Author: staff

Its demise leaves Europe without a home-grown champion to compete with Chinese battery-makers that dominate the sector and the critical raw material supply chain. At its peak, Northvolt counted Volkswagen and Goldman Sachs as backers and had contracts with multiple automakers, including BMW. “This is obviously very bad news. Mistakes have certainly been made in the company’s industrial and economic project,” said Renew MEP Pascal Canfin. “The EU must not give up on building a European battery industry.” A Swedish court-appointed trustee will oversee the company’s sale and that of its assets.

Northvolt said it had faced “significant internal challenges in its ramp-up of production”. Battery maker Northvolt has filed for bankruptcy in Sweden, dealing a blow to Europe’s battery manufacturing capabilities.The firm said that it had made an “exhaustive effort…to secure a viable financial and operational future for the company”, but it had experienced a number of “compounding challenges”.It cited rising capital costs, geopolitical instability, supply chain disruptions, and shifts in market demand.“Further to this backdrop, the company has faced significant internal challenges in its ramp-up of production, both in ways that were expected by engagement in what is a highly…

Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates and Politico’s Anne McElvoy have their guide to the day ahead in British politics. Tariffs are back on the agenda for this morning’s episode – the US has put them on all steel and aluminium imports, including those from the UK. How do ministers respond now? Does it go any further than the stiffly worded statement from business secretary Jonathan Reynolds? And as the US and Ukraine await Russia’s response to the proposal for a 30-day ceasefire, what is the role of the Starmer government at the moment – and what are the…

The night’s other big winner was the centrist Naleraq party, which doubled its vote share from 2021. Naleraq wants a snap referendum on separating from Denmark and favors closer ties with the United States, including a potential free association agreement. Meanwhile, the left-wing Inuit Ataqatigiit and center-left Siumut, which govern the island in a coalition, came in third and fourth, respectively. No party received an absolute majority. Greenlanders went to the polls amid Trump’s repeated threats to seize the territory, kicking off a geopolitical tug-of-war and thrusting the island and its sparse population of about 60,000 into the spotlight. Trump’s…

Although Montenegro denied any conflict of interest, the opposition accused the prime minister of indirectly enriching himself while serving atop the country’s executive branch. The far-right Chega group and the Portuguese Communist Party filed parliamentary censure motions against the government over the past three weeks, both of which failed. No confidence Although the censure motions went nowhere, questions regarding Spinumviva lingered. The tenacity of the “scandal” ultimately convinced the prime minister to submit himself to a parliamentary vote of confidence. “The country needs political clarification … to end the atmosphere of permanent insinuations and intrigues,” he told lawmakers. A majority of…

– Neuauszählung vor Gericht verlangt: Beim BSW hofft man noch Stimmen zu finden – gleichzeitig knirscht es in der Partei. Dort liegt der Fokus besonders auf Thüringen. Rasmus Buchsteiner über einen möglichen BSW-internen Machtkampf.– Im 200-Sekunden-Interview: Hamburgs Erster Bürgermeister Peter Tschentscher. Vor der heutigen Ministerpräsidentenkonferenz spricht er über Migration und die Grünen als Partner.– Boris Pistorius in Paris: Beim Treffen der “Group of Five” will der SPD-Verteidigungsminister einmal mehr zeigen, dass er willens ist, im Amt zu bleiben.– Sitzordnung im Bundestag: Wie die Linke mit dem Versuch scheitert, ein bisschen weiter vorne zu sitzen.  Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt…

“We can’t rely on the U.S. anymore — it’s a new reality. So we have to be tough hitting back, that’s the only medicine,” one EU diplomat said. Šefčovič visited Washington last month in an attempt to initiate a dialogue on averting a trade war, only to conclude that the Trump administration was not interested. “In the end, one hand cannot clap,” he said on Monday. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, is keeping a low profile. “We’re not going to have a kneejerk reaction,” said an official from the Department for Business and Trade, pointing out that No. 10 is emphasizing…

While he acknowledged the act is an “important step forward,” he added that the “proposed funding is insufficient, and there is no common strategy for stockpiling essential medicines.” Belgium has called for the act to be partly funded by Europe’s defense strategy. It’s a moment of disappointment for Vandenbroucke, who in 2023 led the charge in calling for a Critical Medicines Act, which was supported almost unanimously by member capitals. To other observers, however, the Commission’s bill is a welcome fix for long-standing issues that have driven medicines production overseas, and will help rebuild resilient supply chains and improve access…

“What Mr. Musk has said is wholly unconvincing based on the evidence so far. It’s pretty much garbage,” Ciaran Martin, a former chief executive of the United Kingdom’s cybersecurity agency, who now teaches at Oxford University, told the BBC on Tuesday morning. The cyberattack on X  impacted users since at least Monday morning and destabilized many features on the website, such as viewing posts and user profiles. Musk’s statements and cybersecurity experts’ observations suggest it was a so-called distributed-denial-of-service attack (DDoS), which involves pointing an overwhelming amount of traffic at a website to bring it down. In a DDoS attack,…

How dangerous is the fuel on the tanker? Experts said the jet fuel on board the Stena was extremely toxic to marine life and highly volatile, meaning its lifespan in the environment would be shorter than heavier forms of oil such as crude. Anti-pollution crews will use foam to mop the oil from the sea. Jet fuel “has minimal environmental impacts when it leaks, because it will either ignite and burn, or evaporate,” said Andy Teasdale, a marine safety advisor to the Institute of Marine Science, Engineering and Technology.   However, jet fuel is “50 times more toxic to aquatic life…