Author: staff

“All age-restricted products” will be behind that layer of age checking, Zhu said. The Commission is the primary supervisor of Shein under the Digital Services Act, the EU law designed to limit the risks of online platforms to users. Shein is classified as a Very Large Online Platform with over 45 million users and can face fines up to 6 percent of its global annual revenue for breaches of the rules. The Commission did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. Shein is also testing the Commission’s age verification app, or “mini wallet” as it’s sometimes called, Zhu said.…

Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi will attend an informal meeting of European Union leaders at the invitation of European Council President António Costa, who is looking to accelerate the implementation of his competitiveness report. The retreat will take place on 12 February and will focus on boosting the European economy. Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta will also participate in the gathering. Draghi and Letta penned two influential reports on the EU single market and competitiveness in 2024. In an interview with Euronews from New Delhi, where the EU signed a major trade deal with India, Costa said…

Published on 27/01/2026 – 20:05 GMT+1 Eight men who were handed life sentences by Russian judges over an attack on a bridge linking Crimea to Russia issued a joint appeal to be freed on Tuesday, saying they did not know about the Kyiv-planned operation. The 2022 blast killed five people and badly damaged the Kerch Bridge, which was built after Russia annexed the region from Ukraine in 2014 and became a potent symbol of Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s ambitions. The bridge has suffered two further major attacks in 2023 and 2025, both carried out by Ukrainian forces as they push…

The notice will be published “in the next few days,” a spokesperson from Dinum said. That follows an announcement on Sunday by the Minister for State Reform David Amiel that France would target the adoption of a home-grown videoconferencing platform by 2027. France last summer mandated that officials get off WhatsApp and Telegram and instead use Tchap, an instant messaging service designed exclusively for civil servants. Visio is already used by 40,000 staff — including most ministries and some of their subsidiaries, such as the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Dinum is aiming for 250,000 users. The department will…

Published on 27/01/2026 – 19:13 GMT+1 European lawmakers issued a declaration on Tuesday urging the European Union to unlock the potential of nuclear fusion energy, stressing its role in boosting the bloc’s competitiveness as a future electricity source. MEPs made the case during a public hearing in the European Parliament calling for a “clear, predictable regulatory framework” that would attract investment, given the astronomical costs that fusion energy will likely demand. “Fusion has reached a turning point. European industrial capability and private investments are converging toward deployment. What is now required is clear political backing and effective mechanisms to attract…

A Dutch court convicted an Eritrean man of people smuggling and extortion on Tuesday and sentenced him to the maximum 20 years imprisonment, saying that he and his accomplices subjected migrants to “cruel, violent, and degrading treatment.” Tewelde Goitom, also known as Amanuel Walid, was found guilty by the Overijssel District Court of leading a criminal organisation that mistreated migrants seeking to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe and extorted money from their families in the Netherlands to pay for the risky voyages. The courtrejected his defence that he was not the person identified by witnesses as a leader of…

The intervention at the event — titled Europe’s race for digital leadership — comes at a particularly sensitive time in transatlantic relations, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent threats to take over Greenland forced European politicians to consider retaliation. Virkkunen declined to single out the United States as one of the partners that the EU must de-risk from. She pointed to the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as incidents that point to Europe’s “vulnerabilities.” She said the U.S. is a key partner, but also noted that “it’s very important for our competitiveness and for our security, that we…

Momentum is building within the EU to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation, after Italy shifted its stance on Monday and announced it would push for the move. According to diplomats, Rome had previously been reluctant to back the designation, but reversed course after new data highlighted the scale of Iran’s recent violent crackdown on protesters. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on X on Monday that he would propose the idea “in coordination with other partners” because “the sudden losses among the civilian population during the protests demand a clear response”. On Tuesday, the US-based…

Holocaust survivors, politicians and regular citizens commemorated International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Tuesday, gathering at events held across Europe to reflect on the killing of millions of people by Nazi Germany. International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed across the world on 27 January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the Nazi death camps. The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2005 establishing the day as an annual commemoration. At the memorial site of Auschwitz, located in an area of southern Poland which was under German occupation during World War II, former prisoners laid flowers…

Published on 27/01/2026 – 15:45 GMT+1 A US aircraft carrier accompanied by three warships has entered the Middle East region as Iran faces ongoing protests that have resulted in thousands of deaths. The United States Central Command, which overseesAmerican military operations in the region, said on the social media platform X that the USS Abraham LincolnCarrier Strike Group is “currently deployed to the Middle East to promote regional security and stability.” US President Donald Trump said last week that ships were being sent to the region “just in case,” following an earlier warning that the US was “locked and loaded”…