While EU leaders met in Brussels for their traditional spring summit, thousands of trade unionists staged an afternoon of events to protest against austerity measures.

Spanish MEP Juan Lopez Aguilar just returned from a visit to Zaatari, a refugee camp in Jordan, about 12 kilometres from the Syrian border, hosting almost 100,000 Syrian refugees. "It is about the end of the regime, in ...

The EU is planning new legislation on collective management of copyrights. One of the central issues is how fair pay for artists can be guaranteed in this digital age. More specifically, it is about finding a balanced ...

Dairy farmers from all over the EU descended on Brussels Monday to protest low milk prices and the planned liberalisation of the sector in 2015. The movement - dubbed "1,000 tractors to Brussels" - saw hundreds of ...

Romanian expats in Brussels gathered at the European Commission headquarters on Wednesday to tell Prime Minister Victor Ponta to "stop faking democracy" and to abide by EU law. The 39 year-old premier - who was ...

William E. Kennard's day can range from speaking at a seminar on trans-Atlantic relations, to offering advice to young congress staffers at lunch or picking up an award at a black tie do. He told EUobserver that ...

Swedish Pirate party MEP Christian Engstrom has little interest in economics or foreign affairs. The former computer engineer is concentrating his energy on stopping the EU parliament from adopting the Acta treaty on ...

Higher global food prices are hindering attempts to reach UN targets for proper nutrition and lower infant and mother mortality rates. Jos Verbeek - the author of a World Bank study on the problem - tells EUobserver how ...

The economic crisis has shaken citizens' trust in EU institutions, says Ombudsman Nikiforos Diamandouros, who recently hosted a conference designed to give citizens access to the Union's key decision-makers. An Athens ...

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tells EUobserver why entrepreneurs do better in America: in the US, you can start your own business in five minutes. In Greece, it can take up to 10 months.

Over 4000 thousand MEP assistants work inside the European Parliament. One of them Panayota Maniou. She works for Greek MEP Nikolaos Chountis of the radical left party Syriza. Panayota talks about her hopes for the ...

Using edgy shots and sinister music, the film aims to show how the small army of 15,000 lobbyists in the EU capital do business with the European Commission and the EU Council.

From drinks receptions to work meetings abroad, there is no average day for Kerstin Duhme, managing director of FTI Consulting. Her role is to act as what she calls a "facilitator" between industry and law-makers in ...

"You have to be able to think like an academic, act like a diplomat and write like a journalist", says Hugo Brady, who works in Brussels as senior research fellow for the UK-based Centre for European Reform. He analyses ...

People from all over the world are expected to take to the streets on 12 May to celebrate the first anniversary of the Spanish 'indignado' movement protesting economic austerity measures. Brussels-based 'indignados' ...

Conservative MEP Sean Kelly, in favour of the fiscal discipline treaty, goes head to head with Socialist MEP Paul Murphy arguing for a No. Analyst Hugo Brady from the Centre for European Reform says Irish people are ...

According to Professor Dent, the EU has no choice but to become closer to China. In this video, he talks about the interdependency between the EU and China and the need to bridge the cultural gap.

Chair of the European Parliament’s Human Rights Subcommittee Green MEP Barbara Lochbihler describes meeting internationally renowned Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Prime Minister Enda Kenny says voting in favour of the fiscal compact treaty on 31 May will secure Ireland's role in the eurozone and give the country access to the EU's long term bailout fund, the ESM. Others, such as ...

On 1 April a new participative democracy tool came into effect in the European Union. The European Citizen's Initiative is being hailed as a potential breakthrough moment for relations between the Union and citizens. ...

Alexander Lukaschenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for 18 years. MEPs from the European Parliament's Belarus delegation discuss the merits of putting economic sanctions on Belarus with Nikolaj Nielsen, EUobserver ...

Deputy secretary general of the European Trade Union Confederation Patrick Itschert talks about the European day of mobilisation against austerity.

As chair of the European Parliament's Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, British Liberal MEP Sharon Bowles is among the most influential people in Brussels.

After a historic debt restructuring, Greece was finally granted its second bail-out this week. Economist Sony Kapoor from think-tank Re-define believes that the success will be short-lived and another bail-out could be ...

EU commission vice-president Viviane Reding wants to see more women on boards in top European companies. For this reason, she is threatening to introduce quotas and sanctions. Some say it will not work, but it has been ...

Two and a half million people signed a petition this week urging the European Parliament to say 'no' to the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement, Acta. The multinational treaty - which among other things aims to protect ...

Thousands of students gathered in the eastern Spanish town of Valencia this week to protest against education cuts and corrupt politicians. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has already raised taxes and cut spending to ...

German Professor Dr Dietrich Murswiek and French Professor Anne-Marie Le Pourhiet argue how the new fiscal compact treaty, an intergovernmental pact enshrining budgetary discipline at the national level, is ...

Before Christmas, when the European Parliament asked Russia to carry out a full investigation on reports of fraud and intimidation in its parliamentary vote on 4 December, President Dmitry Medvedev told the European ...

Greece needs to cut down on expenditure and make deep reforms, according to German/Greek economist Janis Emmanouilidis from the European Policy Centre. But Yiorgos Vassalos, a Greek expat and a member of the Greek ...

Thousands of people gathered around Europe on Saturday (11 February) to protest against the international intellectual property enforcement treaty, ACTA. Protesters feel the law will give too much power to internet ...

On Friday 10th February, Greek unions in Athens held a 48-hour general strike after the country's cabinet passed a package of austerity measures demanded by the "troika". To show solidarity, a selection of ...

An independent Scotland would be one of the wealthiest parts of Europe, but it would stay out of the euro, deputy first minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon tells EUobserver during a visit to Brussels this week.

He said the surveys do not promote peace and are part of a decades-long "attempt to undermine [Israel's] very legitimacy." He added: "Giving the accurate picture helps when looking for a solution."

The European Union initiated membership talks with Turkey in October 2005, but Ankara still has a long list of hurdles to jump over on its road to Brussels. Some Turks who have been born and raised in Belgium feel the ...

Nuclear expert, the head of the Iran delegation in the European Parliament and Finnish Green MEP Tarja Cronberg is against an EU oil embargo on Iran. She says power-politics could lead to military clashes in the Strait ...

Member states can - under the EU Treaty - block the free movement of workers from new member countries for up to seven years. Italy recently loosened labour restrictions for Bulgarians and Romanians, but nine other EU ...

Oomen-Ruitjen in her latest report on EU-Turkey relations underlined that Ankara must fulfill the EU's so-called Copenhagen Criteria on enlargement in the areas of press freedom and women's rights. She told EUobserver ...

Belarus will only become a democracy when Russia does, Brussels-based opposition campaigner Olga Stuzhinkaya has said, noting that the EU does not figure highly on authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko's Russia- ...

Together with Liberal group leader Guy Verhofstadt, Sylvie Goulard hosted a conference in January 2012 in the European Parliament presenting concrete proposals for the eventual introduction of eurobonds.

Jean-Claude Piris, the former director general of the EU Council's legal service, who helped pen the Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, Constitutional Treaty and Lisbon Treaties, referred to the Union's new fiscal compact as ...

The number of suicides in Greece reached a pan-European high during the first half of 2011, according to figures recently released by the Greek health ministry. Experts believe the increase is due to the effects of the ...

The EU recently extended its sanctions on Syria but with the crackdown against protesters continuing, MEPs have been asking Syrian opposition groups what more can be done to pressurise President Bashar Al Assad. ...

In a study carried out together with the WHO, the World Bank estimates that over one billion people live with some form of disability in the world. The 350-page document was presented to the European Parliament by the ...

Europe is entering a very difficult period in its history, says newly elected Liberal Democrat and Reform Party leader, Sir Graham Watson, but Germany has the power to stop the eurozone crisis.

Having visited 200 zoos in 21 EU member states, Dan Turner from the Born Free Foundation concludes that the majority of member states are not respecting the rules laid out in the EU zoo law, worsening the behavioural ...

As EU leaders struggle to calm markets and stop the rot from spreading, the eurozone debt crisis is in the headlines each day. Some media have published pictures of blood-stained euro coins to indicate it could be game ...

Over 50,000 Belgians from the three main trade unions took to the streets on Friday (2 December) to protest against the new government's budget proposals. Some held banners reading: "governments lie, banks rob and the ...

Debt-ridden Greece opposed the oil embargo but the bloc did slap sanctions on 180 companies or people linked to the alleged building of nuclear weapons. During the meeting, about 1,000 Iranian expatriates gathered to ...