Euobserver.com

The EU's AI Act, despite setting global standards, fails to ban facial recognition in public spaces — setting a concerning precedent for many. Is Europe really ready to sacrifice street anonymity for enhanced security?

Thousands of people are still being trafficked for sexual exploitation every day — but there is a way to end it.

Within Europe, the split between formal, informal, community, and facility-based care differs from region to region. Despite an ageing population, homecare services and community-based care are often the most difficult to access, since they are underdeveloped in many countries.

For Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Christians, which make up around 90 percent of the total Christian population, Christmas day will come on 6 and 7 January instead of on 25 December.

Selected by our team of seven reporters and editors, these are the 10 tales we thought best showed the breadth, depth, and originality of EUobserver over 2023, and it's quest for original, investigative, off-diary stories about European politics.

In the next few years Ukraine risks a demographic crisis that no European country has ever seen before. And post-war reconstruction of the country may be challenged by a shortage of Ukrainian labour force, who would prefer to stay abroad.

As representatives of the organic farming community, we call on the European Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament to collaborate in crafting a forward-looking policy that safeguards the progress of organic agriculture within our non-GM commitment.

A European collaboration called Screen4Care bets on genetic testing and new tech to speed up diagnoses for rare diseases.

A regulatory environment that values innovation will put Europe at the forefront of global research in cell and gene therapies.

We can only protect ourselves from attacks, by preparing for them together. Or, as the Romans said: if you want peace, prepare for war.

The EU has reached an agreement on the due diligence directive, making large EU and non-EU companies accountable for their negative impacts on human rights and the environment — but with an exemption and some gaps at its core.

Many challenges remain before the EU's historically celebrated enlargement policy can be successfully revived, experts warn — after EU leaders managed to agree to open accession talks with Ukraine at the European Council in December.

After the smashing success of using diabetes drugs for weight loss, concerns remain about the long-term effects — both for health and society.

Earlier in December, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. As she is imprisoned in Iran, her family accepted the prize in her name. EUobserver talked with her family.

In 2021, nitrogen dioxide pollution led to 52,000 deaths and short-term exposure to ozone led to 22,000 attributable deaths in the EU.

EU officials from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam are "extremely" upset by the prospect of living cheek by jowl with one of Europe's biggest brothels in future.

Following years of debates, a political agreement on the EU-wide asylum reforms was finally reached on Wednesday (20 December).

Viktor Orban insists EU membership is merit-based — which indeed it should be — but his own government has bluntly flouted the norms and values upon which the EU is founded, writes the central Europe director of Human Rights Watch.

I wrote this text at 3AM while hiding in the bathroom during the shelling.

European finance ministers have reached a provisional agreement on the bloc's spending and debt rules.