Browsing: EU

A coalition of eastern European countries led by Poland and Estonia is also calling for NATO members to increase the spending benchmark.

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Tuesday that Russian forces will not seize the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut “anytime soon” as intense fighting there continues. Wagner has been leading the Russian assault on the city. Earlier on Tuesday, NATO defence ministers gathered for talks on how to step up their military support for Ukraine. Follow FRANCE 24 for live updates. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her coalition allies secured emphatic election wins in the two wealthiest regions of the country on Monday, strengthening the right’s grip on power amid growing voter apathy.

Catholic clergy in Portugal have abused nearly 5,000 children since 1950, an independent commission said on Monday after hearing hundreds of victims’ accounts.

The implementation of the regulation has been delayed for more than a year now due to a dispute over what is defined as ‘renewable’ hydrogen.

The European Commission says the Hungarian law violates internal market rules, the fundamental rights of individuals, and EU values.

Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands called on Monday for “targeted adjustments”. Spain, however, is backing a “fundamental reform”.

The European Commission warns uncertainty is still elevated, with the economy dependent on Russia’s war in Ukraine and tight energy markets.

Cyprus voters on Sunday elected the former foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides as the next president of the small EU member state, with his rival conceding defeat and congratulating him.

The leader of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner said Sunday that his troops had taken an eastern Ukrainian village a few kilometres from the key city of Bakhmut which Moscow has been trying to capture for months. Follow FRANCE 24 for live updates. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

Cyprus holds a tightly fought presidential election on Sunday between two diplomats, each seeking to persuade undecided voters that he is the best choice to govern the European Union member.

Thousands of Europe-based Iranians, including relatives of victims of repression in the Islamic republic, lawmakers and campaigners, on Saturday urged the EU at a rally in Paris to list Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a “terror” group.

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

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in France on Saturday in a fourth day of action against President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reform, with unions planning to ramp up strikes if the plan is not dropped.

Dutch police said on Friday they were investigating the projection of an anti-Semitic laser message onto the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam — an incident the prime minister condemned as “reprehensible”.

New laws set to come into effect in Amsterdam. Soon it will be illegal to smoke pot on the street in the city’s red light district. The change in regulation is intended to improve the lives of Amsterdam’s residents who’ve long complained about the disruption caused by tourists. FRANCE 24’s Leo McGuinn explains.

Northern Portugal is believed to contain the largest lithium reserves in Europe. These resources have attracted the attention of some of the world’s largest mining companies. London-based firm Savannah Resources wants to open the continent’s biggest open-cast lithium mine in the village of Covas do Barroso by 2026. Supporters of the project say this would give Europe an invaluable supply of lithium for producing electric car batteries, helping the EU reach its carbon-zero target by 2050. However, many locals and environmentalists oppose the project. Our regional correspondents report.

In this special travelogue, FRANCE 24’s Caroline de Camaret and Luke Brown follow EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell step by step through the EU-Ukraine summit that happened last week in Kyiv. Our team accompanies him on the train, on the plane, in meetings and on a visit to a mine clearance operation. Borrell analyses his relations with his European and Ukrainian counterparts as well as the EU’s support for the war and shares his geopolitical vision. We discover European diplomacy in action on the ground and behind the scenes, all the while collecting impressions of the trip.

The conclusions from an extraordinary European Council put the focus on the external, rather than the internal, aspects of migration.

Iran has long been one of the world’s most prolific executioners. But it seems to have taken the death penalty to a new level recently, with dozens of people executed in the last few weeks, according to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights. The UN has denounced what it calls state-sanctioned killing, while campaigners say capital punishment has been weaponised to intimidate those who have been protesting since of the death of Mahsa Amini. She died following her arrest last September, after allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s dress code for women. The EU’s response has included sanctions and a strongly-worded resolution in the European Parliament. But what more should the bloc be doing?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took centre stage this week as he toured European capitals, drumming up support. #StateOfTheUnion

Donations and a field hospital: How Belgium is mobilising to help Turkey and Syria

Marc Tarabella’s parliamentary immunity was lifted by MEPs earlier this month, paving the way for his arrest.

Lithium has become a vital component for the batteries that power electric cars. But with neither mines nor refineries on its soil, can Europe break its dependence on foreign imports? The Down to Earth team takes a closer look.

France’s latest Eurovision song was in Breton – a language whose existence the government doesn’t even acknowledge. From roughly a million back in the 1950s, the number of Breton speakers has shrunk to less than 200,000 today, leading UNESCO to warn that the language is at high risk of going extinct.