Euractiv.com

Health workers across the EU are burning out and leaving their professions following years of inaction to handle the dire situation. Following the Belgian presidency’s announcement of a potential EU health workforce strategy, two stakeholders and an analyst pinpoint what is most urgent at EU level.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about a new wave of farmers' protests looming in Germany, Czechia not being prepared to start ensuring compliance with the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), and so much more.

Turkey's first astronaut and three other crew members representing Europe were launched from Florida on Thursday (18 January) on a voyage to the International Space Station in the latest commercially arranged mission from Texas startup Axiom Space.

Serbia and other Western Balkan countries need a stronger Germany, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić said at a World Economic Forum debate in Davos, where he said Serbia had doubled its GDP in the past 10 years.

In a letter sent to the heads of diplomacy of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gordan Grlić Radman and Elmedin Konaković, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on them to influence the head of HDZ BiH, Dragan Čović, to urgently adopt the Law on the Southern Gas Interconnection, which would connect Bosnia and Croatia and reduce Bosnia’s dependence on Russian gas.

The Romanian government adopted measures on Thursday, transposing into law the solutions reached in negotiations with protesting transporters and farmers during the week, although protesters remain on the streets and have extended their blockade to a second border crossing with Ukraine.

Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Thursday that Europe will have to work with whoever president US voters choose in the upcoming elections, warning simultaneously against telling people what they should do. Read more.

NATO is launching its largest exercise since the Cold War, rehearsing how US troops could reinforce European allies in countries bordering Russia and on the alliance's eastern flank if a conflict were to flare up with a "near-peer" adversary.

The Czech Telecommunications Office, which has just one month before it must start ensuring compliance with the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), currently needs more staff and the necessary legislation to ensure it fulfils its tasks.

Slovak Parliament Speaker and former prime minister Peter Pellegrini will announce his presidential candidacy on Friday, which, if successful, would tighten the grip on power of the government of Prime Minister Robert Fico, with whom he has been politically linked for almost 20 years.

The Council of the European Union and the European Parliament have reached a provisional agreement on anti-money laundering legislation that has been hailed as “a really good step forward” by anti-corruption experts.

Joined by Gustav Kalbe previous head of unit for Quantum and now acting director for this research field, we talk about the EU’s plans to build a future ecosystem of super- and quantum computers.

As EU decision-making remains plagued by disunity, Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin (Fianna Fáil, Renew) suggested that government abstaining from decisions they do not agree with could be a “creative” way for the bloc to avoid deadlock in the future.

With the international community gathering at Davos this week, Mongolia’s Minister of Culture, Nomin Chinbat, met with leaders from politics and business about Mongolia’s rich cultural heritage and the economic growth potential that the country’s cultural and creative industries possess.

France is "not persuaded" that its 2050 'zero artificialisation' goal should be extended at EU level, even though discussions are currently underway on a European soil monitoring and resilience directive.

Vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) in France remains one of the lowest in the European Union, prompting health professionals to warn of a risk to public health and the importance of vaccinating boys too.

Spain will soon reform its Constitution to remove all forms of discriminatory language against disabled people, currently referred to as “handicapped”, after parliament approved the measure on Thursday, with only the far-right VOX party voting against it.

The United Nations and the United States appealed for restraint on Thursday (18 January) after Iran and Pakistan traded deadly air strikes on militant targets on each other's territory.

Belgium is expected to join the flagship Future Combat Air System (FCAS) to build the next-generation European fighter jets 'in a few weeks as an observer nation, the country's defence minister told Euractiv.

The EU Court of Justice lifted the restrictions EU citizens face when buying agricultural land in Bulgaria in a ruling published on Thursday, more than 17 years after the country joined the bloc.