European Union

Steel, cement and fertilisers should be among the first sectors protected by the upcoming carbon levy to safeguard European business from cheaper, CO2 intensive imports, according to Poland.

A Slovak ministry has proposed a reallocation of €1 billion from the European structural and investments funds on Wednesday. As EURACTIV Slovakia reported, Bratislava was supposed to only have an allocation of €20 million, due to the EU’s money allocation...

MEPs on Wednesday approved a new  European Space programme with a seven-year budget of €14.8 billion uniting all EU space activities in one place and expanding the scope and strengthening the competencies of Prague-based European GNSS Agency (GSA). The decision...

The Polish government has unveiled plans to lift COVID-19 restrictions gradually over the next month, with grades 1-3 returning to in-person schooling full-time as of 4 May. According to government statistics, there are now more than 25,000 COVID-19 patients in...

Hungary has no plans to expel Russian diplomats, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó told RTL on Wednesday (28 April), Telex reported. Hungary will thus be the only Visegrád country to not commit itself to the diplomatic rebuke to Moscow after Czech authorities linked a 2014 arms depot blast...

The French government presented its new anti-terrorism bill on Wednesday morning (28 April), a few days after a 36-year-old 'radicalised' Tunisian stabbed a police employee to death outside a police station in Rambouillet, southwest of Paris. EURACTIV France reports.

Finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain urged member states on Wednesday (28 April) to submit their recovery plans and pressed the European Commission to speed up the assessment of the investment and reform proposals. 

After a week of budget negotiations, Finland’s five-party government reached an agreement on Wednesday afternoon, escaping a very near collapse. The chairs of the five ruling parties said compromise agreements had been reached on central questions. The breakthrough seemed to...

Democratic Unionist Party leader Arlene Foster announced her resignation on Wednesday, leaving her position as DUP leader on 28 May and her position as Northern Ireland’s first minister in June. In her speech, she lashed out against the Northern Ireland...

The European Parliament approved on Tuesday (27 April) a strengthened legal framework for the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to ensure that the EU is better prepared "to respond to future large-scale emergencies".

Weak rules and poor implementation: this is why the EU is failing to curb pollution from the chemical industry, says Jean-Luc Wietor.

Portugal has urged member states and EU institutions to "act without delay" to support European tourism to recover from the crisis, also calling for rapid progress in the creation of the green passport.

Trade unions and other labour supporters are continuing their push for greater worker involvement in company decisions, now labelling this as a push for “more democracy at work.” They want to see this topic play a larger role on the...

A poll has put Spain's centre-right Popular Party (PP) ahead of its rivals less than a week before votes are cast in a hotly contested regional election in Madrid on 4 May. EURACTIV’s partner EFE reports.

Arlene Foster has announced she is stepping down as leader of the Democratic Unionist party and Northern Ireland's first minister after a revolt by party hardliners, The Guardian writes. She will step down as first minister by July, bringing fresh tumult to a region hit by protests over the post-Brexit Irish Sea border. Foster urged her successor to focus on unifying people, amid fears a right-wing zealot could take over.

Moldova's recently-elected and pro-European President Maia Sandu on Wednesday (28 April) dissolved parliament and scheduled fresh elections for July, bringing to a head a dispute with lawmakers loyal to her predecessor.

Four explosions and an assassination attempt in Bulgaria were likely perpetrated by Russia, Bulgaria has said, after the Czech Republic, a fellow Nato ally, said Russia killed two people there in 2014.

The European Commission is considering strengthening its rules to avoid conflicts of interest in contracts with consultancies, following complaints from the European Parliament and recommendations made by the European ombudsman.

The Russian foreign ministry has expelled two diplomats from the Lithuanian embassy in Moscow, as well as one employee each from the embassies of Latvia and Estonia.

Poland's constitutional court has delayed a verdict on wether Polish or EU law has primacy from Wednesday to 13 May, but a government spokesman said he expected it to rule on the Polish side, in what could trigger a legal crisis for Poland's EU membership. The top judge is a former eurosceptic MP, Krystyna Pawlowicz, who has called the EU flag a "rag". Its other judges are also government loyalists.