European Union

Romania’s proposed recovery plan is economically unbalanced and politically biased as it focuses on investments in rich regions while disregarding poorer areas led by leftist local authorities, the leader of the country's main opposition, the Social Democratic Party (PSD), told EURACTIV.com in an interview.

Any firm issuing safety certificates for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will find itself in US sanctions crosshairs, the state department has warned.

A small country with an outsize reputation in research and pharmaceuticals, Belgium has emerged with a strategic role in the world's battle against the coronavirus.

Norway scrambled two jets to challenge two Russian long-range bombers off the coast of Norway earlier this week, Nato said Thursday, while Nato fighter aircraft from Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey responded to a Russian squadron of bombers and fighter jets over the Black Sea, in a separate incident. The Black Sea squadron had turned off its transponders, devices that communicate flight paths, raising tension and the risk of accidental confrontation.

Amsterdam has overtaken London as the share-trading capital of Europe, just a month after Brexit became official, the Financial Times reported. Trading volumes at three exchanges in the Dutch capital grew fourfold to average €9.2bn per day in January, while average volumes in London fell sharply to €8.6bn last month. An estimated €6bn of European share trading shifted from London to Europe when Brexit officially took effect in January.

Foreign ministers and senior officials from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates were meeting with foreign ministers from Greece, Cyprus and Egypt in Athens on Thursday, as Greece seeks to expand alliances to counter tension with Turkey, AP reported. French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian joined online. Nato members Greece and Turkey are locked in a dispute over boundaries and offshore resource rights in the Mediterranean.

Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey has accused the EU of "double standards" in letting Australian, Canadian, and US traders do business in Europe, but not City of London ones after Brexit. "Now is not the time to have a regional argument," he told The Times Thursday, referring to economic fallout from the pandemic. At least €6bn of trading and 7,000 financial jobs have moved to Europe since Brexit.

Over 500 scientists called on EU to stop treating the burning of biomass as "carbon neutral" in its renewable energy standards. "In recent years there has been a misguided move to cut down whole trees or to divert large portions of stem wood for bioenergy, releasing carbon that would otherwise stay locked up in the forests," they said in a letter sent on Thursday to EU and international leaders.

French and Spanish liberal MEPs attempted to water down a resolution on Yemen and abstained on key points demanding accountability for EU states that violate arms export rules.

All non-essential travel to and from Belgium remains prohibited until 1 April, the Belgian government clarified on Thursday. On the website of the ministry of foreign affairs it had indicated the rule would last until 1 March. The measure does not apply to frontier workers and travelling for urgent family reasons. Belgium's Easter holiday this year starts on 5 April.

France's foreign ministry warned Iran on Thursday against taking further measures that could breach the 2015 nuclear accord with world powers and as a result jeopardise a diplomatic window opened with the arrival of a new US administration, Reuters reports. The International Atomic Energy Agency, a UN watchdog, reported on Wednesday that Tehran had carried out its plan to produce uranium metal.

European police have been working with their counterparts in Myanmar to develop a manual of crowd-control techniques as part of a wider EU-support scheme, The Guardian writes. The project, initiated in 2012, provided training and equipment. It was suspended by the EU last week after the Myanmar military staged a coup, triggering the largest protest movement in the country in more than a decade.

EU ambassadors reached a compromise on the e-Privacy reform after four years of deadlock, paving the way for trialogue negotiations. But the text was slammed for allowing "mass surveillance" under national data-retention laws, a crucial win for France.

Economic commissioner Paolo Gentiloni acknowledged that the goal of vaccinating 70 percent of EU adults by the summer is "a challenging target".

Existing loopholes provide ample opportunity for political actors to receive resources from abroad.

As EU-Russia relations hit a new low over the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, Moscow’s Sputnik V vaccine is seen as a window of opportunity for Europe to make up for the delayed vaccine deliveries. But the Russian jab may also creates additional headaches across EU capitals.

The Covid-19 pandemic has strengthened citizens’ beliefs that the European Union is the right place to develop effective solutions to tackle its effects.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The Covid-19 pandemic has strengthened citizens’ beliefs that the European Union is the right place to develop effective solutions to tackle its effects.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

With the support of the right-wing populist Greek Solution party, the ruling conservative New Democracy party (EPP) passed a law on 11 February establishing a special police force for the surveillance of universities.

France's administrative court known as the Council of State considered on Thursday an application for interim measures filed by Google LLC and Google Ireland after the French Data Protection Authority known as the CNIL fined the digital giant €100 million last December for its cookie collection policy. EURACTIV France was at the hearing.