European Union

Plenary session, Strasbourg

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

A group of five EU member states led by Germany have sent a letter to the European Commission asking for nuclear energy to be kept out of the EU’s green finance taxonomy.

Johnson and Johnson's single-shot Covid-19 vaccine is effective against the highly contagious Delta variant, with an immune response lasting at least eight months, the company said Thursday (1 June).

Written by Piotr Bąkowski and Sofija Voronova.

On 14 April 2021, the European Commission presented its new 2021-2025 strategy on combating trafficking in human beings – 10 years after the adoption of Directive 2011/36/EU, the core EU instrument addressing this phenomenon and protecting its victims. Despite some progress achieved in recent years, a number of challenges still lie ahead.

Human trafficking is not only a serious and borderless crime, but also a lucrative business, driven by demand for sexual (and other) services. Criminals exploit vulnerable people (increasingly children), making high profits and taking relatively low risks. Vulnerability can result from a whole range of factors, including socio-economic ones, and migrants are a particularly vulnerable group.

Gender also plays an important part, as women and men are not trafficked in the same way or for the same purpose. Women and girls represent a disproportionately high number of victims, both globally and at EU level, especially in terms of sexual exploitation. This form of exploitation is still dominant in the EU, even though other forms are on the rise, such as exploitation for forced labour and for criminal activities.

The Covid-19 pandemic has brought new challenges for victims, as well as amplifying the vulnerabilities of those most at risk. Traffickers – like legal businesses – moved to digital modi operandi, making victims even less visible and less able to ask for help and protection. In its efforts to eradicate human trafficking, the EU has not only created a legal framework, comprising an anti-trafficking directive and instruments to protect victims’ rights and prevent labour exploitation; it has also put in place an operational cooperation network involving EU decentralised agencies, including Europol, Eurojust, CEPOL and Frontex. Moreover, trafficking in human beings is a priority of the EU policy cycle for organised and serious international crime. The European Parliament plays a major role, not only in designing policies but also in evaluating their implementation.

Read the complete briefing on ‘Understanding EU action against human trafficking‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Listen to policy podcast ‘Understanding EU action against human trafficking’ on YouTube.

Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel will address Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet of top ministers during a visit to Britain on Friday (2 July), the first time a foreign leader has done so in nearly 25 years.

In today's edition of the capitals, Sweden fails to form a new government and the commission approve Slovenia's recovery plan, these and so much more in today's capitals..

It is necessary to reform the European Union’s flawed macroeconomic architecture as the post-pandemic world demands a new fiscal rulebook to boost our economies, argues Margarida Marques.

Slovenian presidency could be a free-for-all, Viktor Orban still has some gall, and we all still very excited about football.

A total of 130 countries have agreed a global tax reform ensuring that multinationals pay their fair share wherever they operate, the OECD said on Thursday (1 July), but some EU states refused to sign up.

German Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner has praised the EU's compromise deal on the reform of the bloc's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), while associations and opposition parties criticised its shortcomings on organic farming and nature conservation. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Amnesty International has sent a list of demands concerning human rights to Slovenia as the country took over the EU Council presidency for the next six months, which includes achieving progress in the protection and promotion of human rights and...

Slovenia formally assumed the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council on Thursday (1 July) - amid criticism against its right-wing prime minister Janez Janša for allegadly undermining the rule of law and democratic values in the EU.

The Libyan Coast Guard intercepted a wooden boat of 30 people some 10 nautical miles inside Malta's search and rescue zone. But then suddenly let them go, allowing the Ocean Viking to perform its first rescue since leaving Marseille.

One hundred and eighteen Spanish students who had celebrated the end of their school year in Mallorca but got caught up in a COVID-19 super-spreader outbreak linked to a total of 1,824 new cases in Spain stopped quarantining on Thursday (1 July) after testing negative for the virus.

The head of the EU delegation to Belarus is to head back to Brussels "in the coming days", EU foreign relations spokesman Peter Stano told EUobserver Thursday. "By requesting that he [the ambassador] is recalled to Brussels for consultations, the Belarusian regime has taken another step to self-isolate. Keeping channels of communication open is crucial in times of crisis," Stano added. The move comes after the EU imposed economic sanctions.

“The Dayton-Paris agreement is the most important treaty since World War II and amending it would be disastrous for peace in all of Europe”, Croatia’s Foreign and European Affairs Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said at Prespa Forum in Ohrid, North...

The European Commission has endorsed Slovenia’s €2.5 billion national recovery and resilience plan, allowing the country to draw €1.8 billion in grants and €705 million in loans under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), pending confirmation by member states. Slovenia...

After the latest corruption-related arrests in Zagreb, Mayor Tomislav Tomašević (We Can! Green Left political platform) said he believed there would be more arrests considering the scope of the investigation, repeating that the city administration had become a symbol of...

Police fired tear gas at protesters in Istanbul demonstrating against Turkey's controversial exit on Thursday (1 July) from a treaty combatting femicide and domestic abuse.

Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry suspect North Macedonians with Bulgarian passports are participating in illegal schemes to manipulate the upcoming 11 July parliamentary elections in Bulgaria. The current caretaker interior minister, Boyko Rashkov said the former interior minister Hristo Terziiski had discussed...