European Union

One day after Navalny's arrest, his team has released a full-scale investigative documentary on Putin's wealth, including a bombastic palace of jaw-dropping luxury in Gelendzhik on the Black Sea and the corruption schemes that financed it. Navalny is making a risky gamble, commentators find, and see the confrontation between him and Putin coming to a head.

Dating apps and videoconferencing tools could come under the scope of new EU efforts to monitor online communications in a bid to stamp out child sexual abuse material, internal documents obtained by EURACTIV reveal.

Hungary's drug regulator has given preliminary approval for the coronavirus vaccines made by the UK's AstraZeneca and Russia's Sputnik V, prime minister Viktor Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said on Thursday, Reuters reported. The two vaccines have not yet been approved by the EU's regulatory body. Foreign minister Péter Szijjártó was travelling to Moscow for talks about the vaccine on Thursday, Gulyás added.

In a first in Europe, Alphabet’s Google and a group of French publishers said on Thursday they had agreed a general framework over copyrights under which the U.S. tech giant will pay publishers for content online.

Electric vehicles traded between the EU and the UK have been given a grace period to prevent trade being slammed with tariffs, but battery producers need to start preparing now to meet the deadline, industry sources say.

More than 1.1 million people demanded that the Commission do more to protect minorities, but Brussels neglected to take action. German minority associations are outraged and are trying to build up the pressure through the member states. EURACTIV Germany reports.

From restaurant closures to travel restrictions, the hospitality sector has been one of the hardest hit by the COVID pandemic that is threatening thousands of jobs and livelihoods across the EU. But as the rollout of the COVID vaccine gets...

Despite the challenges the pandemic has presented to the EU hospitality sector, hopes remain high that it can bounce back and adapt to a new post-pandemic reality, but this requires support “commensurate to the hit it has taken”, according to the EU hospitality association.

Parliament voted today to continue making additional resources available in 2021 and 2022 in order to provide food and basic assistance to the most deprived.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Parliament voted today to continue making additional resources available in 2021 and 2022 in order to provide food and basic assistance to the most deprived.
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

China’s move to sanction former Trump administration officials was “unproductive and cynical”, a spokeswoman for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council said on Wednesday (20 January), urging Americans from both parties to condemn the action.

The European Union will on Thursday (21 January) press Turkey to make good on recent gestures from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to calm tensions, as Ankara's foreign minister visits Brussels.

Committee and political groups’ meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin welcoming US President Joe Biden as a 'true friend', Finland's Left Alliance saying 'no' to surplus vaccines from Israel, and so much more.

Albin Kurti, leader of Kosovo’s biggest party, Vetëvendosje (Self-determination), has not been certified to run in the upcoming snap elections set to be held on 14 February. This means Kurti will be removed from the list of the Vetevendosje candidates,...

Serbian President Aleksandar VučIć congratulated new US President Joseph Biden, wished him good health and much success, and also invited him to come to Serbia, it was announced in Belgrade.  Vučić said he believed Biden would perform the presidential duties...

Written by Marketa Pape,

© metamorworks / Adobe Stock

Transport is the backbone of the EU economy, connecting people and businesses across various EU regions and countries. The coronavirus pandemic has shown the impact of mobility restrictions on the free movement of people, goods and services and, at the same time, confirmed the essential role of transport in safeguarding the functioning of vital supply chains. However, transport also generates significant costs to society, in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, environmental pollution, accidents, congestion and loss of biodiversity.

EU ambitions to address these negative impacts have increased over the years. In December 2019, the European Commission put forward the European Green Deal that aims to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. This goal was subsequently endorsed by the European Parliament and EU Member States. To achieve climate neutrality, the EU transport sector has to cut its CO2 emissions by 90 %. This requirement is in stark contrast with the past trend: despite previously adopted measures, transport is the only sector in which greenhouse gas emissions have kept growing.

The Commission has therefore proposed a strategy outlining how it wants to transform the EU transport sector and align it with the European Green Deal, by making it green, digital and resilient.

While transport stakeholders have welcomed parts of the strategy as steps in the right direction, concerns about the text’s high ambitions and lack of concrete elements have been voiced.

The Commission is to start proposing the measures envisaged in 2021. It remains to be seen to what extent, with what modifications and how fast they will be adopted and then implemented by EU Member States, shaping transport transformation for the years to come.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Sustainable and smart mobility strategy‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.