Euractiv.com

The junta that seized power in Niger last week detained senior politicians on Monday (31 July), their party said, defying international calls to restore democratic rule, while fellow military rulers in West Africa expressed their support.

Troops at the spearhead of Ukraine's counteroffensive say a battle last week along the front in the southeast proved to be tougher and bloodier than expected, with plans going awry and an enemy that was well-prepared.

Thousands of Bulgarians took to the streets on Monday (31 July) to protest violence against women after a harrowing case of a teen cut hundreds of times shocked the Balkan nation.

The Niger coup marks the end of a largely-failed French military ‘Barkhane’ operation in the Sahel, broadly due to a lack of resources, and an underlying sense of neocolonialism, according to experts EURACTIV spoke with.

Bulgaria benefits from an EU derogation allowing it to import Russian oil for its only refinery owned by Lukoil. However, the financial and political interests served by this derogation are not those of Bulgarian consumers, but those of Lukoil and the Kremlin, write Martin Vladimirov and Ruslan Stefanov.

The EU and the Philippines will restart negotiations on a free-trade agreement as they seek to accelerate "a new era of cooperation", European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Monday (31 July).

Eurozone inflation fell further in July and most measures of underlying price growth also eased, in a largely comforting sign for the European Central Bank (ECB) as it considers ending its severe run of interest rate hikes.

With its so-called Bidenomics, the US is leading the way in linking subsidies to social conditionalities, an approach that the EU has both criticised due to its impacts on competition and been reluctant to integrate into its industrial policy.

German far-right party AfD has decided on a hardliner advocating for a “Europe of nation states” as their lead candidate for the upcoming EU elections. Meanwhile, it remains unclear whether the party will push for Germany to exit the EU.

July 2023 has broken multiple temperature records and is expected to be the hottest month ever recorded, according to the UN's World Meteorological Organisation and EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service.

Fabio Mauri, the man behind DG MEME, a popular Twitter account with 100,000 followers poking fun at EU politics and policy-making, told EURACTIV that he is regarded as a "troublemaker" by European Commission's top management but that this does not put him off.

West African nations imposed sanctions and threatened force on Sunday (30 July) if Niger’s coup leaders fail to reinstate ousted President Mohammed Bazoum within a week, while supporters of the junta attacked the French embassy in Niamey. The 15-nation ECOWAS...

The largest party representing North Macedonia's ethnic Albanian minority offered to pull its ministers from the government to meet a demand from the opposition to clear the way for European Union membership talks.

A senior Ukrainian official reported heavy fighting in the northeast of the country on Sunday (30 July), with Kyiv's forces holding their lines and making gains in some areas.

Italy made an "improvised and atrocious" decision when it joined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) four years ago as it did little to boost exports, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said in an interview published on Sunday (30 July).

Niger's military leaders warned against any armed intervention in the country as West African leaders are set to gather in Nigeria's capital for an emergency summit to decide on further actions to pressure the army to restore constitutional order.

China hopes France can "stabilise the tone" of EU-China relations, vice-premier He Lifeng told a senior French minister in Beijing on Saturday (29 July), as European leaders debate how to "de-risk" but also cooperate with the world's second-largest economy.

Thousands took to the streets to protest against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on Friday and Saturday (28 and 29 July) as the party held a convention to choose its candidates for European parliamentary elections next year.

Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who remains active despite leading a failed mutiny against the Russian army's top brass last month, has hailed Niger's military coup as good news and offered his fighters' services to bring order.

Kosovo's government on Friday (28 July) suspended the license of the country's biggest private television broadcaster over a registration error, alarming journalists who accused the ruling party of an open war against free media.