Author: staff

The EU stands on the threshold of such a moment: a €1 billion investment in a NAMs Moonshot Programme under Horizon Europe 2028-2034. Such a programme would represent a transformative, coordinated effort to accelerate the development, validation and adoption of more human-relevant research methods across the full innovation cycle, from discovery to deployment. Europe’s current investment trajectory risks leaving it behind. Under the Choose Europe for Life Sciences strategy announced in July, the Commission pledged €10 billion annually through EU funding programs to position the EU as a global leader in health and life sciences. Yet only €50 million of…

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Although the Bulgarian cabinet stepped down on 12 December, protesters in the capital and other cities remain in the streets. They are calling for an independent judiciary and an end to widespread corruption. This movement gained pace after the government tried to push through a controversial budget with higher taxes, and the public is now demanding real political change. The timing is difficult because the country plans to join the eurozone in January. Without a regular government or a budget for next year, the transition is under pressure. President Radev will likely appoint a caretaker team to organise the next…

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Published on 19/12/2025 – 7:38 GMT+1 •Updated 8:08 After 16 hours of talks, an EU summit in Brussels has come to a dramatic end. The big takeaways: a €‎90 billion cheque for Ukraine raised with joint debt, but not with Russian money. And a postponement of the EU-Mercosur trade deal. For more on the twists and turns of the night and the winners and losers, our EU news editor Maria Tadeo joins the studio. Ukraine President Zelenskyy was physically in Brussels for the summit too, warning EU leaders that there are much greater threats than lawsuits. He also spent hours…

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He didn’t. “He basically got everything he wanted,” one EU diplomat said after the summit broke up in the early hours of Friday morning. Based on conversations with 23 EU officials, diplomats and politicians, nearly all of whom were granted anonymity so they could describe in detail the events of recent weeks, this is the story of how he did it. Berlin to Brussels It started during a mild night in October. That was the last time EU leaders met, and when they initially hoped they’d get a deal to take the unprecedented step of using Russian assets to give…

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More than 10 million people are unemployed across Europe’s five largest economies as of late 2025. As people look ahead to job opportunities in 2026, the outlook is fairly bleak in some countries, particularly the UK, according to global hiring platform Indeed. That’s despite a push from the British government to boost jobs and growth in the country, a task hindered by sluggish productivity, the Brexit fallout, and weak business investment. But how exactly does the UK compare to its European neighbours, and which countries have the most job openings? Indeed has measured current job postings against the level seen…

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The Kiel Institute has been tracking support for Ukraine since the start of Putin’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Its latest update reveals the holes that European nations are leaving in Kyiv’s finances. In a report earlier this month, Kiel analysts said new aid allocations in 2025 might drop to their lowest level since the outbreak of the war in 2022, and were on track to fall far short of what is needed to plug the gap left by America’s withdrawal.  At the same time, the split in contributions between European countries widened. While France and Germany and the U.K. significantly…

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To turn it around, Starmer’s aides want to tackle problems baked into the state for years —on welfare, social care, backlogged courts, special needs support and glacial infrastructure development. Ministers will have to enact reforms they promised to the migration system, a political landmine that has wounded so many predecessors. Endless hurdles stand in Starmer’s way. Some, like his own leadership, are down to him. Others, like Ukraine and Donald Trump’s mercurial trade policy, will feel out of his grasp. Below, POLITICO whips through the key dates for your diary in a year that will test whether Starmer can survive.…

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For one thing, they said, Ukraine’s parliament would be unlikely to endorse any such proposal. “I don’t see the parliament ever passing anything like that,” opposition lawmaker Oleksandra Ustinova said. “It would be seen as a capitulation.” And after all they’ve suffered at the hands of the Russians, Ukrainians are in no mood to do so. According to the KIIS poll, 63 percent are prepared to continue to resist Russia for as long as necessary. And while that’s a decrease from the 71 percent to 73 percent recorded from May 2022 to February 2024, it’s also a significant uptick from…

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