European Union

Google
PDON
Advocate General Szpunar proposes that the Court should limit the scope of the de-referencing that search engine operators are required to carry out to the EU

G.C. and Others
PDON
Advocate General Szpunar proposes that the Court should hold that the operator of a search engine must, as a matter of course, accede to a request for the de-referencing of sensitive data

German chancellor Angela Merkel arrives in Greece on Thursday as Alexis Tsipras' government risks losing its parliamentary majority. His junior coalition parter, led by defence minister Panos Kammenos, threatens to pull support for a name-deal with neighbouring Macedonia which Germany and the EU hoped could foster stability in the Balkan region. On Friday, Merkel meets conservative opposition leader Kyriakos Mitsotakis - who is also opposed to the deal with Macedonia.

Orthodox values, opposition to EU institutions, and friendship with Russia should form the backbone of a new Italian-Polish league, Italy's Matteo Salvini has said.

Following a vote in the UK parliament on Wednesday, UK prime minister Theresa May will be forced to produce a plan B within three days if she does not have her Brexit deal with Brussels accepted by parliament in a vote scheduled for Tuesday 15 January. While the Labour party pushes for a general election, others see an extension to the 29 March Brexit date becoming more likely.

Eric Drouet, one leader of the 'Yellow Vest' protest movement in France, said Wednesday he would accept an invitation to meet Italian Five-Star leader, Luigi Di Maio, ANSA reported. Interviewed by Italian newspaper Il Fatto Guotidiano, Di Maio said he wanted to form a group for this year's European elections. Another Yellow Vest leader, Jacline Mouraud, said however on Tuesday that Di Maio was meddling in French domestic affairs.

An American pension fund on Wednesday sued Danske Bank and four former chief executives at a court in New York for inflating the price of its shares artificially by hiding and failing to stop widespread money-laundering at its Estonian branch. The bank stands accused for being "intentionally less than forthcoming" after a whistleblower alerted Danish regulators to suspected money-laundering, resulting in huge drop in the banks market value.

The 'grand coalition' of the centre-right and left groups in the European Parliament is set to end after May's European elections, according to a projection by VoteWatch, the Brussels-based think-tank famous for monitoring how MEPs vote, published on Wednesday (9 January).

The leader of Romania's ruling Social Democrats, Liviu Dragnea, has filed a lawsuit against the European Commission at the European Court of Justice, after being sentenced to three and a half years in prison by Romania's Supreme Court for corruption involving EU funds. The fraud amounted to €21m from European Union funds linked to a road construction firm called Tel Drum. The conviction bars Dragnea from becoming prime minister.

Far-right party Vox, which sent shockwaves through Spain after winning a surprise 12 seats in Andalusia in December, announced on Wednesday it would vote next week in favour of a new conservative government in the southern region, replacing the Socialist Party. Vox was the first far-right party to win representation in a Spanish regional parliament since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

If the UK "crashes out [of the EU], there will inevitably be a hardening of the border", Ireland's Sinn Fein party leader, Mary Lou McDonald, told EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in a meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. The next logical step, she said, would then be for the government in Dublin to start preparations for a referendum on unification, she was quoted saying by the Irish Times.

Manfred Weber, the Spitzenkandidat of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), ended months of silence on the ongoing efforts to resolve the Greece-Macedonia name row with a couple of pithy comments on Tuesday (9 January) that appear to support the deal.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will urge Greece to press on with tough economic reforms and maintain strict fiscal discipline when she visits Athens on Thursday (10 January) for the first time in nearly five years.

From 15 January to 15 March France will hold what President Emmanuel Macron has termed the "great national debate", a public consultation to discuss the "essential questions" facing the nation after nearly two months of violent so-called yellow vest protests.

Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Wednesday (9 January) said populists from Italy and Poland should spark a "European spring" to replace the centre-right influence of Germany and France, ahead of key EU elections.

One of the frontrunners to take up the next EU Commission Presidency, Manfred Weber, responded to concerns over the US Trump administration on Wednesday (9 January), saying that the President "is not America".

Many European countries and cities have implemented measures to promote e-mobility. But to create scale in Europe, a constellation of disconnected initiatives is not enough to drive the needed change and action must be taken at a European level, writes Folker Franz.

Socialists and liberals are natural allies for the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the next European Parliament, according to Manfred Weber, the EPP's lead candidate for the European elections in May.

Dutch officials handed over a pair of clogs and the keys to the European Medicines Agency's temporary base in Amsterdam on Wednesday (9 January) as the watchdog prepares to leave London after Brexit.

Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström will request a mandate from member states to start trade negotiations on industrial goods with the US, she confirmed on Wednesday (9 January) during her visit to Washington.