European Union

Two foreign citizens were arrested in Portugal’s Lisbon on Wednesday on suspicion of terrorism and links to the jihadist group Daesh, the Judicial Police (PJ) announced on Thursday. The two are suspected of membership and support of an international terrorist...

Schools did not receive the COVID-19 test kits on the first school day as promised by the education ministry. For the start of the new school year, the education ministry has decided that schools should not close ‘en masse’ if...

Stockholm was again a scene for lethal gun violence at the end of August as four separate shootings in the capital left one person dead and another seriously wounded – incidents so common the Swedish media is talking of a...

Over 560 anti-Semitic incidences were reported in the first half of 2021, which is the highest number ever to be reported and almost twice as much as last year’s figure, according to the Jewish Religious Community (IKG). The two main...

To get on the right track of the aspirations of the Paris Climate Agreement “the efforts will be harder, the changes more brutal,” said French ecological transition minister Barbara Pompili Wednesday evening as she met Valérie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the...

After Latvia and Lithuania, Polish President Andrzej Duda on Thursday (2 September) authorised the introduction of the state of emergency along the Polish-Belarusian border. The motion is expected to be approved by the lower house parliament on Monday. At the...

The ANO movement of Prime Minister Andrej Babis officially presented its programme for the October parliamentary elections on Thursday morning. “Right now there are 36 days left until the elections. This is the last chance to vote for Babis, the...

Poland's justice minister on Thursday (2 September) accused the European Commission of "blackmail" for suggesting the member state's pandemic recovery funds were contingent on its acceptance of the primacy of EU law over its national system.

Annalena Baerbock is the first Green lead candidate in German history. But who is Baerbock, and what are her plans for Germany and Europe?

Taliban forces and fighters loyal to local leader Ahmad Massoud battled in Afghanistan's Panjshir Valley, more than two weeks after the Islamist militia seized power, as Taliban leaders in the capital, Kabul, worked to form a government.

Afghan situation leaves Europe stressed, the Bled Strategic Forum is a total sausage fest and German chancellor wannabes are put to the test.

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said "yes" when asked by press Thursday if he would consider forcing people to be vaccinated by law in order to help the country reach its 80-percent immunisation target. Some 63 percent of adult Italians have had two jabs so far. "The obligation in our country already exists for health personnel, so ... it already applies to part of society," health minister Roberto Speranza said.

Bulgaria will head to new national elections this year, after the Socialists became the third political party to refuse to lead a government following July's inconclusive parliamentary election, Reuters reports. President Rumen Radev faces having to dissolve parliament, appoint a new interim administration, and call a snap poll within two months. These are the third elections for parliament this year and will probably be held in November.

Scotland would decommission its nuclear weapons bases if it gained independence via a new referendum, the Scottish National Party's defence spokesman Stewart McDonald said Thursday, The Times reports. "An independent Scotland will not be home to nuclear weapons," he said, adding there was "a clear cross-party majority" against it. British plans had included creating a new overseas territory, or 'nuclear Gibraltar', to house the weapons, if Scotland split away.

An international treaty used by polluting energy companies to claim compensation from governments who thwart their investments was ruled incompatible with EU law by the Court of Justice of the European Union on Thursday (2 September).

Famine in Ethiopia could kill millions because aid was not being allowed into the Tigray conflict zone in its civil war, the UN has warned. "The lives of millions of civilians ... depend on our capacity to reach them with food, nutrition supplies, medicine," UN official Grant Leaity said. Some 5.2m people needed 100 trucks of aid a day to avoid "the world's worst famine situation in decades", he said.

The EU wants a force of some 5,000 troops that won't need the unanimous support of all 27 member states. The ideas were discussed at a defence ministerial and will feed into a bigger strategic plan in November.

The European Union on Thursday (2 September) backed calls for a legally binding international agreement to reduce plastic pollution, during a UN-hosted conference in Geneva.

The head of Ukraine's gas transit operator, Sergiy Makogon, warned on Thursday that the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will make Europe completely dependent on Russia. "People just have a short memory - 2009 is the year when Russia's Gazprom made Europe freeze," he told Reuters. Gazprom fully owns Nord Stream 2, which could divert transit gas flows going through Ukraine to Europe once completed.

Google said it is appealing a €500m fine handed to it by the French competition watchdog, over Google's use of news content in its search results. Google says the fine is disproportionate compared to the efforts made by the company to comply with EU copyright rules. The watchdog said Google failed to negotiate "in good faith" with media companies to use extracts of articles, photos and videos in search results.