Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Ticker

Venezuela spikes EU asylum applications

First-time asylum applications to the 28 EU countries, Norway, and Switzerland jumped 10 percent to 337,200 for the six months of this year compared to the same period in 2018, the European Asylum Support Office, an EU agency in Malta, has said. Most applications came from Afghanistan, Syria, and Venezuela. But EU states issued just 41,700 decisions in the first half of this year, their slowest rate in years.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Opinion

EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania

Among the largest sources of financing for energy transition of central and eastern European countries, the €60bn Modernisation Fund remains far from the public eye. And perhaps that's one reason it is often used for financing fossil gas projects.

'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told

Italian central banker Piero Cipollone in his first monetary policy speech since joining the ECB's board in November, said that the bank should be ready to "swiftly dial back our restrictive monetary policy stance."

Podcast

Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza

This week's Euroscopic explores the consequences of Moscow's terror attack, the convergence of public safety and border/migration policy in an EU election year, and the United Nations Security resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us