Russia already has "hundreds" of mercenaries in Mali, but there was no sign they were using EU-trained Malian soldiers, an EU spokesperson has said.

The commission is expected to come forward with concrete proposals in the next months, and the debate is likely to heat up in June.

Investors and small businesses are not, in fact, as keen on tracking-based online adverts as Big Tech's lobbying efforts have claimed, new research revealed on Monday, ahead of this week's plenary vote on stricter rules for online platforms.

Simply opening the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius, sparked a large-scale expansion of China's economic warfare against democracies. China's actions amount to a fundamental attack on the DNA of the European Union: the internal market.

James Kanter becomes new editor-in-chief of EUobserver - Shada Islam will be editor of the EUobserver magazine.

There are also numerous loopholes in the deal which will enable corporations to keep portions of their profits outside of the scope of the tax, so paying even less than 15 percent.