European Union

The degree to which member state positions on the EU’s clean energy package have shifted was on display on Monday (11 June) when energy ministers met for a council meeting in Luxembourg. EURACTIV brings you a video compilation from the public debate.

The EU should protect its brands as they have a great potential to make Europe competitive worldwide, right-wing MEP Stefano Maullu told EURACTIV.com in the context of the continuing 'branding versus consumer welfare' debate.

The departure of Merkel by 2021 will offer the opportunity for a credible reorientation of German conservative politics. This must not be squandered by pandering to a regressive right-wing.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini assured Georgia on Tuesday (12 June) that ten years after Russia's occupation of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the EU has not given up seeking a “true solution” to the conflict.

South Korean businesses including Hyundai and Samsung are already scoping investment opportunities. Will North Korea become a 'new Vietnam' opportunity - or more like Myanmar, where slow Brussels policy-making meant EU exporters lost out.

Breakthrough likely to see EU leaders open accession talks with Macedonia at summit in June and Nato invite Macedonia to join in July.

France has butted heads with Italy's populists on migration, as the EU commission watches from the sidelines.

The Putin regime has dissolved democracy and rule of law in Russia - we need to realise that we are operating in a long-term non-military conflict.

Pressure from German chancellor Angela Merkel's CSU sister party over migration policies is growing and spreading into her own CDU party. At the centre of the dispute are interior minister Horst Seehofer's plans to turn away asylum-seekers registered in another EU country at the German border. A planned press conference by Seehofer was cancelled as it emerged Merkel had blocked his plans.

Accounting methods for international trade are outdated and need to be revised, German chancellor Angela Merkel told the Christian Democratic Union's Economic Council Conference in Berlin on Tuesday. "If services are included in the trade balance, then the US runs a big surplus with Europe," she said.

Poland's president Andrzej Duda on Tuesday included two EU-related questions in a list of issues that citizens should be consulted on in a constitutional referendum this year. One question would be if Poland's EU membership should be guaranteed in the constitution and a second whether the Polish constitution should rank over international and EU law. Duda suggested the referendum take place on 10 and 11 November.

UK prime minister Theresa May avoided defeat on a Brexit bill on Tuesday, when it was backed by a majority of 324 votes to 298 in the House of Commons. The majority was secured after she agreed to address ongoing concerns about the parliament's role in the final Brexit negotiations. The votes continue on Wednesday.

Bulgaria wants to join the EU's banking union and the forerunner for euro-area membership, the ERM, within the next year. "We'll insist for both to happen on the same day," finance minister Vladislav Goranov said in Sofia on Tuesday. Bulgaria currently meets the criteria to adopt the euro, with Goranov urging euro-area members to refrain from coming up with new demands for Bulgaria to become its 20th member.

Italy forged ahead with plans to send hundreds of migrants to Spain in a small naval convoy on Tuesday (12 June) after shutting its own ports to them, sparking a war of words with France that exposed EU tensions over immigration.

Theresa May avoided a humiliating parliamentary defeat to her government’s EU withdrawal bill, but only after appearing to promise rebel MPs an effective block on a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

The EU on Tuesday (12 June) praised the summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as a "crucial and necessary step" for denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, but also reminded that the Iran nuclear deal was part of the same diplomatic track.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was fighting Tuesday (12 June) to stamp out the first major row within her uneasy coalition, as disputes over her refugee policy returned to haunt her while she negotiates a broad EU asylum deal.

Macedonia and Greece yesterday (12 June) resolved a nearly three-decade row by agreeing to the name Republic of North Macedonia, opening the road for the landlocked country to start EU accession talks and to join NATO. Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran...

The European Parliament debated the priorities for Europe on Tuesday, ahead of a crucial EU summit due on 28-29 June. Among those priorities, the reform of the Dublin regulation seems the most pressing and MEPs urged EU leaders to find an agreement on the asylum system.

France is the third European country in terms of asylum applications received but is only 26th out of 28 when it comes to acceptance rate. EURACTIV.fr reports.