Search

The EU is at odds with itself. It wants to be a democracy but presents itself as an association of states. The reason for this contradictory state of affairs is that self-proclaimed illiberal member states continue to prevent the Union from committing ...

While Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin might be popular internationally, she will have to face a tough fight at the end of the week to retain her job. Voters in Finland will head to the ballot on Sunday (2 April) with the top political parties neck-and- ...

Last week, the European Commission unveiled the Critical Raw Materials Act to reduce its dependence on third countries for key raw materials deemed indispensable for the green and digital transitions. The proposed legislation seems to be a first step in ...

As a seasoned sceptic of everything blasted into the ether by Silicon Valley hypemen, I found myself in a bit of a quandary this week. No doubt, you've seen hundreds of posts touting how this new generation of AI will change the world. Normally, my ...

The European Commission and Poland are to hold an international conference to help find some 16,000 Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. "We aim to put international pressure to make all possible efforts to establish the whereabouts of the children," EU ...

EU leaders have endorsed a plan to send Ukraine 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition in the next 12 months to help fight Russia's invasion. EU foreign and defence ministers already approved the plan earlier this week, while leaders gave their political ...

Polish abortion rights activist Justyna Wydrzyńska is angry. Last week, she was found guilty of helping an abused woman seeking to terminate a 12-week pregnancy after sending her abortion pills. "I'm so angry, I'm so angry because of this," she told a ...

Germany has been at the forefront of the hydrogen hype, propelling what is essentially a niche industrial resource used to produce fertilisers, petrochemicals and methanol to the centre of European climate and industrial policies. In recent weeks German ...

On Thursday (23 March) and Friday, the leaders of EU member states will get together in Brussels to discuss the future of EU migration policy. We already know what they will agree on: more border control (e.g. more guards, security infrastructure, ...

Sweden has resumed EU talks on tightening visas for countries with lots of "unfounded" asylum-seekers, mentioning Colombia, Georgia, and Venezuela. In what it called "serious abuse" of EU visa policy, the Swedish EU presidency warned that numbers of people ...

The Spanish government denies any responsibility over the deaths of some 23 people who attempted to cross from Morocco into its north African Melilla enclave last summer. Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska told MEPs on Wednesday (22 March) ...

The lack of Russian opposition to the Russo-Ukrainian War is puzzling. The war is obviously going nowhere, Russian casualties are staggering, the economy is in trouble, and living standards are declining, and yet polls indicate that most Russians support ...

So-called 'forever chemicals' (PFAS) have increasingly made the headlines, as more people become aware of these almost-indestructible toxic chemicals, which are to be found in thousands of products, places, food and water across Europe. As nature cannot ...

The European Parliament's committee on legal affairs on Tuesday (21 March) voted in favour of the parliament joining the EU Commission's case against Hungary over its anti-LGBTI law. MEPs said the vote was carried by 18 votes in favour and two against, ...

Three far-right French MEPs are to stay on a European Parliament blacklist after losing a legal challenge. The French politicians — Hervé Juvin, Jean-Lin Lacapelle, and Thierry Mariani — have been banned from doing official election-observation missions ...

After months of drama and tension that reached a climax in the last week of February, Turkey's opposition has chosen Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP), as their presidential candidate. He will run in the country's 14 May ...

For a fleeting moment this month, global attention switched from guns to people and from geopolitics to human rights. Many were too busy fighting wars or speaking the "language of power" to pay attention. But for those who did find the time, the United ...

Ukraine will need even more ammunition in future and the EU should already start drawing up its 11th round of Russia sanctions, hawkish EU countries have said. "In order to go on the offensive, Ukraine needs more than one million shells a year. This is a ...

The potential economic collapse of Tunisia has startled EU decision-makers amid fears that more migrants may leave on boats towards Europe. "If Tunisia collapses economically or socially then we will be in a situation where new flows of migrants will come ...

Several EU foreign ministers on Monday (20 March) welcomed the International Criminal Court's (ICC) decision to issue an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abduction of ...

The United Nations published a report on Monday (20 March) synthesising years of climate, biodiversity, and nature research to paint a picture of the effects of global warming on the natural world, concluding there is "no time for inaction and delays." The ...

More than 13 million people are unemployed in the EU, 5.3 million of them for more than a year. Underlying these figures is often the misconception that these workers lack education or training, or that it is too costly to invest public money in lifting ...

The threat of far-right extremism has been an increasing concern over the last years — from the ground gained by conspiracy myths like the "Great Replacement" and QAnon, to the storming of parliaments on both sides of the Atlantic, to the rise to power of ...

We're trying out a new format, in which we publish an op-ed and a counter-op-ed in one article. This week, we have the S&D group president responding to EPP chairman Manfred Weber's call for stricter financial screening of NGOs to combat corruption. How to ...

Institutional investors controlling assets worth $8 trillion [€7.57 trillion] called in November 2022 called for a phase-out of dangerous 'forever chemicals'. A tsunami of court cases in the US, coupled with EU plans to restrict toxic PFAS "forever ...

EU leaders are set to meet on Thursday and Friday (23-24 March) in Brussels for their regular March summit. Competitiveness is expected be on the top of their agenda after the EU Commission rolled out last week a series of proposals to boost the bloc's ...

On Thursday (17 March) the EU launched the Hydrogen Bank. It is a new platform to connect users with producers and generate private sector interest in the fledgling green and low-carbon hydrogen technologies. Green hydrogen is produced by splitting water ...

MEPs probing spyware are set to visit Spain next week amid brewing resentment with member states and the European Commission. "I sincerely hope that we can count on full cooperation with the Spanish authorities, unlike what we received in our previous ...

"When I try to sleep, war memories come to my mind and my body starts shaking," a 62-year-old man told Human Rights Watch researchers eight years after surviving a suicide bombing in Kabul in 2011. "Everything gets dark and I lose consciousness." His ...

Russian soldiers' misogynistic violence in Ukraine shows there's a "civilisational clash" going on in Europe, Nobel-winning Ukrainian activist Oleksandra Matviichuk has said. Ukraine's "Revolution of Dignity" nine years ago was about human rights, rule of ...