we are working on it.

We created a joint document on strengthening the SIAC, a joint document by the High Representative and the states. So there is an initiative.

It's less visible because defence requires a lot of money. In terms of intelligence, we need more money, but you can't compare.

Euronews: What do you see as the main threats to European security?

Markić: First of all, I'll return to the subject of Russian aggression: it's a clash of civilisations, because we have the aggression itself, we have Russian hybrid activities, even in EU member states, which can sometimes be kinetic activities.

Euronews: Sabotage?

Markić: Among others.

Euronews: What kind?

Markić: We've reported on activities in Lithuania, the packages that exploded in the UK, some assassination attempts and other activities. Perhaps we tend to forget about cyber-attacks in the first place.

The Russians specialise in cyber-attacks, along with their criminal groups. And espionage. In Brussels we try to remind everyone of the importance of security and that espionage exists.

Euronews: State or industrial?

Markić: All kinds, depending on the actor. We have Russia, but also other actors. And when we look at what happened a few days ago in India and Pakistan, what has been happening in Africa, we can see that there are more and more threats.

I haven't mentioned the Middle East, but it's obviously important. And I can't help thinking about the operation that the Russians are carrying out in Ukraine and the reaction of the world, the EU, the US: it's evident that many actors have been watching everything for the last three years and may be tempted to do something.

Euronews: They might think that if the Russians can do it, so can they?

Markić: Definitely. And there are so many conflicts, so many tensions, that the fact that (you don't know) who the main actor is who can stop them is also an element.

Euronews: Do you also have a role in combating disinformation and propaganda?

Markić: Yes, we're not the only ones, there are other organisations in the EU that are working on this.

We had a recent case in Portugal during the blackout. In less than an hour there was fake news being spread in WhatsApp groups and on social media attributing the power failure to a Russian cyber-attack.

There is a tendency to make too many attributions and make Putin out to be a real superman. We have a clear vision, again working together with the 27 communities, of what Russia is doing and how it is doing it.

So it's good to be clear and not try to find Russia behind every stone. Putin would love that. He would have to utilise very few resources and use only social media to show his strength.

Euronews: I noticed that you didn't mention terrorism as a threat.

Markić: Because of this acute crisis, we don't talk about terrorism, but the fight against terrorism is one of the main tasks of the security services. It always remains a priority, but some crises are now more visible.

Euronews: But do you believe that groups like the so-called Islamic State group or Al Qaeda still have some influence on the hearts and minds of some people in our community?

Markić: Definitely. And in that sense, when these issues are less in the media, perhaps there are fewer young people tempted to follow in the footsteps of these movements. But it does exist and I can tell you that the intelligence services in the EU are active on this topic.

Daniel Markic, diretor do EU INTCENBruno Gonçalves/Nacer do Sol

Euronews: How do you see the possibility of the return to Europe of foreign terrorist fighters and their families who are still in camps and prisons in Syria and Iraq?

Markić: It's a very important issue. It remains to be seen what the US will do in Syria, what will happen to the prisons.

Euronews: Because there are still thousands of people in Syria.

Markić: Exactly. What Turkey is going to do. There are many doubts, but we're all working on it.

Euronews: Should there be a common position among the member states?

Markić: I think we all have a very similar position.

Euronews: Some countries have already repatriated people. Others, like Portugal, haven't.

Markić: Yes, but the difference in numbers between countries can be enormous. Some countries are much more concerned. Not just because of the number of combatants, but also because of the women and children.

Euronews: If they remain in the camps, could these children be the next generation of terrorists?

Markić: Definitely. I'd just say that because I wouldn't want to give a political point of view. But in terms of security, what could happen to them is a big question. Not only if they stay, but even if they return to Europe.