European Union

The European Commission has been urged by to set up a multi-billion euro grant scheme for zero-emission buses and to help cities build new cycle paths, as part of the EU’s coronavirus recovery package.

Bolstered US sanctions against Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei have prompted UK authorities to launch a fresh probe into the company, a government spokesperson said on Sunday (24 May).

EU policymakers are promoting a green recovery. A public-private agency rating companies’ climate performance would help keep it on track, argue Steven Tebbe and Laurent Babikian.

Spain's tourism sector should prepare to welcome holidaymakers over the summer season as the country will reopen its borders to foreign visitors from July, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told a press conference in Madrid on Saturday (23 May). EURACTIV's partner EFE reports.

Poland's President Andrzej Duda appeared to have lost his grip on victory in an upcoming election, fresh opinion polls showed, threatening a political upset for the allied right-wing government.

This year's Europe Day should have been the starting point for the conference on the Future of Europe, but he coronavirus pandemic has put the project on the backburner. Could Germany's EU Presidency give new impetus to the initiative? EURACTIV Germany reports.

The United States is pushing relations with China to “the brink of a new Cold War”, China’s foreign minister said Sunday (24 May), rejecting US “lies” over the coronavirus while saying Beijing was open to an international effort to find...

Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen has publicly apologised after breaking the country's new curfew rules by staying in a restaurant until after 11PM. "I went out for the first time since the lockdown with two friends and my wife. We then lost track of the time while chatting," he said. The mini-violation comes amid a UK row, which saw a top government aide, Dominic Cummings, flout coronavirus travel rules.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said Sunday that "some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War," The Guardian reports. Referring to the accusations of president Donald Trump that China might have created the coronavirus in a laboratory, Wang said Washington seemed to have been infected by a "political virus".

Americans sunbathed on beaches, fished from boats and strolled on boardwalks this holiday weekend, even as the US death toll from COVID-19 fast approaches 100,000.

The European Commission’s proposal on the next seven-year budget and the accompanying recovery fund will this Wednesday (27 May) launch one of the most difficult negotiations in the EU history, as member states disagree over the size, shape and conditions, and primarily whether to give grants or loans. 

Greece on Sunday (24 May) dismissed reports that Turkish soldiers had occupied a strip of Greek territory in the Evros border region, where Athens is expanding a fence to keep migrants out.

Tourists can return to Spain from 1 July, its prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said Saturday. Tourists "do not run a risk or bring a risk of contagion to Spain", he said, amid scattered anti-lockdown protests in Madrid. "The hardest is behind us ... we've overcome the big wave of the pandemic," he added, after almost 30,000 died in Spain. The tourism sector is 12 percent of the country's GDP.

Hungary has backed down in its clash with EU courts on asylum seekers, after letting people out of barbed-wire compounds called "transit zones" on its southern border in line with a court ruling. "I might start running for kilometres. It's so good to feel free," one man, who had been locked up for months, told Reuters. A senior Hungarian official had earlier said Budapest did "not accept" the verdict.

China ought to preserve Hong Kong's "high degree of autonomy, in line with ... international commitments", EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said on behalf of the EU, after new Chinese security measures that threatened to violate the 1997 China-UK deal on Hong Kong's special status. Borrell hoped for "continued stability and prosperity". But China's move was "the death knell" for Hong Kong democracy, the US said.

Europe must issue "perpetual bonds" to fund pandemic bailouts or risk collapse, billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros said Friday. "If the EU is unable to consider it now, it may not be able to survive," he said. Perpetual bonds never mature, but pay interest for ever. "What would be left of Europe without Italy?", Soros added, noting that Italy was most at risk of crashing out of the EU.

EU pandemic bailouts should be loans, not grants, and there should be no joint debt, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden said in a joint statement Saturday. "We propose to create an Emergency Recovery Fund based on a 'loans for loans' approach," they said. Arrangements should "not [lead] to any mutualisation of debt", the so-called "frugal four" added, after France and Germany earlier agreed more generous conditions.

The looming collapse of the Irish border deal, threatening security, is the elephant in the room in Brexit talks, a top UK think-tank has warned.

Alarm Phone, a hotline service for migrants in distress, has released video footing showing an Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) boat making dangerous manoeuvres next to people swimming for their lives at sea. Malta does not deny the footage.

Germany's Federal High Court (BGH) will announce later on Monday (25 May) its first ruling in the Dieselgate emissions scandal, which is set to guide other courts and have a major impact on the entire auto industry. EURACTIV Germany reports.