European Union

The Romanian government has decided to promote the consumption of healthy and traditional foodstuffs by cutting the VAT rate from 9% to 5%. EURACTIV Romania reports.

Industry lobbies are mounting a push to roll back EU clean water regulations, even though less than half of the continent’s rivers, wetlands and lakes are in a healthy state. EURACTIV's media partner, The Guardian, reports.

Poland v Commission
State aid
The General Court annuls the Commission’s decisions concerning the Polish tax on the retail sector

The US policy of applying "unilateral maximum pressure" on Iran could "spark" a conflict and a broader "wildfire" in the Middle East, German foreign minister Heiko Maas told the Bundestag on Wednesday. "Maximum pressure always carries with it the threat of unintended escalation," he said. He spoke after the US threatened to use force to stop Iran from enriching uranium and moved military assets to the region to threaten Tehran.

Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini has once again blocked a charity ship carrying rescued migrants, including women and children, from seeking aid at Italy's ports. "Our ports are, and remain, closed to migrant rescue boats," he said. The Dutch-flagged German vessel, Sea Watch 3, plucked 65 people off a rubber raft 55km from the Libyan shore. Salvini's anti-migrant tactics have helped his party surge in polls ahead of EU elections.

The centre-right's Manfred Weber got most of the heat at the EU Commission presidential candidates' final debate before the European elections, while Frans Timmermans reached out to a possible coalition partners - piling more pressure on Weber's EPP.

Nathalie Loiseau, who is French president Emmanuel Macron's top candidate for the European elections, has said far-right parties such as Marine Le Pen's National Rally would be "the representatives of Putin in the European Parliament" if elected, referring to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. She spoke to the Le Monde newspaper amid a separate controversy, in which Le Pen made a white supremacist gesture while visiting far-right allies in Estonia.

A recent attack on Saudi oil facilities west of Riyadh were designed to demonstrate Tehran’s ability to target all of the region’s oil and gas exports and raise exponentially the cost of military conflict for the US and its allies in the Gulf region, writes Hasan Alhasan.

The EU has condemned the show trials of four opposition leaders - Carlos Paparoni, Miguel Pizarro, Franco Casella, and Winston Flores - in Venezuela, saying "blatant violations of due process and unfair legal proceedings ... contribute to further polarisation of the situation in the country". Diplomats from eight EU states and four Latin American ones are in Caracas Thursday to try to mediate a peaceful solution to the political crisis.

Most Europeans believe it is a "realistic possibility" that the EU will collapse by 2040, according to a survey in 14 member states by British pollster YouGov for the London-based think-tank, the European Council on Foreign Relations. The numbers of pessimists was the highest in Slovakia (66 percent) and France (58 percent). Most Italians, Poles, and Germans agreed. But figures in Denmark, Sweden, and Spain were below 50 percent.

The EU should give Britain more time to decide on Brexit in the hope it will be cancelled, Poland's foreign minister Jacek Czaputowicz has told the Reuters news agency. "We should go soft on Britain, give them time, they are still in the EU, let's give them space," he said. "It's a matter of changing the rhetoric to let the Brits rethink their decision," he added.

Europe was right to let in refugees and impose economic austerity despite the populist backlash, German chancellor Angela Merkel has said.

In Slovenia, the main story these days is not the European Parliament election campaign. It's Italy and cycling.

The "white supremacist" views held by some Parliamentarians do not represent the views of the Estonian people, President Kersti Kaljulaid insisted on Wednesday (15 May) after populist MPs were pictured alongside France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

The EU has a unique opportunity to push its labour rights agenda in the Gulf state, with the tournament throwing the country's dismal record on migrant workers firmly into the spotlight.

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by EURACTIV’s media network.

The six lead candidates of the main political parties laid out their visions of Europe on Wednesday evening (15 May), clashing over jobs and climate change in their last televised debate before the EU elections.

Finance ministers from the 19 eurozone countries will review public spending in the region on Thursday (16 May), with Italy once again in the spotlight amid an ongoing economic slowdown.

Of the 28 draft national energy and climate plans submitted by EU member states, not a single one is on a pathway to reach net-zero emission by 2050, according to a fresh analysis published on Thursday (16 May).

If you want a Europe powered by renewables, go vote! Why vote? Because the European Parliament makes laws that support the growth of renewables in Europe.