European Union

“The European Union must finish putting its house in order” before opening its doors to new member states, to prevent mistakes like the last major wave of enlargement, Prime Minister António Costa told journalists at the end of the EU-Western...

EU lawmakers criticised the bloc's finance ministers on Wednesday afternoon (6 October) for their inaction against tax avoidance, in a debate devoted to the Pandora Papers, the latest leak of financial documents exposing malpractice and tax avoidance by the rich and powerful across the globe.

Portugal is expected to return to pre-pandemic levels of wealth next year, the government said on Wednesday, adding that it is making an upward revision of growth estimates until 2022. Several parties mentioned that the executive anticipates growth of 4.6% this...

A Cyber Resilience Act, a Chips Act, a European Media Freedom Act and initiatives to boost digital skills – the European Commission’s 2022 work programme, seen by EURACTIV, gives an insight into upcoming digital initiatives coming from Brussels.

The economic and social side effects of the COVID-19 crisis have been devastating for Spain, with six million citizens living in severe poverty and 11 million at risk of social exclusion, according to data from a report released on Wednesday...

Government ministers from Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party, which suffered defeats in last weekend’s local elections, refused to participate in the Council of Ministers meeting set up to approve the new tax reform bill. League’s decision clearly indicates a widening...

Russian president Vladimir Putin offered on TV on Wednesday to export "record" amounts of gas to Europe to ease a price crunch, claiming Russia was a "reliable supplier", despite its history of politically-motivated cut-offs. Deputy prime minister Alexander Novak urged German regulators to quickly certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to help. The "speculative frenzy" on markets was because of Europe's "erroneous" preference for short-term contracts, Putin also said

A group of starving and freezing migrants are stranded in Belarus, some 50 metres from the Lithuanian border, according to information the Human Rights Monitoring Institute (HRMI) received on Wednesday. “Such reports are very disturbing. It is extremely difficult to...

An updated draft of the OECD’s global corporate tax agreement is missing a phrase that has proved a key sticking point for Ireland when signing up to the deal. The words “at least” have reportedly been removed from the latest...

EU leaders restated their enlargement promise to Western Balkan states at a summit in Slovenia Wednesday. But Albanian prime minister Edi Rama voiced frustration at EU vetoes on new accession talks. "We've learned the hard way not to expect anything", he said. European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen was also forced to voice "full confidence" in her enlargement commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, accused of covering up democratic backsliding in Serbia.

Boris Johnson’s speech at the Conservative Party conference on Wednesday (6 October) has been dubbed “economically illiterate”. Light on policy and heavy on jokes, Johnson likely banked on his post-Brexit optimism being shared by voters. “Bombastic but vacuous and economically...

The fossil fuel industry benefits from subsidies of €9.5m every minute, reports the International Monetary Fund (IMF). According to the international financial body, the production and use of coal, oil, and gas were subsidised by €5.1 trillion in 2020, with no one nation pricing all of its fuels high enough to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. The subsidies, according to experts, are "adding gasoline to the fire."

The EU 'traffic-light' system, in which countries were judged red/amber/green in terms of corona-infection rates, prompting different travel restrictions, failed due to divergent testing regimes, the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC), an EU agency, said in internal files seen by Reuters. "ECDC proposes to consider discontinuing the use of the combined indicator due to the limited public health value and focus instead on promoting vaccination among travellers," it said.

The Prosecutor’s Office for Economic Affairs and Corruption (WKStA) started investigations against Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and nine other people who belong to his inner circle over bribery allegations, breach of trust, and corruption. On Wednesday, the anti-corruption authorities raided...

Police searched 81 locations in more than 20 cities across Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and Bremen in a massive operation targeting money laundering and organised crime that included special forces, state security and tax investigators. The target of the...

Denmark and Germany have repatriated 11 women and 37 children from a Kurdish-operated camp in northern Syria in two joint operations. The women would face criminal proceedings in Germany for joining the EU-designated "terrorist" group Islamic State. But "the children are not responsible for their situation" and were "in particular need of protection", German foreign minister Heiko Maas said. Denmark had earlier taken a hawkish line on expelling Syrian refugees.

Stéphane Séjourné, head of the French delegation of centrist Renew Europe group of the European Parliament, has announced his candidacy for the presidency of the party following Dacian Cioloş departure. A vote is expected on 19 October, EURACTIV has learnt....

A new poll released on Wednesday has sent shock waves across the country. French far-right essayist Éric Zemmour has polled at 17% for the upcoming presidential elections, placing him second in the run for the Elysée and ahead of right-wing...

Human Rights Watch in a report says French officials are subjecting adults and children living in migrant encampments around Calais to degrading treatment. "If the aim is to discourage migrants from gathering in northern France, these policies are a manifest failure and result in serious harm," said the NGO's France director, Bénédicte Jeannerod. An estimated 2,000 people were staying in and around encampments in Calais in mid-2021, notes the report.

The German Greens and business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) will start coalition talks Thursday with the Social Democrats (SPD), moving the SPD candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz one step closer to leading the next government after inconclusive elections last month. Liberal FDP leader Christian Lindner said his party, which has greater policy overlap with the conservatives, shared with the Greens "a mutual conviction that there must be renewal in this country".