Investigation
Europe's missing mails
How the EU Commission and national governments delete official emails and text messages — creating areas of decision-making without oversight and control.
Opinion
How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon
The EU led support for the waste management crisis in Lebanon, spending around €89m between 2004-2017, with at least €30m spent on 16 solid-waste management facilities. However, it failed to deliver.
EU criminal complicity in Libya needs recognition, says expert
EU and Italian complicity in crimes against humanity in Libya has yet to grip the public debate among EU circles, says the lead author of a new European Parliament study.
Latest News
- How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon
- EU criminal complicity in Libya needs recognition, says expert
- Europe's missing mails
- MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024
- PFAS 'forever chemicals' cost society €16 trillion a year
- EU will 'react as appropriate' to Russian nukes in Belarus
- The EU needs to foster tech — not just regulate it
- EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year
EU will 'react as appropriate' to Russian nukes in Belarus
The EU has condemned plans by Belarus to host Russian nukes following a signed agreement between Minsk and Moscow.
PFAS 'forever chemicals' cost society €16 trillion a year
Researchers found that global societal costs of the so-called forever chemicals or PFAS amount to €16 trillion per year. Meanwhile, the bigger producers of these chemicals are also among the ones spending the most to lobby EU policies.
EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year
"If energy prices increase again and support cannot be fully discontinued, targeted policies to support vulnerable households and companies — rather than wide and less effective support policies — will remain crucial," the commission said in its assessment.
MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024
"This will be the first time a member state that is under the Article 7 procedure will take over the rotating presidency of the council," French Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the key lawmaker on Hungary, warned.
Opinion
The EU needs to foster tech — not just regulate it
The EU's ambition to be a digital superpower stands in stark contrast to the US — but the bigger problem is that it remains far better at regulation than innovation, despite decades of hand-wringing over Europe's technology gap.
Five Moldova coup-plotters face EU sanctions
Five Moldovans are to have their EU money frozen and lose access to Europe to help stop Russia from usurping power in Chișinău.
EU relying on 'ineffective' Greek body to probe pushback video
The European Commission says it cannot act on latest revelations by the New York Times of illegal pushbacks of asylum-seekers until authorities in Greece first conduct a national investigation. Critics say those same authorities are politically compromised and ineffective.
Double rejection for EU flagship nature restoration plan
MEPs from the agriculture and fisheries committees have voted to reject the nature restoration proposal — a key proposal that aims to halt biodiversity loss and reverse the degradation of ecosystems in the bloc.
Gaps in social security legislation leave non-EU workers at risk
Regulatory gaps and blind spots mean that migrant workers from outside the EU do not have access to full social security coverage despite financing it, a new study reveals.
Opinion
EU export credits insure decades of fossil-fuel in Mozambique
European governments are phasing out fossil fuels at home, but continuing their financial support for fossil mega-projects abroad. This is despite the EU agreeing last year to decarbonise export credits — insurance on risky non-EU projects provided with public money.
Orbán: Ties with Sweden need to improve to join Nato
Budapest previously delayed ratifying Finland's application, and has cited grievances with criticism from both Helsinki and Stockholm of Viktor Orbán's domestic record on democracy and the rule of law.
Four EU states seek clampdown on private jet travel emissions
Austria, France, Ireland and the Netherlands want to tighten EU rules regulating polluting private jets.
European Parliament scales back luxury MEP pension fund
The European Parliament's Bureau, a political body composed of the president and its vice-presidents, decided to slash payouts from the fund by 50 percent, freeze automatic indexations, and increase the pension age from 65 to 67.
Column
What a Spanish novelist can teach us about communality
In a world where cultural clashes and sectarianism seems to be on the increase, Spanish novelist Javier Cercas (b.1962) takes the opposite approach. He cherishes both life in the big city and in the countryside.
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Opinion
A UK, Poland, Ukraine alliance could ensure European security
The UK has always been a huge navy power, Ukraine has 10 years of combat experience, and Poland is a major power in Europe.
Stakeholder
US senators, MEPs call to keep fossil-fuel lobbyists out of COP28
We, the undersigned members of the US Congress and the European Parliament, address this letter to the president of the United States, the president of the European Commission, the secretary-general of the UN, and the executive secretary of the UNFCCC.
Predicting migration: the opaque science behind AI technologies
European states and international organisations have developed technologies to detect migration patterns and predict the number of people from third countries seeking asylum in the EU. But doubts have been raised about the effectiveness and desirability of using predictive technologies.
'Frustration' over the Porto Social Forum's plans
Two years after the Porto social summit, what progress has been made in the EU-27? Has it been enough? This Saturday, different stakeholders meet again to answer those questions.
Agenda
Russia sanctions and EU elections on top This WEEK
The parliament's constitutional affairs committee is set to vote on a draft proposal on the number of seats in the European Parliament, and their distribution among EU countries, ahead of the 2024 elections.
Putting a price on nature? Not a good idea, experts say
In a moment that could have been an act of polite rebellion, physicist and ecologist Vandana Shiva walked off stage during a speech about the need to 'put a price on nature' in the European Parliament this week.
Hungary holds up EU sanctions on jailers of Russian dissident
Hungary is blocking EU sanctions on the jailers of Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, amid a wider dispute involving its Russian banking arm.
WhoisWho? Calls mount to bring back EU directory
NGOs and lobbyists slammed the EU commission for removing contact details of non-managerial staff from its public register, arguing that the institution is now less transparent.
Analysis
Europeans are ageing — what is the EU plan for carers?
Women provide the majority of paid and unpaid care in the EU. Working conditions are poor and socio-demographic changes will increase the need for carers. What can the EU do?
Feature
Why Algeria lacks a tourism industry
How political turmoil and repression — and an over-reliance on fossil resources — killed a flourishing tourism industry.
Column
EU lobbying clean-up — what happened to that?
Six months after Qatargate, as institutional inertia and parliamentary privileges weigh in, the sense of gravity and collective resolve have all but disappeared. MEPs show little enthusiasm for reform of the rules that today allow them significant outside paid activities.
MEPs urge Orbán to act to unblock EU money
MEPs tasked with controlling spending of EU funds said they continued to have "great concerns" on how Hungary is handling EU money and called on prime minister Viktor Orbán's government to implement the necessary reforms to unblock suspended EU funds.
Opinion
Poland and Hungary's ugly divorce over Ukraine
What started in 2015 as a 'friends-with-benefits' relationship between Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, for Hungary and Poland, is ending in disgust and enmity — which will not be overcome until both leaders leave.
Feature
Russia on Eurovision: 'Bacchanalia for Western perverts'
Russian media didn't show the Eurovision finals, while attacking them as a "total bacchanalia" for "perverts" in its anti-Western culture war.
A credible future beyond growth has to be feminist
Half of the world's work is unpaid, and women carry out most of it. According to estimates, activities like cooking, cleaning, collecting food or caring for children and the elderly may be valued at up to 60 percent of GDP.
Growing fear EU firms in Russia will be forced to fund war
EU countries are preparing to help their companies to exit Russia, amid a growing risk they will be taxed to fund Putin's war.
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