People's Party (OVP) leader Sebastian Kurz will become the next Austrian chancellor and coalition partner Freedom Party (FPO) head Heinz-Christian Strache will become Vice-Chancellor in the new Austrian government. Strache will also be the Minister for Sports and Public Servants. The FPO will lead the Ministries of Interior, Defence and Foreign Affairs. The OVP will have seven Ministers and one DEputy. They include the Ministries of Finance, Economy and Justice.

Crimea will never return to Ukraine. Russia won’t even negotiate this topic. For Moscow, it is almost a national issue. Any negotiations on the issue would discredit Russia’s national security and Moscow won’t go down this path. The Russian people would not understand it, so the negotiations can never even begin.

Source: Transparency Register/Politico Research

EU Lobbying Expenditures from entities in each country

BLACKLISTED TERRITORIES

1. American Samoa
2. Bahrain
3. Barbados
4. Grenada
5. Guam
6. Macau
7. Marshall Islands
8. Mongolia
9. Namibia
10. Palau
11. Panama
12. Samoa
13. South Korea
14. St. Lucia
15. Trinidad & Tobago
16. Tunisia
17. United Arab Emirates

GREY LIST 

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has declared East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, and called on the international community to follow in its footsteps.

On 11 December 2017, the Council adopted a decision establishing Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO), less than a month after receiving a joint notification by member states of their intention to participate.

The 25 member states participating in PESCO are:

Source: Jakub Janda, Head of the Kremlin Watch Program and deputy director at the European Values Think-Tank based in Prague.

All views and opinions expressed here below published by Kremlin Watch (A Strategic program of the European Values Think Tank based in the Czech Republic dealing with Russian influence and disinformation campaigns) are the sole responsibility of the author of the article. It does not necessarily reflect those of AALEP.

Source: The Globalist.com

All views and opinions expressed here below  published by The Globalist.com are the sole responsibility of the author of the article. It does not necessarily reflect those of AALEP. Orginal text has been edited.

The EU is generally seen in positive terms in China, especially as an economic international player, but is not very visible in other areas, for example in security.

To some extent, Russian perceptions of the EU exist due to a lack of understanding of the EU as an entity, lack of qualitative research on the EU and its institutions and the language barrier that does not allow Russian-speaking researchers to collaborate with the EU academia. Russia has difficulty in understanding the EU because the EU does not speak in a single voice and is not a coherent actor . The Russian officials need a better understanding of who speaks for the EU in political matters.  

Main Gaps