European Union

A sculpture representing shiny happy people holding hands appeared on Schuman roundabout this week while EU leaders held their most useless EU summit in years, in what was a botched attempt to fix issues such as Brexit and migration.

German parties are beginning to internally plan their lists of candidates for the European elections in May 2019. In an interview with EURACTIV Germany, Nicola Beer, the Spitzenkandidat for the Free Democratic Party (FDP), explains the vision she would like to enter the European Parliament with.

As the debate on the future role of gas in a decarbonised European energy system heats up, Navigant energy experts Daan Peters and Kees van der Leun explain why they see a large potential to scale up renewable gas sustainably.

Poles vote in local elections on Sunday (21 October), seen as a key test for the country’s nationalist governing party. Until very recently, energy transition was a political no-go in the coal-dependent country but the situation is evolving, a climate activist and Green local politician in the COP24 host city of Katowice told EURACTIV.com.

Beijing’s influence in the Balkans continues to grow, but we should not compare it with Russia. Chinese influence differs in both motives and tools used for its spreading, writes Matej Šimalčík.

The Russian ministry of foreign affairs published on Thursday (18 October) a communiqué blasting what it called “roughest interference” by the US and leading EU states in pushing through the Skopje parliament the Macedonia-Greece name dispute agreement.

Tax scams operated by the EU's top lenders cost treasuries €55.2bn, new revelations show, as Merkel gives green light to banking union.

Italy's draft 2019 budget is a "significant deviation" from EU budget rules, the European Commission said in a letter sent on Thursday to Italy's finance minister Giovanni Tria. The letter is the first step in the so-called semester procedure, allowing the commission to give recommendations on national budgets. The commission asks Rome to engage in a "constructive dialogue" and to answer before noon on Monday 22 October.

Following Canada's legalising of cannabis this week, Spain's anti-austerity Podemos party has picked up the issue and is considering proposing legalising the drug, reports El Pais. Under Podemos' plan, the state would be in charge of handing out licences to plant, harvest and sell the crop. "It's absurd that you can buy tequila or gin from a supermarket but marijuana is illegal," Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that EU leaders agreed during a summit in Brussels to move forward with the banking union and a deposit guarantee. The decision was not included in the formal conclusions of the summit, but inspired Denmark's prime minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen to suggest Denmark - a non-euro country and centre of the Danske Bank's money laundering scandal - should join the banking union.

A case of mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), has been discovered on farm in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, the Scottish government confirmed on Thursday. It is the first case confirmed since 2015. Other cattle on the farm have been traced and isolated, and will be destroyed in line with EU requirements. A massive outbreak throughout the 1990s resulted in a worldwide ban on beef exports from the UK.

Following success in last week's Bavarian elections, the Greens appear set to be the big gainers again in Hessen elections on 28 October, jumping into second place with 22 percent support, according to a Forschungsgruppe Wahlen poll for broadcaster ZDF. The Greens doubled their vote in Bavaria, doubled it in Luxembourg elections and scored more than 30 percent in Belgium's local elections, all three held on 14 October.

Ukraine has set up a group to stop any attempt by Russia to influence next year’s elections, a state security body said on Thursday (18 October).

Poles vote Sunday (21 October) in local elections seen as a key test for the country's controversial nationalist governing party as it gears up for EU and legislative elections next year.

In recent decades, Poland has been failing its women and girls by eroding access to safe and legal abortion through increasingly conservative and sexist policies.

Visas for visitors from Britain after Brexit? "Fake news!" insisted President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday (18 October), scoffing at the idea that France would ever impose such a demand on it neighbour.

The future of the new proposed rules on food transparency is unclear, as the European Parliament and the Commission disagree on the timeframe to move the discussion forward.

Kosovo on Thursday (18 October) took the first steps towards creating its own army, ten years after it declared independence, despite fierce opposition from the ethnic Serb minority and Serbia itself which called the move "a threat to peace".

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has attempted to open a dialogue with the European Commission in an attempt to calm things down over Italy’s “unprecedented” breach of fiscal rules, but has also warned that there will be no step back on the draft budgetary plans.

The US is making a number of steps in the right direction in order to fall in line with the EU-US privacy shield agreement, EU officials said on Thursday (18 October). The comments came as the Commission entered the first round of talks for the second annual review of the pact.