European Union

New research finds there was "no negative impact on the economic performance" of companies that fall under the EU's emissions trading system.

The EU and the international community are ramping up their funding for the G5 Sahel counter-terror mission, but are not providing the money needed for humanitarian relief in the region, argues Jan Egeland.

Britain neither wants Brexit nor knows how to escape from it. The result is that everybody loses, and the camp of losers just gets bigger and bigger, writes Denis MacShane.

The economic relations between the EU and Japan have been strong for a long time, but are now about to take new steps forward as they have concluded an Economic Partnership Agreement that significantly will reduce barriers to trade.

With only 5 months before the European elections, we discuss whether the European Union has really delivered tackling the social challenges facing citizens and what are the priorities for the new legislature.

The EU is taking seriously the idea expressed recently by the President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev for holding a four-way summit to defuse global tensions, an EU diplomat told an audience on Tuesday (4 December).

FENS
Energy
Member States may not impose a charge on the export of electricity generated in their own territory

Preindl
Freedom of movement for persons
Academic qualifications obtained as a result of taking partially overlapping courses must be automatically recognised in all Member States if the minimum training conditions, laid down by EU law, are complied with

EU judges in Luxembourg will rule at 9AM on Monday whether the UK could unilaterally revoke Brexit, its press office said. The verdict will fall one day before British MPs vote on the UK-EU withdrawal deal. An EU jurist said earlier this week that judges should back unilateral revocation, putting wind in the sails of anti-Brexit MPs. His "opinion" was non-binding, but the court is expected to follow suit.

Serbia, backed by a fake news campaign, has threatened to send in its army to stop "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovar Serbs, stirring bad memories of the Balkan wars.

Luxembourg is set to become the first country in the world to make all public transport free, in a move to prioritise the environment by the re-elected coalition government led by Xavier Bettel. Bettel was sworn in for a second term as prime minister on Wednesday. The new government is also considering legalising cannabis, and introducing two new public holidays.

Foreign ministers should endorse Dutch plans to create targeted EU sanctions for human rights abusers when they meet in Brussels Monday, 90 NGOs, including Fair Trials, Reporters Without Borders, and Transparency International, said in a letter Wednesday. An EU 'Global Magnitsky' Act would be a "critical tool to combat impunity and defend human rights," they said, referring to similar laws in the US named after Russian activist, Sergei Magnitsky.

EU ambassadors agreed Wednesday to add nine people to a Russia blacklist for their organisation of recent "elections" in Russia-occupied east Ukraine, the RFE/RFL news agency reports. The EU also aims to blacklist five others for violations of anti-chemical weapons accords in Russia's use of a nerve agent to try to assassinate a former spy in the UK in March, with EU foreign ministers to endorse the moves on Monday.

Police made at least 80 arrests on Wednesday in an international operation against the Calabrian-based Ndrangheta mafia in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Belgium. It was the largest coordinated joint action against an organised criminal group to date in Europe, Eurojust said. Italian restaurants and ice cream shops used to launder money were among the premises raided. The Ndrangheta is thought to control large parts of Europe's cocaine trade.

Facebook Inc offered some companies, including Netflix and Airbnb, access to data about users’ friends it did not make available to most other apps in 2015, according to documents released by a British lawmaker who said the social media company dodged questions about privacy practices and market dominance.

Poland’s determination to continue providing financial assistance to coal power plants beyond 2030 has sunk an attempt to reform Europe’s electricity market, negotiators have said.

A four-strong contingency of European Commissioners came out with fighting talk against fake news on Wednesday (5 December), as the EU's executive presented its action plan on disinformation. But the funding shortfall in this field somewhat dampened the spirit of the announcement.

Over this special series on COP24, EURACTIV gives you a glimpse into the goings on of the UN climate conference in Katowice and what is driving the conversation there. In this edition: An update on the negotiations, Bulgaria, Canada, open letters, the shipping and car industry, and more.

A Turkish former Nato official in Brussels, living in exile in Belgium, tells EUobserver what he and others went through when the Erdogan regime branded them traitors.

The climate targets of the EU and UN have moved sustainable financing to the top of the agenda of the finance industry. This means banks and investors are called upon to provide green incentives and become more involved in saving the planet, writes Karl Ludwig Brockmann.