Europe

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/: Decisions made by the Normandy Quartet summit in Paris should not remain a sheet of paper, contrary to what happened during the rule of Ukraine’s former president Pyotr Poroshenko, Russia’s acting Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a news conference devoted to the performance of Russian diplomacy in 2019.

MOSCOW, January 17. /TASS/: Russia will take part in the international conference on Libya, which will be held in Berlin on January 19, as Acting Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told reporters at a news conference on the achievements of Russian diplomacy in 2019.

"We will take part in the conference, which will be held in Berlin on Sunday," he said.

As Sergey Lavrov commented, the commitment of rival parties in the Libyan conflict to truce is a step forward and preserving the ceasefire is strongly desirable.

17 January 2020; AFP: The European Union will challenge the China-US trade agreement at the World Trade Organization if it creates "distortions" in the market that harm EU companies, the bloc's envoy to Beijing said Friday.

Ambassador Nicolas Chapuis told reporters the 28-nation EU "will monitor the implementation" of the "phase one" deal that was signed on Wednesday by President Donald Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He.

PARIS (Reuters) - It is up to U.S. authorities to make a move in coming days on a French digital tax targeting big tech companies, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.

Le Maire also said that European Union would retaliate if the U.S. set up sanctions against France.

KIEV (Reuters) - Ukraine’s prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk submitted his resignation on Friday after an audio recording suggested he had criticized the president, but then appeared to suggest in comments to Reuters that he might stay in his job.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will consider the resignation letter later on Friday, the president’s office said.

KIEV (Reuters) - An Iranian representative will travel to Ukraine next week following the shooting down of a Ukrainian passenger plane near Tehran last week, Foreign Minister Vadym Prystaiko told parliament on Friday.

He said Iran was willing to pass on to Ukraine the data and voice recorders from the flight after they had been examined by a joint investigation team comprising experts from Iran, Canada and Ukraine.

The airliner was struck by a missile on Jan. 8 shortly after leaving Tehran en route to Kiev. Iran admitted on Saturday it had shot down the plane in error.

PARIS, Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — French trade unions blocked ports and disrupted power production, searching for a way to force President Emmanuel Macron to ditch a planned pension overhaul as the impact of transport strikes weakens.

Ferry services to Britain suffered delays and at least 20 bulk carriers waiting to export cereals were kept at anchor outside France’s major ports, data from financial data provider Refinitiv showed. Electricity output was down about 9per cent of available capacity.

KIEV, Jan 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Ukraine’s Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk has submitted a letter of resignation and President Volodymur Zelenskiy will consider it, the presidential office said on Friday.

“I came to the position of fulfilling the program of the President. He is for me a model of openness and decency,” Honcharuk said on Facebook.

“However, in order to take away any doubts about our respect and trust in the President, I wrote a letter of resignation and handed it to the President with the right to submit it to Parliament,” he added.

TIRANA, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- Albania is ready to open accession negotiations with the European Union (EU), European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said here on Thursday at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Edi Rama.

Varhelyi, who is on his first official visit to Tirana, said that Albania aims to open accession negotiations before the EU-Western Balkans Summit in Zagreb scheduled for May this year.

PRAGUE, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The prime ministers of the so-called Visegrad Group (V4) of states plus the chancellor of Austria convened here on Thursday under the Czech presidency of the V4 group to discuss migration, energy and other issues.

"The reform of the migration system must be based on the consent of all states," Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said after the meeting. Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz echoed Babis by saying that the European Union (EU) should protect its external borders not only from undocumented migrants but also smugglers.