Author: staff

A special envoy for Ukrainians in the EU will be appointed to coordinate this process. The Commission will also support launching what it calls “Unity Hubs,” information centers run jointly with Ukraine that will provide guidance on integration and return options. “More than anything, Ukraine needs its people, and we have to help Ukrainians make informed decisions about their future — whether that be to return home or to continue supporting Ukraine from here for the time being,” Brunner said in a press release.  After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU activated temporary protection for…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 14:36 GMT+2The European Commission announced the selection of 13 projects focused on critical raw materials in countries outside the EU on Wednesday.The move is part of the implementation of the Critical Raw Materials Act, an EU law that came into force in May 2024, aimed at diversifying the sources of raw material extraction.The projects aim to reduce dependency on single suppliers, such as China and the US. They also seek to enhance overall economic security amid geopolitical events, including commercial tensions between the EU and China and the tariffs on steel and aluminium imposed by US…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 14:09 GMT+2Bulgaria will join the eurozone at the start of next year after clearing a series of economic hurdles, securing approval from the European Central Bank and the European Commission on Wednesday.”Today’s report is a historic moment for Bulgaria, the euro area and the European Union,” said EU economy chief Valdis Dombrovskis.ECB Executive Board Member Philip Lane noted: “I wish to congratulate Bulgaria on its tremendous dedication to making the adjustments needed.”Since it joined the EU in 2007, Bulgaria has been seeking to switch its current currency, the lev, to the euro — although persistent inflation…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 13:33 GMT+2British singer and songwriter Jessie J revealed in a social media post on Wednesday that she has been diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer. The 37-year-old now plans to undergo surgery following a festival performance in London later this month. “Cancer sucks in any form, but I’m holding on to the world ‘early’,” she said in a video message posted to her Instagram account. “It breaks my heart that so many people are going through so much similar and worse – that’s the bit that kills me.” “I just wanted to be open and share it,” she said, “I’m not…

“The proposed investigation will focus on the prime minister’s actions, his behavior during the government meeting” where ILTE was discussed, Gediminas Sakalauskas, who chairs the commission, said Wednesday. “We will try to answer the question of whether or not there was any violation of the law.”  Though some opposition lawmakers called on Paluckas to step down following the allegations, the prime minister said he will not, adding that the journalists’ “claims are pulled out of thin air.” The probe could take up to three months, according to Sakalauskas.

Published on 04/06/2025 – 13:17 GMT+2•Updated 13:33More than 20,000 people were evacuated from their homes in the German city of Cologne on Wednesday as experts try to defuse three unexploded US bombs from World War II. Authorities on Wednesday morning started evacuating about 20,500 residents, as well as workers and hotel guests, from a central area within a 1,000-metre radius of the bombs, which were discovered on Monday during preparatory work for road construction. They were found in the Deutz district, across the Rhine River from Cologne’s historic centre.Disposing of such bombs sometimes entails large-scale precautionary evacuations such as the…

Jean-François Julliard, director-general of Greenpeace France, told POLITICO the group dropped it off at EDF headquarters and then notified the authorities and the museum to come pick it up. Julliard said two Greenpeace employees were in police custody Wednesday. Greenpeace claimed responsibility for the theft after the statue went missing Monday, claiming they were simply borrowing it. Though the European Union has cut down on business with the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it still buys Russian gas and other energy products, with France one of Europe’s biggest importers of Russian liquified natural gas.

South Korea’s new president Lee Jae-myung has promised to recommence talks with North Korea with the aim of securing peace on the Korean Peninsula.Lee, who was sworn in early on Wednesday following his victory in a snap election, outlined key policy goals for his five-year term, from foreign and economic policy to healing the country’s political divide.In his inaugural address to the country’s National Assembly, Lee pledged to deal with North Korean nuclear and other military threats with “strong deterrence” bolstered by the South Korea-US military alliance. However, he also said he would restart talks with Pyongyang, which have not taken…

“There isn’t enough listening [in the Commission]. There isn’t enough listening to the people,” he said. Von der Leyen has long been accused of sidelining critics, promoting allies, governing through close aides and employing a Machiavellian divide-and-rule strategy during her years running the EU’s executive arm, which is made up of representatives from the bloc’s 27 member states. Barnier singled out excessive regulation and slow progress on integrating capital markets across the EU as major failures of the Commission during the von der Leyen years. The former French prime minister did, however, credit von der Leyen with successfully responding to…

Published on 04/06/2025 – 11:44 GMT+2•Updated 11:50A court in El Salvador has sentenced three former senior military officers to 15 years in prison for the killing of four Dutch journalists in 1982. Jan Kuiper, Koos Koster, Hans ter Laag and Joop Willemson were killed in an ambush by the Salvadoran army in the northern province of Chalatenango while filming a documentary about the Central American country’s civil war, which lasted from 1980 until 1992. Late on Tuesday, a five-person jury in a Chalatenango court found three former top military officials guilty over their deaths after a trial that was closed…