Last week, British businessman Bill Browder spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum about his successful campaign to have the US legislature impose asset freezes and travel bans on Russian officials connected to the death of ...

The diminutive US-born businessman and his entourage of one or two assistants has become a familiar sight in the European Parliament in Brussels. Bill Browder visits the EU capital several times a year to make the case ...

The shale gas revolution has taken its time to arrive in Europe. But after years of watching the US plunge head-first into natural gas exploration and of reaping the rewards, Europe's politicians are now deciding ...

It is early days, they have no majority and it has never been done before, but MEPs in the Liberal group are pondering the creation of a European-Parliament-level travel ban on Russian officials. Group leader and former ...

Russia has threatened to impose a US-type adoption ban on EU presidency country Ireland if its MPs pass a tough resolution on the late anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky. Its ambassador in Dublin, Maxim Peshkov, ...

Swedish defence minister Karin Enstrom has said her country is not in Nato partly because the EU treaty contains its own security guarantee. Speaking to EUobserver at the Globsec conference in Bratislava on Saturday (20 ...

Cyprus edged back from the brink of bankruptcy on Friday (22 March) after MPs agreed to a series of emergency reforms in a bid to avoid financial meltdown and a traumatic exit from the euro. Facing a Monday deadline (25 ...

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev humbled European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso in public remarks on Thursday (21 March) on the EU's handling of Cyprus. Speaking alongside Barroso at a seminar in Moscow, he ...

EU officials will in Moscow on Thursday (21 March) try to pin down details on a visa-free travel deal, despite "regret" on Russia's handling of a prominent human rights case. The European Commission visit, including a ...

Cypriot finance minister Michalis Sarris headed for Moscow early on Wednesday (20 March) for talks with his Russian counterpart, finance minister Anton Siluanov, in the latest twist of the island's bailout drama. ...

The political-economic implications of the Cyprus bailout are far-reaching. First of all, the eurozone has for the first time chosen not to protect depositors. Usually when a bank goes belly up, you expect stock holders ...

It is no secret that Russian dominance of European natural gas markets has splintered the Union. The imperative of having enough heat or cooking fuel in the winter has put countries – especially in central and eastern ...

EU foreign ministers meeting on Friday and Saturday (22-23 March) in Dublin will seek to overcome disagreements over how to deal with a Syrian arms embargo. Britain and France want to change it so weapons can be ...

The German government has dropped its opposition to EU visa freedom for Russian officials but critics say it is moving too fast. "I can confirm that the minister of interior and the foreign minister jointly wrote a ...

The mother and widow of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist who died in prison, have accused a Russian diplomat of lying about him to the European Parliament. The women - Natalia Magnitskaya and Natalia ...

Financial sleuths from six EU countries are joining forces to see if millions of euros of Russian mafia money was laundered through their banks. The move comes after the European Commission introduced a request for a ...

Despite what the Kremlin says, Russia is not threatened by so-called Western values. Nor is it threatened by the European Parliament, the US state department, by what Russia likes to call "unnamed foreign powers," by ...

Austria and Finland have said their companies did no wrong in a case of suspected Russia-EU money laundering. But victims of the crime disagree. The sums involved are not so big - $150,000 in Austria and $199,500 in ...

Moldova has launched criminal proceedings in a money laundering case involving its biggest bank, the Russian mafia and six EU countries. The move comes after a UK-based investment firm, Hermitage Capital, filed a ...

Russia will cut gas flows to Ukraine "in the next few days," impacting EU countries, but only if the weather stays warm, a Ukrainian expert predicts. Mihail Gonchar - a director of the Sevastopol-based think tank, Nomos ...

Russia's acquittal of the only man charged over the death of Sergei Magnitsky will harm its international reputation, the EU has said. Magnitsky, an accountant who in 2007 exposed the fact that Russian officials and the ...

A lively disagreement on energy and a protest by four topless women marked the end of the EU-Russia summit in Brussels on Friday (21 December). In a rerun of a similar dispute between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and ...

Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his EU hosts avoided the prickly subjects - human rights, energy - at dinner in a stately home in Brussels on Thursday (20 December). The event, hosted by EU Council chief Herman Van ...

At the eve of the EU-Russia Summit, trade tension has been rising between Brussels and Moscow. It is in the interest of both the EU and Russia to learn to manage such differences and to agree to disagree. Brussels has ...

The signature of a small-time visa deal is likely to form the centrepiece of Russian leader Vladimir Putin's visit to Brussels. The so-called upgraded visa facilitation agreement (VFA) is designed to reduce paperwork ...

Cyprus has opened an investigation into evidence that stolen Russian tax money linked to the murder of Sergei Magnitsky was laundered through its banks. Mokas, its anti-money-laundering unit, in an email to EUobserver ...

Xenophobia, racism, and neo-Nazism are among a long list of human rights violations frequently committed in the EU, according to a report released by the Russian Federation on Thursday (6 December). “All this is in an ...

The mysterious death of an informant in the Sergei Magnitsky case has created suspicion of a second high-profile Russian murder in the UK. Alexander Perepilichnyy - a 44-year-old Russian businessman with no known health ...

Artists, exiles and rights campaigners say the EU can help Russia by closing its door to regime officials with blood on their hands. Vladimir Bukovsky knows what it is like to be inside a Russian jail. He spent 12 years ...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has confronted Russian leader Vladimir Putin on human rights while visiting Moscow. Speaking at a business forum in the Russian capital on Friday (16 November), she said his recent ...

Links with Russia and other "questions" regarding the Cypriot financial sector are likely to delay a bailout decision until 2013, the German finance minister has said. "So far discussions between the troika and Cyprus ...

With Greece (twice), Ireland , Portugal and Spain (its banks) already on the list, Cyprus expects to clinch an EU bailout of up to €15 billion next week. Negotiations on details of the rescue start in Nicosia on Friday ...

The Belgian foreign ministry has suspended one of its people in Denmark due to a "security breach," amid reports he is a Russian spy. A Belgian spokesman told EUobserver on Friday (5 October): "We can confirm that an ...

Lithuania has highlighted that Russian energy giant Gazprom is facing a series of billion-euro lawsuits on alleged price-fixing, as well as the recently-opened European Commission probe. Vilnius is prosecuting a €1.4 ...

Germany has indicted two alleged Russian spies who tried to get hold of EU and Nato secrets. The office of the German federal prosector said in a statement on Thursday (27 September) that the married couple, who were ...

MEPs on the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee have piled fresh political pressure on their governments to impose sanctions on Russian officials linked to the murder of whistleblower accountant Sergei ...

With Belgium's spy-catcher-in-chief, the VSSE's Alain Winants, speaking out to international media about espionage in the EU capital, TargetBRUSSELS and EUobserver profile the cases that came out in the open in recent ...

"I stopped meeting him for lunch because all he did was ask questions and he never said anything about himself," a diplomat on the EU Council's working group for post-Soviet countries once told this website about his ...

EUobserver: In what way does the VSSE co-operate with the EU institutions and Nato? Alain Winants: Belgium hosts the institutions of two major international bodies - the EU and Nato, which is a great privilege but it's ...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has passed a law blocking Gazprom from normal co-operation with EU anti-trust officials. Referring to potential EU-Gazprom exchange of information on alleged price-fixing, his new decree ...

The Kremlin has started putting pressure on the EU for a friendly "settlement" on Gazprom one day after the European Commission said the affair is a purely commercial matter. Speaking in an interview with the Wall ...

The European Commission says its probe into suspected price-fixing by Gazprom has nothing to do with EU-Russia relations. But Gazprom says it does. Commission spokesman Antoine Colombani in Brussels on Wednesday (5 ...

The EU has said Russia's Gazprom might be guilty of price-fixing in Europe in a move set to test political relations. The Europan Commission on Tuesday (4 September) said it has launched a probe into three "suspected" ...

A Moscow court on Friday (17 August) sentenced three young women from the Pussy Riot band to two years in jail for their "punk prayer" - a protest song performed in a cathedral and criticising President Vladimir Putin. ...

Four years after a war which shocked Europe, Georgia's EU ambassador has said that Russia is becoming "more dangerous." The Georgian envoy, Salome Samadashvili, spoke to EUobserver on Thursday (9 August), after Russian ...

An aide to the Lithuanian President has said Russia is intent on keeping the Baltic countries inside its energy supply grip. "For them [Russia], it is a vital interest. In Russia's military strategy, Russia defines ...

Russia's EU ambassador has said ties would suffer if member states follow the US in putting sanctions on suspected Russian killers and fraudsters. "It would poison relations, definitely," Vladimir Chizhov told ...

Russia's ambassador to the EU has said "technical differerences" remain on how to handle Syria ahead of an international meeting in Geneva. Vladimir Chizhov told EUobserver on Thursday (28 June) that Russia, the EU and ...

A former Israeli intelligence chief has said EU and Nato countries can do more on Syria than complaining about Russia or imposing sanctions. The contact, who asked not to be named, spoke to diplomats and press in the EU ...