Author: staff
However, raising the VAT requires a change in the constitution and a public consultation will open in the spring. Switzerland has been rethinking its defense stance since Russia’s attack on Ukraine almost four years ago. It is looking for more military cooperation with European nations and ramping up its rearmament, although it still has no intention of joining NATO. Switzerland spends about 0.7 percent of its GDP on defense, one of the lowest rates in Europe. The current goal of boosting that to 1 percent by 2032 is now out of date, the Federal Council said. “Due to the savings made…
MEP Henrik Dahl has defended NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte’s comments this week regarding the EU’s reliance on the US to defend itself. In an opinion article for Euronews, the Danish European lawmaker agrees with the NATO secretary general that Europe currently lacks key military capabilities, particularly in independent command, intelligence, and digital infrastructure, most of which are still provided by the US. “As of today, the European pillar of NATO cannot function as a fully autonomous deterrent force without the United States,” Dahl wrote. “Europe lacks a genuinely independent strategic command structure capable of planning and executing large-scale, high-intensity…
In spite of an impending thunderstorm, hundreds of heavily disguised torchbearers gathered on a remote Scottish island to celebrate an old Viking fire festival. They marched through the town of Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, holding aloft burning torches. The procession culminated in the burning of a Viking-style galley. People come from all over the world to witness the spectacle, which originated in the 1880s to mark the end of the Yule season (the pre-reformist calendar that coincided with the Catholic one) and celebrate the Viking heritage in Scotland. The building of the galley and making of more than 1000…
“It has been raised with the White House at the tail end of last week, over the weekend and into the early part of this week,” Starmer said of ongoing engagement on the issue. “The position, as you know, is that when the Trump administration came in, we paused for three months to give them time to consider the Chagos deal, which they did at agency level. “And once they’d done that, they were very clear in the pronouncements about the fact that they supported the deal, and they were announcements made by… the defense secretary … I think Marco…
Fourteen cross-border electricity and hydrogen projects were awarded €650 million from the European Commission on Wednesday as part of the bloc’s plan to modernise ageing grid infrastructure and maximise the use of clean power. Spain will get €180 million, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will receive €112 million and another cross-border project in Romania and Bulgaria is set to get €103 million. The three represent the top major projects benefiting from EU funding for electricity infrastructure, including smart grids, according to the European Commission. Austria (€1 million), Greece-Egypt (€9 million), and Slovakia (€62 million) are also among those listed to…
Published on 28/01/2026 – 18:07 GMT+1 Europeans cannot replace the US nuclear umbrella, at least for the time being, but when it comes to conventional defence the situation is different, European Commissioner for Defence and Space Andrius Kubilius told Euronews on Wednesday. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said on Monday that the European Union should “keep on dreaming” of becoming independent from the US, its largest ally, in matters of security and defence. Kubilius told Euronews that if Rutte’s comments refer to nuclear defence only and if Rutte meant that “the Europeans should stop dreaming about the possibility to defend…
According to the Budapest prosecutor’s office, Karácsony faces a fine, not a trial. The indictment says the Budapest mayor had published a video message announcing that the city’s Metropolitan Municipality would organize the rally, and inviting his followers to attend. The event qualified as an assembly outlawed under the new amendment, the prosecutors argue. By proceeding with the event, Budapest’s mayor is accused of committing the “misdemeanor of violating freedom of association and assembly,” the federal prosecutor office’s statement says. Budapest’s mayor expressed outrage over the prosecutor’s statement, writing on X: “Prosecutors are seeking to fine me without a trial for…
European lawmakers have urged the EU to block US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) personnel from entering the continent following reports that the agency will be involved in security operations during the Milan–Cortina Winter Olympics. The controversy over their presence at the upcoming Games in Italy has been further fuelled by revelations of ICE’s business relationships with France-based IT multinational Capgemini. Public outrage over ICE’s actions spiked after the fatal shooting deaths of two Minneapolis residents, Renée Good and Alex Pretti, by ICE officers in separate incidents this month. In the US, ICE has faced accusations of excessive use of…
Published on 28/01/2026 – 16:33 GMT+1 A Swedish amusement park was fined nearly $588,000 (€491,000) on Wednesday in connection with a 2023 rollercoaster derailment that left one passenger dead and nine others injured. The tragedy occurred on 25 June 2023 on the Jetline ride at the Gröna Lund park. Witnesses described a chaotic scene as the front of the train appeared to jump off the tracks before coming to a stop, with one car tilted toward the ground. Three people were thrown off the rollercoaster. The Stockholm District Court ruled on Wednesday that the Jetline’s support arm, an important safety…
By Mike Corder with AP Published on 28/01/2026 – 16:20 GMT+1 A court has today (28 January) ordered the Dutch government to draw up a plan to protect residents on the tiny Caribbean island of Bonaire from the devastating effects of climate change in a sweeping victory for the islanders. The Hague District Court, in a stunning rebuke of Dutch authorities, also ruled that the government discriminated against the island’s 20,000 inhabitants by not taking “timely and appropriate measures” to protect them from climate change before it’s too late. “The island already suffers from flooding due to tropical storms and extreme rainfall, and…