European Union

Taiwan's democracy is "a treasure" to be protected, the head of a visiting European Parliament delegation said on Thursday, promising to stand with the island as tensions between Beijing and Taipei spiral to their highest level in years.

West-bound gas flows via the the Yamal-Europe pipeline, which brings gas from Russia via Poland, have been on hold since Saturday and have not resumed, Reuters reported on Thursday. Flows into Germany at the Mallnow metering point, which lies on the Polish border, now run in reverse, taking gas from the west to the east, data from Germany's operator Gascade also showed.

Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary have joined an international treaty against deforestation, according to an updated version of the signatories' list published by the organisers of the 'COP26' summit in Scotland Wednesday. EUobserver previously reported they had stayed out because they did not appear on the list as published immediately after the pact was signed Monday. The Croatian government, for one, vehemently denied EUobserver's report.

China's treatment of Lithuania is a "wake up call" for Europe, Lithuania's deputy foreign minister said on Wednesday (3 November), calling for the European Union to be united in dealings with Beijing.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about the Polish Climate and Environment Minister Anna Moskwa set to visit Prague in a bid to unblock the Turów dispute, Greece's PM going after the unvaccinated in an interview with TV channel MEGA, and so much more.

French President Macron welcomed acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday (3 November) for her farewell visit. But high-ranking critics accuse the outgoing German government of leaving behind a thorny legacy.

Czech centrist and centre-right parties reached an agreement on forming a majority coalition government and its key agenda, the chairman of the strongest party in the new coalition has said, Reuters reported. The five-party coalition faces mounting debt, an economy curbed by a global shortage of semiconductors and surging energy prices, as well as a resurgent pandemic, which has been gathering pace in recent weeks.

Arrests have been made in Belfast following disorder at a rally against the Brexit deal, which left Northern Ireland as part of the EU's customs territory, The Guardian reported. Police came under attack with missiles and fireworks close to a picket line on Wednesday evening. Two males, aged 12 and 15 years, were arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour and released on bail as police inquiries continued.

The UN Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday (3 November) to renew for one year the mandate of the European military mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite Russian opposition to the existence of an international high representative to the Balkan country.

German health minister Jens Spahn has raised alarm over rising infection rates due to people who do not want to get vaccinated. "The pandemic is far from over ... we are currently experiencing a pandemic of the unvaccinated, which is massive," he said Wednesday. "The fourth wave is developing in exactly the way we feared," Lothar Wieler, a German health chief, added. Dutch authorities also reintroduced mask-wearing on Wednesday.

EU states' soldiers Wednesday started a two-year long mission to train 11 special forces units from Mozambique's military to help the country repel Islamist insurgents in its northern Cabo Delgado province. "No country, no region and no organisation can face these global challenges alone," the EU's ambassador to Mozambique, Antonio Sanchez-Benedito Gaspar, said according to Reuters. "Our focus is to restore security," Mozambique's defence minister Jaime Neto added.

The EU wants to create a joint intervention force of some 5,000 soldiers by 2025 that can be deployed without unanimous consent for "rescue and evacuation missions or a stabilisation operation in a hostile environment", according to an internal EU document seen by Bloomberg. "Our strategic competitors should not question the EU's common resolve to respond to aggression and malicious activities against any of our member states", the document added.

Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg has called for international standards to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in weapons systems. "Autonomous systems, drones and facial recognition linked into weapons systems changes completely the nature of warfare just like the industrial revolution did", he told parliamentarians in the Nordic Council in Copenhagen. "We need some systems established for weapon control and ethical warfare".

Nato has voiced alarm over "escalation" of the Belarus migration crisis after Poland accused Belarusian soldiers of crossing into its territory.

MEPs visiting Taiwan have voiced EU solidarity with the self-ruled island in the face of Chinese military threats and propaganda attacks.

The opening days climate summit in Glasgow (COP26) has been marked by heavy weather, travel disruption, large crowds, Covid-19-related restrictions, and long queues outside the conference centre – which have triggered criticism of the organisers of the conference.

The French push to include nuclear energy and natural gas in the EU taxonomy on sustainable finance threatens to derail the Green Deal, MEP and rapporteur Bas Eickhout warns.

A French government minister reportedly pressured the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe to remove the video, posted on Twitter, of young women wearing the hijab as part of a wider campaign to combat hate speech against Muslim communities.

The EU Commission still withholds the names of its vaccine negotiators, amid protests from MEPs and civil society. Investigate Europe has been able to find several of them.

With five months to go before the first round of the French presidential election, EURACTIV France spoke to French far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s campaign manager, MEP Manuel Bompard. Last time around, it took the French far-left until the final stretches...