European Union

Athens placed its armed forces on alert on Tuesday after Ankara announced plans to begin exploratory drilling for natural gas off the Greek island of Kastellorizo - in an area belonging to Greece's Exclusive Economic Zone under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. There are also reports of Turkish fighter jets flying over Kastellorizo. Why does Turkey keep provoking Greece?

A new nuclear power plant is scheduled to go into operation in August in Belarus's Ostrovets district, just 45 kilometres from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Lithuania has criticised the safety standards at the plant, but has so far been unable to persuade its neighbours Latvia and Estonia to leave the post-Soviet Brell power grid and dispense with the cheap energy from Belarus. Commentators take different views on how urgent the matter is.

MEPs will debate the 17-21 July EU summit results with Council and Commission Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday from 09:30.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

MEPs will debate the 17-21 July EU summit results with Council and Commission Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen on Thursday from 09:30.

Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

A compromise of 27 positions is never a thing of beauty, but this time the need for unanimity among 27 leaders really unbalanced the initial proposals in important ways.

For Cambodia, the impact of COVID-19 is similar to a simulation of the possible withdrawal of the EU-driven Everything But Arms (EBA) trade scheme. In the current situation, if EBA is to be withdrawn, it would signify "a nail in the coffin" of the already dying garment industry, the country's biggest employer, writes Sim Vireak.

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After intense negotiations EU leaders agreed to a comprehensive package of €1 824.3 billion which combines an extraordinary recovery effort and the 2021-2027 budget to rebuild after the pandemic and launch the green and digital transitions.

On 21 July 2020, the European Council adopted conclusions on the recovery plan and multiannual financial framework for 2021-2027.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced us to move more of our lives online faster. But is this for the better? What should we take with us from our lockdown experiences, asks Dita Charanzová.

The West doesn’t seem to realise the trend whereby bad-faith Russian cases brought by the Russian state and oligarchs leverage trumped-up charges in Russian courts to harass and damage opponents and rivals in western legal proceedings, writes Daniel Mitov.

Most Europeans (55 percent) are worried about their data and bank details being misused by criminals and fraudsters, according to survey results from 35,000 people published by European Agency for Fundamental Rights. Respondents in Spain, the Czech Republic and the UK worry the most about their data, compared to people in Romania, Croatia or Hungary. Meanwhile, a third of citizens worry about their data being used by foreign governments.

EU leaders agreed that about a third of the €750bn recovery package and the €1.074 trillion seven-year budget will be invested in projects contributing to climate action. However, environmental activists said that the package falls short on climate safeguards.

Northern European countries kept insisting on "no democracy, no money". Initially, this looked right. But the Portuguese prime minister António Costa, who lived under dictatorship, is not convinced.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Slovenian Prime Minister Igor Matovič having plum cake in Brussels with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italy receiving €209 billion from the EU Recovery Fund and long-term budget (MFF), and so much more.

France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Tuesday condemned the treatment of Uighurs in China and said Paris wanted independent observers in the area, Reuters reported. "All of the practices in the area are unacceptable because they go against all the global human rights conventions and we condemn them strongly," he said. France was asking China to allow international independent observers and the human rghts high commissioner into the region.