Separatist parties were the winners in Sunday's (25 November) regional election in Catalonia, which saw the highest voter turnout ever in Spanish regional elections. The new parliament still favours a referendum on ...

Catalans will cast their vote for a new regional assembly on Sunday (25 November) in an election that could have considerable consequences for Catalonia and the rest of Spain. Catalan separatist parties wishing to split ...

One and a half million people gathered in Barcelona on Tuesday (11 September) demanding independence from Spain. It was the biggest self-rule rally ever in Catalonia. Under the slogan "Catalonia, a new state in Europe," ...

The Swedish election on Sunday was the worst electoral outcome for the Social Democrat party in nearly a century. The poor result is just one in many across the Nordic region, where social democrat parties have ...

Europe should invest more in its creative industries as a source of future growth the European Commission has said, while EU ministers have called for culture to be put at the "heart" of the bloc's new economic plan, ...

Europe's collective rights management organisations – also called collecting societies – are facing more calls for reform in an attempt to streamline European rights management and increase competitiveness in creative ...

Information technology applied to healthcare – broadly termed e-health – is set to revolutionise patient care and how healthcare systems can be structured and managed. However, different obstacles are standing in the ...

The global economic crisis has led to budget cuts in the education sector in member states across the European Union at a time when the bloc is seeking to boost its economy by, among other things, putting education at ...

The European Union is developing a new worldwide ranking system of universities to rival currently established league tables in a bid to improve the ranking of European universities and improve Europe's economic power. ...

The European Union wants to move more transport off the roads and onto the sea in an effort to fight growing congestion and greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. The so-called Motorways of the Sea (MoS) are set to make ...

EU lawmakers have called for a change in European freight transport asking the European Commission to take cargo off the roads and on to the rails, in an attempt to green, diversify and lower the negative impacts of ...

Transport of people and goods are crucial for the European economy and its competitiveness as well as for bringing citizens and cultures closer to each other. But the sector is in desperate need of a makeover to deal ...

European road transport is set to become much safer in the future as designers, engineers and national and European politicians work towards safer vehicles that aim to sharply cut the number of fatalities. But EU member ...

Soaring oil prices together with EU legislation and road congestion are pushing European companies to green their logistics to save money on fuel, hours spent in queues and limit their environmental impact. While ...

The number of electric cars on European roads is set receive a boost in coming years with EU member state governments and car makers promoting the move amid soaring oil prices, climate change concerns and tough EU ...

Spain has appealed the record €151.8 million fine imposed by the European Commission in July on Spanish Telefonica for uncompetitive practices. Madrid wants to defend its antitrust authorities and their regulation of ...

The UK has said it will extend restrictions on Bulgarian and Romanian workers. Interior minister Liam Byrne said the UK would continue "to restrict access to the labour market for those low-skilled migrants coming from ...

The European Commission is being questioned over its decision earlier this month to approve a merger between Sony and Bertelsmann's music divisions named Sony BMG Music Entertainment. As a result of the merger, the ...

Sixteen Europeans have been charged with kidnapping and complicity to kidnap after a French charity sought to fly more than 100 children to France for adoption, the prosecutor's office in the eastern French town of ...

The Irish visit the cinema an average of 4.2 times a year, the most in the EU, according to new figures from the EU statistical office, Eurostat. The EU average is 1.9. Other eager cinema-goers include the French (3.0) ...

Chinese steel products may become the new target of the EU's anti-dumping charges as European steelmakers lodged complaints with the European Commission on Monday, reports the IHT. The EU executive has 45 days to decide ...

A coalition of European countries, US states, Canadian provinces, New Zealand and Norway today launched an International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) to fight global warming. The participants have agreed to adopt a ...

The EU's new treaty is the same as the rejected constitution - only the format has been changed to avoid referendums, says Valery Giscard d'Estaing, architect of the constitution. In an open letter published in Le Monde ...

It will be a quiet week in the EU capital with MEPs working back home in their constituencies across the 27-member bloc, while the commissioners are taking their All Saints holiday. EU environment ministers meeting in ...

Non-EU members Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway have joined the 2008-2012 period of the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme - the bloc's main tool for fulfilling its Kyoto commitments on cutting CO2 emissions. The European ...

The future of humanity is at risk because of the failure to address environmental problems including climate change, says the UN in a new report: Global Environment Outlook. It warns governments that they are still ...

More than 50 immigrants are feared to have drowned after a Spanish fishing boat found a sole survivor together with 7 bodies in a wooden boat near Cape Verde. The survivor said that there were 54 people on board when ...

Small scale farmers in Kenya have asked the country's high court to block a proposed new trade agreement with the EU, warning it could strangle poor economies. They argue the deal would force them to open their markets, ...

Sudanese human rights lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman has been awarded this year's Sakharov Prize - the European Parliament's Freedom of Thought award - for his work to combat the rights abuses in his country. Mr Osman was ...

The European Parliament has given its annual Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Sudanese human rights lawyer Salih Mahmoud Osman - an oppostition member of the Sudanese parliament. Mr Osman has for years fought ...

The European Commission has authorised four genetically modified products for the European market after EU member states failed to decide either for or against the biotech crops. The GMOs – three types of maize and a ...

EU officials are meeting in Lisbon today to discuss proposals for a new EU anti-doping agency and to criminalise doping across the bloc - something top sports leaders have warned against, reports Reuters. The move comes ...

The world's main industrialised countries are seeking an international anti-piracy plan to stop the abuse of intellectual property across the world. Such an anti-piracy treaty will help "create a new global gold ...

Morocco wants an "advanced status" with the EU, the country's king Muhammed VI said during a meeting with French president Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday, reports AFP. He added that Morocco is "convinced the next French ...

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's new nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili met for the first time yesterday for talks, which were described as being "constructive". Mr Jalili's appointment has been seen as a ...

The EU leads the US as a destination for Chinese students, EU education commissioner Jan Figel said in Beijing this morning reports China Daily. Last year 120,000 Chinese students studied in EU countries, a record ...

Swedish Europe minister Cecilia Malmstrom has told Radio Sweden that global warming, the Baltic Sea and EU expansion are the three priorities of the Swedish government ahead of its upcoming 6-month EU presidency in July ...

EU agriculture ministers have agreed new transparency rules to make it clearer who receives what from the bloc's generous farm coffers. Under the rules, information on beneficiaries is to be made available to the public ...

Microsoft has agreed to comply with a 2004 European Commission ruling, which was upheld by an EU court last month, in a move that EU competition commissioner Neelie Kroes hailed as a victory for consumers both inside ...

Leading NGOs have called for Sudan's president to be barred from attending the EU-Africa summit in December, while EU capitals continue to be divided over what to do with Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe. Sudanese ...

UK PM Gordon Brown has said British interests have been secured in the bloc's new treaty. "The red lines have been secured. The British national interest has been protected," Mr Brown said, according to the BBC. The red ...

Some 5,000 protesters called yesterday for Latvian prime minister Aigars Kalvitis to resign amid a mounting political crisis over his efforts to fire the country's top anti-corruption official over minor accounting ...

The EU needs more ambitious greenhouse-gas reducing targets if it is to reach its international environment commitments, a new study commissioned by green euro-deputies says. The study, published Thursday (18 October), ...

UK foreign minister David Miliband responded furiously on Tuesday to comments from a senior member of his Labour party comparing Britain's stance on the new EU treaty to the UK appeasement of the Nazis in the late 1930s ...

The EU and China launched on Tuesday a joint campaign aimed at cleaning up China's Yangtze and Yellow Rivers. The 5-year programme is aimed at cleaning up, adding pollution control and raising awareness about the issue. ...

Around 59% of Danes want to have the new EU Reform Treaty put to a referendum while only 26% are against the idea, according to a new poll by Catinét Research for Danish newsagency Ritzau. The pro-referendum support ...

The European Commission is next week set to authorise the sale of 4 GMOs on the EU market for the next 10 years, after the EU member states were unable to agree whether or not to allow the products into the EU, report ...

Access to broadband internet has increased in the EU but some countries need to catch up, EU multimedia commissioner Viviane Reding has said, warning that she will make proposals to close the gap by increasing ...

EU member states are not doing enough to integrate legal immigrants from outside Europe, according to a new report launched on Monday (15 October), which ranks Sweden top and Latvia last. The Migrant Integration Policy ...