to impose on anyone doing business with iran. a new approach to russia and quitting the euro among the plans confirmed by one of the parties that's poised to form italy's next coalition government. and german media reports now suggest berlijn had long possessed the sample of the novel nerve agent as used in the souls brave boys thing that despite the u.k. previously claiming russia was the only country to possess that. this is r.t. international. the e.u. has announced it's set to use its own economic weapon to block the u.s. from sanctioning european firms doing business with iran the u.s. has threatened to sanction any european company that deals with tehran e.u.

commission president jiang claude younker said that brussels could for the first ever time impose the so-called blocking statute banning any e.u. firm from complying with foreign sanctions. or put of work as the european commission we have the duty to protect european companies so we now need to act and this is why we're launching the process of activating the blocking statute from one thousand nine hundred six we will do that tomorrow morning at ten thirty start off with just what is the blocking statute well it's the strongest weapon in the legislative arsenal when it comes to tackling sanctions placed upon businesses and entities from the european union the law itself goes back to one thousand nine hundred six it's never been acted but the closest it ever came into operation was back in ninety six when the u.s. was considering placing sanctions on european businesses importing things and doing . trade with cuba what we are going to see is that on ten thirty on friday morning

a really written version of this law specifically for the current situation regarding the threat of sanctions against businesses who will continue to trade with iran what may have been but final straw and pushing the european commission towards implementing the blocking start shooting may well have been these words from french petrochemicals giant to tell saying they weren't sure whether they were willing to risk sanctions by the u.s. would not be in a position to continue the project and will have to wind all related operations before november twenty eighth seen on list total is granted a specific project by the u.s. authorities with the support of the french and european authorities are speaking at a summit of e.u. leaders in saffir the french president emmanuel mccann vowed to protect european business but as it has it we will work to maintain the framework of the twenty

fifteen deal in spite of the american decision and we will do so in a concrete manner by maintaining our political engagements by ensuring that our companies can stay in iran and also by getting all parties to pursue negotiations for a larger indispensable deal but despite the words from politicians in the action of implementing the blocking statute that still hasn't stopped other companies from already saying that they weren't going to do any more trade in iran we've seen ali answer the german insuring giant say they were going to pull out they also alongside the danish shipping company maersk the pull out by donald trump from the iran deal that unilateral decision to take the u.s. out of the iran nuclear deal that really has soured relations between some of europe's leading leaders if you will and got merkel said just this week that europe was at a crossroads when it came to its relationship with the u.s. it certainly. if it continues down this route it's

a route that doesn't bring washington or brussels closer together. but of an oath as the former deputy speaker of the belgian parliament in kearney joins me on the line this evening lowder a pleasure to speak here do you think this could be used as what's been described as this major blocking tool to think the e.u. will implemented we learn from that is really a possibility in the coming weeks or i mean we should not accept any drastic changes in the policy of from the u.s. side now whether this is a very strong powerful tool that remains to be seen you should not forget that even when it is applied it is still up to the e.u. member states themselves to apply true their own legislation and then let's not forget that sanctions like the are mainly a political matter and not so much a matter of legal lever legal matter it's more opinion political power how likely to think it is that the u.s. would actually impose sanctions on e.u.

businesses. it happened in the past let's not forget even in served in the eighty's there been moments when the us applied sanctions on the steel industry shouldn't cetera when we should not forget the e.u.'s u.s. does apply when there is in an interest they're not that different from any other countries they just have more power to implement their will now whether this situation. it's all very dirty for the same time it is without historical precedence even the comparison with ninety six there's not really apply because this goes really does goes really against the decision of the president of the united states himself while in the past these sanctions more more a matter of specific departments of specific ministries. implying sanctions against companies at the one on the one hand we should not overestimate

the importance of trade with iran as a whole with europe this is a matter that might be very crucial to specific smaller companies that for example have a large part of their trade with iran i mean the big companies that you mentioned like in the danish which is named maersk company of goods they going to choose for the for the better and they're going to see our interests lie more with the u.s. now with iran and they're going to and they're going to not to risk these kind of sanctions told them whether it is going to really be in implemented i mean it is a possibility but what the real impact is going to be that remains to be seen we should not forget that the e.u. on politically on foreign policy issues it has always been strong on words on symbols but not that much on real implementation in talk about strong words that because uncle john has been you know particularly vocal in in an appearance at

least. ending up against the u.s. or how we really got a major political spat between europe and the us here or is this just a lot of hot air at the moment. well actually it's a bit of both i think that there is a lot of discontent on the european side with the present be divorcing of the present president of the united states but at the same time you know the diplomatic reflex is to unilife try out but your absolutely right that this language is mostly with our president but at the same time it is still language and speech is real in the real thing has to be done even seen you know there's an expression in english it's with the pudding etc through college but that is where it's going to be seen for the moment i would see ok this is really something that's quite new in the relations with between the e.u. and the u.s.

but what the next step is going to be we'll see yet prove for the putting of a meeting i think was that phrase us the direction for that totally understood the many thanks for your time load of unused as my guest former deputy speaker of the belgian parliament always a pleasure. italy's five star movement has confirmed to r.t. that it's preparing a draft resolution alongside its euro skeptic ally the league party to form a coalition government quitting the euro and lifting sanctions against russia appeared to be among the major issues proposed after the document was leaked to the media r.t. charlotte devinsky has more. many people see these two parties who are from the left and the right side of the political spectrum as being quite radical parties they're anti establishment they're anti e.u. and already that leaked document and it details of course some jitters on the stock market with many investors selling off their italian assets when those leaks were

put online so what's in the document what's causing this vexation they want to leave the single currency that would mean quitting the euro they also want the european central bank to write off some of italy's debts with two hundred and fifty billion euros they also talk about russia and relations with the country between russia and the e.u. saying that they want to scrap the sanctions that are currently in place against russia and want to see russia as being a trading partner and not a threat and also quite crucially they want to revise the e.u. migration rules that currently exist which mean that migrants have to apply for permission to stay in the first country that they set foot on well we have had confirmation from the five star movement that this document is authentic but we've been told that it isn't all document and there have been revisions since that was dated on may fourteenth however we are aware they've told r.t.

that there is a final agreement that's already been put in the new agreement on russia but we don't know the routing of that yet but one certainly to watch out for given the tensions between the european union and russia so why is there anxiety about these two parties coming together is seen as being anti establishment and some fear that the suggestion that these two parties could form a governing coalition in in italy could actually threaten and destabilize the euro zone if you think about it italy is one of the three. crucial members of the euro seen including france and germany and if you think of it as being a three legged stool if you take one of those legs away then it could just completely collapse all around and that's what many people fear will happen with these two parties if they come together but let's be clear they haven't yet released a final document they're still working on that they want to form this governing

coalition so that italy doesn't face fresh elections that there still seems to be some sticking points before that government can be formed. runs oprah glasgow who's a lecturer at the school of political science at the university belong europe thinks if the deal is actually implemented it could influence the policies of other e.u. countries i think the key thing to hear will be. the actual action of the government will be if a government is in place with this platform so rather than the words written in the agreement i think we'll have to see whether this government. actually starts starts governing starts running the country and which policies it actually tries to put into action so this could have an impact on other countries both in terms of the rhetoric towards europe and in terms of specific actions. has been a possible going changer in the script poisoning case a new report by german media suggests that burley not turned novacek decades ago

and that it shared it with its allies the nerve agent was used in the incident involving former spy surrogate scribal the u.k. blames russia for the attack claiming it was the only country that possessed the substance on these political has more on these revelations. well the headline grabbing revelation in this german media report is that the german intelligence agency the b n d has handed a sample of the novacek nerve agent since the early one nine hundred ninety s. it was apparently brought over by a former soviet scientist moreover according to these reports the sample was analyzed in sweden and then it was passed on to germany's nato partners including the u.s. and the u.k. the german media investigation also says that this goes to show that russia has been producing novacek which is something that moscow categorically denies but coming back to the formula itself it appears to have been

a pretty badly kept secret earlier this month the czech president milan stehman said that the czech republic had produced and stored albeit a slightly different strain of the nerve agent to the one used in souls brave but nevertheless that country shouldn't be hypocritical about this blue small amounts of were produced in the czech republic we know well and we know where the critical to britain such a thing never. however politically moscow has been cost very much as the unequivocal perpetrator of the soul's bre attack to reason may said that it was highly likely that russia was behind the attack on the script take a lesson where i called for news about the identity of the culprit no other country has a combination of the capability the intent and the motive to carry out such an act

there is no poolesville alternative explanation yet but. this is. close even clearer to forgive. the global explosions that's what the politicians have said but the head of the government here in the u.k. that was analyzing and identifying the sample of the nerve agent used in the attack porton down the head of that government lab hasn't been able to confirm the origin of the nerve agent itself used in salisbury and now some news outlets are saying that these revelations show that a whole wrong have countries have had a sample of this nerve agent for nearly two decades now and as one of the newspapers that published this investigation has said this british theory that the poison could only come from russia shares unjustified confidence

in the media say that those behind investigation have requested comment on the revelations from both german and swedish governments but berlin said that it wouldn't discuss the intelligence issue slocombe said it's not aware of any involvement. ukrainian court has ordered the russian journalists curial vision's could be detained for two months vicious ski who's the head of the kir of bureau of the rijn obviously news agency was arrested tuesday for alleged treason he was arrested in care then transported to harrison a city in southern ukraine more than five hundred kilometers from the capital as relatives have heard nothing since his arrest this is why farina says that the journalist has a medical condition and that he needs medication this is a new malls a yard i learned about his arrest from the internet and then contacted his driver and he told me that it happened in the.