European Union

The UK Labour party will seek a no-confidence vote in prime minister Theresa May's government if she loses the key Brexit vote on 11 December, in a move that could provoke a new election. If the government survives such a vote of no confidence, Labour would focus on seeking a second referendum on remaining in the European Union, Labour's Brexit secretary Keir Starmer told Sky on Sunday.

Foreign criminals sentenced to deportation from Denmark will in future be sent to the remote island of Lindholm, following a compromise between the country's government and the anti-immigration Danish People's Party on the country's 2019 budget. The public has no access to the island, which has been used for research on viruses such as mad cow disease and swine fever. The research facilities will move to Copenhagen.

Delegates from almost 200 nations met on Sunday in Poland's southwestern mining city of Katowice for a two-week conference to agree a rulebook for curbing global warming, in a follow up to the landmark Paris agreement of 2015. "The United Nations secretary-general is counting on us, all of us, to deliver," said Poland's deputy environment minister, Michal Kurtyka, who is chairing the conference. "There is no Plan B," he said.

A far-right party has for the first time since the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975 won seats in a Spanish parliament, with the Vox party taking 12 seats in the 109-member parliament of the southern Spanish region of Andalusia in Sunday's elections. The region has been dominated by the Socialist Party (PSOE) for the past 36 years. The turnout was low, at only 58.6 percent.

The leaders of three opposition parties represented in the Hungarian parliament published on Sunday (2 December) an open letter in which they call a “disgrace” the granting by Viktor Orbán of asylum to former Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski.

The man tasked with making the EP more transparent has said there are more important issues than making MEP monthly expenses public.

Germany and France will outline on Monday a joint proposal for a financial transaction tax for the European Union that is based on a model already tested in France, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported late on Sunday (2 December).

One year ago, the European Union published its first ever blacklist of tax havens. It is crucial that EU governments help end the era of tax havens to ensure the billions currently hidden from public coffers.

A trade ceasefire agreed between the US and Chinese presidents, Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, helped to sustain the defence of multilateralism included in the final G20 declaration in Buenos Aires. 

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that he will oppose a trade deal between the EU and Mercosur if Brazil’s incoming far-right president pulls his country out of the Paris Agreement.

The UN climate change summit begins on Monday (3 December) with a warning that today's generation is the last that can prevent catastrophic global warming, as well as the first to be suffering its impacts. EURACTIV's media partner, The Guardian, reports.

Slovakia's defence ministry signed a deal on Friday (30 November) to buy 14 US-made F-16 fighter jets to replace its ageing Russian-made MiG-29s, its defence ministry said.

A group of European Union countries rejected on Friday (30 November) a new compromise plan for the introduction of an EU-wide tax on digital revenues of large companies, diplomats said, making it increasingly difficult to meet a year-end deadline for a deal.

When European finance ministers meet on Tuesday (4 December), they should swiftly adopt the digital service tax, say Udo Bullmann and Paul Tang.

Macedonia's lawmakers moved closer on Sunday (2 December) to rename the country and remove a key hurdle on the road to breaking a decades-long stalemate with Greece.

In the fight against climate change, the EU must tackle two gigantic tasks: slash its own emissions, and help China do the same, writes Bernard Durand.

Key European stakeholders of the listed real estate sector met in London at the end of November to discuss the issue of sustainability and how the built environment can meet challenges and advance sustainability on all fronts.

The European Union unveiled a strategy last week to become the world's first climate neutral economy by 2050, generating a positive momentum ahead of the COP24 in Katowice, writes Luca Jahier.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday (2 December) surveyed the damage from a day of riots across Paris and led a crisis meeting that ended with a call for further talks with anti-government activists who have staged two weeks of protests.

The European Committee of the Regions defends the role of local and regional governments in fighting climate change and demands for their voices to be heard along the UN climate process, write Karl-Heinz Lambertz and Markku Markkula.