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Economy

New Signs Europe "Pulling Out Of Recession"

LES ECHOS (France), TELEGRAPH (UK), REUTERS

Worldcrunch

PARIS - After six straight quarters of contraction, new signs were reported Wednesday that the recession in Europe's single-currency euro zone may be set to end.

Manufacturing in the euro zone increased for the first time in well over a year, boosted by higher private sector output in Germany and France, July's PMI index showed. The data drove the euro to a one-month high against the dollar, Reuters reports.

Martin Van Vliet, an analyst at ING, told French business daily Les Echos that the European Central Bank's monetary policy to try to stimulate growth, coupled with the beginnings of recovery elsewhere in the world "have finally managed to stop the economic contraction" in the euro zone.

Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit, said the figures provided "encouraging evidence" to suggest that the eurozone could finally pull out if its recession in the third quarter, the Telegraph reports.

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FOCUS: Russia-Ukraine War

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

In 2021, Belarus strongman Lukashenko triggered a migration crisis when he actively drove asylum seekers to the EU. According to the German government, those numbers are on the rise again.

Belarus May Be Pushing Migrants Into The EU Again — This Time With Russian Help

Migrants on the Belarusian side of the Polish border wall in Bialowieza.

Hannelore Crolly, Ricarda Breyton

-Analysis-

BERLIN — In the nine months between July 2022 and March 2023 alone, Germany's Federal Police registered 8,687 people who entered Germany undocumented after a Belarus connection. This has emerged from the Ministry of the Interior's response to an inquiry by MP Andrea Lindholz, deputy chair of the Christian Social Union (CSU) parliamentary group, which was made available to Die Welt.

The migration pressure on the Belarus route — which was now supposedly closed after a huge crisis in 2021 that saw Belarus strongman Alexander Lukashenko threatening to "flood" the EU with drugs and migrants — has thus increased significantly again.

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"Apparently, about half of the people who enter the EU illegally every month via the German-Polish border enter the EU via Belarus," Lindholz told Die Welt. In an autocratic state like this, border crossings on this scale are certainly no coincidence, she said. "It is obvious that these illegal entries are part of a strategy to destabilize the EU."

In addition to flexible controls at the border with Poland, stationary ones are also needed, said Lindholz. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser should agree on a concrete roadmap with Poland "on how to significantly reduce illegal entries into Germany." Lindholz also called on the German government to revoke landing permits for airlines that facilitate illegal migration via Russia and Belarus.

The Belarus route had already caused concern throughout the EU in 2021. At that time, sometimes highly dramatic scenes took place at the border with Poland. Thousands of migrants tried to enter the EU undocumented — many of them transported there by soldiers or border guards of Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko. Poland even feared an attempt to break through the border en masse.

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