Browsing: EU Featured

It is one of Europe’s largest shantytowns. Canada Real in the Spanish capital Madrid is just 15 kilometres away from the landmark square Puerta del Sol. A side of the city few tourists see. Conditions were already poor in much of the neighbourhood and then, in October 2020, the electricity was cut off to thousands of residents, including many young children. Many believe the authorities want to drive them out of the area. Report by C?line Schmitt, Armelle Exposito and Sarah Morris.

Less than two months after losing his home in an arson attack, the mayor of a town in western France resigned this week, citing, among other things, a “lack of support from the state”. Amid an increasingly tense political environment, attacks against mayors in France are multiplying. And some say they have been left to fend for themselves.

Tourism in Italy has rebounded from COVID-19 lows but not everybody is happy to see the crowds of foreigners back.

Sweden won the Eurovision Song Contest early Sunday, as singer Loreen beat out 25 competitors in the finale of the world’s biggest live music event, hosted by Britain on behalf of war-torn Ukraine.

The Ukrainian city of Ternopil was attacked by Russia just before the country’s Eurovision act was set to take the stage.

Rattled by repeated cases of sexual abuse over the years, the French Catholic Church will soon provide digital ID cards with scannable QR codes that will offer colour-coded background information – ranging from green to orange to red – on bishops, priests and deacons. But the new measure is raising eyebrows.

Spain is running out of water. After a long and painful drought, the country has been hit by an unusually early heat wave, evaporating even more of the “blue gold” it still has left in its reservoirs. While farmers fear for their survival, environmentalists say it is time for “Europe’s back garden” to rethink how it uses and manages its increasingly scarce water supply.

Turkey is officially a candidate to join the EU but its accession talks have been frozen since 2018 over rule of law and democratic concerns.

An early scorching heatwave across Spain has worsened the impact of the country’s long-term drought, causing unprecedented damage to the country’s crops. As farmers grow desperate for irrigation, the government’s plan to limit the rerouting of water from the nation’s longest river – the Tagus – for agricultural purposes lies at the centre of a heated debate. FRANCE 24 reports.

In this edition of “Brussels, my love?”, we take a look at Germany’s role in Europe following Chancellor Scholz’s speech before the European Parliament and ask whether the belated ratification of the Istanbul Convention to fight violence against women was a relief – or an embarrassment.

After a long battle, Portugal on Friday passed a law legalising euthanasia for people in great suffering and with incurable diseases, joining just a handful of countries around the world.

The watchdogs of EU democracy will have to be “much louder in the future” if they hope to see off a mounting threat from homegrown populists and autocrats who are chipping away at Europe’s founding commitments to free speech and the rule of law, a top EU official has warned. “We have to make sure, wherever democracy is under threat, [where there is] shrinking space of civil society, then we have to raise our voices,” Oliver R?pke, the newly elected president of the European Economic and Social Committee, an advisory body within the European Union, told FRANCE 24.

Asylum seekers from Latin America will be able to apply to go to Canada, Spain and the US in migrant processing centres set up in their home countries.

Turkey is officially a candidate to join the EU but its accession talks have been frozen since 2018 over rule of law and democratic concerns.

Taiwanese battery maker Prologium said Friday it will invest billions of dollars in building a new factory in northern France for its first European plant.

Spain’s cabinet on Thursday approved measures worth more than two billion euros to alleviate the impact of a prolonged drought that has hit its key agricultural sector.

Eurostat’s Demography of Europe report documents various factors affecting the lives of tens of millions of people.

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday blamed each other for an exchange of fire along their restive border, which killed one person and wounded four, days ahead of EU-hosted peace talks.

MEPs want chatbots to include safeguards that will prevent them from generating content that is illegal under EU law.

The EU is discussing plans to sanction companies suspected of helping Russia evade international sanctions.

France’s vaunted gastronomy will be put to the ultimate test when organisers of the 2024 Paris Olympics have to feed 15,000 athletes.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the heads of Germany’s 16 states on Wednesday agreed on new measures to tackle soaring migration after crunch talks.

Marc Tarabella is one of six defendants accused of taking bribes from Qatar.

French actor Adele Haenel, who has for years spoken out against sexual abuse in the film industry, announced she was giving up movie acting over the industry’s “complacency”.

France’s top administrative court on Wednesday ordered the government for a second time to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within a year, in a case brought by a town threatened by rising sea levels.