European Union

The withdrawal of Matteo Renzi and his party from the governing coalition will not prompt new elections in Italy for the time being. The Senate gave Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte a vote of confidence on Tuesday, and the Chamber of Deputies followed suit. With 156 votes, however, Conte fell short of an absolute majority. Commentators are both relieved and disappointed.

One day after Navalny's arrest, his team has released a full-scale investigative documentary on Putin's wealth, including a bombastic palace of jaw-dropping luxury in Gelendzhik on the Black Sea and the corruption schemes that financed it. Navalny is making a risky gamble, commentators find, and see the confrontation between him and Putin coming to a head.

Dating apps and videoconferencing tools could come under the scope of new EU efforts to monitor online communications in a bid to stamp out child sexual abuse material, internal documents obtained by EURACTIV reveal.

Hungary's drug regulator has given preliminary approval for the coronavirus vaccines made by the UK's AstraZeneca and Russia's Sputnik V, prime minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The two vaccines have not yet been approved by the EU's regulatory body. Foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was travelling to Moscow for talks about the vaccine on Thursday, Gulyás added.

In a first in Europe, Alphabet’s Google and a group of French publishers said on Thursday they had agreed a general framework over copyrights under which the U.S. tech giant will pay publishers for content online.

Electric vehicles traded between the EU and the UK have been given a grace period to prevent trade being slammed with tariffs, but battery producers need to start preparing now to meet the deadline, industry sources say.

More than 1.1 million people demanded that the Commission do more to protect minorities, but Brussels neglected to take action. German minority associations are outraged and are trying to build up the pressure through the member states. EURACTIV Germany reports.

From restaurant closures to travel restrictions, the hospitality sector has been one of the hardest hit by the COVID pandemic that is threatening thousands of jobs and livelihoods across the EU. But as the rollout of the COVID vaccine gets...

Despite the challenges the pandemic has presented to the EU hospitality sector, hopes remain high that it can bounce back and adapt to a new post-pandemic reality, but this requires support “commensurate to the hit it has taken”, according to the EU hospitality association.

Parliament voted today to continue making additional resources available in 2021 and 2022 in order to provide food and basic assistance to the most deprived.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament voted today to continue making additional resources available in 2021 and 2022 in order to provide food and basic assistance to the most deprived.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

China’s move to sanction former Trump administration officials was “unproductive and cynical”, a spokeswoman for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council said on Wednesday (20 January), urging Americans from both parties to condemn the action.

The European Union will on Thursday (21 January) press Turkey to make good on recent gestures from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to calm tensions, as Ankara's foreign minister visits Brussels.

Committee and political groups’ meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin welcoming US President Joe Biden as a 'true friend', Finland's Left Alliance saying 'no' to surplus vaccines from Israel, and so much more.