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00:00Ahead of a no-confidence vote, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier says his government
00:05may yet survive.
00:11Police raided properties linked to former European Commissioner for Justice Didier Reinders,
00:16suspected of money laundering.
00:21Opposition parties in South Korea submitted a motion on Wednesday to impeach President
00:27As NATO Foreign Ministers met in Brussels, Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned of Russian
00:35support for North Korean nuclear programmes.
00:45France's Prime Minister Michel Barnier said it is possible his government may survive
00:50a looming no-confidence vote.
00:53He said it depends on the country's MPs, who he said had a responsibility to the French
00:57people during what he described as a serious period in the country's history.
01:20Barnier faces the no-confidence vote after pushing through a controversial social budget
01:25bill.
01:26Opposition leaders say adjustments to the bill don't delay their concerns and pushed
01:31for a no-confidence vote.
01:32To bring down the government, 288 MPs need to vote in agreements.
01:37This is possible if both the left and right wing of the National Assembly unite in a majority
01:42vote.
01:43French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly brushed aside the possibility of Barnier's
01:48resignation, describing calls for him to do so as a political fiction.
01:59The European Union has its eyes on the French National Assembly.
02:03Prime Minister Michel Barnier's coalition government is likely to be in its final hours
02:08and the issue is the budget.
02:11Barnier is proposing a major effort to reduce the public deficit, estimated at 6.1% this
02:16year, down to 5% by 2025.
02:46Michel Barnier is under national and European pressure to bring France back into line with
02:56the Stability and Growth Pact.
02:59He is therefore proposing a 60 billion euro effort, comprising 40 billion euro in spending
03:04cuts and 20 billion in additional revenue.
03:08However, it is not so much the budgetary uncertainties that are worrying the markets, but the political
03:14impasse.
03:16If the Barnier government falls, we don't know if Mr. Macron will keep Barnier for a
03:24while, if he will appoint another prime minister, if he will end up resigning, because there
03:31are quite a few people who are calling for his resignation in France in 2025.
03:35This means presidential elections, legislative re-elections, probably in the summer.
03:42It means that we are in for a whole semester of political speculation, campaigning, etc.
03:51where France will be out of the game.
03:54This political instability in France will weigh heavily in European debates.
04:00The voice of Paris risks being weakened at a time when the Union's new institutional
04:05teams want to make rapid progress on the geopolitical, industrial and climate challenges facing the
04:1127 member states.
04:20Belgian police raided properties linked to former European Commissioner for Justice Didier
04:25Reindeerz.
04:26With local media reporting, he is suspected of money laundering.
04:30For years, Reindeerz reportedly bought lottery tickets through the Belgian National Lottery,
04:36an organisation which he oversaw as minister between 2007 and 2011.
04:43It is alleged that he took part in lottery games and deposited the resulting, now laundered
04:49profits into his personal accounts.
04:52Local media report that the investigation had been ongoing for months, that investigators
04:57waited until the end of Reindeerz's term as European Commissioner on Sunday, which
05:02also marked the end of his EU immunity.
05:05One of the properties reportedly raided was Reindeerz's private property, with the former
05:10EU Justice Chief questioned by police until Tuesday evening.
05:19The European Commission was unaware of the investigation into the alleged money laundering
05:23by former European Commissioner Didier Reindeerz.
05:26The Belgian politician was Commissioner for Justice until last Saturday.
05:30So first of all, did you have any indications that Mr Reindeerz was engaging in any malpractice
05:36during his mandate?
05:37We do not have any further information about this matter.
05:41Of course, if the Belgian authorities were to contact us, we are going to collaborate
05:46with them.
05:48Reindeerz still enjoys a certain immunity linked to his former position.
05:52If it were to be withdrawn, the decision would be up to the current College of Commissioners.
05:58So indeed, members of the College are accorded immunity, but solely, only, in the interest
06:06of the Union.
06:07What does that mean?
06:09It means that they benefit from immunity for acts performed by them in their official capacity.
06:15So it's a functional immunity.
06:18According to French daily Le Soir and investigative platform Follow the Money, Reindeerz's homes
06:23were searched by police on Tuesday.
06:25Apparently, following suspicions that he may be laundering money through the Belgian
06:29National Lottery.
06:36Opposition parties in South Korea submitted a motion on Wednesday to impeach President
06:41Yoon Seok-yol after he imposed a martial law.
06:47The law was lifted just hours after the President announced it, following mass protests and
06:52parliament opposition.
06:56Lawmakers that had managed to defy security forces and enter parliament unanimously voted
07:02against the law.
07:05Impeaching Yoon would require the support of two-thirds of the parliament and the backing
07:10of at least six constitutional court judges.
07:14Voting is set for Friday or Saturday.
07:17Calls are also mounting for members of Yoon's cabinet to resign.
07:22If Yoon is impeached, he'll be stripped of his constitutional powers until the court
07:27can rule on his fate.
07:33Chancellor Olaf Scholz battled questions from German MPs in the Bundestag on Wednesday,
07:39ahead of the vote of confidence that the Chancellor has called for December 16th.
07:45Scholz has drawn the line at sending German soldiers into Ukraine after the foreign ministers
07:50suggested that peacekeeping troops could be stationed in a demilitarised zone if a
07:56ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine was agreed.
08:00The Chancellor was gruelled about the shrinking economy, which has continued to deteriorate
08:04over the past three years, while Scholz has been in power due to repercussions stemming
08:09from Covid and Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which have arguably been outside
08:14the government's control.
08:16While Scholz said that he would continue to work on policies over the next couple of months
08:20ahead of the vote scheduled for February, it's clear that he's already in full election
08:25campaign mode.
08:27Liv Stroud, in Berlin, for Euronews.
08:34While Moscow has found a way to produce more drones to attack Ukraine, Kyiv has found a
08:39way to ground them or even send them back at Russia or Belarus.
08:44During one of the recent attacks, almost half of 110 Shahed drones launched at Ukraine were
08:51lost.
08:53Basically, what Ukraine is doing is spoofing, meaning they are feeding in false GPS targets
09:00to these Shahed, or in the Russian term Garan, to drones to make them veer off course.
09:07And so the drones have a system that's supposed to prevent jamming.
09:12But what these are doing is kind of sneaking in and not letting the drone know that the
09:17targets are being, the coordinates are being changed.
09:19It's kind of tricking it to going to the wrong direction.
09:24This can be possible because of the improved electronic warfare interference tactics, he says.
09:32So Ukraine's ex-top general, Valeriy Zeluzhny, first publicly mentioned the Pokrova system
09:39back in February.
09:41So I think the system has probably improved since then.
09:44And as you noted, the percentage of these Russian Shahed drones that Ukraine claims
09:50to be spoofing has increased over time.
09:54Independent Belarus monitoring group Hayun Project told Euronews that there has been
09:59an increase in the number of Russian drones redirected into Belarus airspace every month.
10:05They reported that 38 Russian Shahed drones entered Belarus airspace on the night of November
10:1224th and 25th.
10:14A record number.
10:16Belarus scrambled jets to respond to the airspace violations, suggesting that Minsk was unprepared
10:21to receive Aryan Russian drones and that Russia had not anticipated the impacts of Ukrainian
10:26interference or communicated them to Belarus in advance.
10:31NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said we should not be naive about how Russia may be
10:38supporting nuclear programs in North Korea.
10:41The alleged Russian support of Pyongyang's nuclear program as well as the involvement
10:45of North Korean troops in Russia's invasion of Ukraine demands broader collaboration between
10:50NATO and countries outside of the alliance.
10:53There's every reason to make that statement that nuclear technology and missile technology
10:59is flowing into North Korea and therefore is a risk now that North Korea will use it
11:05not only to be a threat to us here but also to the U.S. mainland and of course to the
11:10region including the Republic of Korea, South Korea and Japan.
11:16Amid fears that Donald Trump might withdraw key U.S. aid to Ukraine when he enters office,
11:22Rutte recently met with the U.S. president-elect in Florida.
11:26He said that he'd underlined that China, North Korea and Iran were weighing in on Russia's
11:31side, putting the United States and the Asia-Pacific region at risk.
11:36When asked about Russia's own nuclear threat, Rutte accused the Kremlin of sabre-rattling.