Europe

GENEVA, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Sixty-seven World Trade Organization members agreed on Thursday to pare back regulations such as licensing requirements placed on service providers operating in foreign countries, a move that could save $150 billion in annual trade costs.

The group of developed and some developing countries from Peru to the Philippines committed to greater transparency, legal certainty and an easier regulatory process with electronic applications and clear and reasonable fees.

BRUSSELS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The European Union's top court should dismiss a challenge by Poland and Hungary to a new tool aimed at cutting cash for member states which break the bloc's democratic rules, an initial legal opinion said on Thursday.

While the advocate general's opinion is not binding, the Luxembourg-based European Court of Justice (ECJ) usually follows it when making a final ruling, which is expected early in 2022.

PARIS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - Valerie Pecresse, a moderate conservative who served as minister under former President Nicolas Sarkozy, will go into a runoff as favourite to be picked as the centre-right Les Republicains' candidate in the French presidential election in April.

Pecresse will face Eric Ciotti, a staunch right-winger among the party ranks, in the runoff. The winner will head the party's bid to return to power for the first time in a decade.

MOSCOW, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that the probability of a new conflict in eastern Ukraine remained high and that Moscow was concerned by "aggressive" rhetoric from Kyiv and an increase in what it called provocative actions.

The comments come amid Ukrainian and western concerns over a buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine. Moscow denies planning an invasion and accuses Ukraine of building up its own forces in the east of the country.

BRUSSELS, Dec 2 (Reuters) - The European Union's public health agency said on Thursday that the Omicron variant could be responsible for more than half of all COVID-19 infections in Europe within a few months.

The estimate could lend weight to preliminary information about the very high transmissibility of the Omicron variant, above that of the Delta variant, which before Omicron was considered the most contagious of the main coronavirus strains.

STOCKHOLM, Dec 2 (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met his Russian counterpart on Thursday to warn him face-to-face of the "serious consequences" Russia would suffer if it invaded Ukraine and to urge him to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis.

Blinken delivered the warning to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a meeting in Stockholm, a day after declaring that Washington was ready to respond resolutely, including with hard-hitting sanctions, in the event of a Russian attack.

BRUSSELS, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- The so-called "Summit for Democracy" led by the United States is akin to "launching an ideological crusade" against other countries, Andrey Kortunov, director general of the Russian International Affairs Council, has recently written.

The attempt "reduces the multi-color palette of the modern world to a minimalist black and white graphics of a global fight between" what it sees as democracies and autocracies, Kortunov argued in an article published by website Modern Diplomacy.

BERLIN (AP) — Austria’s former chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said Thursday that he is quitting politics, two months after stepping down as leader amid corruption allegations.

Kurz said the recent birth of his first child had motivated him to take the step.

The 35-year-old said he had always done his best to “move our beautiful Austria a little bit in the right direction,” but acknowledged having made some mistakes during his 10-year career.

Still, Kurz insisted: “I’m neither a saint, nor a criminal.”

BRUSSELS (AP) — The top adviser to the European Union’s highest court on Thursday said that the principle of linking the bloc’s budget disbursements to respect for rule of law is compatible with the bloc’s laws and that a challenge by Hungary and Poland should be dismissed.

The right-wing governments of both nations had argued that such action lacked a proper legal basis. Both nations, large recipients of EU funds, have come under increasing criticism over the past few years for veering away from the Western principles of the respect for rule of law in their nations.

LONDON (AP) — A British court on Thursday dismissed an appeal by a newspaper publisher seeking to overturn an earlier ruling that it breached the privacy of the Duchess of Sussex by publishing portions of a letter she wrote to her estranged father.

The Court of Appeal in London upheld a High Court ruling in February that publication of the letter that the former Meghan Markle wrote to her father Thomas Markle after she married Prince Harry in 2018 was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.