European Union

Tens of thousands gathered in Donetsk on Sunday for the funeral of the leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, after he was killed in a bombing at a cafe on Friday. Commentators examine the consequences of the attack for the Minsk Protocol and the future of Donbass.

The US has announced that it is ending all funding for the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. Washington has accused the agency of deliberately inflating the number of Palestinians who are entitled to refugee status. Journalists criticise the step but also voice their understanding.

The next European Commission should enhance its collaboration with the EU’s Scientific Advisory Mechanism (SAM), which would provide bias-free consultancy and eventually adjust the Tobacco Product Directive to the reality, JTI’s Ramunas Macius said in an interview with EURACTIV.com.  

Brazilian farmers will continue to have access to the world’s most used weed killer after Brazil’s Federal judge reversed a previous ruling, which had suspended the existing and new registration of glyphosate-based products.

The European Ombudsman has found that the EU executive under President Jean-Claude Juncker failed to follow procedures in appointing his chief aide to run the EU civil service and so undermined public trust.

The investigation into the governor of the central bank of Latvia has put the last country to have entered the Eurozone under the spotlight. EURACTIV carries out a four-part investigation into the Switzerland of the Baltic states.

Having been put under investigation for corruption at the end of June, the governor of Latvia's central bank is the third member of the ECB governing council to have been implicated in murky deals over the past year. EURACTIV France reports.

Europe's biggest news agencies accused Google and Facebook of "plundering" news for free on Tuesday (4 September) in a joint statement that called on the internet giants to share more of their revenues with the media.

Elevation of Juncker's right-hand man to a top post in the European Commission jeopardised "public trust", the EU ombudsman said, adding "maladministration" to charges of "coup" and "blackmail".

Facebook has been blocked in the Libyan capital of Tripoli and other cities, residents said on Monday (3 September) as fighting between rival groups raged.

Denmark's top bank handled up to €28bn of dodgy Russian funds in just one year, in what has the makings of the biggest money-laundering scandal in European history.

Former French president Francois Hollande has said in memories that Russian leader Vladimir Putin inadvertently admitted to having troops in Ukraine in ceasefire talks in Minsk in 2015. " The Russian president was so worked up, that he started threatening to decisively crush his [Ukrainian] counterpart's forces. This showed that there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Putin suddenly realised, and got a grip on himself," Hollande's new book says.

A European Parliament plenary session on 11-14 March 2019 will be the last possible in order to endorse any Brexit deal on time, Polish MEP Danuta Hubner, head of the European parliament's constitutional affairs committee, told fellow MEPs Monday, Reuters reports. The parliament's meeting 25-28 March would be too late because the Council also must approve it, she said. The UK is set to leave the EU on 29 March.