European Union

Britain said it will push G7 allies to do more to ban "pernicious practices" in trade, such as forced labour and intellectual property theft, in an apparent call for a tougher line towards China at the World Trade Organization.

In the next stage of Belgium’s vaccination campaign, people with an underlying condition between 18 and 65 years old will start receiving their jabs in April. Belgium’s healthcare funds are currently establishing the list of patients at risk on the...

Czech Industry, Trade and Transport Minister Karel Havlíček has dismissed the government’s commissioner for nuclear energy, Jaroslav Míl after he criticised the minister for inviting Russian company Rosatom to take part in a tender to build a new unit of...

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which represents workers and their trade unions at the European level, has published a survey about the progress EU member states have made regarding “decent work”. The results are not surprising. See more here....

Russia is building up armed forces near Ukraine’s borders in a threat to the country’s security, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Ruslan Khomchak said on Tuesday (30 March), accusing Moscow of pursuing an “aggressive policy” towards Kyiv.

On 29 March 2021, the Eurogroup President, Paschal Donohoe, published an opinion article in the Financial Times examining fiscal stimuluses deployed by the European Union and the United States.

Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union on the alignment of certain third countries with Council Decision (CFSP) 2021/372 of 2 March 2021 amending Decision (CFSP) 2020/1999 concerning restrictive measures against serious human rights violations and abuses.

On the occasion of the publication of an article co-signed with a number of world leaders, European Council President Michel and WHO Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus discussed their call for an international Treaty on Pandemics.

COVID-19 shows why united action is needed for more robust international health architecture" - Op-ed article by President Charles Michel, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and more than 20 world leaders.

A blanket 10% rate of interest on borrowing is being assumed for the European Commission's upcoming 2030 package of climate and energy laws. This fails to take into account the present low rates across most European countries, writes Ursula Woodburn.

NATO fighter jets scrambled 10 times on Monday (29 March), to shadow Russian bombers and fighters during an unusual peak of flights over the North Atlantic, North Sea, Black Sea and Baltic Sea, NATO said on Tuesday.

A Syrian refugee who wanted to run for MP on behalf of the Green party in Dinslaken, western Germany, has pulled out due to safety fears after a racist backlash. "The high threat level for me and especially for people close to me is the most important reason," he said Tuesday. The Green party, a rising force in second place in polls ahead of elections in September, voiced dismay.

Syrian people's humanitarian needs are worse than ever, but international aid is shrinking, amid no end in sight to its 10-year war.

Spain will as of Wednesday (31 March) implement a series of new and tougher measures to prevent COVID-19 infections under the so-called New Normality Law, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reports.

Airbnb has welcomed the agreement reached among EU member states to create a common tax reporting framework for digital platforms, which will require sales to be reported to the tax authorities.

The EU has urged Israel to let it deploy an election-observation mission in the occupied Palestinian territories ahead of a vote on 22 May. "Despite continuous contact with the Israeli authorities, over the past five weeks, a reply granting access has yet to be received," Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, the EU 'representative to the Palestinians' said in Jerusalem on Tuesday. The delays had "considerably reduced" the EU's effectiveness, he added.

Austria is in talks with Russia about purchising the Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine, chancellor Sebastian Kurz said Tuesday. The Russian vaccine is not yet approved by the EU regulator, while Hungary has been using it. "When it comes to the vaccine there cannot be any big geopolitical blinkers," Kurz said, adding: "The only thing that can count is if the vaccine is effective and safe, not where it comes from."

Local authorities in Berlin and Munich, Germany's leading cities, have suspended the roll-out of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine for under-60s due to new data on blood-clot side-effects Tuesday. The move was a "precautionary measure", Berlin health minister Dilek Kalayci said, after German publication Der Spiegel reported the German federal regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, had discovered 31 blood-clot cases, mostly in younger and middle-aged women. Munich followed in a separate move.

FridaysForFuture activists Greta Thunberg, Luisa Neubauer, Anuna De Wever, and Adélaïde Charlier met online on Tuesday with commission vice-president Frans Timmermans, as a follow-up to the discussion they had last year on the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) reform. The activists call for the withdrawal of the current CAP reform, arguing that it is not aligned with the Paris Agreement. The #WithdrawTheCAP collected more than 71,000 signatures for this letter.

The European Commission wants to lock out the UK from EU-funded research into quantum-computing due to security concerns over the "strategic" technology, according to a document seen by The Guardian. The proposal, by French single market commissioner Thierry Breton on the EU's 'Horizon' research programme, saw several EU states voice concern. "You can't put the UK and Switzerland in the same box as China and Iran," an EU diplomat said.