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Belgian workers have been given the right to request a four-day working week from their employer without any loss of pay.The country’s government confirmed the change on Tuesday after negotiations with unions and business groups over labour reforms. Flemish liberal prime minister Alexander De Croo said the Covid-19 pandemic had led to “new ways of working” and that workers and employers would now be given more flexibility.Under the change, full-time employees will be allowed to do their job across four days if their employer agrees.Though bosses can reject the request, they will have to give a formal justification with “solid grounds” for doing so, in writing.Under the new settlement, workers will be allowed to work a maximum of 9.5 hours a day – the equivalent of 9am to 6.30pm. This is extendable to ten hours through a workplace trade union agreement.Announcing the measure on Tuesday in Brussels prime minister Mr De Croo said: “We have experienced two difficult years. With this agreement, we set a beacon for an economy that is more innovative, sustainable and digital. The aim is to be able to make people and businesses stronger.“Although the coronavirus is widely seen as having a negative impact on employees, it has forced us to work more flexibly and combine our private and working lives. This has led to new ways of working.He added: “The goal is to give people and companies more freedom to arrange their work time.”“This has to be done at the request of the employee, with the employer giving solid grounds in case of refusals,” Economy Minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne, of the Socialist Party, said.Under the changes, which are part of Belgium’s wider labour deal, employees will also be given the right to choose to work more one week and then less the following week.But four-day week campaigners warned that the details of the reform – which sees working hours compressed into fewer days rather than significantly reduced – needed improvement.Joe Ryle, director of the 4 Day Week Campaign, told The Independent: “We welcome more flexibility for workers to choose when they work but compressing a normal five day week into four-days is not the answer to tackling burnout, stress and overwork.“It’s essential that the move to a four-day week involves a reduction in working hours, with no loss of pay for employees.“To ensure the four-day week is implemented properly and the benefits are shared by all workers, trade unions must be at the heart of this transition.”Trials of four day weeks with no loss of pay and reduced working time have found significant increases in productivity and health and well-being benefits for workers. The largest such trial of reduced working time, in Iceland, where 1 per cent of the country’s population cut their hours to 35-36 a week, was branded an “overwhelming success” by researchers.Since 2020 Belgium has had a seven party coalition government taking in liberals, socialists, Christian democrats, and greens from across the country’s French-speaking and Dutch-speaking regions. More

Multiple offensives are being planned by Russia along Ukraine’s borders, with Kiev the main target if Vladimir Putin decides to attack, according to western officials.More than 60 per cent of Russia’s ground combat power, half of its air force, and a significant proportion of its special forces will take part in a huge invasion, with a Kremlin-backed regime installed if the capital is occupied, they claim.The alarming assessment comes amid last-ditch diplomatic efforts to prevent conflict, including a visit to Moscow on Tuesday by German chancellor Olaf Scholz.Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia was finalising its response to US proposals for easing tensions, indicating some room for talks.But Ukraine repeated its commitment to joining Nato – a key sticking-point – and president Volodymyr Zelensky declared that Wednesday, which US officials warned could be the date of a Russian invasion, would be a “day of unity” in his country.“We will hoist national flags, put on blue and yellow ribbons and show the world our unity,” he said.Foreign secretary Liz Truss, who chaired a Cobra meeting on Monday afternoon, repeated Britain’s warning that Russia could launch an invasion “almost immediately” and reiterated calls for Britons to leave Ukraine now.Boris Johnson and US president Joe Biden agreed in a phone call on Monday night that there remains a “crucial window for diplomacy and for Russia to step back from its threats towards Ukraine”.A Downing Street spokesperson added: “The leaders emphasised that any further incursion into Ukraine would result in a protracted crisis for Russia, with far-reaching damage for both Russia and the world.”Analysis of forces movements show that 100 battalion tactical groups (BTGs) out of a total of 170 in Russia’s armed forces are in place, with another 14 on their way, according to intelligence officials.The alarming scenario is the latest to be presented alongside western claims that military action is now imminent – but it does not stipulate that attacks could begin on Wednesday. More

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has likened some Western diplomatic efforts to ease the Ukraine crisis to appeasement, saying there is a “whiff of Munich in the air”.In an interview with the Sunday Times, he said a Russian invasion of Ukraine is now “highly likely” and that the size of its military presence on the border was such that Moscow could “launch an offensive at any time”.“The worrying thing is that, despite the massive amount of increased diplomacy, that military build-up has continued,” he said. “It has not paused, it has continued.”He added that Putin could back down “but there is a whiff of Munich in the air from some in the West.”He did not refer to any country by name, but his comments came as officials in the French presidency said Vladimir Putin had given no indication he was planning to invade Ukraine during a phone call on Saturday with Emmanuel Macron.”We see no indication in what President Putin says that he is going to go on the offensive,” the French official told reporters.Macron visited Moscow during the week, when the pair discussed ways to move forward on the implementation of the Minsk Agreements on achieving peace in eastern Ukraine.Scholz is due to visit Kiev on Monday followed by Moscow on Tuesday, and the Elysee said the French and German positions were “perfectly aligned”.The Ministry of Defence has ruled out an evacuation of Kiev similar to the one carried out in Afghanistan last August after the fall of Kabul.Mr Wallace said: “Russia has a formidable armed forces that would have an air defence and [anti-aircraft] capability. The Taliban had lots of things but it didn’t have that.”Last week Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, announced plans for the “toughest sanctions regime against Russia” as she warned that any further invasion would incur “severe costs”. She will be in eastern European capitals over the next month spearheading the diplomatic campaign. Her message will be that a Russian invasion would backfire on the Kremlin and result in a drawn-out conflict.Reuters contributed to this report. More

President Joe Biden called Vladimir Putin on Saturday to warn him of “swift and severe costs” if Russia invades Ukraine, in an apparent last-ditch attempt to avoid military conflict in eastern Europe.The leaders spoke for just over an hour as several more countries urged their citizens to leave Ukraine following western intelligence reports that fighting could begin as soon as next week.The United States “remains prepared to engage in diplomacy”, Mr Biden told Mr Putin, but warned him that invading Ukraine “would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing”.Kremlin officials said the phone call took place against a backdrop of “hysteria” in the west and that the US had not addressed Russia’s main security concerns.Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops near the Ukraine border and has sent troops to exercises in neighbouring Belarus, but has repeatedly denied that it intends to launch an offensive against Ukraine. It is demanding that the west keep Ukraine and other former Soviet countries out of Nato and to refrain from deploying weapons near its border.Britain on Saturday announced it was withdrawing its remaining troops from Ukraine. Small numbers of British personnel have undertaken Operation Orbital training missions since Russia’s seizure of Crimea in 2014 , including around 30 deployed recently to train the Ukrainian military on the use of anti-tank missiles.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said she agreed with Washington that “Russia will face massive consequences for any invasion, including severe sanctions”. “Russia must deescalate and engage with Nato proposals,” she said.Ukraine’s foreign ministry called for calm and urged all sides to “avoid actions that undermine stability and sow panic”.In Kiev, several thousand people rallied to show unity over fears of a Russian invasion. They chanted “Glory to Ukraine” and carried Ukrainian flags and banners that said “Ukrainians will resist” and “invaders must die”.Among the crowd were British nationals vowing to stay and defend Ukraine, but others are scrambling to leave over fears commercial flights could soon be suspended.The Biden-Putin phone call was the first direct conversation between the two leaders since December.The White House said: “President Biden was clear that, if Russia undertakes a further invasion of Ukraine, the United States together with our allies and partners will respond decisively and impose swift and severe costs on Russia.“President Biden reiterated that a further Russian invasion of Ukraine would produce widespread human suffering and diminish Russia’s standing. President Biden was clear with President Putin that while the United States remains prepared to engage in diplomacy, in full coordination with our allies and partners, we are equally prepared for other scenarios.”A senior administration official described the call as “professional and substantive”, but added there was “no fundamental change in the dynamic that has been unfolding now for several weeks”.The United States has moved its remaining troops out of Ukraine and ordered the evacuation of most of its embassy staff from Kiev. The Pentagon pulled out nearly 160 members of the Florida National Guard who had been in the country since November.Adding to the sense of crisis, the Pentagon ordered an additional 3,000 troops to Poland to reassure allies.It comes after a hectic week of diplomatic negotiations designed to remove the risk of war.Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Ms Truss were among those to visit Moscow this past week as well as four-way talks taking place in Berlin between Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France, but with no breakthrough. More

Boris Johnson has insisted that Britain will “not flinch” and will continue to offer “unconditional and immovable” support to Nato, amid continued fears that Russia could be preparing to invade Ukraine.Moscow continues to add military might to its army amassed near the Ukrainian border, following a series of demands to Nato – which were formally rejected last month – including that Ukraine will not be allowed to join the western military alliance.Echoing comments by defence secretary Ben Wallace on Monday, as he dispatched a further 350 British troops to Poland, the prime minister warned Vladimir Putin that invading Ukraine would backfire and only serve to strengthen Nato.There could not “be a more compelling argument for the necessity of Nato than the sight of Russian tanks invading a European country once again”, Mr Johnson wrote in The Times, warning the Kremlin “its objectives would not be served by inflicting still greater destruction and bloodshed on Ukraine”.But following a five-hour dinner meeting in Moscow with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, the Russian president warned that, if Ukraine joins Nato and seeks to retake Crimea – which Russia annexed in 2014 – then European nations “will automatically be drawn into military conflict” with Russia “beyond [their] will”, adding: “There will be no winners.”As the first western leader hosted in Moscow since tensions intensified late last year, Mr Macron is due to speak to the Russian leader again after a trip to Ukraine tomorrow. “The next few days will be decisive and will require intensive discussions which we will pursue together,” the French president told reporters after his meal with Mr Putin.Mr Putin also appeared tentatively positive about the meeting, saying: “A number of his ideas, proposals, which are probably still too early to talk about, I think it is quite possible to make the basis of our further joint steps.”French media reported that, prior to the meeting, Mr Macron suggested that a “Finlandisation” of Ukraine was “one of the models on the table” – a reference to how Finland maintained its independence from the Soviet Union during the Cold War on the condition that it remained strictly neutral.Mr Putin also urged Ukraine to comply with the Minsk agreements – brokered by France and Germany in 2015 – which include an aim to end the separatist war by Russian-speakers in the Donbas region, but also contain aspects some experts believe are incompatible with Ukraine’s existence as a sovereign country.But Mr Macron said the independence of Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus – where Russia is conducting military exercises – must be preserved, saying: “Together … I’m sure we will get a result, even if it’s not easy.”Meanwhile, Mr Putin accused the US and Nato of “bypassing” its demands last month, but said: “I do not think that this is where our dialogue ends. Now we will formulate an answer, our vision, and send it to Washington and Brussels.”Their comments came shortly after a press conference held in the White House by Joe Biden and Olaf Scholz, the new German chancellor, who appeared to strengthen Berlin’s commitment to derailing the multibillion-pound Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany in the event that Russia invades Ukraine.The US president told reporters that if Russian troops cross Ukraine’s border, “then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”, saying: “We will bring it to an end.”While Mr Scholz did not use the pipeline’s name, he stressed that US and Germany would “act together jointly” to impose severe sanctions in the event of an invasion, saying: “There won’t be any measures in which we have a different approach.”Switching to English for emphasis, he added that the US and Germany “will be united”.But questions were raised over Mr Scholz’s commitment to the Baltic Sea pipeline threat, after he once again failed to explicitly name Nord Stream 2 as among the economic deterrents on the table in a later interview with CNN, merely repeating his vow to remain aligned with the US.Mr Scholz told the broadcaster he did not know whether Ukraine’s president Volodymr Zelensky had cancelled a planned meeting on Monday with foreign minister Annalena Baerbock as a result of Germany’s stance on the pipeline, as suggested to CNN by one Kiev source – as opposed to the scheduling error blamed officially.It came after a batch of the 3,000 American forces pledged by Washington to bolster Nato’s eastern flank arrived in Poland on Sunday.At a press conference with his Polish counterpart, Mariusz Błaszczak, the UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said the 350 troops also pledged by the UK were being dispatched in the “spirit of solidarity”. Poland is also facing a crisis on its own border with Belarus, whose leader Alexander Lukashenko is an ally of Mr Putin.Writing in The Times on Monday night, Mr Johnson said Britain was also considering deploying royal air force Typhoon fighters and royal navy warships to protect southeastern Europe.“British sanctions and other measures will be ready for any renewed Russian attack,” the prime minister said.Highlighting the confusion over Mr Scholz’s pipeline stance, Mr Johnson also welcomed “Germany’s statement that Nord Stream 2 would be reconsidered in the event of an incursion”, and said his government would ask MPs for new powers to widen potential sanctions on firms linked to the Kremlin.On Sunday, Labour shadow ministers Rachel Reeves and David Lammy wrote to their opposite numbers in government, Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, urging the Tories to return money from donors with links to Russia, alleged to amount to £1.93m since Mr Johnson assumed power in 2019.Additional reporting by agencies More

Emmanuel Macron has said Britain bears the responsibility for all migrant deaths in the Channel and accused Westminster of ‘hypocrisy’. Speaking to the regional French newspaper La Voix du Nord, President Macron said he will “step up” the pressure on Boris Johnson to establish a legal route to Britain for asylum seekers – something Westminster has so far declined to do.“The responsibility for those who die at sea does not fall upon France but upon this British refusal,” Mr Macron said. Responding to the President’s comments on Wednesday, UK home secretary Priti Patel said they were “absolutely wrong”. Ms Patel told MPs on the Commons Home Affairs Committee: “Macron’s comments are wrong. They’re absolutely wrong. So, let me be very, very clear about that.”President Macron told the French newspaper that the British economy is reliant on low-paid, illegal immigration labour, adding: “The British continue to have a system from the 1980s, which manages economic immigration through hypocrisy. There is no legal immigration route.”He added: “The British must articulate their needs in terms of the economy and reopen a path to legal asylum requests. We are going to step up the pressure.”Priti Patel highlighted that “very good work” was being done by the UK ambassador in Paris and praised the “co-operation that we have to have with France to combat the dangerous and unnecessary crossings, dealing with illegal migration, but also working with like-minded partners across Europe.”She concluded: “So, those comments are just wrong.”The numbers of migrants crossing the Channel is rising and six times as many people made the perilous journey by boat this January, compared to the same month last year. UK authorities intercepted or rescued 1,341 people compared to 223 the year before.France has previously proposed setting up joint processing centres on French soil, where applications for asylum in Britain could be examined by British immigration officers.Last year, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin urged Britain to open a legal immigration route because “at the moment anyone who wants to ask for asylum has no other choice but to cross the Channel”.He also said that relaxed labour practices on the other side of the Channel created a “pull effect” on people who were looking for work.The tension between France and Britain came to a head in November last year when 27 people tragically died making the journey across the Channel in freezing conditions. Following the tragedy, Boris Johnson called on France to take back people who had entered Britain illegally as a deterrent measure. Mr Macron, who is expected to announce his campaign for re-election soon, is now pushing for a new agreement between the EU and the UK. President Macron has yet to declare that he will seek a second term in France’s April elections and told La Voix du Nord that the crisis over Ukraine and coronavirus come first. He said that plunging into the presidential campaign now would betray a promise he made to be president “until the end” and would be wrong at a time when “we have a crisis on the Ukrainian border which threatens our collective security”. More

“It’s a pity that Boris Yeltsin still isn’t the Russian leader, he liked to party, he and your Boris would have got on well together,” Nicolai Olynik observed. “Maybe all this fear of war could have been lifted a bit with a few drinks.”There has not been much cause for levity in the Donbas, eastern Ukraine, amid warnings of an impending conflict and around 125,000 Russian troops massed at the border.Nor have people here been following the ‘partygate’ saga in the UK in much detail. But the scheduled visit to Kiev on Tuesday by Mr Johnson has kindled some interest in what has been taking place in London in recent days.There is, undoubtedly, a feeling of gratitude in Ukraine over the weapons – NLAW anti-tank missiles – that the UK has supplied to Kiev as the threat of invasion by Kremlin forces rose in recent months and hope that support will not be dissipated by focus on domestic British issues.Mr Johnson was also supposed to have had a telephone call on the Ukraine crisis with Vladimir Putin before meeting the President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev. That call, however, was cancelled because the British Prime Minister had to be in the Commons following the partial report by Sue Gray on breaches of lockdown parties at Downing Street, and is now scheduled to take place on Wednesday afternoon.Mr Johnson, speaking on Monday, declared that President Putin needed to “step back from the brink… any incursion into Ukraine beyond the territory that Russia has already taken in 2014 would be an absolute disaster for the world, and above all it would be a disaster for Russia.”Mr Olynik, a 33-year-old businessman said: “It is a pity if this phone call between Johnson and Putin is not done, maybe we would have more of an idea about what the Russians want to do. At the moment there is a lot of uncertainty here and lot of different ideas about what’s going to happen. Any news about Putin’s intentions would be good to know. Mr Yeltsin probably could have been bit open after a few vodkas and champagne.”Mr Yeltsin was the first President on the Russian Federation, for eight years, from 1991. His excessive drinking became a public issue and a matter of international interest. Documents, declassified two years ago, showed that by the mid-90s, the UK government had drawn up contingency plans about courses of actions to follow if he were to die in office.

Boris Johnson is today the most disliked, disrespected and ridiculed character in Britain. Even schoolchildren are laughing at himRussia’s NTV stationSome Russian media outlets sought to pillory Mr Johnson over the party allegations.The state backed Rossiya 1 channel claimed that his “anti-Russian hysteria” was “a way to divert attention from domestic problems” as he sought to “stifle” scandal. “Only anti-Russian sanctions can distract from Johnson’s protracted ‘Partygate’. ” NTV, owned by Gazprom, declared: “If it were in the power of Boris Johnson, [Sue Gray’s report] would have disappeared into the bowels of the Victorian sewers of the city of London. Boris Johnson is today the most disliked, disrespected and ridiculed character in Britain. Even schoolchildren are laughing at him.”Anatol Mischenko, a business partner of Mr Olynik, commented: “Yeltsin was very indiscreet, Putin is not like that of course, he is a very controlled person I think. Maybe he’ll try to use the issue of British weapons in a bargain with the UK. “But I do not think it’ll be possible even for world leaders of big countries to know what Putin is thinking until he does something : and for a place like this, that is quite worrying.”Slovyansk was the first city to be seized by separatists and experienced some of the brutalities of the conflict including extra-judicial killings and torture of prisoners. It was later retaken by Ukrainian forces. The Russian backed Donetsk Peoples Republic is a short distance away, and there have been frequent clashes since the 2014 war. “We’re quite a way away from Kiev of course, and only time we hear about international leaders is when they come for a few hours to say they have been to the frontline,” said Galyna Ostapenko, a ceramic designer. “Even then they normally go to Kramatorsk [a nearby city] rather than here, I think some British MPs went there recently. More