Author: Euro News

A court in Belarus on Monday sentenced exiled opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in prison after a trial in absentia on charges including conspiring to overthrow the government, the latest move in a months-long effort by the Belarusian government to suppress dissent.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has asked the country’s supreme court to give “top priority” to the criminal cases triggered by last week’s fatal train disaster, his office said Monday.

The European Ombudsman has requested the Commission provide a list of all business trips partly funded by third parties made since 2021.

The late Polish pope John Paul II knew about child abuse in Poland’s Catholic church years before becoming pontiff and helped cover it up, private broadcaster TVN reported Sunday.

Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas’s centre-right Reform Party won the general election by a large margin Sunday, scoring 31.6 percent against 16 percent for the far-right EKRE, according to near complete results.

A week after dozens of migrants died when their boat capsized a few hundred metres off the Italian coast, humanitarian ships are grappling with a new “code of conduct” for rescues at sea. Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government in January forbade NGOs from carrying out “simultaneous” rescues at sea, even though ships are legally obliged to provide help during emergencies, according to international law.

Tune in to understand the ins and outs of European politics.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz visited Washington for talks with US President Joe Biden on Friday, with Ukraine the sole item on the agenda. This comes just over a year after Scholz’s momentous “Zeitenwende” speech in reaction to the Russian invasion, in which he vowed radical changes to Germany’s defence and security policies. But analysts say Germany is failing to meet the expectations Scholz set.

Olivier Vandecasteele has been imprisoned since February last year.

Brexit may finally be done, after the EU and UK reached a compromise agreement on the Northern Ireland Protocol and joint European gas purchases will go ahead. #StateOfTheUnion

Sweden is using its presidency of the EU Council to keep European countries mobilised in their support for Ukraine, and to try to enforce the current sanctions on Russia more effectively. Sweden’s EU Affairs Minister Jessika Roswall speaks to Talking Europe about those issues, as well as Sweden’s application to join NATO, and Stockholm’s other priorities in its EU presidency, which is now two months into its six-month stint.

The news of another migrant drama off the coast of Italy on February 26 has prompted familiar expressions of shock by EU leaders, as well as familiar calls for the EU to rethink its approach to migration and asylum. Dozens of people are thought to have died in the Mediterranean this year, not just near Italy, but off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia too.

TikTok is battling privacy concerns and espionage fears over its potential connection with the Chinese Communist Party.

The train tragedy that unfolded in Greece this week, claiming dozens of lives in the country’s worst rail disaster, has exposed chronic failures by successive administrations, insiders say.

An agreement is still needed between the EU institutions, but the change would be significant for the industry in Europe.

The first joint purchases are expected to take place in the summer in order to fill underground gas storages.

French senators will start debating President Emmanuel Macron’s contested pension plan on Thursday, as the centrist government hopes to find a compromise with the conservatives at the upper house of parliament to be able to push the bill through.

The Northern Irish question has caused endless headaches in Belfast, London and Brussels throughout the Brexit saga. Now analysts say the deal Prime Minister Rishi Sunak struck with the EU Commission this week offers genuine resolution of the problem. However, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP)’s backing will be needed to get the Northern Irish parliament functioning again – and, true to form, their support is elusive.

The plans could also see the introduction of a common, digital driving licence.

It’s a sinister heritage: tens of thousands of skulls and other human remains are stored in German museums and research institutes. Many were taken during the colonial era and researchers are now trying to source them in order to send them back to their countries of origin, mostly in Africa. Other European countries, such as Belgium and France, have similar collections. The French government is now planning to legislate on the issue later this year. Our Berlin and Brussels correspondents report.

The parliamentary Rugby World Cup will be held in Paris in September.

EU funds related to agriculture and cohesion programmes saw the largest share of expenditure fraud, the prosecutor said in its annual report.

More than 35 people were killed when two trains collided overnight near the Vale of Tempe. Greek Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned on Wednesday, saying it was his “duty” to step down out of “respect for the memory” of those who were killed. A stationmaster for the city of Larissa has been arrested, although the cause of the crash remains unknown.

Sixteen people were killed and at least 85 injured in a collision of two trains near the city of Larissa in Greece late on Tuesday, fire brigade spokesperson Vassilis Varthakogiannis said in a televised address early on Wednesday.

Reza Pahlavi’s father was deposed after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.