Thursday
18th Apr 2019
The Juncker commission this week awarded it self top marks on the Energy Union, declaring it "completed". But a detailed analysis reveals the commission quietly stopped reporting on key indicators that would have shown the actual level of progress.
'A reality check shows that we are already falling a little bit behind in the first few years,' said the new coordinator for the European rail traffic management system (ERTMS).
Debate about carbon-free Europe at Romania's Brussels office was sponsored by nuclear lobby and attended by diplomats, but with no green NGOs present.
James Watson is now secretary general of Eurogas, after more than four years at the helm of SolarPower Europe. "I don't feel there is any inconsistency with what I've done before and what I'm doing now," he tells EUobserver.
At EU summit in Brussels, EU leaders said it was important that the EU create a long-term climate action strategy - but refrained from going into details.
In response to the now worldwide movement of concerned school children, the EU parliament held a debate about climate change. But those pupils attending were not allowed to speak, only to listen.
As EU and China leaders meet for a summit in Brussels, EUobserver looks at a commitment made at a previous EU-China gathering.
The European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have refused to answer detailed questions about the demand from the European Ombudsman to publish an Olaf report on a €400m EIB loan Volkswagen Group (VW) received through deception.
EUobserver should have been granted access to a fraud investigation into a €400m EU loan to Volkswagen Group (VW), and recommendations on how to avoid future misuse, the European Ombudsman has concluded.
It is two years since the EU parliament concluded that EU maladministration had helped cause the deadly emissions scandal known as 'Dieselgate'. But MEPs 'never really received a proper response' from the EU commission.
MEPs will vote on Wednesday on new CO2 targets for carmakers. How did those targets come about?
A California jury says glyphosate-based Roundup was "substantial factor" in causing cancer. The battle to renew glyphosate in the EU will begin within a year.
Hundreds of thousands of people are joining Greta Thunberg on Friday for a Global Strike for Future. We can only support the appeal of these young people, who resolutely aim to forge a sustainable Europe, a sustainable planet.
Most members of the European People's Party opposed an amendment which called on the EU to raise its emissions reductions target for 2030. A spokesman called it "unrealistic".
Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg has urged the EU to double its climate targets, amid a European Commission pledge to spend billions on the problem in the future.
The Court of Justice of the EU annulled legislation which relaxed toxic emission limits for cars. EU commissioner Bienkowska said the commission will appeal.
Chatham House research fellow Laura Wellesley discusses her new report, which looked at how alternative meat products are regulated. 'It's not about everybody becoming vegan,' she said.
In 2017, 17.5 percent of the EU's energy consumption came from renewable sources, while the target is 20 percent by 2020. Brexit may actually help achieve that target - but only through a statistical sleight-of-hand.
A new report from the environmental group said that between €28.5bn to €32.6bn of the European Union's subsidies for farmers supports the livestock sector.
With the new transatlantic trade deal, the EU is providing financial and political support for an increase in imports of fracked gas from the US.
Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, and the Netherlands "have not taken sufficient action to improve air quality", according to a new report. In 2015, nearly 400,000 people in the EU died prematurely due to air pollution.
German commission recommends phasing out coal power over the next 19 years - which will provide additional arguments to build the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia, which both the European Commission and the US have reservations about.
Kaddu Sebunya, CEO of the Nairobi-based African Wildlife Foundation, said China's model for Africa would be "a catastrophe in terms of environment".
Marine plastic pollution, much of it garbage from the Asia-Pacific region but also from Europe, is pushed into the Arctic seas by global ocean currents. Scientists are also increasingly detecting microscopic plastic particles brought to the Arctic by long-range winds.
Elections and internal talks have delayed draft energy and climate plans, which were due to be submitted to Brussels by 31 December.
US tech giant Apple will open its first data centre outside the US in 2019 in a tiny Danish village. Cheap electricity, plus stable societies, are the two main reasons for global high-tech companies to locate in the Nordic region.
Closing coal mines in the Silesia region will be particularly difficult, says Witold Stepien, a senior local politician from the neighbouring region Lodz.
Find out in a new Nordic podcast series.
Professor Richard Betts led an EU-funded research project into global warming. Although he sensed an increase in determination at UN climate talks in Poland, he condemned as an "insult" the refusal of several countries to welcome a new report.
An EU commission official already worried in 2015 that a more lenient emissions limit could be illegal - but the EU went ahead anyway.
Ralph Regenvanu, foreign minister of the Pacific island Vanuatu, said at the COP24 talks in Poland it was disappointing the host country was promoting coal - but was happy with EU contributions to tackle climate change.
EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete gives a state of play of talks at Katowice COP24 summit. The yellow jackets protests are merely "internal French politics".
At COP24 climate talks in Katowice, Poland, four out of the six newly-announced sponsors are coal and gas companies, including Europe's largest coking coal producer JSW.
