European Union

The Spanish government is ready to approve before Friday (15 January) an extension of temporary lay-off schemes put in place March last year to protect jobs for around 800,000 workers affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the tourism and services sectors. EURACTIV’s partner EuroEFE reports.

Italian politics is in chaos, but a less chaotic one than it might seem to a Swedish or German observer. Put simply, Renzi wants Conte both alive and dead.

Estonia's ruling coalition, including the far-right and anti-EU EKRE party, collapsed Wednesday after the Centre-party prime minister Juri Ratas resigned when senior staff were named as suspects in a corruption inquiry. The Estonian president asked the leader of the centre-right Reform party, Kaja Kallas, to form a new government instead, which is unlikely to include EKRE. The developments scrapped an EKRE-led plan for a referendum on gay marriage.

Belgian King Philippe's car was hit by stones, a police station was set on fire, and streets were vandalised when people rioted near Brussels-North train station Wednesday evening. The events, involving some 500 people, began as a protest against the death, in police custody, of Ibrahima B., a 23-year old, Saturday. The violence was "unacceptable", Belgian interior minister Annelies Verlinden said, while promising to investigate alleged police "misconduct".

Leading centre-right and liberal MEPs have called on Lisbon to clarify the appointment of José Guerra as its EU public prosecutor, amid efforts to depoliticise the new anti-fraud body.

The US executed 52-year old Lisa Montgomery, a death row inmate, on Wednesday. Montgomery had committed a gruesome murder but she was also mentally ill. The EU is now demanding the US reverse all pending federal-level executions

"This has been the darkest period for human rights in China since the 1989 massacre that ended the Tiananmen Square democracy movement," the global, New York-based pressure group, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report Wednesday, citing China's persecution of the Uighur minority, Hong Kong activists, and Tibetans as examples. HRW director Kenneth Roth said the EU was not serious about Uighur rights in its new China investment treaty.

The dried yellow mealworm or "Tenebrio molitor larva" is safe for human consumption, the European Food Safety Agency (Efsa) in Parma, Italy, said Wednesday, in its first approval of an insect as a "novel food". The Efsa opinion could lead to EU-wide approval after a French firm which farmed the worms, Micronutris, applied for a permit. Novel foods are seen as alternatives to high-CO2 emitting food sectors, such as cattle.

EU officials warned that "one of the biggest challenges" ahead will be fighting the spread of vaccine misinformation and addressing vaccine hesitancy.

Alexei Navalny announced he will return to Russia with the words "meet me", after more than four months recuperating in Berlin from an attempt to poison him with the nerve agent Novichok, the Moscow Times reports. Opposition supporters on social media took his message as an invitation to show up and welcome him. Most commentators, however, expect Russian law enforcement to arrest him at the airport.

The Greek socialist “Movement of Change” party (S&D) has lashed out against the ruling conservative New Democracy party (EPP), accusing it of a right-wing turn putting the country’s democracy at risk.   The socialist leader Fofi Gennimata said the government...

European Commission vice-president Vera Jourova said she is committed to putting forward a proposal to create an independent, inter-institutional, ethics body. "I am convinced that we will see the creation of an independent ethics body," she said. Jourova was mandated for the task and said work is needed in the coming months "to achieve concrete progress" before tabling a proposal.

Major cities across Turkey face running out of water in the next few months, with Istanbul possibly having less than 45 days of water left, due to a lack of rainfall, the Guardian writes. Low rainfall has led to the country's most severe drought in a decade. The Ankara mayor, Mansur Yavaş, said earlier this month the capital had another 110 days' worth in dams and reservoirs.

Former Belgian minister Theo Francken gave one of his party friends the power to put Syrian Christians on a list to get Belgian humanitarian visa. This week that colleague was convicted of human smuggling.

Donald Trump became the first president in US history to be impeached twice, as ten of his fellow Republicans joined Democrats to charge him with inciting an insurrection in last week’s violent rampage in the Capitol.

The Polish government has praised the move as the beginning of long-awaited "re-Polonisation" of media markets - but journalists, media experts and opposition parties see it as an attack on press freedom, and preparation for local elections.

Let's expand the EU with a Health Union where cutting edge research and world-class applications go hand in hand. For this, it is worth being European, believing in Europe, working on Europe, writes European People's Party leader Manfred Weber MEP.

Portugal's minister for science, technology and higher education, Manuel Heitor, on Wednesday (14 January) described space as a "critical resource" in the EU green and digital transition and in promoting "a new future for Europeans".

Step-by-step democratisation has suited Kazakhstan’s national circumstances and interests well, writes Alberto Turkstra who visited Kazakhstan on the occasion of the 10 January parliamentary elections.

A danger to public health – Europe’s fur farms have long been exposed as cruel, but with the recent pandemic a new factor came into play: They are the perfect breeding ground for the virus and a danger to human health.