Author: staff

France has summoned the US ambassador Charles Kushner after he sent a letter criticising the French government for allegedly not doing enough to counter antisemitism. The American envoy, a real estate tycoon whose son Jared is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, made his comments public on Sunday. In response, France’s foreign ministry described his allegations as “unacceptable” and summoned him to appear at the department on Monday. In his letter, which was reproduced by the Wall Street Journal, Kushner urged Macron to apply the laws against hate crimes more rigorously and to tone down his criticism of Israel over its…

At first, Brussels resisted the idea of coordinating with other countries hit by Trump’s tariffs, such as Canada or Mexico. But it eventually changed course. “The main criticism that can be made against the Commission is that it did not seriously try to build an international anti-Trump coalition,” former WTO chief Lamy said.  That’s something that Brussels tried to fix in late June, when at a leaders’ summit, von der Leyen floated the idea of a new club in which the EU’s 27 countries would join forces with the members of the Pacific-focused Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership,…

Published on 25/08/2025 – 8:54 GMT+2 It was all eyes on Kneecap yesterday as the controversial Irish rappers took to the stage at this year’s Rock en Seine festival in Paris.   The band’s inclusion on the line-up for one of France’s biggest and most popular music events had already been source of controversy, as there were calls made to remove the group from the bill. The festival ended up having its funding substantially cut, and the French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau was forced to reiterate his zero-tolerance stance towards any disorder.   The owner of Rock en Seine,…

The company had won the tender for the project despite suggesting that the kiosks would be around five times more expensive than what it could cost based on market prices.  Greece is also on track to fail on its obligation to recycle 55 percent of municipal waste and 65 percent of packaging waste this year. | Orestis Panagiotou/EPA “It cannot be confirmed whether EDSNA investigated what a reasonable budget for the recycling centers would be, given that the market research it conducted and referred to, did not concern at least two independent [companies], but two [companies] with a common interest and an exclusive relationship,…

Fostering a more effective single market for banking would necessitate breaking down those barriers, Campa said. “There are things that we can do … but that requires a significant political consensus because those rules are there for a reason; home-host issues are there for a reason.” The EU’s latest update to bank capital rules, known as Basel 3, applies requirements at the level of individual entities and the consolidated group, as it was politically untenable to find a more simple way of implementing the reforms — a decision Campa said “leads to excess requirements.” The most recent piece of banking legislation…

As more European capital cities struggle with overtourism, second-city destinations are taking the spotlight.  New research by luggage storage company Radical Storage characterises these destinations as the second-most populated city in a European country.  In 10 of the 44 European countries analysed, the second-largest city was a better tourist destination than the capital city.  The study compared the tourist experience in each European country’s capital city with its second-largest city, taking into account shopping, accommodation, food, culture, accessibility and local attractions and ranking them on a scale of 0 to 10.  But which are the top second cities and why…

Get comfortable with failure, create a local startup ecosystem and build regulation to support business success, says Lithuanian entrepreneur Tomas Okmanas of NordVPN. Despite having access to an abundance of talent, European tech companies often struggle to achieve the global scale enjoyed by competitors in the U.S. and China. Kicking against the trend is Tomas Okmanas, co-founder of several highly successful international businesses in his native Lithuania. These include cybersecurity group Nord Security, valued at more than $3 billion and best known for virtual private network provider NordVPN. His latest venture, nexos.ai, is a secure, all-in-one AI platform for enterprises…

Nach 100 Tagen sind die Zweifel groß:Die Koalition aus Union und SPD droht nach einem Sommer auch mit Streit die Krise. Gordon Repinski und Rasmus Buchsteiner analysieren die Gräben zwischen den Partnern und blicken auf die anstehenden Krisentreffen, die in Union und SPD natürlich niemand so nennen will.Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Steffen Bilger. Der Parlamentarische Geschäftsführer der Unionsfraktion stellt sich der Frage, ob die Koalition noch zu retten ist und er sagt, was er von der SPD im Herbst erwartet.Außerdem: Kanzler Friedrich Merz gibt einen Startschuss für Spekulationen – und bringt beim Tag der offenen Tür erstmals persönlich ins Spiel, dass eine…

“The impact on savings and retail banks of the digital euro taking a big chunk of card transactions will depend on the holding limits the ECB imposes, and [on] the underlying business model of the digital currency,” said Diederik Bruggink, senior director of payments, digital finance and innovation at the European Savings and Retail Banking Group. The higher the holding limits allowed for the digital euro and the lower the fees for payments between service providers, the worse it will be for banks, he explained. A large part of payment fees currently goes to companies such as Visa and Mastercard and…

Kushner’s open letter, published Sunday in the Wall Street Journal, noted the U.S. envoy’s “deep concern over the dramatic rise of antisemitism in France and the lack of sufficient action by your government to confront it.” “President Trump and I have Jewish children and share Jewish grandchildren,” Kushner wrote. “I know how he feels about antisemitism.” Antisemitic incidents have surged in France following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. France said it “firmly refutes” Kushner’s claims, adding that its “authorities are demonstrating total mobilization, as these acts [of antisemitism] are intolerable.”…