European Union

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi’s proposal to press ahead with accession talks with Albania but exclude North Macedonia for now has sparked criticism in Austria, with Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg calling the move “absurd.” Read more. CUT “North Macedonia has...

Implementing a border levy to price carbon-intensive imports and protect European industries will be “extremely complicated,” warned Jonathan Pershing, a member of the US climate envoy’s team.

Given the disparate views, interests and risk perceptions among the twenty-seven EU countries, far-reaching innovations to be introduced by the Conference on the Future of Europe appear unlikely, writes Michel Leigh.

The European Commission was sent back to the drawing board on the EU's renewable energy directive overhaul after an internal assessment of its draft proposal concluded that it failed to analyse the potential environmental risks of increased bioenergy use.

The European Commission's updated industrial strategy continues to set out more and more tools to provide larger and larger sums of money to industry for a vague green and digital transition, but with no framing on how to get there, writes Wendel Trio.

Former European Commission Vice President Günther Oettinger called on Monday (10 May) for elevating the EU-Kazakhstan relations to “a new level”, inviting the European business to invest more in added-value products manufactured in the Central Asian country.

The "significant upsurge in violence" in the West Bank, in and near Gaza and in east Jerusalem "needs to stop immediately," a spokesman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday (10 May).

The EU's commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, on Monday (10 May) called for the bloc's countries to show "solidarity" with Italy after it took on more than 1,400 migrants arriving on boats over the weekend.

Retaliatory airstrikes by Israeli warplanes in Gaza killed eight Hamas militants, according to the military, Deutsche Welle writes. The Palestinian authorities in Gaza said 20 people were killed, including nine children, and some 65 were wounded. Israel reacted to rockets fired by Hamas into Israel after Israeli authorities refused to withdraw police from the Temple Mount and Shaikh Jarrah neighbourhoods in the Holy City, amid protests over settlement-expansion.

Portugal's Prime Minister on Monday (10 May) considered arguments that blame Germany for the EU’s less open position on the lifting of patents on COVID-19 vaccines "unfair", stressing that most member states follow the same line.

With the Greens increasingly likely to hold sway in the future German government after the 26 September election, EURACTIV took stock of the party’s position on gene-editing, which could prove to be a turning point for Germany's position and the ongoing debate in the EU.

EU countries are unlikely to expel any more Russian diplomats in solidarity over alleged Russian bomb attacks in the Czech Republic and Bulgaria in 2014, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday after meeting foreign ministers. "Everybody agrees on the need of not continuing the escalation. That we need to look for strong support, but at the same time to try not to increase the tensions," Borrell told press.

The Spanish car industry is mulling extending temporary lay-off schemes known as ERTEs currently due to expire at the end of the month until at least next September to mitigate the pandemic’s negative impact on the sector. EURACTIV’s partner EFE reports.

The EU will shortly issue a statement of support for pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong with or without Hungary, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday, after Budapest vetoed a draft communiqué. "If unanimity is not reached ... we will have to take a position which does not reflect unanimity," he said, adding: "We will continue working [on Hungary's objections] for one more week ... just one more week".

EU foreign ministers discussed Western Balkans enlargement for the first time in two years on Monday in what EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said was "quite strange" given the region's "geostrategic" importance. "We cannot go on holidays without having restarted the talks", on normalising Kosovo-Serbia relations, he said. Granting Kosovars visa-free EU travel and lifting Bulgaria's veto on North Macedonia accession talks were also his top priorities, Borrell said.

Russia has recruited allies in German chancellor Angela Merkel's "inner circle" and in Austrian intelligence services, exiled Russian businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky has warned.

The Istanbul Convention is a milestone in the fight against gender-based violence. We are determined to ensure full implementation and enforcement in our countries, write high-level signatories from seventeen European countries. Signatories are ministers from 16 European countries.** Today we...

Serving members of the French military have fired a second salvo at Emmanuel Macron's government, in an open letter accusing it of "cowardice, deceit, perversion", just weeks after a first letter said the country was heading for "civil war", The Guardian reports. Like the first letter, it appears in the rightwing magazine Valeurs Actuelles. It was reportedly signed anonymously "by active military personnel," and accompanied by a petition.

Hundreds of thousands of European citizens could find themselves in limbo after 30 June, and left without documented legal rights to remain in the UK, if the British government does not clear a backlog of more than 320,000 applications for post-Brexit residency status, The Guardian writes. The settlement scheme is open to EU citizens who started living or studying in the country by 31 December 2020.

The Dutch government has allocated €2bn to develop a carbon capture and storage project under the North Sea, Reuters reported on Monday. The initiative, involving oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, is expected to reduce emissions in the industrial area surrounding Europe's largest seaport by around 10 percent. It is set to be operational in 2024.The Netherlands is among the member states with the highest emissions-per-capita.