Browsing: EU

The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs committee gave its consent to Sweden’s bid to join NATO on Tuesday, drawing the previously nonaligned Nordic country closer to membership in the Western military alliance. Sweden’s accession protocol will now need to be approved in the Turkish parliament’s general assembly for the last stage of the legislative process in Turkey. “Turkey’s approval of Sweden’s joining NATO is linked to the US Senate’s approval of Turkey buying 14 F-16 fighter bombers from America”, FRANCE 24’s Jasper Mortimer said, adding that the Senate’s approval is contingent on Turkey ratifying Sweden’s NATO membership.

Nearly 60 French actors and other prominent figures have denounced the “lynching” of disgraced film legend Gerard Depardieu, who is charged with rape and is facing a litany of other sexual assault claims. FRANCE 24 Reporter Clovis Casali said the signatories included, “actresses like Carole Bouquet, Charlotte Rampling; singers Carla Bruni, Jacques Dutronc; many of them long-time friends of Gerard Depardieu”. Casali added: “it’s not the young generations, it’s more the old guard, if I may.” 

A key committee in the Turkish parliament on Tuesday approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO after months of delays, clearing another hurdle in the Nordic country’s accession process in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year.

Nearly 60 French actors and other prominent figures have denounced the “lynching” of disgraced cinema legend Gerard Depardieu, who is charged with rape and facing a litany of sexual assault claims. Last week French President Emmanuel Macron said Depardieu had become the target of a “manhunt”, while his family has denounced an “unprecedented conspiracy” against him. FRANCE 24’s Philip Turle brings you this analysis

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny on Tuesday said he was “fine” after a “pretty exhausting” 20-day transfer from his prison near Moscow to a penal colony beyond the Arctic Circle.

Protesters tried to storm Belgrade’s city council building Sunday, using stones, flag-poles and eggs to break the building’s windows. Tensions ran high on Christmas Eve in Serbia’s capital as thousands of people came out to protest the results of this month’s elections. 

Serbian police said Monday they have detained at least 38 people who took part in a protest against reported widespread irregularities during a recent general ballot that declared the governing populists as winners of the parliamentary and local councils’ elections. 

Previously, celebrations were held on January 7. That was until Ukraine decided to ‘snub’ Russia by moving the date.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been moved to a penal colony in the Arctic, allies said on Monday after over two weeks during which his whereabouts were unknown.

Pope Francis on Monday deplored the desperate humanitarian situation of Palestinians in Gaza and called for an immediate ceasefire and the freeing of hostages in his Christmas message.

British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has agreed a deal to buy a 25 percent stake in Manchester United for about $1.3 billion, vowing to return the Premier League club to the “top of world football”.

A plane with 303 Indian passengers detained near Paris over suspicions of human trafficking will be free to leave Monday, French judicial officials said, though its destination remains unclear.

A Russian politician calling for peace in Ukraine hit a roadblock in her campaign Saturday, when Russia’s Central Election Commission refused to accept her initial nomination by a group of supporters, citing errors in the documents submitted.

Poverty is set to be one of the key issues dominating the 2024 European elections. The EU is home to 95 million people who live below the poverty line – that is, who live on less than 60 percent of the median income for their country. In all, that’s one in five Europeans who live at risk of social exclusion.

Talking Europe hosts Austrian author Robert Menasse, the winner of the 2023 European Union book prize. The award was set up in 2007 to foster a European spirit and promote understanding of the EU from a cultural perspective. The prize has previously been bestowed on such towering figures as Jonathan Coe, Philippe Sands and Tony Judt. Menasse is the only writer to have won the award twice. We discuss his prize-winning novel “The Enlargement”, which takes places against the backdrop of the actual enlargement of the European Union. It forms the second novel in his trilogy, after “The Capital” in 2019.

City breaks shouldn’t feel draining.

It’s thought police were on the lookout for a killer before the mass shooting after two people were found dead in a nearby forest.

A Russian drone attack hit a residential building and injured at least two people in Kyiv on Thursday, authorities said, in a rare breach of the Ukrainian capital’s air defences.

A 24-year-old student killed more than 15 people and wounded dozens more at a Prague university on Thursday in the Czech Republic’s worst shooting in decades, before authorities said the attacker was “eliminated”. The shooting erupted at the Charles University’s Faculty of Arts, which sits near major tourist sites like the 14th-century Charles Bridge. FRANCE 24’s Ian Willoughby reports.

Czech police say a shooting in downtown Prague has killed an unspecified number of people and wounded dozens of others. Police gave no details about the victims or the circumstances of Thursday’s gunfire in the Czech Republic’s capital. The shooting took place at the arts faculty of Charles University located in the centre of Prague, FRANCE 24’s correspondent Ian Willoughby said, citing police reports.

Poland’s pro-EU government on Wednesday launched a reform of state media and sacked their management as right-wing lawmakers staged a sit-in to protest the changes and public broadcasts were interrupted.

Irish premier Leo Varadkar is trying to drag the UK before the European Court of Human Rights.

The new deal will significantly change how the bloc processes migrants.

A group of French lawmakers met on Tuesday to try and strike a deal on a contested bill that will toughen France’s immigration laws and has highlighted the difficulties for President Emmanuel Macron of running the country with no majority in parliament. Beyond the details of the controversial bill on which left and right-wing lawmakers sought to see eye to eye, “this is a political power struggle, a tug of war for who is really controlling this flagship law,” FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent said.

The current 10-year trend is “going in the wrong direction”, warns the worrying environmental report.