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Welcome to Euractiv’s Tech Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU. You can subscribe to the newsletter here. 

A senior EU official pushed back on the IMF's recommendation that countries should pursue policies that encourage the diffusion of new technologies, arguing that the EU must sometimes introduce “protecting” measures to ensure its own economic security.

The EU should provide food chain operators with a common framework for food systems that aligns all industry players towards sustainability, Dirk Jacobs, FoodDrinkEurope's director general, told Euractiv in an interview.

A potential victory of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) in France’s snap legislative elections has sparked fears of a wider Euroscepticism wave across the bloc, compounding the far-right's surge in the recent EU elections.

During the European elections campaign, many political parties in Bulgaria and other countries in the EU’s east attacked the European Green Deal. But when several hundred stakeholders gathered at a Green Transition Forum in Sofia, their message was that they wanted to make the best of the project and the EU funding.

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday (28 June) called for the building of "bridges" in the global economy, as Beijing grapples with economic and security disputes with its neighbours and trading partners around the world.

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by Euractiv’s media network.

A defunct Russian satellite has broken up into more than 100 pieces of debris in orbit, forcing astronauts on the International Space Station to take shelter for about an hour and adding to the mass of space junk already in orbit, US space agencies said.

The leader of centre-right Partido Popular (PP/EPP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said on Thursday that Spain’s leader Pedro Sánchez could call snap elections this year due to his ‘weak progressive coalition’, which depends on support from Catalan and Basque separatists.

After weeks of silence from Fratelli d'Italia (FdI) over an investigation that revealed members of the party's youth group praising Mussolini and far-right terrorists during their meetings, Senate President Ignazio La Russa condemned their actions while Giorgia Meloni has yet to comment.

Human errors were made in the triple election that took place in Belgium on 9 June, according to experts, which granted 16-17 year-olds, who were allowed to vote only in the European elections, to also vote in federal and regional elections.

Apple's decision not to launch its own artificial intelligence (AI) features in the EU is a "stunning declaration" of its anticompetitive behavior, EU Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager said on Thursday (27 June).

President Joe Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance while his Republican rival Donald Trump battered him with a series of often false attacks at their debate on Thursday (27 June).

The Slovak parliament passed on Thursday (June 27) the so-called “Lex Assassination”, a widely criticised package of measures that the ruling coalition claims should improve the security situation in Slovakia following the assassination attempt on Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Despite concerns, the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) of Marine Le Pen signals that nothing will change in the Franco-German relationship if a prime minister from their ranks takes over in France, but below the surface, the EU’s engine could grind to a halt.

In a rebuke to the Bulgarian government’s framework position in support of Ukraine, President Rumen Radev has refused to attend July’s NATO summit in Washington.

Excavators dug through piles of waste at a garbage dump surrounded by sunflower fields in Croatia on Thursday (27 June), searching for bodies of victims killed in war more than three decades ago, after remains of 10 people were found earlier this month.

Support for Nigel Farage's right-wing Reform UK party has fallen ahead of the 4 July election, a poll showed on Thursday (27 June), after he said the West had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

After winning five MEPs in the recent European elections, the Volt party is putting forward 22 candidates for the legislative elections in France, particularly in the constituencies reserved for French citizens living abroad, hoping to help counter the surge of the far right.

While Ursula von der Leyen’s bid for the European Commission presidency may have made it through EU27 leaders' approval, her next big challenge now will be how to woo key parts of the European Parliament.