European Union

As a difficult year draws to a close, everyone at the European Parliament wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

As a difficult year draws to a close, everyone at the European Parliament wishes you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

A Milan-based appeals court on Tuesday (5 January) ordered Facebook to pay 3.83 million euros ($4.70 million) in damages to an Italian software development company for copying an app, a court document seen by Reuters showed. The judges said the...

Democratic President-elect Joe Biden plans to name US foreign policy veterans Wendy Sherman and Victoria Nuland to be the No. 2 and No. 3 officials at the State Department, two sources familiar with the matter said on Tuesday (5 January).

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (5 January) signed an executive order banning transactions with eight Chinese software applications, the White House said, escalating tensions with Beijing two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

New EU rules came into force on 1 January, prohibiting the shipment of unsorted plastic waste to foreign countries. Although the move will increase pressure on Europe to recycle, activists say the ban is likely to increase landfilling and waste burning inside the Union.

Portugal started a round of talks with ministers from various European Union (EU) nations on the new pact to tackle the bloc's long-standing migration issues, its government said on Tuesday (5 January).

The European Union could authorise a second coronavirus vaccine "in the coming hours", European Council chief Charles Michel said Tuesday (5 January), adding that leaders would hold a virtual summit on the health crisis later this month.

Latvia's prime minister on Tuesday (5 January) fired his health minister in a row over coronavirus vaccination policy, straining ties within the governing coalition.

Since the pandemic started last year, European citizens have had to radically realign their lives to the new reality. For the most part, this has meant rapidly migrating our personal and professional lives online. With this comes a broad range of policy measures aimed at reinforcing Europe’s connectivity and heightening cybersecurity standards across 2021.

The European Union is in talks with Pfizer and BioNTech over ordering up to 100 million more doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, three sources close to the matter said, as European governments battle to speed up immunisations.

The Dutch government was caught off guard by the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine by EU regulators in December and has been unable to start vaccinating due to logistical problems, Prime Minister Mark Rutte told parliament on Tuesday (5 January).

A l'occasion de l'inauguration de la présidence portugaise du Conseil de l'Union européenne, le président Charles Michel s´est rendu à Lisbonne et a rencontré le Premier Ministre portugais António Costa.

Over 80,000 internet domain names assigned to UK registrants have been suspended by the EU registry, EURid, following the end of the Brexit transition period at the close of 2020.

The EU has said it will try to save an Iran nuclear non-proliferation deal after Tehran confirmed plans to enrich uranium to near-weapons grade levels Monday. "It's regrettable but it's also highly important ... parties remain committed and we all work together and arrive at situation where all parties to agreement are in compliance," an EU foreign affairs spokesman said Tuesday. The uranium move was "an important breach", he said.

More than 20 civilians were killed by an unidentified helicopter gunship in Mali this weekend, on top of mounting French army casualties, according to reports.

More than 50 people including pro-democracy politicians and campaigners have been arrested in Hong Kong, in an unprecedented crackdown by authorities on opposition in the region, the Guardian reports. The activists were reportedly held under China's national security law, with some accused of "subverting state power" by holding primaries and saying they intended to win a majority of seats in an upcoming Hong Kong election.

EU leaders regularly held video-conferences to coordinate the pandemic reaction last year, but countries and EU institutions recently began a blame-game over the sluggish roll-out of vaccines.

Gibraltar is moving towards a new era after the UK and Spain reached a preliminary post-Brexit deal to avoid a hard border - but one which has triggered highly-sensitive border control issues on the peninsula Rock linked to Spain.

The Italian government is enmeshed in a dispute over how to spend some €208bn of EU funds aimed at alleviating the fallout from Covid-19. The party founded by former prime minister Matteo Renzi is now threatening to withdraw coalition support from prime minister Giuseppe Conte. The gamble could risk triggering a vote of confidence, according to one expert cited in CNBC news outlet.