European Union

Lorry freight volumes moving across the Irish Sea between Britain and Ireland fell by one third in the first three quarters of 2021, the Irish Times reports. According to the Times, as-yet unpublished industry figures show that freight volumes moving between Holyhead,...

Parties representing the old political establishment held their ground in Estonian local elections on Sunday, but newcomers from the opposite ends of the political spectrum made significant gains. The two parties in the government, the Center Party and Reform, managed...

Voters in Rome and Turin, respectively the first and fourth biggest cities in the country, elected centre-left candidates as mayors in the second round of municipal elections. In the first round, three other major cities – Milan, Naples and Bologna...

The leader of a Basque nationalist party and former ETA member Arnaldo Otegi on Monday said the violence the Basque terrorist group used in its bid to attain independence “should never have happened.” Otegi spoke ahead of the 10th anniversary...

It is “necessary” that the government can “act on fuel marketing margins” to cope with price increases, despite not having “the capacity” to do so, Environment Minister, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, said on Monday. “In the government’s view it is...

Slovakia’s interior ministry is, according to their own statement, working on a reform of public governance and municipalities, but local authorities have not been informed, EURACTIV Slovakia reports. Reform of public governance was supposed to be one of the new government’s priorities...

The significant increase in energy prices is a major concern for Romania, given its impact on citizens, businesses, and vulnerable consumers, President Klaus Iohannis said in a videoconference with European Council President Charles Michel and other EU leaders on Monday...

Radovan Dobronić, appointed Supreme Court president, was sworn in at the presence of parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković on Monday (18 October). The two first attempts to elect the Supreme Court president failed because of disagreement between Prime Minister Andrej Plenković...

The State Prosecutor’s Office has made a case against the Serb member of BiH Presidency, Milorad Dodik, N1 has learnt. The interest in the criminal complaints against Dodik is “completely understandable,” the Prosecutor’s Office told N1, confirming that the most recent complaint...

Opposition party VMRO-DPMNE has claimed victory in the first round of the country’s local elections held on Sunday. According to the preliminary results from the State Election Commission, the right-wing VMRO DPMNE party won 17 mayoral races in the first...

More than half of Kosovo’s 38 mayors will be decided in runoffs next month, following Sunday’s local elections. Preliminary results showed that only 17 candidates could gain more than 50% of the votes in their constituencies. In the remaining 21...

University students in Albania headed back to their classrooms on Monday, late starting the new academic year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Students must provide vaccination certificates or negative PCR test results to police officers upon entering university buildings. The...

Roberto Gualtieri, a former economy minister and an ex-MEP for the centre-left Democratic Party, won 60 percent of the vote on Monday in Rome's mayoral election, ahead of his rival from the far-right Brothers of Italy, Enrico Michetti, who received 40 percent, Corriere della Sera writes. Gualtieri is succeeding Virginia Raggi, a politician with the populist Five Star Movement (M5S), as mayor.

Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki has said in an open letter to EU leaders Monday he wanted to "reassure" them that "Poland remains a loyal member of the European Union", in the wake of an anti-EU court verdict. But he also complained the EU was becoming "an entity that would cease to be an alliance of free, equal and sovereign states - and become one, centrally managed organism".

European Union foreign ministers debated new economic sanctions on Belarus on Monday (18 October), including on airlines, to halt what Brussels says is a deliberate policy by Minsk to fly in thousands of migrants and send them across the border.

Russia has suspended its embassy to Nato citing a spy row, but some EU diplomats see it as part of a wider attack on multilateralism.

European Commission climate commissioner Frans Timmermans said on Monday that "there is a huge responsibility of the developed world to share technologies with the developing world" to tackle climate change, not just out of altruism, but also because "it is a good business opportunity". "We need to make sure that the whole world can profit from this," he said during a visit in Indonesia, ahead of the COP26 climate summit.

The European Commission will start its review of its budgetary rules on Tuesday. The Stability and Growth Pact was signed in 1992, but since then the rules have ballooned and many consider them too complex and no longer fit for purpose, because they limit public spending and leave too little room for green investment, critics say. The landmark review will likely take until the end of 2022.

The European Commission said on Monday that member states have issued over 591 million EU digital Covid certificates since the regulation entered into force in July. In total, 43 countries are connected to the EU technical system, including Morocco, Panama, Turkey or Ukraine. Another 60 are interested in joining. Meanwhile, 20 member states are using the certificate to grant access restaurants, cinemas, museums, events or venues.

Péter Márki-Zay, 49, won the run-off of the first ever primary elections in Hungary, organised by six opposition parties in order to have one united opposition figure run against Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz candidates.