European Union

European cities are putting measures in place to reduce toxic emissions from vehicles in a bid to improve air quality and save lives.

Norway and various unnamed countries will supply liquefied natural gas (LNG) to help ensure Slovakia’s dependence on Russian gas imports decreases drastically, the country’s largest gas supplier, SPP, announced on Friday. From 1 June, Slovakia will reduce its dependence on Russia...

International passengers arriving at Lisbon airport on flights from outside Europe on Sunday have been waiting four to five hours at passport control, following a plenary meeting called by the border agents’ union. In a note sent to the Lusa,...

The government intends to ensure that exports represent over 50% of GDP by the end of the decade, said Prime Minister António Costa on Sunday. In a meeting with Portuguese businessmen at the Hannover fair, Costa stressed that the choice of Portugal...

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez will call for more ambition to implement the reform of the European electricity markets and reduce energy bills on Monday and Tuesday at the EU summit in Brussels, Spanish official sources told EURACTIV’s partner EFE. Sánchez,...

Madrid will soon send a battery of anti-aircraft defence missiles to Latvia as part of a NATO deterrence mission, confirmed Defence Minister Margarita Robles on Saturday. Robles said Spain will send Latvia an anti-aircraft defence system equipped with six missiles...

We find ourselves in an extreme climate crisis, Swedish Climate and Environment Minister Annika Strandhäll said on Sunday ahead of June’s UN climate meeting due to take place in Stockholm. Sweden and Kenya will organise a high-level meeting entitled “Stockholm+50:...

The treatment of the Muslim Uighur minority in China is ‘very worrying’, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto told YLE in an interview on Saturday during his three-day visit to Washington. Haavisto’s remarks are unusual as Finnish ministers are typically cautious...

Ireland confirmed its first case of monkeypox this weekend in the east of the country as cases rise across Europe. The case was detected in the east of Ireland, the country’s Health Service Executive (HSE) said on Saturday (28 May),...

The Dutch border police intercepted 1,465 falsified documents in 2021, 10% more than in 2020, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee reported. Most of the documents gathered were identity cards and passports. Many of the passports were authentic passports with falsified information....

Conservative Chancellor Karl Nehammer has dismissed calls by President Alexander Van der Bellen – of the Greens, and up for re-election – to make naturalisation easier. With Austria’s upcoming presidential election in autumn, Van der Bellen has reignited the tense...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron have asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to reopen negotiations in a “direct exchange” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Elysée reported. In a three-way telephone conversation on Saturday (28 May), Scholz...

History is punctuated by a number of strangely emblematic coincidences. It certainly is one of them that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should have stirred us from our long geopolitical lethargy 70 years on from the signing of the Treaty establishing...

Citing “reasons to believe” extradition could lead to “torture, inhuman and degrading treatment”, Serbia will not return Tsvetan Vassilev, a Bulgarian banker and majority owner of the bankrupt Corporate Commercial Bank in 2014 who was granted political asylum last July,...

The European Commission’s recent proposal for a regulation to fight child abuse online could open the door to spying on private online conversations, Czech MEP Marcel Kolaja from the Pirates and Greens/EFA has warned. The Commission states that the current...

Germany will receive 40,000 vaccine doses against monkeypox in early June, with 200,000 more set to follow, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said on Sunday after cases were reported in Munich and Berlin. Read also: Countries urged to focus on monkeypox diagnostics,...

Hundreds of Lithuanians are clubbing together to buy an advanced military drone for Ukraine in its war against Russia, in a show of solidarity with a fellow country formerly under Moscow's rule.

Attempts to negotiate a compromise to get Hungary to back a Russian oil ban before a EU summit later on Monday (30 May) have made no progress. Reportedly, leaders don't want to squabble and will look at "the bigger picture". 

The EU has spent some €143m to promote European meat products in the last five years — despite increasing calls to halt taxpayer funded meat-promotion in light of the climate crisis.

The Visegrád Group, the New Hanseatic League, the Benelux or the Nordics have frequently worked together — however, southern European member states have frequently found themselves in loose cooperation or, worse, competition.