Author: staff

The Commission president’s comment follows an assertion by U.S. President Donald Trump that NATO countries should shoot down Russian jets that violate their airspace. Listen AI generated Text-to-speech Share

On Sept. 16, Romanian prosecutors charged Georgescu, Potra, his son and other mercenaries with orchestrating a violent coup. According to Romanian prosecutors, Potra, Georgescu and their associates had allegedly planned to hijack a protest in support of the former presidential candidate and generate violence amid the cancellation of the first round of the presidential election. Officials stated that the armed group sought to provoke clashes and carry out “violent actions of a subversive nature,” threatening national security and the “constitutional order.” Georgescu, a NATO skeptic, won the first round of Romania’s November presidential election — with the election subsequently canceled…

The agreement, brokered in July by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and U.S. President Donald Trump in Scotland, has come under fire in the EU for undermining rules-based trade and casting doubt on the bloc’s commitment to the multilateral system it has continued to champion even as Washington retreats. In particular, critics point to the fact that the pact goes against reciprocity and nondiscrimination — two principles at the heart of the rules-based system. While the EU has agreed to eliminate all tariffs on U.S. industrial goods and on cars, it should do so under a full-blown trade…

A jailed Bulgarian mayor whose detention is increasingly seen as a litmus test of the rule of law in the Balkan country says the EU should ramp up its pressure on Sofia to halt its descent toward authoritarianism. Mayor Blagomir Kotsev of Varna, Bulgaria’s third-largest city, was arrested July 8 on graft charges, which he has denied. His liberal anti-corruption We Continue the Change party insists the high-profile case is politically motivated and shows the country’s judiciary has been weaponized. The arrest has sparked nationwide protests and triggered a renewed outcry over the influence of organized crime in the country…

Updated: 24/09/2025 – 18:00 GMT+2 Catch up with the most important stories from around Europe and beyond this September 24th, 2025 – latest news, breaking news, World, Business, Entertainment, Politics, Culture, Travel. … More

To sway the result, the Kremlin will stop at nothing — even spending hundreds of millions of euros to buy crucial votes, Sandu warned this week. This is a crucial moment for Moldova, more so than at any point in the last 35 years since gaining independence from the Soviet Union, Nicu Popescu, a former foreign minister now running on the PAS list, told POLITICO.  “What is at stake is not just European integration of Moldova. It’s, to a large degree, the freedom of Moldova and its independence,” he said. Isolated PAS Since Sandu and her party rode a wave…

MEPs are calling for continued support for Iranian civil society three years after the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for wearing her mandatory headscarf improperly. The death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman led to large-scale demonstrations that were violently repressed by the government. “The persecution of activists continues,” said Shahin Milani, executive director of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre (IHRDC), which collects evidence of human rights violations in Iran to combat the regime’s impunity. “Discrimination against women continues. Several women are on death row. Many of…

Residents of Amsterdam have taken a pioneering step to express their frustration with the city’s overtourism problem. Locals have launched legal action against the council, which they say is not doing enough to curb unsustainable visitor numbers. The Dutch city has been straining under the impact of mass tourism for years, and the council has pledged to clamp down. Authorities have also launched campaigns to steer its tourism model away from the stag parties, pub crawls, drug use and sex work for which the city has been renowned. But residents say little has changed for them. Amsterdam residents take legal…

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen today backed a call to set a minimum age for accessing social media. Many European Union countries “believe the time has come for a ‘digital majority age’ for access to social media. And I must tell you, as a mother of seven children, and grandmother of five, I share their view,” she said during an event at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. EU countries like Greece, France and Denmark have been pushing to set a digital age of majority in recent months, arguing that social media causes harms to minors.

The worst possible place to open a frozen food business in Europe? It’s probably Albania. The country has been ranked as the worst blackout-affected country in Europe and Eurasia in a study by global cable manufacturer Wiringo. On average, Albania experiences around 40 outages per year, which translates to about 65 hours without power per person. Far more than anywhere else on the continent. In the summer of 2024, the country was hit by a major outage along with other Balkan countries like Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Albania’s capital, Tirana, was again hit by a major outage in early January…