European Peace Facility comes into force

From today, the European Union will be able to rely on the European Peace Facility, a new financial instrument aimed at increasing its capacity to prevent conflict and preserve peace.

After the meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, the Portuguese Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Augusto Santos Silva, revealed that by 2027 the EU will have approximately five billion euros to help partner countries with peace-keeping missions or to increase the capability of their armed forces to ensure peace and security on their national territory.

The European Peace Facility was agreed on by the Member States in December and has now come into force.

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New sanctions for human rights violations

In this session of the Foreign Affairs Council yesterday, the EU also approved a number of sanctions against 11 individuals and four entities responsible for serious human rights violations in different countries in the world, including China, North Korea and Russia.

These include four Chinese officials in Xinjiang, in northwest China, where acts of repression against ethnic minorities of Muslim origin, such as the Uyghur people, have been reported for many years. The cases of violation in question include mass arbitrary detention.

This decision falls under the EU global human rights sanctions regime. The Council believes that the sanctions show the strong determination of the 27 to defend human rights and take effective action against those responsible for violation of and trampling on these rights.