Author: staff
The ruling could have broader implications for scrutiny of EU decision-making, pointing to limits on the Commission’s ability to keep countries’ positions confidential. It also adds to a growing line of cases testing how far transparency rules stretch when institutions argue disclosure could disrupt internal deliberations. At EU level, country representatives and the Commission regularly authorize chemicals in private committee meetings through a procedure known as comitology — a system now likely to face fresh pressure in Brussels to open up, given its powerful yet often opaque role in shaping health and environmental rules. “Disclosure would unsettle the functioning of…
Published on 25/03/2026 – 13:38 GMT+1 Hungary will gradually halt gas exports to Ukraine until Kyiv resumes oil shipments through the Druzhba pipeline. The move was announced on Wednesday by the country’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who added that the gas would be redirected to refill the country’s own storage instead of being supplied to Ukraine. “We will gradually stop gas supplies from Hungary to Ukraine, and we will store the remaining gas at home,” Orbán said in a social media video posted after a cabinet meeting.”As long as Ukraine does not supply oil, we will not supply gas from…
US President Donald Trump’s unexpected claim this week that talks with Iran were yielding great progress came at a time of increased strikes and further threats of escalation across the region, with Washington’s goals in the war still not fully clear. A chorus of Iranian leadership figures have so far denied any negotiations were taking place, pledging to fight “until complete victory.” Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Gulf nations are reportedly trying behind the scenes to organise talks, but their efforts still seem preliminary. If anything, the war appears to be escalating. Iran fired its daily barrages again across the Middle…
Volkswagen has ruled out weapons production at its Osnabrück plant but has declined to confirm or deny media reports that it is in talks for other military-adjacent production with Israeli defence firm Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, makers of the Iron Dome missile defence system. The German carmaker told Euronews Business it is “in dialogue with various market players” as part of an “open review process” for the site once car manufacturing wraps at the beleaguered site in 2027, but stressed there are “currently no concrete decisions or conclusions regarding the future direction of the site.” Media reports, initially published in…
LONDON — The former Conservative MP Crispin Blunt has pleaded guilty to possessing illegal drugs, including cannabis and crystal meth. Blunt, the MP for Reigate between 1997 and 2024 and briefly a Prisons Minister in David Cameron’s government, appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday following drug charges. After a raid on his Surrey home in 2023, the former MP was found with the chemical sedative GBL, cannabis, methamphetamine, and the drug commonly known as crystal meth.
The war between the US and Iran has disrupted global energy markets, driven oil and gas prices up and jeopardised supply routes. A key pressure point is the partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a major transit route for liquefied natural gas (LNG), which Europe has increasingly relied on since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The EU subsequently took steps to reduce its dependence on Russian fossil fuels, turning instead to alternative suppliers such in the Middle East and accelerating the deployment of renewables. Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s foreign ministry, mocked the EU for having to…
Published on 25/03/2026 – 11:36 GMT+1 The US government’s ban on Anthropic appears punitive, following the company’s public dispute with the Pentagon over its refusal to allow unrestricted military use of its Claude AI model. Anthropic made its case before a San Francisco federal court on Tuesday, seeking an injunction against the US government’s decision to blacklist it as a national security risk. The District Judge Rita F. Lin said at the outset of the hearing that “it looks like an attempt to cripple Anthropic,” adding she was concerned the government could be punishing Anthropic for openly criticising the government’s…
Moscow’s defense ministry reported shooting down 389 Ukrainian drones flying over Russia on Wednesday, including at the Ust-Luga port in the Leningrad region, home to one of the country’s major gas plants. This is not the first stray drone to venture into Baltic airspace. A second unmanned aerial vehicle from Russian airspace crashed in Latvia overnight, the country’s defense ministry wrote in a post on X, adding that no one was injured. Latvian Prime Minister Evika Siliņa said an initial investigation suggests the drone was Ukrainian and added she would raise the issue at the Joint Expeditionary Force summit, a…
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer expressed his “disgust” at the “horrific antisemitic attack.” No injuries were reported from the incident and the fires were put out. Nearby houses were evacuated as a precaution. In the statement Wednesday, the Met said they were “mindful” that “CCTV footage of the incident suggests there were at least three people involved.” “Our investigation very much remains active and we will continue to work to identify and seek to arrest all of those who may have been involved,” Helen Flanagan, head of Counter Terrorism Policing London said.
Hungarian customs authorities had all the necessary documents and had approved Ukraine’s Oschadbank cash and gold transit in advance, before the convoy was stopped and detained by Hungary’s anti-terrorism police, bank employees and officials said. For the first time since the incident on 5 March, a member of the cash-in-transit team revealed more details about what happened that day on the Budapest ring road. Speaking in Kyiv on Tuesday alongside Oschadbank Chairman of the Board Yurii Katsion, Hennadiy Kuznetsov said the trip was prepared and executed in the “routine” way. At the first press conference organised by the state-owned Oschadbank…