European Union

The Italian Senate has approved the criminal trial reform on Thursday, part of a set of broader justice reforms Brussels has asked Italy to enforce so it can obtain Next Generation EU funding. Italy is known for its excessively lengthy...

In a surprise statement on Thursday, Greece’s Public Power Corporation (PPC) announced that it is proceeding with a €750 million capital share increase which will see the state lose its majority. The state, which currently owns 51% of the company’s...

The Technology Industries of Finland, a lobbying organisation for the technology industry representing some 1,600 companies, is warning that the acute and deteriorating shortage of skilled labour could endanger the country’s economic growth. It may also impact welfare services and...

Taoiseach Micheál Martin chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, focusing on the topic of climate and security. Ireland, which holds the Council presidency this month, used the debate to urge greater attention to the interplay between...

The European Commission announced on Thursday that it would open infringement procedures against Austria, Finland, Luxembourg, and Croatia for failing to transpose the EU rules on combatting terrorism. The EU rules aim at criminalising and sanctioning terrorism-related offences, such as...

Corporate Europe Observatory, Observatoires des Multinationales and foodwatch have launched a petition on Wednesday, urging the French executive to decline any sponsorship offers when it takes on the rotating EU Council presidency in 2022. “There can be no excuse for...

European Union countries are struggling to agree their negotiating position for the COP26 climate change conference, with rifts emerging over timeframes for emissions-cutting pledges, according to officials and documents seen by Reuters.

Exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was arrested in Italy on Thursday (23 September), his lawyer and an aide said, four years after fleeing following an independence referendum that Madrid ruled unconstitutional.

Ditching French submarines leads to a brawl, turns out Viktor Orban isn’t that tall, and European Commission proposes a single digital charger for all.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Thursday (23 September) announced measures worth three billion euros to keep gas and electricity bills down this winter as power prices soar across Europe.

Italian police arrested Catalan independence leader and MEP Carles Puigdemont at an airport in Sardinia on Thursday, where he is to appear in court on Friday and could be extradited to Spain, which is hunting him for "sedition". Catalonia's president Pere Aragones condemned what he called Puigdemont's "persecution and judicial repression". Puigdemont has lived in Belgium since 2017, but was stripped of his European Parliament immunity in March this year.

EU and US trade officials will meet for talks 29 September as planned, the European Commission said Thursday, after the meeting had been thrown into doubt because of French anger over a controversial US defence deal with Australia. "The Commission confirms that the Trade and Technology Council will take place," it said. "Strategic alliances are about shaping common approaches and also overcoming difficulties," EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis tweeted.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will likely decide in early October whether to endorse a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine, to be given half a year after the initial two-shot course, Reuters writes. "The outcome of this evaluation is expected in early October, unless supplementary information is needed," the EMA head of vaccines strategy, Marco Cavaleri, told a press briefing on Thursday.

The EU Commission has cautiously welcomed Poland's decision to temporarily extend the licence of TVN24, the country's leading independent broadcaster. "We will continue to closely monitor the situation," a commission spokesman said Thursday, following a decision by Polish regulator KRRiT one day earlier. TVN24, which is US-owned, had fallen foul of new rules on foreign media ownership. And the commission repeated its long-standing worries over media pluralism in Poland Thursday.

Ukraine's parliament passed a law on Thursday to order oligarchs to register and stay out of politics, a day after an attempt to kill a top aide to president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, which officials said could have been a response to the reform, Reuters writes. Such oligarchs would be forbidden from financing political parties or taking part in privatisations. Top officials would be required to declare dealings they had with them.

The European Commission could withhold funds from Poland's EU budget pot in event of non-payment of a €500,000-a-day EU court fine over a highly-polluting coal mine, it said on Thursday. "If payment [of the fine] is not executed [in due time] ... the fine is to be recovered by deductions from [budget] payments due to the given member state," the commission press service told Polish news website Onet.pl.

The EU and US plan to unveil joint curbs on the market and political power of tech-giants, such as Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google, at trade talks in Pittsburgh 29 September, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters. The memo "identified common issues of concern around gatekeeper power by major platforms," adding: "This includes ... responsibility of online intermediaries to safeguard democratic processes from the impact of business activities".

EU states, 37 MEPs and the European Commission signed a transparency pledge, published on Thursday. "Each and every one of us pledges to take steps to ensure that the EU's decision-making process becomes more open," they said as part of a wider public debate as part of the Conference on the Future of Europe.

The European Commission unveiled its plans to make USB-C the standard charging port for all smartphones, tablets, and other small electronic devices.

The central European leaders signed a joint declaration saying "increasing the number of European children is essential to preserving Europe's Christian culture and other religious traditions for future generations."