Belgium

BRUSSELS, June 20. /TASS/: The EU does not have enough materials to expand ammunition production and is forced to import them, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said.

"Today I can tell you that in order to increase the capacity of producing warfare, ammunitions, we lack critical materials that are no longer available inside Europe and have to be imported. This weakens our strategic autonomy, it poses economic risks and threatens our security," he said when presenting the first EU Economic Security Strategy.

17 June 2023; MEMO: Turkiye's top defense official held separate talks on Friday with his Dutch and US counterparts on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels, according the Turkish National Defense Ministry, Anadolu reports.

In the meetings, National Defense Minister Yasar Guler discussed bilateral and regional defense, security, and defense industry cooperation with the Netherlands' Kajsa Ollagren and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, the ministry said in a statement.

16 June 2023; MEMO: Survivors have said the Greek Coast Guard was "directly involved and might have caused" the deadly shipwreck off the southern coast of Greece, according to an EU lawmaker, Anadolu Agency reports.

"Greek authorities knew that a ship carrying asylum seekers is in danger in their waters, but didn't start the rescue for hours," Erik Marquardt, a German Member of the European Parliament from the Green Group, told Anadolu.

BRUSSELS, June 16 (Reuters) - NATO defence ministers failed on Friday to reach agreement over new plans on how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack, and one diplomat blamed Turkey for blocking them.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the ministers reviewed the plans - the first since the end of the Cold War and given impetus by Russia's invasion of Ukraine - at a two-day meeting in Brussels and were moving closer to agreeing on them.

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO launched a new center Friday for protecting undersea pipelines and cables following the still-unsolved apparent attack on the Nord Stream pipelines and amid concern Russia is mapping vital Western infrastructure for energy and the internet in waters around Europe.

“The threat is developing,” Lt. Gen. Hans-Werner Wiermann, who heads a special cell focused on the challenge, said after NATO defense ministers gave the greenlight for the new center, located in Northwood, northwest London.

(AP) --- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg seems increasingly likely to have his term at the helm of the world’s biggest security organization extended yet again, as members struggle to agree on another candidate to replace him.

Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, has been NATO’s top civilian official since 2014. His term was due to expire last year but was extended for a second time to keep a steady hand at the helm after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

BRUSSELS, June 15. /TASS/: Western states are far from implementation of plans to ship US-made F-16 planes to Ukraine, and a lot of work is yet to be done for that, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said Thursday.

He was asked to comment on the status of the program on shipment of warplanes to Ukraine during a press conference after a meeting of Western contact group that coordinates arms shipments to Ukraine in Brussels.

BRUSSELS (AP) — International donors said Thursday they would commit $10.3 billion in aid for millions of Syrians battered by war, poverty, and hunger, both at home and as refugees abroad.

The pledges by 57 nations and 30 international organizations at an annual European Union-hosted conference in Brussels for Syria fell about $800 million short of a United Nations humanitarian appeal.

BRUSSELS, June 14. /TASS/: The European Union’s envoys have postponed the approval of the 11th package of sanctions against Russia until June 19, a European diplomatic source told TASS on Wednesday.

"The envoys managed to move forward in discussing the 11th package of sanctions, with several elements to be revised still remaining. The next discussion is to be held at the meeting of the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union next week," the diplomat said.

11 June 2023; MEMO: The European Union is considering over 1 billion euros ($1.07 billion) in aid for Tunisia to help develop its battered economy, rescue state finances and deal with a migration crisis, the EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Sunday, Reuters reports.

Speaking in Tunisia, von der Leyen said 900 million euros in macrofinancial assistance, plus an immediate 150 million euros in budget support could be ready "as soon as the necessary agreement is found", without elaborating.