June EUR PE 2020 Diplomatic magazine TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT (OF SIGHT) The darknet gains drug seekers during the pandemic HEROES, VILLAINS AND SPIES The Cold War heats up in Prague STEFAN LÖFVEN The Nordic Model endures E 3 BRUSSELS - PARIS - GENEVA - MONACO EUROPEDIPLOMATIC IN THIS ISSUE n Super or supine? The EU’s craven response to bullying by China ..........................p.5 n Stefan Löfven The Nordic Model endures .....................................................................p.12 n Turn on, tune in, drop out (of sight) 5 The darknet gains drug seekers during the pandemic. ..........................................p.18 n Breakthrough in forensic methods Getting Data From Damaged Mobile Phones ............................................................................................... p. 24 n Europe’s joint anti-crime operation A vast transnational criminal organisation whose activities yield 24 € 680 million dismantled ...................................................................................................................................................................... p. 26 n Pandas can bite China is not as cuddly as it likes to pretend .................................... p. 28 n Heroes, villains and spies The Cold War heats up in Prague ...................... p. 37 n Covid-19 antibody test 37 Roche’s test available in markets accepting the CE mark ............................................................. p. 44 n Bomb-sniffing electronic noses Detecting covid-19 in airport and airplanes ...................................................................................................... p. 46 n The Corona financial impact Hoping for a restored confidence in the economy ...............................................................p. 48 46 n News in Brief From Around Europe. ................................................................................... p. 51 n Newly accredited European Ambassadors. ............................................................. p. 54 n Timeless Chic Standout fashion and beauty trends ...................................................................... p. 56 54 n Books Our selection ......................................................................................................................................................................................... p. 58 EUR PE “EUROPE DIPLOMATIC MAGAZINE” is characterized by a very open editorial line that allows it to capture all the themes that affect directly or indirectly the European political, economic, social and security issues. Whether piracy in the Gulf of Aden Diplomatic and its threats to the global economy, articles about political leaders, geostrategic situations or technological developments magazine affecting our civilization, Europe Diplomatic Magazine strives to work in comparing opinions and providing an objective analysis based on extensive research. For a wide audience composed of both members of the diplomatic corps, lobbyists, international officials or academics, the magazine gives everyone the necessary and useful information about all topics that make up our daily lives. Covering sensitive issues such as nuclear, the rise of Islamism and energy dependence, the magazine opens its pages to recognized specialists who would like to express first order and exclusive information. But Europe Diplomatic Magazine is not only a source of information on recent topics. It is also addressing older facts with deep thought fur further analysis. Whether it’s news, security, diplomacy, technology, energy, terrorism, European affairs, no subject is treated superficially. Europe Diplomatic Magazine is an independent media, conveying balanced ideas of openness and analysis based on almost 30 years of experience in the journalistic world. Visit our site and please give us your comments: https://europe-diplomatic.eu/ [email protected] 3 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC Nikola Hendrickx 4 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC © Wikicommons Josep Borrell, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy SUPER OR SUPINE? The EU’s craven response to bullying by China On May 9, in a statement to mark the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which launched Europe on the road towards the European Union, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, said “Our response to the corona virus will define our global rôle for years to come”. hat he failed to mention had begun. Since then, the Chinese have SARS-CoV-2, to give the virus its proper was that the definition has sought to play down the source of the name, is the third severe coronavirus been somewhat soiled by outbreak, even accusing the United States disease to appear this century. The Wapparently caving in to Chinese pressure military of bringing the virus to China. others were the Severe Acute Respiratory over an innocent-looking article the EU However, other agents of misinformation Syndrome corona virus (SARS-CoV) hoped to place in two leading Chinese have got involved since then, especially and the Middle East Respiratory System newspapers, the China Daily and the Russia - the worst offender - and Iran, corona virus (MERS-CoV). How it People’s Daily, with a potential readership both of which have been spreading transferred from wild animals to humans of more than one billion. It was about misinformation about the corona virus the corona virus and specifically - if to cause confusion, to discredit the EU only in passing - mentioned China and, probably, to cause more deaths. But as its place of origin. The first case in a bald statement that the virus originated the world occurred in Wuhan in the in China was too much for Beijing. It province of Hubei in November 2019, insisted that the sentence be removed. where it was referred to as “a novel form of pneumonia”. It was thought to have The controversy since then has been transited from a wild animal to humans down to the fact that the EU ambassador and the Chinese authorities temporarily to China backed down and acquiesced closed and disinfected a wildlife and to Chinese demands without consulting wild meat market - called a ‘wet market’ Brussels or the other signatories to the © WIV - where they suspected the outbreak article. Wuhan's secretive Institute of Virology 5 EUROPEDIPLOMATIC being the place where the virus originated and have also re-tweeted Iranian claims that the virus was “weaponised” in an American laboratory, which would be rather like inventing a machine gun that randomly shoots your own soldiers as well as the enemy and anyone else who happens to be nearby. But such is the appetite on social media for conspiracy theories that there is probably no notion too daft to be picked up and believed by is unknown. The viruses strongly SPIKING THE COPY someone. Some have even blamed the 5G resemble two types found in bats, but smartphone network for causing and/or although consumers of bushmeat, as So here’s the background to the current spreading the virus, which is scientifically it’s known, consume certain types of scandal over this bowdlerised article: ludicrous ; some even attacked the masts animals not normally seen as a foodstuff, the EU ambassador to China, Nicolas that people need to avoid travel and to nobody eats bats. Except cats, of course, work from home. One has to suspect but we don’t eat cats, either, nor do we eat a hostile source for such errant and other predators by and large. SARS-CoV damaging nonsense. But it was not just first emerged in 2002 in Guangdong, and the editing of the op-ed that has caused was associated (rightly or wrongly) with concern. the sale of civets at a local market. The incident came just two weeks after Ten years later, MERS-CoV arrived. another scandal, first revealed in the SARS-Cov-2, the cause of Covid-19, is New York Times, which alleged that a very similar to the SARS-CoV virus, detailed report on scaremongering and while MERS-CoV is only slightly disinformation had been watered down different, although 35% of those who at the request of Beijing. In an article catch it die, despite some strange- on 24 April, journalist Matt Apuzzo sounding advice from the World Health claimed that EU officials first delayed Organisation (WHO): “Until more is and then watered down a report on the understood about MERS-CoV, people spread of deliberate disinformation, with diabetes, renal failure, chronic even though, as he wrote, “The initial lung disease, and immunocompromised European Union report…was not persons are considered to be at high particularly strident: a routine roundup risk of severe disease from MERS-CoV © Wikipedia of publicly available information and infection. These people should avoid Nicolas Chapuis, Ambassador of European news reports.” The report mentioned contact with camels, drinking raw camel Union to China Beijing’s attempts to deny the virus’s milk or camel urine, or eating meat origins, because the Chinese authorities that has not been properly cooked.” The Chapuis along with the ambassadors WHO did not advise travel restrictions are still trying to blame the United States of the twenty-seven EU member states, in connection with MERS-CoV. This for it. The report also mentioned China’s decided to mark the 45th anniversary of disease, unlike SARS-CoV and SARS- criticism of France for being deliberately EU-China diplomatic relations by issuing CoV-2, did not originate in China, but slow to respond to the pandemic as well what’s called an “op-ed”, that is an article has been experienced in