European Union

After winning a sweeping victory with 73 percent of the vote in Ukraine's presidential election Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that as president he will fight corruption and seek a peaceful end to the conflict in Donbass. Zelensky is politically inexperienced and made a name for himself as an actor in a comedy series. Commentators have mixed feelings about his election victory.

FPÖ politician Christian Schilcher has resigned from his party and as deputy mayor of the Austrian city of Braunau amid a scandal over a xenophobic text. He had published a poem entitled "The City Rat" in the local party paper in which he compared migrants with rats. Is the FPÖ fit to be part of the Austrian government?

The building blocks for mutually-beneficial cooperation between the EU and China are there. Time now to translate those principles into practice, writes Maroš Šefčovič who will be the EU representative at this week’s second Belt and Road Forum in Beijing.

The lead candidate for Europe's conservative bloc in next month's EU elections has said he would try to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline if he becomes European Commission president, according to an interview published Tuesday (23 April).

Slovakia joined the EU in 2004 as part of the big enlargement round that saw 10 new countries join that year. But it almost missed out, as things looked very different while the country was ruled by the authoritarian leader Vladimír Mečiar in 1992-1998.

Mission-oriented innovation is potentially significant in tackling big societal challenges such as climate change. When establishing those missions, the EU could take a few lessons from Britain’s most successful cycling team, writes Simon Skillings.

The leader of the far-right French National Rally, Marine Le Pen, will be in Copenhagen this week for talks with Soren Espersen, vice-chairman of the right-wing Danish People's Party. The Danish party recently broke ranks with the UK conservative-dominated ECR group in the European Parliament and supported Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini in forming a new nationalist-conservative EP group. Le Pen has pledged to join Salvini's initiative.

Manfred Weber, the leader of the centre-right EPP political group, has vowed to block the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The pledge comes amid a new threat from the CEO of Nord Stream 2 to sue the European Union.

Paradoxically it was the EU’s closest partner, the United States, that has done most to damage Federica Mogherini's legacy as High Representative with a full-scale assault on the EU’s commitment to multilateralism, writes Fraser Cameron.

Four in ten Spanish voters remain undecided ahead of Sunday 28 April's general election, which polls predicts could end in political deadlock. Prime minister Pedro Sanchez's socialists (PSOE) is polled to win 30 percent support but may need more than leftist Unidas Podemos plus Catalan separatists' support to rule. The opposition coalition of conservatives, liberals and a new national-conservative party is also short of the majority, supported by 45 percent.

Bosnian border police on Tuesday (23 April) denied mistreating migrants after a video emerged of detainees at a border holding facility in what appeared to be cages.

US president Donald Trump will make his first state visit to the UK on 3-5 June, the White House announced on Tuesday. The visit includes an audience with the Queen and a meeting with prime minister Theresa May. While in Europe, Trump will also travel to Normandy for D-Day commemorations and a bilateral meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron on 6 June.

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Kazakhstan’s ruling Nur Otan party unanimously nominated on Tuesday (23 April) Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as its candidate for the 9 June presidential election. The first President of the country Nursultan Nazarbayev said he had planned this move for years.