Author: staff

At the heart of the case are platforms’ disagreements with how the EU calculated the fee. The Commission directly supervises “very large online platforms” with over 45 million average monthly users in the bloc. Meta and TikTok challenged the European Commission’s decisions imposing so-called supervisory fees in 2024. These fees are meant to support the Commission’s work overseeing the very platforms that pay it — an extension of the “polluter pays” principle often used in environmental policy — and are proportionate to the number of users platforms have in the EU. The EU’s General Court said in its ruling the Commission…

Text analysis: How von der Leyen went from fluffy to fight in 5 short years – POLITICO Skip to main content

“I just feel two things now,” Mandelson said. “One, I feel a tremendous sense, a profound sense of sympathy for those people, those women, who suffered as a result of his behavior and his illegal criminal activities. “Secondly, I regret very, very deeply indeed carrying on that association with him for far longer than I should have done.” Mandelson, a veteran of Tony Blair’s government who was a Labour MP at the time of the 2003 letter, said he regretted “very much” falling for Epstein’s “lies” and “accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment … at face…

Von der Leyen’s comments came only a few hours after Poland scrambled fighter jets to shoot down Russian drones that entered its airspace. Back in June, Romania also sent warplanes to monitor Russian drones approaching its border. Wednesday’s incident over Poland has been perceived by Western allies as a way for Russian President Vladimir Putin to test NATO’s defenses. Front-line countries — especially Poland, Estonia and Lithuania — have long called for the EU to contribute financially to the defense of their borders. They argue their efforts will protect the bloc as a whole against any attack from Russia, as military…

Published on 10/09/2025 – 11:22 GMT+2 Novo Nordisk said on Wednesday that it would axe 9,000 jobs as it lowered its profit guidance for the third time this year. The Danish pharmaceutical giant pointed to fierce competition in the obesity drug market, hitting its weight-loss products Ozempic and Wegovy. Around 5,000 of the job losses will be in Denmark, out of a global workforce of 78,400, and the firm expects to save DKK8 billion (€1.1bn) a year by 2026. Novo forecasts that restructuring charges will come to around DKK8bn. It lowered its operating profit growth to 4-10% this year, from…

L’Union européenne peut continuer à considérer l’énergie nucléaire, et dans certains cas le gaz fossile, comme “écologiquement durable”. Le tribunal de la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne s’est prononcé mercredi contre une plainte de l’Autriche, qui cherchait à annuler l’inclusion de ces deux sources d’énergie dans le règlement sur la taxonomie de l’UE, qui détermine quels investissements peuvent être considérés comme verts. Ainsi, la plus haute juridiction de l’UE a jugé que la Commission européenne ne manquait pas à ses obligations en matière de lutte contre le changement climatique. Le tribunal déclare dans son arrêt que la Commission peut “considérer…

“A police uniform no longer deters them,” he told the Brussels Times, adding soldiers would be deployed for their “shock effect” alongside police. Those “mixed teams of officers and soldiers” would patrol “criminal hotspots in Brussels.” The plan still needs to be approved by the Council of Ministers and the federal Parliament before there will be any boots on the ground but is supported by major parties, including the Reformist Movement and New Flemish Alliance. It has faced pushback from Brussels Mayor Philippe Close, who said soldiers would not be useful in Brussels neighborhoods and called for patrols in Antwerp…

What’s in doubt is whether growing common cause among European leaders and significant increases in European defense spending can unfold quickly enough to save Ukraine without significant help from the U.S. It also remains to be seen if these factors can restore deterrence in the Euro-Atlantic area to discourage a Russian threat materializing before 2030. These days, deterrence must also account for the so-called “grey zone.” Russia is already eroding NATO’s Article 5 commitment to mutual defense through attacks that fall into this hybrid category, all designed to weaken resolve without triggering a conventional military response. And it is likely…

Since its inception the EU Green Deal has had a mixed reception from Europe’s car industry, which faces mandatory shifts to slash CO2 emissions, phasing out internal combustion engine (ICE) cars by 2035, investing in electrification and taking up financial responsibility for end-of-life vehicles.  Impending negotiations over the 2040 climate target, proposing to reduce emissions by 90%, are pushing the sector to ramp-up production on electric vehicles amid buyer uncertainty. With a century-old tradition of producing vehicles with ICE engines, the EU automotive sector has been caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to adapt to the green transition…

The Commission’s 2022 draft law to fight child sexual abuse material online, for example, could be destined for the cut, having become a headache for every country holding the rotating EU presidency. Poland was the latest to fail at brokering a deal in the first half of this year. Two entrenched blocs have refused to compromise — some governments won’t accept measures undermining encryption, while others see it as necessary; there seems to be no middle ground. Likewise, the Victims’ Rights Directive failed to pass despite being championed by the Polish presidency after legislators expressed concerns over the wider implications of…