Author: staff

However, Merz’s critics — and in his long and turbulent political life, there have been many — say his U-turns were deliberate deceit, and that he had no intention of sticking to the old spending rules in the first place. For instance, the Greens, who opposed the “debt brake” rule that heavily restricted borrowing, have every right to feel double-crossed, as they’re no longer in government. On the other hand, the CDU’s coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), are acting as if they won the February election, even though they suffered their most ignominious result in over a century. The…

The strategy comes as part of a broader EU-wide effort to rein in foreign investors from taking control of European companies in strategic or sensitive sectors, such as when Chinese shipping giant Cosco attempted to buy a container terminal in the Port of Hamburg two years ago. The draft document waters down the original Commission proposal by narrowing the list of strategic sectors subject to mandatory FDI screening, where the EU executive said that EU countries would be required to screen foreign investments into AI, chips, quantum technologies, energy technologies, space, drones or critical medicines. But while it adds more…

The film sector will not fare well if it is swept onto the negotiation table in ongoing trade tussle between Brussels and Washington, a key EU film industry representative has told Euronews.“We don’t want to be part of the overall negotiation on tariffs between Europeans and Americans,” Juliette Prissard, General Delegate of Eurocinema, which represents film producers in Brussels, told Euronews, adding: “There is always the risk that culture will take second place to EU legislation such as that on digital.” According to Prissard, EU legislation on audiovisual could hold less value in the eyes of the European Commission than other EU rulebooks,…

That initiative was inspired by ChatGPT’s rise to fame in late 2022. The instant popularity of a chatbot that could perform several tasks upon request, such as generating text, code and now also images and video, upended the bloc’s drafting of the AI Act.  Generative AI wasn’t a thing when the Commission first presented its AI Act proposal in 2021, which left regulators scrambling. “People were saying: we will not go through five more years to wait for a regulation, so let’s try to force generative AI into this Act,” Audrey Herblin-Stoop, a top lobbyist at French OpenAI rival Mistral, recalled…

Dieser Tag steht ganz im Zeichen der Kanzlerwahl. Friedrich Merz ist an seinem Ziel, dem wichtigsten Staatsamt, angekommen. Wie er dafür sorgen kann, dass ihm seine Regierung gelingt, fasst Gordon Repinski zusammen.  Der Ex-FDP-Fraktionschef im Bundestag, Christian Dürr, ist Gast im 200-Sekunden-Interview und erklärt, warum er einen Kanzler Merz nicht seine Stimme geben würde und wie es sich anfühlt heute nur noch Zuschauer zu sein, bei dem was im Reichstagsgebäude passiert.  Rixa Fürsen berichtet, warum die CDU voraussichtlich Anspruch auf den Posten des Wehrbeauftragten erheben wird und welcher Mann in der Union aktuell beste Aussichten darauf hat.  Und: Großer Zapfenstreich…

In rural areas across the globe, women spend an estimated 40 billion hours a year fetching water, as much as the entire working time spent in France. Water is not only essential for life, but it is also a driving force for — and foundational to — economic growth. The provision of water supply, sanitation and wastewater services (WASH) generates substantial benefits for public health, the economy and the environment.  Evidence underscoring the significant economic return on investments in climate-resilient water and sanitation infrastructure is clear. According to the UN, every euro invested in water and sanitation projects generates four…

It’s a last-ditch pitch from the EU. Without support for more energy sanctions, and with some officials even discussing an eventual return to fuel from Moscow, Brussels is increasingly shopping for alternative options. There’s also U.S. President Donald Trump, who has publicly toyed with lifting America’s hard-hitting Russia restrictions. So the EU is turning to the market, attempting to send a long-term signal that Brussels is committed to leaving Russian fuel for good. No turning back. “Despite the significant reduction of the dependency on Russian fossil fuels in the last years, we were still importing 19 percent of Russian gas in…

The administration has yet to explain how the tariff would work or what it would exactly target. “Commerce is figuring it out,” said a White House official, granted anonymity to share details about the internal process. “Maybe, like, the rights to movies or something,” they offered, adding that a study will be launched. Experts in the U.S. have pointed out that movies are exempt from tariff orders, per the so-called Berman Amendment from 1988. Across the Atlantic, confusion — if not surprise — reigned.  “We felt that [cinema] could become a battlefield [amid the trade war]. We’re entering the unpredictable,” said…

Centrist Nicușor Dan faces uphill battle to beat Simion in Romanian presidential runoff – POLITICO Skip to main content

“He is a TikTok product and launched his whole movement on the back of Covid disinformation, among other things,” he said. Simion’s AUR party fanned conspiracies during the Covid-19 pandemic, opposing government measures to limit the spread of the virus and spreading falsehoods about vaccines to ride a wave of anti-science sentiment. “Because of TikTok basically, he kind of exploded during the pandemic … he does lives on TikTok all the time, he films himself every-fucking-where, so he kind of gives off this really kind of genuine persona that he built,” Vlad said. Romania’s election last November was annulled after…