European Union

The European Union’s Brexit negotiators told national diplomats in Brussels late on Thursday (4 October) that a divorce deal with Britain was “very close”, according to two sources present at the meeting.

A court in Amsterdam has questioned the independence of the Polish judiciary - turning down a Polish request for a European arrest warrant over fears that the suspect would not a get a fair trial in Poland.

Germany's slow pace in deciding on French proposals to create a separate EU budget for eurozone sates and to forcefully tax US tech giants like Apple and Google was helping anti-EU parties gain traction in Europe, French finance minister Bruno Le Maire has told German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung. "Not making any decisions is nourishing populism," he said, adding that no eurozone budget would mean "no eurozone at all some day".

A 61-year old businessman, Andreas Ritzenhoff, and a 26-year old student, Jan-Philipp Knoop, will try to take over leadership of chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU party when it holds its congress in December. The outsiders have little chance to unseat her, but started a debate that could see more serious challengers emerge, analysts told German press. "I'm worried about what's going on in Germany, Europe and the western world," Ritzenhoff said.

EU proposals to give appeals judges at the World Trade Organization (WTO) longer terms and to give their secretariats more money "means less accountability for the appellate body" in a move the US "cannot support", the US envoy to the WTO, Dennis Shea, said in Geneva Thursday. The clash comes amid a broader dispute between the EU and US on US president Donald Trump's attacks on free trade and multilateralism.

MEPs' expense allowances, worth €4,416 a month, should be open to public scrutiny, according to a new motion to be introduced in the European Parliament (EP) by two Dutch deputies, liberal Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy and socialist Dennis de Jong. "This is public spending and so it should be publicly accounted for," Gerbrandy said. The EP previously voted down the idea. The EU court blocked journalists from greater information on the issue.

The Romanian government is victimising gay people in order to distract from corruption allegations in a referendum, on Sunday, that would constitutionally define marriage as being between men and women only, rights groups have said. "The idea is to distract public attention from corruption allegations, and they're doing it at the expense of the LGBT community," Teodora Ion-Rotaru from Accept, an NGO said. The vote was fuelling homophobia, NGOs said.

The Irish parliament, on Thursday, began debating a bill to legalise abortion in the country by next January after a referendum on the issue in May. "It was a reaffirmation of the primacy of equality in our modern democracy," health minister Simon Harris said. Ireland, which used to be a staunchly Roman Catholic society, also recognised same-sex marriage in 2015. Abortion and gay marriage are still illegal in Northern Ireland.

British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt's recent comparison of the EU to the Soviet Union was "as unwise as it is insulting," EU Council president Donald Tusk said after meeting the Irish taoiseach in Brussels Thursday. "The Soviet Union was about prisons and gulags, borders and walls, violence against citizens and neighbours. The EU is about freedom and human rights," Tusk, a Pole and a former activist against Soviet oppression, said.

More people in Libya are being inducted into slavery as people-traffickers try to monetise their investment by selling them. A senior UN refugee agency official described it as an unintended side effect of the reduction of migrant boat departures.

It's the job of the European Anti-Fraud Office to investigate any corruption and embezzlement of EU-funded projects. But why are structural funds in particular so attractive to criminals?

Sunday's election - in one of the most complex political systems in the world - sees many Bosnia's worry the EU has already given up hope on them. Fears of electoral fraud are unlikely to help.

The United States gave the first hint on Thursday (4 October) of its view of attempts to reform the World Trade Organization, rejecting some proposals put forward by the European Union to resolve a crisis at the home of world trade in Geneva.

Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc denied a Bloomberg Businessweek report on Thursday that said their systems had been infiltrated by malicious computer chips inserted by Chinese intelligence agents.

The Italian government on Thursday (4 October) dismissed concerns that the European Commission would reject its plan to raise deficit spending next year and signalled that it would not backtrack, even under market pressure.

In a country where political power is formally shared by three ethnic groups, Bosnians who identify as "ostali" -- or "others" -- are second-class citizens.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Thursday (4 October) he would consider putting Turkey's long-stalled bid to join the European Union to a referendum, signalling exasperation with a process he says has been waylaid by prejudice against Muslims.

Hungary and Poland said on Thursday (4 October) they have gone to the European Court of Justice to challenge tighter European Union rules on the employment of workers from low-pay EU states.

This week, CO2 emissions bear the brunt, Alex Stubb is out in front, EU offended by Jeremy Hunt and Theresa May pulls dancing stunt.

If European building directives are not implemented via national legislation, the people living in Europe’s old suburbs will suffer by paying a price that can’t be measured – namely their health, says Ingrid Reumert.