Author: staff
The country announced measures for 2026 that will affect pensions, the retirement age and social support, prompting unions to call three days of action. In Brussels, public transport stopped and Brussels Airport cancelled all departing flights, with many arrivals also scrapped. Tram and bus lines across the country were quiet as workers joined the strike. Union leaders described the budget as a setback for workers and said the impact would fall on households already under pressure. Similar walkouts have taken place throughout the year, including a major demonstration in October that drew more than 100000 people.
Then, finally, there is the question of what sort of chancellor Reeves will be; tax-raising, redistributive and pouring funding into public services, or slashing regulation in the name of growth. She insists she can be both, but her critics — especially among conservatives — believe she has gravitated to the former. While Britain’s growth projection was revised up to 1.5 percent in 2025, it was revised down for every future year. Inflation is now projected to fall to the Bank of England’s 2 percent target only in 2027, a year later than previously thought. And while real spending on government…
The European Parliament has de facto approved a change to EU legislation that will allow investment in “controversial weapons” to be included in the bloc’s sustainability framework – a move that mean companies producing incendiary weapons, depleted-uranium ammunition, and even nuclear weapons could now be eligible for the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) label. Earlier this year, the European Commission proposed to reduce the number of companies in the weapons industry that are excluded from the EU’s sustainability benchmarks in order to avoid confusion and uncertainty for the companies’ investors. In practice, this means that companies involved in the production…
US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff advised a Russian presidential aide on how to draft a peace plan for ending the war in Ukraine and how to communicate with Trump, according to a leaked recording published on Tuesday. Trump called the recording a “standard thing” when asked about it by reporters on Air Force One. “He’s got to sell this to Ukraine. He’s got to sell Ukraine to Russia,” Trump said. “That’s what a dealmaker does.” According to the transcript of the call, allegedly recorded on 14 October and published by Bloomberg, Witkoff, who helped broker the Israel-Hamas…
STRASBOURG — Aux yeux de ses alliés centristes, le Parti populaire européen (PPE) est allé trop loin en travaillant avec l’extrême droite. Mais, de leur propre aveu, ils ne peuvent rien y faire. Les Socialistes et démocrates (S&D), Renew et les Verts ont choisi de laisser couler après que leur partenaire de centre droit, le PPE — le plus grand groupe au Parlement européen — se soit appuyé sur le soutien de l’extrême droite pour faire passer un assouplissement de la réglementation écologique. Malgré la grogne et les ultimatums lorsque le PPE a rompu les rangs, la stratégie des groupes…
Any peace deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine should impose obligations on the aggressor, rather than the victim, to avoid a repeat of the invasion in the future, High Representative Kaja Kallas has said as a chaotic US-led push to strike an agreement continues. The original 28-point draft of the proposed deal, written by US and Russian officials, featured sweeping provisions that clearly favoured Moscow, among them demands that Ukraine relinquish its NATO ambitions, surrender territory it still controls and limit the size of its military to 600,000 personnel. But for Kallas, the approach should be the opposite. “If…
France’s top court has rejected former President Nicolas Sarkozy’s final appeal in the Bygmalion case, making a final ruling on his sentencing for illegal financing of his failed 2012 presidential campaign. In February 2024, the Appeals Court sentenced the former French president to one year in prison, of which six months were suspended, after investigators uncovered a large-scale double-billing system designed to hide the soaring cost of the campaign — nearly €43 million spent, far above the legal limit of €22.5 million. Concretely, Sarkozy’s UMP party campaign managers (now known as The Republicans party) used a system of false invoices…
The 28-point plan has since been modified into a 19-point one that waters down some of its most pro-Russian elements. An alternative European proposal scraps the idea of excluding Ukraine from NATO. Rutte took some of the sting out of his comment by insisting that he has positive feelings for U.S. President Donald Trump. “I like the guy,” he said. NATO allies have balked at issuing an immediate invitation for Ukraine to join the organization, but members last year agreed that Kyiv’s bid was “irreversible” — a statement Rutte has repeated since despite opposition to the country’s accession by Trump…
Published on 26/11/2025 – 18:57 GMT+1 The report was approved by a large majority of 483 votes in favour, 92 against and 86 abstentions in a non-binding vote held in Strasbourg. The proposal suggests children and teens under the age of 16 should not have access to social media, video-sharing platforms and AI chat bots. The move comes just a week after French President Emmanuel Macron lambasted US big tech and Chinese algorithms – in a reference to TikTok, without naming it – for creating a culture of harassment, bullying and extremism. Macron said these platforms do not contribute to…
Updated: 26/11/2025 – 18:00 GMT+1 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this November 26th, 2025 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More