European Union

Africa is still heavily reliant on coal. To protect the climate, leading industrialised countries should help Africa to invest in clean growth and leapfrop to renewables, says former Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga.

The leaders of the G7 nations will not sign a final comuniqué when they gather in Biarritz (France) this weekend, and will instead discuss how to rethink capitalism and multilateralism amid the persistent inequalities and the risk of a new recession. 

The G7 summit in Biarritz this weekend has put the entire French Basque coast under lockdown and unprecedented security measures. Locals are losing business and tourists are no longer able to enjoy a relaxing summer vacation. EURACTIV France reports.

A one-month countdown began on Friday for Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez to form a new government or face elections.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte have announced they would collaborate to strengthen climate protection at EU level, following a meeting in the Hague on Thursday (22 July). Could this be Merkel’s comeback as the ‘climate Chancellor’? EURACTIV’s partner Der Tagesspiegel reports.

After fourteen days stranded at sea, the 356 people rescued by charity boat Ocean Viking will be allowed Malta, following an agreement on Friday (23 August) between La Valetta and six EU member states.

The Ocean Viking rescue vessel, operated by charities Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee, will disembark 365 people, including 103 minors, in Malta after they were forced to spend 13 days on board. "None will remain in Malta," said its PM Joseph Muscat, adding that the migrants will be relocated to Germany, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Romania. The European Commission has welcomed the solution, after alerts lack of supplies.

The EU ought to consider banning Brazilian beef unless it takes action on forest fires, the Finnish EU presidency has said. A wider free trade deal is also at risk.

August is typically the month when Westminster goes silent and lawmakers go on holiday, leaving reporters to fall back on stories about the holiday plans of the royal family. This summer, with the Brexit date approaching fast, has been much more hectic.

"The magnitude of the fires on the territory of the Amazon is frightening and threatening, not only for Brazil and the other countries concerned, but for the whole world," German chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert told press in Berlin on Friday. "The chancellor fully supports the French president," he added, after Emmanuel Macron said the issue ought to be discussed at this weekend's G7 summit in France.

Just 16 percent of British people believe the UK can leave the EU in an orderly way on 31 October, according to a poll by YouGov out Friday. Some 68 percent said it was "not very likely" or "not likely at all". The pessimism comes amid leaked government warnings of food, medicine, and fuel shortages if there is a crash-out with no deal in place.

The UK should tie its payment of €43bn of EU obligations to developments in post-Brexit EU trade and seek a "sunset clause" for the validity of EU court rulings, senior Tory MP David Davis told The Telegraph. "We'll be governed for years by the other 27 member states under the existing draft withdrawal agreement ... even with the backstop [Irish border plan] removed," another MP Bill Cash said.

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has threatened to vote against a trade deal between the EU and South American trade bloc Mercosur unless Brazil, where wildfires continue to devastate the Amazon rainforest, takes its environmental obligations more seriously.

After German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron has also voiced optimism that it should be possible to find a solution for preventing a no-deal Brexit within 30 days. However, he was less open to compromise regarding the backstop. Were British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's visits to Berlin and Paris a success?

On the evening of August 23, 1989, roughly two million Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians formed a human chain more than 600 kilometres long that stretched from Tallinn across Riga to Vilnius. Fifty years after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact people in the three states stood side by side in pursuit of freedom and independence in one of the biggest non-violent protests the world has ever seen: the Baltic Way.