European Union

Austria, the Netherlands and Hungary have flagged concerns about EU plans to ensure the bloc’s gas storage is at least 80% full by 1 November, warning they would bear a disproportionate amount of the cost.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about countries expelling Russian diplomats, France launching investigations into war crimes allegedly committed against its citizens in Ukraine, and so much more.

India on Tuesday (5 April) condemned the killings of civilians in Ukraine's Bucha and called for an independent investigation, having earlier declined to explicitly criticise the invasion of Ukraine by its long-time partner Russia.

Coordinated or not, Europe’s pro-EU mainstream political leaders have refrained from congratulating, at least in public, Viktor Orbán for his re-election in Hungary. According to EURACTIV network partners across the bloc, most governments remained silent, Visegrad adopted a more cautious...

Albania’s rising price woes will continue until at least the end of the year, Bank of Albania Governor Genc Sejko told a press conference on Tuesday. Presenting the transition report from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on the...

The European Central Bank’s governing council has decided to extend the deadline for Montenegro’s Central Bank to continue using EUREP, the European bank’s repo facility that is one of the measures to curtail the COVID-19 crisis, Montenegro’s central bank announced. The...

Those in favour of North Macedonia’s largest opposition VMRO-DPMNE far outnumber those who would vote for governing party SDSM if elections were held today, a recent poll shows. VMRO-DPMNE would have 18.2% of the votes while SDSM would tale only...

Malian forces and suspected Russian fighters killed about 300 civilians in late March in the centre of the conflict-torn Sahel nation, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday (5 April).

Genocide survivors in Bosnia and Herzegovina and BiH Foreign Minister Bisera Turković strongly condemned the statements of Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova that appear to imply the 1995 Srebrenica genocide was staged. Zakharova made the controversial statement after US...

Using forest wood to replace Russian fossil fuel imports would not only be disastrous for the environment, it would also not be a credible energy alternative, writes Karl Wagner.

In a tense meeting of EU member state finance ministers on Tuesday (5 April) in Luxemburg, Poland vetoed a compromise proposal for an EU directive that would implement the internationally agreed 15% minimum effective taxation for large multinational companies.

Most citizens in Germany, France, Italy and Spain are in favour of Ukraine joining the EU, while the majority in those countries oppose Serbia’s EU path, a study published Tuesday shows. The new research, conducted by public opinion and data...

Slovenia has effectively expelled 33 Russian diplomats without declaring them persona non grata. In a decision announced Tuesday (5 Apri), Slovenia followed the lead of multiple EU countries that have expelled diplomats in recent days. It did so after summoning...

Romania has finally joined the ranks of other EU and NATO members that expelled Russian diplomats following the invasion of Ukraine by dismissing 10 Russian diplomats from its territory. The Romanian authorities have declared 10 people working at the Russian...

The growth of the Bulgarian economy in 2022 will slow to 2.6%, according to the finance ministry’s spring forecast, which previously predicted 4.8% growth on which the state budget was built. Last year, the growth of the Bulgarian economy was...

Italy announced the expulsion of 30 Russian diplomats on Tuesday, the latest in a long line of EU states to do so. Russian Ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, was called to attend a meeting at the foreign ministry with Secretary-General,...

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy referred to the Spanish Civil War-era bombing of Guernica to appeal to the Spanish parliament for stronger action against Russia on Tuesday, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reported. The Ukrainian leader delivered a speech to Spanish lawmakers shortly after...

Portugal has declared ten employees of the diplomatic mission of the Russian embassy in Lisbon persona non grata, giving them two weeks to leave the country, the foreign ministry announced on Tuesday. In a statement released Tuesday, the foreign ministry stated that...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen denied rumours that the Commission would approve Poland’s Recovery Plan before her planned visit to the country later this week. Approving the plan would pave the way to releasing money from the EU’s...

The Hungarian forint fell sharply following the news that the EU would trigger the rule of law conditionality against Hungary, while the local stock market also took a serious hit, with investors selling shares of OTP, Hungary’s largest commercial bank, Telex reported...