European Union

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Turkish Foreign Minister Murat Çavuşoğlu on the margins of the G20 summit in Rome on Saturday, Russia’s foreign ministry announced. The discussion focused on coordinating the two countries’ efforts to further stabilise the...

Hungarian Gen. Ferenc Kajari, the new commander of NATO-led KFOR, said on Sunday that the Kosovo Security Forces must obtain approval from the KFOR commander before any deployment in northern Kosovo, according to an earlier agreement. In an interview to...

The majority of Serbian citizens believe Russia and China have had a positive influence on Serbia in recent years. At the same time, they consider the impact of the US, European Union and NATO to have been negative, a recent...

Nearly 140,000 workers in Croatia will need to change their occupation by 2030, the consulting firm McKinsey & Company Adriatic said in a study on the transformation of the Croatian labour force. According to the study, some 140,000 jobs will...

Prime minister-designate Nicolae Ciuca has submitted the cabinet list and the governing programme to parliament. Minister hearings are scheduled for Tuesday, and a vote on the new government is due on Wednesday. The new cabinet proposal includes ministers from PNL...

Bulgaria is facing the most serious COVID-19 wave so far as the EU’s least vaccinated country. Interim Health Minister Stoicho Katsarov warned that Bulgaria is currently using the ‘last reserves in the system’ for beds in the intensive care units....

A scene from a Netflix series was used by the main edition TVP Wiadomosci, the most-watched news programme on public television, to argue that refugees are criminals, EURACTIV Poland’s media partner Gazeta Wyborcza reports. TVP has become increasingly politicised since...

Slovakia needs to step up its efforts to combat climate change as its current plans and strategies do not reflect European climate targets, President Zuzana Čaputová said before travelling to the climate summit in Glasgow. On Sunday, before Čaputová’s departure,...

Pro-independence parties, the Republican Left of Catalonia (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, ERC) and the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) last week paved the way for the Spanish budget for 2022 to be approved after they announced they will not veto it....

Three journalists from the country’s biggest daily newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat have been charged by the Deputy State prosecutor over their report on an intelligence facility. While means to acquire information were not illegal, the prosecutor alleges that the story published in...

Ireland will this week extend the provision of booster shots of COVID-19 vaccines, offering them to people over 60 years old. Despite more than 90% of the population being fully vaccinated, cases of the virus have climbed in recent weeks...

Caretaker Chancellor Angela Merkel used the opportunity of the G20 summit in Rome to begin the slow hand-over process to finance minister, and likely future chancellor Olaf Scholz as a ‘traffic light’ coalition led by him appears increasingly probable. While...

Georgia's opposition parties on Sunday (31 October) announced plans for a mass anti-government protest rally next weekend, denouncing as fraudulent local election runoffs won by the ruling party.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said on Sunday that he will step down following his party’s poor result in municipal elections, but offered no details on the timeline. “I take the responsibility for the results of these elections. I resign as...

The official visit of Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu to Czechia at the Czech Senate’s invitation has triggered an angry reaction from China. The National People’s Congress (NPC) – the highest organ of State power in China – condemned Czech...

Although the Italian government – which currently holds the G20 presidency – was hoping to convince fellow G20 leaders to commit to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, the final declaration presented at the end of the summit only featured a...

After the long-awaited meeting between French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome on Sunday, Macron called for “exigency, seriousness and respect” from Johnson over the fisheries dispute. After...

Portugal’s president said on Sunday he would address the nation this week on the country’s political crisis and is likely to announce his decision to dissolve parliament, triggering an election two years ahead of schedule. Parliament threw out the minority...

G20 Rome Leaders’ Declaration

In this week’s edition: Winter is coming in Lebanon, EU-US tariffs end and Western Balkans focus.