European Union

The European vaccination process against COVID-19 “has not gone well”, Portugal’s President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa has said, adding that the EU cannot be “a mass of selfishness”. “Regarding the supply of vaccines, it has not gone well. There was...

The Swedish government of Social Democrats and the Greens announced on Monday that it wants to dissolve the agreement which has enabled Swedish pensioners to benefit from tax exemptions in both Sweden and Portugal through a legal loophole. According to...

As European energy and environment ministers join their peers at the International Energy Agency’s COP26 Net-Zero summit, they must set the pace for the global phase-out of coal, writes Maria Mendiluce.

The Irish cabinet has approved an ambitious climate action bill aiming to put Ireland on the path to net-zero emissions by 2050 and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 51% within 10 years. The bill will make Ireland “a better country”,...

At a press conference on Tuesday marking a year since the introduction of the first lockdown, Prime Minister Boris Johnson conceded that he made many mistakes in his handling of the pandemic. Johnson said that “in retrospect, there are probably...

The Eurovision song contest has further increased tensions between Bulgaria and North Macedonia. Sofia expressed “bewilderment” at the hate speech campaign taking place in North Macedonia against the country’s own Eurovision 2021 contender, Vasil Garvanliev. After announcing publicly his Bulgarian...

The political parties represented in the Kosovo assembly need to play a responsible role in recognising the results of the parliamentary elections held on 14 February, the ambassadors of informal decision-making group Quint – which includes France, Germany, Italy, the...

“I most strongly and absolutely reject the claims in the Nacional weekly that Mr Zdravko Mamić in any way compensated my salary or private costs during the presidential campaign. They are absolutely false claims and lies,” former president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday (23 March) pledged to rebuild and revitalise the transatlantic military alliance after a bruising four years when Washington portrayed NATO as outdated, divided and in crisis. The first top US official to...

A common EU declaration on Turkey currently under discussion ahead of the EU summit on 25-26 March “does not reflect” the balanced approach of EU top diplomat Josep Borrell recent report, Athens and Nicosia have said.

The European Commission has issued assurances to MEPs that Europol's new decryption platform will not be used to abuse data protection standards and will maintain closely guarded access rights over the data retrieved.

Germany’s involvement in Libya was not a legacy policy but a reflection of how many of its foreign policy pillars were shaken by events across the Mediterranean, writes Tarek Megerisi, calling for Italy and France to work alongside Germany in creating a unified and credible approach to help Lybia.

The Portuguese presidency of the EU will "do everything possible" to ensure that the legislative process for the implementation of a COVID-19 digital health certificate is completed by June, the Secretary of State for European affairs has said.

The European Commission is on track with plans to present a digital tax by June despite recent progress at the level of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the Commission's Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager has said.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said there were no more relations between his country and the EU, blaming Brussels for “destroying mechanisms built over years”. He made the comments during a visit to China, marking a further Russia-China rapprochement.

Agnès Callamard, a French former UN investigator, has told The Guardian newspaper that a senior Saudi official twice threatened her UN colleagues that he would have her killed if she did not stop digging into Saudi Arabia's 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Callamard would be "taken care of," the Said official said. It was "a death threat. That was how it was understood," she told the British newspaper Monday.

China and Russia have called for a UN meeting to seek international support against EU and US human-rights sanctions.

The current political debate on industrial policy lacks an honest acknowledgement of how much is already decided – from EU recovery budgets to the 2030 climate targets, write Sandrine Dixson-Declève and Janez Potočnik. Sandrine Dixson-Declève is the president of The...

The former managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Rodrigo Rato, is facing fresh allegations from Spanish anti-corruption prosecutors, including alleged tax fraud, corruption, and document falsification, EURACTIV’s partner EFE reports.

European Council president Charles Michel announced on Twitter that US president Joe Biden will join the video-summit of EU leaders on Thursday. "Looking forward to welcome @POTUS at this week's European Council meeting", Michel said. "I have invited the president of the US to join our meeting for him to share his views on our future cooperation. Time to rebuild our transatlantic alliance," he added.