Author: staff
Spain’s Iratxe García, who leads the group, has so far kept Spanish lawmakers in line. She faces a leadership vote on Oct. 21, though she is broadly expected to keep her post. Should Sánchez lose his election, all the S&D’s largest national delegations — from Italy, Romania and France — would be in opposition at home. The only S&D parties still in government would be junior partners in Germany and Austria, alongside Denmark’s Social Democrats, whose hardline stance on migration limits their influence in the group. Without a heavyweight prime minister from a large EU country to keep the S&D…
Das ist eine gute Idee: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz arrived in Kyiv Sunday in a show of support as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukrainian cities. Merz said he traveled to the Ukrainian capital on his second trip as chancellor to demonstrate his country’s continued solidarity for Ukraine, underscored by a recently announced €1.3 billion support package for the country’s defence and energy needs. “If Russia is not stopped, its war machine will sooner or later turn against us,” Merz said in a statement Sunday, adding that he told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “You can continue to count on our…
“The government immediately singled out France Unbowed as the devil incarnate. That was a mistake on their part,” he wrote. “It earned us a significant surge in popularity in high schools, where we were already well-received.” A Cluster17 poll shared exclusively with POLITICO before the unrest began last month showed that 47% of respondents younger than 35 planned to vote for Mélenchon. POLITICO’s Poll of Polls aggregator currently shows him with a narrow lead over centrist candidates in the race to finish second and advance to the presidential runoff, where he would likely face off against far-right front-runner Marine Le…
Published on 05/10/2026 – 9:00 GMT+2•Updated 9:53 At last week’s Justice and Home Affairs Council, EU interior ministers and Commissioner Marcus Brunner decided to tighten migration rules, focusing on stricter border controls and faster returns. These priorities echoed those raised by the parties at the Munich Migration Conference on 26 September. Member states introduced a European Return Order, a standardised form on which they would have to enter the key elements of a return decision. They want to give national authorities the information they need to recognise return decisions issued by other member states. For now, mutual recognition of these…
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called an early general election for 29 November, after Congress rejected two housing decrees put forward by his government. The lower house voted down the measures on Friday, despite last-minute negotiations to secure enough support. The decrees were part of the government’s response to Spain’s housing crisis. Sánchez then spent the weekend consulting ministers and senior figures in his Socialist Party (PSOE) before deciding whether to continue governing until the end of the parliamentary term or call an election. Ceuta, corruption and a fragile majority The decision comes after a difficult few months for…
A €13 billion Google data centre investment is set to transform the Finnish municipality of Muhos and the wider Oulu region. While many locals welcome new jobs and economic activity, environmental campaigners say more than 300 hectares of forest were cleared without a required assessment.
Published on 05/10/2026 – 7:58 GMT+2 The United States confirmed Sunday that it has withdrawn all B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford, a British airbase at the centre of a counter-terrorism probe after a mysterious security incident last month. Police were called to the base in southwest England on 27 September after a local farmer reported a group of men with several vans engaged in “suspicious” activity. The scare forced evacuations at 85 homes near the airbase, which was used by the United States to launch strikes on Iran. Investigators did not find any explosives in the vans, but instead “a…
A cross-party group of 119 MEPs called for effective enforcement of the ban and prompt resolution of the investigation into Grok, in a Sept. 30 letter sent to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the Council of the EU Antonio Costa, Parliament President Roberta Metsola, EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen and Commissioner Hadja Lalhbib. The signatories included leaders of the liberal Renew, the socialists, and The Left: Iratxe Garcia Pérez, Valérie Hayer, and Manon Aubry, respectively. “There can’t be any loopholes or delays” in enforcing the ban, Austrian Greens MEP Lena Schilling, who also signed the letter,…
Munich’s Oktoberfest has attracted a record 7.4 million visitors over 16 days, making this year’s edition the most visited in its history. For locals and visitors alike, the festival remains a major annual tradition. Munich Mayor Dominik Krause said the festival once again brought locals and international visitors together. “Generally speaking, the atmosphere was fantastic. You could really sense the presence of the locals at the Wiesn, especially during the week. At the same time, there were plenty of visitors and that is precisely what defines the Wiesn: people from all over the world celebrating together with the locals.” According…
By Euronews/Ács Gábor Published on 05/10/2026 – 23:32 GMT+2 Romania’s head of state, Nicusor Dan, on Monday signed a law aimed at reducing the country’s bear population, a bill he had previously challenged on constitutional grounds and sent back to parliament for reconsideration. The legislation, which was re-adopted by the Chamber of Deputies on 16 September, allows the preventive shooting of 859 brown bears this year. A further 110 protected large wild animals may be hunted as an intervention measure if they pose a threat to human life. In recent years it has become common in Romania for bears to appear…