Browsing: EU

Talking Europe sat down with the prime minister of Bulgaria, Nikolai Denkov, during a crucial EU summit that approved the start of EU accession talks for Ukraine and Moldova – but failed to find an agreement on budget support for Ukraine. We take the political temperature in the summit room with our guest, and discuss some regional and Bulgarian developments as well – notably Sofia’s efforts to join the Schengen free travel area, which is currently under negotiation between Bulgaria, Romania, Austria and the European Commission. 

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been removed from a prison near Moscow and taken to an undisclosed location, his spokeswoman said Friday, citing a court representative.

Russian President Vladimir Putin questioned the International Olympic Committee rules mandating Russian athletes compete at the Paris Olympics as neutrals. 

New Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government was sworn in by the president on Wednesday, the final step in a transfer of power that marks a huge change after eight years of nationalist rule.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak faces the biggest parliamentary test of his premiership on Tuesday when lawmakers vote on his flagship migration policy of sending asylum seekers who arrive illegally in Britain to Rwanda. Sunak is seeking to revive his key plan after the UK Supreme Court ruled last month that Rwanda was an unsafe place to send those arriving in small boats on England’s southern coast, concluding it would breach British and international law.

French opposition lawmakers on Monday rejected an immigration bill without debating it, in a major blow to President Emmanuel Macron ’s government, which had championed the proposed law as one of its flagship measures. The government has yet to decide whether to keep pushing for the adoption of the bill intended to strengthen the country’s ability to expel foreigners considered undesirable or withdraw it.

It’s the second coming of Donald Tusk with implications well beyond Poland’s borders. Two months after a general election marked by a huge turnout comes a comeback for the center-right leader. Tusk’s first stint as prime minister was followed up by a move to Brussels where as president of the European Council, he found himself clashing with the leadership of his own country. 

Poland’s parliament voted in favour of Donald Tusk becoming prime minister on Monday, putting an end to eight years of nationalist rule and setting the stage for a thawing of relations with the European Union.

Allies of the jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that they had been unable to locate him for six days, and that he had likely been transferred to another facility.

French artificial intelligence start-up Mistral AI announced Sunday it had raised 385 million euros ($414 million), becoming one of Europe’s two AI leaders.

EU member states and lawmakers clinched a deal on Friday on how to draft “historic” rules regulating artificial intelligence models such as ChatGPT — after 36 hours of negotiations.

Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Friday visited the French overseas island of Mayotte, the poorest place in the European Union, amid a growing water crisis. Due to a drawn-out drought compounded by years of underinvestment and water mismanagement, the island’s inhabitants have access to water only one every three days.

The war in Ukraine has forced a major rethink in European security, with both Sweden and Finland abandoning their long-standing policy of non-alignment and applying for NATO membership last year. But while Finland was admitted into NATO this April, delays have persisted on Sweden’s entry, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan linking a serious of unrelated issues to Ankara’s ratification of Sweden’s accession – the latest of which is a potential sale of US F-16 fighter jets to Turkey. We discuss what Sweden’s entry to NATO would actually mean with Sweden’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström.

Denmark’s parliament on Thursday adopted a law criminalising the “inappropriate treatment” of religious texts, effectively banning Koran burnings after a series of desecrations of Islam’s holy book sparked anger in Muslim countries over the summer.

Europe Briefing – Gunman on the run in Brussels & Conor McGregor running for Irish presidency Police in Brussels are still hunting Friday’s gunman -…

Increasing uncertainty surrounds Western funding for Ukraine in the face of Russia’s escalating efforts to cripple the nation’s energy infrastructure.

There was a clear failure in the psychiatric care of the radicalised Islamist suffering from mental troubles who stabbed a German tourist to death in central Paris at the weekend before being arrested, France’s interior minister said Monday.

FRANCE 24’s terrorism expert Wassim Nasr discusses the suspect, who was known to French authorities, in the deadly knife attack in Paris on December 2, 2023. “This is the same kind of case of what happened in Vienna in 2020: a national, who never went to Syria, tried to go there, went to prison, went through a deradicalization program, changed his mind on the way and committed the attack.”

French police arrested a man who targeted passersby in Paris on Saturday night, killing a German tourist with a knife and injuring two others, France’s interior minister said. FRANCE 24’s Charlotte Hughes tells us more.

A man known to French authorities for radical Islamism and mental health troubles stabbed a tourist to death and wounded two other people in central Paris late Saturday night before being arrested, with prosecutors opening an investigation into a suspected “terrorist plot”.

Some 200 far-right demonstrators gathered in Paris on Friday night to protest the death of a French teenager who died last month after being stabbed during what appeared to be a brawl that broke out at a village dance. Although the circumstances of the incident remain unclear, the far right has framed it as a symbol of France’s increasingly insecure society amid immigration.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Friday boosting troop numbers by 15 percent, in a move the army said was due to “threats” associated with the Ukraine offensive.

Talking Europe hosts Pascal Canfin, the chair of the environment committee at the European Parliament. He is a former French government minister and a former director of the French branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). We take a look at what is coming out of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, and at the state of the EU’s green transition. Canfin maintains that 80 percent of the laws planned under the EU’s Green Deal should be finished by the end of the current legislative term – something he calls “massive and unprecedented”.

Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday effectively outlawed LGBTQ+ activism, in the most drastic step against advocates of gay, lesbian and transgender rights in the increasingly conservative country.

NATO member Finland on Wednesday closed its last remaining border crossing with Russia after the government decided to seal the entire border with its eastern neighbor amid rising political tensions.