Thursday
21st Jan 2021
The European Commission has announced targets to accelerate the roll-out of vaccination, and the intention of "a common approach" on possible vaccine certificates. Both topics will be discussed by EU leaders on Thursday.
Washington's dazzling security-dominated Asian engagement may get all the attention - but the EU has done a pretty good job of hammering out its own Asia policy over the last few years.
The Greek government last week requested that the European Commission and EU border agency Frontex help return 1,450 failed asylum seekers to Turkey. Turkey has refused, citing the pandemic.
MEPs urged the EU to stop a Russian gas pipeline and invoke 'Magnitsky Act' sanctions on oligarchs over the arrest of Alexei Navalny, but was anyone listening in Paris or Berlin?
Portugal's prime minister António Costa will on Wednesday discuss with European Parliament president David Sassoli and MEPs and try to resolve the issue of who will chair the conference.
MEPs are drumming up support for an inquiry into the EU's controversial border and coast guard agency, Frontex. So far, the Greens, the left-wing GUE, and Renew Europe are on board - amid expectations the centre-left S&D will also join.
The greatest mistake the EU institutions can possibly make at this juncture, is to turn the Conference on the Future of Europe into yet another round in the outdated feud between the federalists and the inter-governmentalists.
The time has come to address the enduring flaws of the single market and to launch the necessary reforms to create a stronger and more prosperous Union.
It remains to be seen if Laschet will be the CDU's candidate for German chancellor, but some of his foreign policy views have raised eyebrows in the past.
EU countries hinted new sanctions might come if Russia further harms opposition hero Alexei Navalny, but France and Germany want business as usual for now.
The European Commission unveiled its plans for the 'New European Bauhaus' initiative - an environmental, economic and cultural project whose aim is to design "future ways of living" in a sustainable manner.
Romania has drawn the signal that the time has come to resume the EU-level dialogue on protracted conflicts and their crippling effects on the region's security and development perspectives, writes the country's foreign minister, Bogdan Aurescu.
A local man walked into a pharmacy in Galway, western Ireland, to buy medicine for his dog five years ago and now he is making history in the European Court of Justice.
The European Border and Coast Guard Day is held every May. The event includes movies, football and volleyball matches between Frontex and national border guards, shooting competitions and exercises to detect smugglers.
A new report warns that the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous arms are fuelling military escalation for future conflicts and threaten peace in Europe and worldwide.
EU leaders talk vaccines, while the Portugues EU presidency introduces itself to MEPs. Joe Biden will be inaugurated as president of the United States, and the EU hopes this will mark a new beginning for EU-US relations.
This week the European Commission's Directorate for Cooperation and Development changes its name to the Directorate-General for International Partnerships - in a symbol of how early-industrialised countries seem to be losing influence to the benefit of some emerging countries.
Frontex has pledged to create a searchable central document management system by the end of the year, while Europol has agreed to be more proactive.
The four parties of the Dutch government, lead by prime minister Mark Rutte, have decided to let the government fall. On 17 March, two months from now, there are parliamentary elections in the Netherlands.
The vote will alter the country's political landscape as it moves into the post-Merkel era, and define the core of Germany's largest party. But the outcome is far from certain.
It is estimated that there are about 1.7 million undiscovered viruses circulating currently in mammals and birds - of which up to 850,000 could end up infecting people.
EU diplomacy might help keep Russian opposition hero Alexei Navalny safe when he "defies" Russian president Vladimir Putin by going home this weekend.
Just in time to be all over the Italian evening news on Wednesday night, Matteo Renzi withdrew the two ministers of his small party, Italia Viva - making official the political crisis of the Giuseppe Conte government.
The recent attack on the US Capitol reveals the toxicities of digital media platforms, but the European Commission's proposed competition laws won't fix it.
Italian politics is in chaos, but a less chaotic one than it might seem to a Swedish or German observer. Put simply, Renzi wants Conte both alive and dead.
Leading centre-right and liberal MEPs have called on Lisbon to clarify the appointment of José Guerra as its EU public prosecutor, amid efforts to depoliticise the new anti-fraud body.
The US executed 52-year old Lisa Montgomery, a death row inmate, on Wednesday. Montgomery had committed a gruesome murder but she was also mentally ill. The EU is now demanding the US reverse all pending federal-level executions
EU officials warned that "one of the biggest challenges" ahead will be fighting the spread of vaccine misinformation and addressing vaccine hesitancy.
Former Belgian minister Theo Francken gave one of his party friends the power to put Syrian Christians on a list to get Belgian humanitarian visa. This week that colleague was convicted of human smuggling.
The Polish government has praised the move as the beginning of long-awaited "re-Polonisation" of media markets - but journalists, media experts and opposition parties see it as an attack on press freedom, and preparation for local elections.
Let's expand the EU with a Health Union where cutting edge research and world-class applications go hand in hand. For this, it is worth being European, believing in Europe, working on Europe, writes European People's Party leader Manfred Weber MEP.
Turkey held out a grand olive branch to the EU when president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan met ambassadors in his Ankara palace on Tuesday.
EU top negotiator on vaccines contracts defended the EU's joint approach on vaccinations - amid a wave of critics who blame the European Commission for not buying enough doses and calls for increased transparency.
