Author: staff
The French president has long called on Europe to seek more “strategic autonomy” and become less reliant on the United States, especially when it comes to European defense — a push has times excluded the U.K. But Macron’s call for Europe to “derisk” may have fallen on deaf ears in Westminster, with the U.K. still firmly attached to the special relationship with Washington. “We need to derisk our society and economies … We need to derisk excessive dependencies towards the U.S. and China,” he told lawmakers. Macron, however, added that he didn’t put China and the United States in the…
Libyan officials on Tuesday ordered EU migration commissioner Magnus Brunner and several senior European ministers to leave the country. Brunner, on a diplomatic mission with government ministers from Italy, Greece and Malta, was accused of “violations” and declared “persona non grata” upon arrival in Benghazi, according to an official statement published by Libyan officials. Benghazi is run by the eastern-based House of Representatives, one of two warring administrations that emerged in Libya after the downfall of ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The region is also the stronghold of warlord Khalifa Haftar, who is seen as being close to Russian President…
The far-right Patriots for Europe group will lead negotiations on the EU’s new climate target, MEPs and parliament officials told Euronews, a role that could derail the bloc’s objective to reduce greenhouse emissions by 90% by 2040.“The Patriots got the climate legislation file,” Iratxe Garcia, the leader of the socialist group told reporters during a press conference on the margins of the plenary in Strasbourg. “They’ve got the rapporteurship… I mean it is the patriots who are going to be the lead negotiators.”Garcia referred to a recent Commission proposal to amend its EU Climate Law by setting a new target to reduce the EU’s…
Swedish security service members who shared details of their running and cycling routes on fitness app Strava have been accused of revealing details of the prime minister’s location, including his private address. According to Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter, on at least 35 occasions bodyguards uploaded their workouts to the training app and revealed information linked to Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, including where he goes running, details of overnight trips abroad, and the location of his private home, which is supposed to be secret. Information uploaded to Strava was also linked to the Swedish royal family, former Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson,…
The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance has called on Sweden, Portugal, Croatia and Latvia to take stronger action against hate speech, predominantly targeting migrants, Roma, LGBTQ+ and Black people. This call comes as an average medium level of online toxicity has been recorded since the beginning of 2025, according to the European Observatory of Online Hate (EOOH). Online toxicity encompasses rude, aggressive, and degrading attitudes and behaviour exhibited on online platforms. It can range from an excessive use of profanity to outright hate speech. The EOOH scores toxicity in four different categories from safe (score of 0) to high…
This included alleged inflated and fictitious contracts, violations of procurement procedures and donations for non-parliamentary activities to groups — including a non-profit in France that sterilizes cats — linked to politicians in the ID group. Philip Claeys, the group’s former secretary-general, denied any wrongdoing last week, saying that all the payments were “duly invoiced and justified.” The ID group in the previous European Parliament term featured far-right and nationalist parties such as France’s National Rally (RN) and the Alternative for Germany. Earlier this year, RN leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty of embezzling European Parliament funds in a…
By Eleonora Vasques & Video Editor: David Brodheim Published on 08/07/2025 – 14:03 GMT+2Europe must not scale back its engagement with Africa as the global geopolitical landscape shifts, the director of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Africa Bureau has warned.“Africa has a great deal to offer, particularly in terms of its demographics,” she said. “With a very young population, the continent is projected to account for a quarter of the world’s population in the next century.”This youthful demographic is particularly relevant for Europe, which faces an ageing population and increasing demand for young talent to drive innovation and growth, she said.But the…
Published on 08/07/2025 – 16:25 GMT+2At least 13 people are believed to have killed themselves because of Britain’s Post Office scandal, in which almost 1,000 postal workers were wrongly prosecuted or convicted of criminal wrongdoing due to a faulty IT system, a public inquiry revealed on Tuesday.Another 59 people contemplated suicide over the scandal, one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history, according to the first findings from the inquiry.Between 1999 and 2015, hundreds of people who worked at Post Office branches were wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting because faulty software showed a shortfall. Some…
European Democracy Commissioner Michael McGrath said officials in Brussels are now drawing up plans to strengthen EU countries’ compliance by making it mandatory to uphold rule-of-law standards as a condition of receiving funding from the bloc’s €1.2 trillion budget. The Commission is due to set out its draft budget blueprint ― covering the seven years from 2028 ― on July 16. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, McGrath said “the most concerning” parts of the 800-page report were where countries had failed to make any progress at all against the Commission’s recommendations in the past 12 months. “When you look at…
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Tuesday scolded fellow EU leaders who have chosen to put aside the fight against the climate crisis for the sake of boosting competitiveness and cutting red tape.”It seems to me that because there are so many other things on the table and so many challenges that some colleagues are starting to forget that fighting climate change should be one of our top priorities,” Frederiksen said in Strasbourg.Her reproach comes as Denmark assumes the rotating presidency of the EU Council, giving the country an enlarged role in the bloc’s decision-making process, including the negotiations on…