Euractiv.com

The French government on Wednesday (23 August) shelved the idea of increasing tax on alcohol, tabled at the beginning of summer, in a move that pours water on the hopes of French anti-addiction associations. 

The breadth of foreign investments control in France will be broadened to critical raw materials’ extraction and transformation, Economy minister Bruno Le Maire announced on Thursday (24 August), in a thinly-veiled stab at China’s near-monopoly in the sector.

From Friday (25 August), very large online platforms and search engines will have to comply with the new EU Digital Services Act, a landmark regulation designed to combat hate speech and disinformation online - though enforcement raises challenges.

Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates were invited on Thursday (24 August) to join the BRICS group of developing nations, which seeks to increase its global influence through the first expansion in over a decade.

The energy crisis is keeping Europe dependent on LNG, allowing Russia to increase its revenues through exports. But reducing reliance on Russian LNG is not going to be an easy task, writes Andrei Belyi. 

A fiercely competitive geoeconomic environment demands new ways to combine national security with economic prosperity and innovation. Finland and Sweden could take the lead, write Heiko Borchert, Pär Malmberg, and Mikael Wigell.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about a Bulgarian MEP suggesting scrapping border controls for a more successful Schengen bid, Spain’s rightwing PM hopeful given a month ahead of first investiture debate, and so much more.

Japan on Thursday (24 August) started releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, a polarising move that drew fresh and fierce criticism from China as being "selfish and irresponsible".

According to an announcement from the Albanian Defence Minister Niko Peleshi, 58 officers and 10 vehicles were sent towards the Kapshtica border crossing point to help Greek authorities contain the blazes.

Bulgaria and Romania should abolish border control if both countries are not accepted into the Schengen area by Christmas, Bulgarian MEP Andrey Novakov (EPP) said, as Austria, which has been blocking the two countries’ path toward the EU border-free zone,...

A deal to expand the BRICS group of leading developing countries appeared stuck in eleventh hour negotiations at a leaders summit on 23 August, threatening to undermine the bloc's ambition to give the "Global South" more clout in world affairs.

Miroslav Aleksić, until recently vice-president of the conservative right-wing People’s Party and representatives of several city and municipal committees, left the party and decided to establish a new party called the People’s Movement of Serbia. Aleksić, who was a member...

Slovenia is seeing a rapid increase in irregular entries on its territory, with numbers from January to July increasing by more than 150% compared to the same period last year. Of the 26,871 migrants who crossed the border in an...

Slovakia has just seven months left to spend the €3.4 billion in EU funds available since 2014 – no easy task, despite the bureaucratic government’s recently increasing efficiency regarding EU spending. Slovakia’s bureaucratic government has increased the efficiency of its...

Statements by the leader of the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, about Poland’s ruling camp are nothing more than the spreading of propaganda reminiscent of Hitler’s time, according to the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) MP Tadeusz Szymański....

The European Union's military leadership has expressed doubts that Ukraine will regain any territory lost in the war with Russia, according to German newspaper Die Welt.

Any discussion on the future of Ukraine that excludes the issue of the Crimean peninsula is noise disguised as support for the people of the invaded country, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sous argued on Wednesday. “It is not possible...

The parliamentary debate on the investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the centre-right Partido Popular, will be held on 26 and 27 September, an extra month for the conservative politician to try to gather enough support to become...

Representatives of Germany's three-party government coalition bet on reduced red tape, renewable energy, and better conditions for start-ups to overcome country's current economic slump.

Belgium’s Federal Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers launched a call for projects to put asylum seekers at work, State Secretary for Asylum and Migration Nicole de Moor announced on Wednesday. De Moor and the federal asylum seekers agency...