European Union

The new minority government of the Labour Party and Centre Party, sworn into office on Thursday, has differing views regarding the EU. While Labour is in favour of having strong cooperation with its “European neighbours”, the rhetoric of the Centre party...

A recent spike in COVID-19 infections has cast doubt on whether the final stages of Ireland’s phased reopening will be able to go ahead as planned. Despite a high rate of vaccinations, recent weeks have seen a surge in cases....

“France recognises the clearly established responsibilities,” the Elysée said on Saturday on the occasion of the commemoration of a massacre of Algerians that took place in Paris 60 years ago under the authority of former police prefect Maurice Papon. “This...

“I carry the responsibility for this result,” Armin Laschet told the convention of the youth organisation of his conservative CDU. Laschet must prepare his party for opposition, as a “traffic light” coalition without the conservatives is looking increasingly likely. On...

While the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) had been leading the polls ever since former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz took over in 2016, the party is currently caught in a downward spiral due to Kurz’s fall from grace over corruption allegations. A...

Approximately 100,000 people rallied in Rome on Saturday (16 October) in solidarity with CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union. On 9 October it was attacked by neo-fascist militants. Italy’s right political forces did not attend. Among the attendees were main representatives of Italy’s centre-left forces, including Democratic...

Germany will lower its infamous renewable electricity surcharge to the lowest point ever in 2022 amid signs that the next government may be preparing to abolish the tax entirely.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation on Europe has suspended its monitoring mission in eastern Ukraine following protests near its headquarters in separatist-controlled Donetsk, the chief monitor said on Sunday (17 October).

The EU's economic governance must drive climate action for a just transition, not austerity, writes Isabelle Brachet.

Facebook on Monday (18 October) announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse", a virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

International monitors in Russia-occupied east Ukraine have suspended operations to protect staff following protests in Donetsk over Ukraine's capture of Andrei Kosyak, who Ukraine said was a Russian national on a covert mission. "Because of our safety concerns and because of our safety rules and considerations we suspended our operations," Yaşar Halit Çevik, the chief monitor of the Organisation for Security Cooperation in Europe's 'special monitoring mission', told Reuters Sunday.

Peter Marki-Zay, a 49-year old economist, Christian, and father-of-seven, who was once mayor of Hodmezovasarhely, a small Hungarian town, will try to unseat prime minister Viktor Orbán in elections next year after Marki-Zay won an opposition primary vote Sunday. "We can only win together," he said, as he prepared to lead a coalition of six anti-Orbán parties. Orban's Fidesz party called Marki-Zay a "career leftist" who would raise taxes.

Belarus has expelled France's ambassador, Nicolas de Lacoste, the French embassy in Minsk said Sunday. "The Belarusian foreign ministry demanded that the ambassador leave by 18 October," it told AFP, adding that he had already gone, leaving "a video message to the Belarusian people, which will appear tomorrow morning on the embassy's website". De Lacoste had, just last Wednesday, hosted the leaders of Govori Pravdu, a banned NGO, Reuters reported.

Some 43 percent of Poles said there should be a referendum on EU membership to settle Warsaw's rule-of-law dispute with Brussels in a survey by SW Research for the Rzeczpospolita daily, while 21 percent were undecided. Meanwhile, 64 percent would vote to stay in the EU if there was a referendum now, while 15 percent would vote to leave, 14 percent were undecided, and 7 percent would boycott the referendum.

Support for Austrian ex-chancellor Sebastian Kurz' 'ÖVP' party has fallen from 32 percent to 26 percent in the wake of his resignation in a corruption scandal, according to a poll in the Kurier newspaper Sunday. Some 71 percent of people also said he was justified in stepping down. Two thirds of people in a separate poll for the Profil magazine Saturday said they believed there was substance to anti-Kurz allegations.

The EU has sent 250 oxygen concentrators and 5,200 vials of antibodies used to treat coronavirus to Romania, where one person was still dying of Covid-19 each six minutes at the start of October and where vaccination rates were just 33 percent. Russia, on Saturday, also recorded over 1,000 deaths in one day - equivalent to someone dying every one-and-a-half minutes, with the Kremlin blaming vaccine scepticism for the problem.

"We in Russia have record-high gas-consumption figures this year, which is also due to ... [our] economic recovery," Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak said on TV Saturday, while assuring Europe Russia could increase supplies if asked to, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, draft conclusions for this week's EU summit pledged "short-term relief to the most vulnerable consumers and to support European companies", amid a massive surge in global gas prices.

US tech giant Facebook is to hire 10,000 people in the EU in the next five years to build a "metaverse" - a virtual world where users' avatars can socialise and work together. "This investment is a vote of confidence in the strength of the European tech industry and the potential of European tech talent ... Europe is hugely important to Facebook," it said while announcing the move on Monday.

Indecision on what kind of EU military forces would fight in what kind of conflicts is holding back EU ambition on "strategic autonomy", according to an internal document.

There is a stretch of brand new, EU-funded railway line from the town of Bitola in North Macedonia to the Greek border, but no train has ever used it.