Euractiv.com

Les Entreprises du médicament en France (Leem), an association of French pharmaceutical companies, unveiled its manifesto on Friday (May 17) ahead of June's EU elections, with the focus on investing in research and development (R&D) to avoid falling behind the United States.

The Franco-German parliamentary assembly is set to adopt a declaration advising Paris and Berlin to mend their differences in energy policy and begin moving on hydrogen and geothermal.

According to experts at the European Maize Congress, Ukraine’s reinvigorated capacity to export cereals raises questions about competition with EU producers, but future integration can be an opportunity for the bloc to increase the influence in the food global markets.

New US tarriffs on Chinese goods, including semiconductors, have split the EU's Social Democrats ahead of the elections, while the Commission designated Booking as a DMA gatekeeper.

The political and policy-driven nature of this revolution needs to set up manageable implications for all, everywhere. The EU cannot separate its EGD from its foreign policy as its consequences will reverberate well beyond its borders.

The French president touts it, the French Delegate Minister for Energy praises it: the decarbonized nature of the French electricity mix is an unparalleled asset in attracting foreign investment, particularly in industry. The reality is more complex.

Despite Western calls on China to cut its support for Moscow's war against Ukraine by limiting supplies of dual-use materials and weapons components to Russia, Beijing has no interest in dropping its backing for President Vladimir Putin, analysts say.

French police reinforcements have started arriving in New Caledonia as part of a massive operation to regain control of the capital Noumea, the top French official in the Pacific island territory said on Friday (17 May).

Tornado Cash co-founder Alexey Pertsev was sentenced to a little over five months in jail this week by a Dutch court, for helping to create a tool that obfuscates the trail of cryptocurrencies. The tool, built and run on Ethereum blockchain, was used by hackers to launder their illicitly obtained funds.

The Pfizergate scandal broke in 2021, revealing that during the pandemic, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had negotiated a contract for 1.8 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses with Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla via mobile phone texts that remain undisclosed to this day.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Bulgaria demanding €400 million from Russia's Gazprom for suspended gas supplies, Swedish Social Democrats wanting ID verification on social media on EU level to fight trolls, and so much more.

Slovakia's Prime Minister Robert Fico remains in a serious but stable condition and is able to speak a little, the country's president-elect said on Thursday (16 May), a day after an assassination attempt that sent shock waves across Europe.

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven major democracies meeting in Italy next week will back a EU plan to use the income from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine's war effort, an Italian Treasury official said on Thursday (16 May).

Over the past five years, Ursula von der Leyen’s College of Commissioners has presented a long list of legislative texts covering issues ranging from Green Deal legislation to defence industrial programmes. 

Kosovo’s last-minute bid to placate Germany and get its application for membership of the Strasbourg-based human rights body, the Council of Europe approved has been attacked by Serbian President Aleksander Vucic and criticised by Kosovo's President Vjosa Osmani.

Bulgarian state-owned gas company Bulgargas is seeking more than €400 million in damages from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom Export-Import for the sudden suspension of natural gas supplies at the end of April 2022.

The end-2023 MEPs failure to approve a comprehensive reform of the rules on pesticides epitomizes the difficulties of the Green Deal in agrifood policy. Two big agrifood policy files are pending for the next Parliament.

NATO's top commander said on Thursday (16 May) he did not believe Russia's military has deployed enough troops to make a strategic breakthrough in the region around Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine.

Georgia's controversial 'foreign agent' law profoundly changes the country's relationship with its Western partners and the EU should take the outcome of the upcoming elections as a basis to reassess its ties with Tbilisi, the country's President Salome Zourabishvili told Euractiv.

Parliament in ex-Soviet Moldova voted on Thursday (16 May) to hold a referendum in October on European Union membership, the cornerstone of President Maia Sandu's policies, alongside a presidential election.