European Union

Croatia’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan, a summary of which was presented at a government meeting on Thursday, envisages projects worth HRK 49.08 billion (€6.5 billion) to cover six key areas. Presenting the document to his cabinet, Prime Minister Andrej...

US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has urged in a letter, for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s (BiH) three presidency members to engage in the implementation of “limited constitutional change that is necessary to reform the electoral system consistent with the requirements...

Slovenian President Borut Pahor said there was no alternative but to put Slovenia in an 11-day lockdown to protect the population from a spiraling coronavirus caseload. Pahor also urged tolerance and expressed optimism about the future in a televised address...

A Slovak petition entitled “Climate Needs You”, calling for the government to declare a state of climate emergency, has been signed by more than 128,000 people, including various politicians and President Zuzana Čaputová. However, it was not backed by the...

The Russian embassy in Sofia defended the Bulgarian government over criticism from US over corruption and lack of media freedom, as if the EU and NATO country was Russia’s backyard. The US State Department sharply criticized Bulgaria in its annual...

After months of preparations “behind closed doors”, the Czech national recovery plan was finally published by the industry and trade ministry at the end of March, however, the document is not as detailed as it should be, Czech MEP Luděk...

The severity of crop losses driven by heat waves and drought have tripled in the last fifty years in Europe, according to a study that highlights the vulnerability of food systems to climate change.

The Polish national vaccination system spiralled into disarray Thursday morning when registration was suddenly opened for everyone over 40. “This is no April Fool’s,” said a tweet from the account of the government’s vaccination programme, which was later deleted. The...

Hundreds of Finnish companies, high profile business tycoons and CEOs have been seeking tax relief in Luxembourg, with assets managed by favourable agreements amounting to tens of billions of euros. The list of names, revealed by the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s...

An April Fool’s joke festival that got out of hand in Brussels’ Bois de la Cambre park drew a crowd of thousands of people, which were then dispersed by riot police for breaking COVID-19 measures. Some 20,000 people accepted a...

Irish premier Micheal Martin has called for a “reset” of the relationship between the EU and the UK to resolve issues stemming from the Northern Ireland Protocol, which despite being designed to avoid a hard border between the Republic and...

French economy minister Bruno Le Maire has said Europe should follow America's example by pouring in more money to stimulate its economy after the pandemic. "Whatever we may think about it, the American stimulus plan shows ambition, and the return of US ambition is a good thing," he said. The US plan is worth $4.2 trillion (€3.6 trillion) while the EU's equivalent is worth €750 billion only.

China's Irish embassy has attracted an inundation of online jokes and memes internationally after tweeting a confusing analogy about its tough new style of diplomacy and a Greek fable. "Some people accused China of so-called 'wolf-warrior diplomacy'. In his well-known fable, Aesop described how the wolf accused the lamb of committing offences. The wolf is the wolf, not the lamb … BTW, China is not a lamb," the tweet said.

World powers and Iran will meet by videoconference Friday (2 April) to discuss the possible return of the United States to the Iran nuclear deal, in talks mediated by the EU.

EU nations fell out Thursday (1 April) over how to divide up 10 million extra doses of coronavirus vaccine, with Austria, Slovenia and the Czech Republic refusing to help five struggling countries.

Dutch caretaker-prime minister Mark Rutte has narrowly survived a vote of confidence over his conduct in coalition-forming talks by MPs. "Parliament has given me a serious message," he said. The motion to censure Rutte came over his handling of rebellious MP Pieter Omtzigt. Rutte had first claimed not to have spoken of sidelining Omtgizt, then to have forgotten having had the talks, but opposition MPs said Rutte had lied.

Auditing and rule of law mechanisms should be ready to scrutinise how the first money from the Recovery Fund will be dispersed across the bloc in 2022, MEP Nicolae Ștefănuță told EURACTIV.com in an interview.

The European Union has asked India to allow it to buy 10 million doses of AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine from Serum Institute of India, a government official told Reuters. The EU wants the doses to offset supply shortfalls from AstraZeneca's European plants and speed up the bloc's vaccine rollout. Any quick approval of the EU request is unlikely, however, with India scrambling to expand its own domestic vaccination drive.

UK's prime minister Boris Johnson said that experience had shown that the Covid-19 situation usually hit the UK a few weeks after it hurt France. "I'm afraid you can see what's happening in France... It's very sad actually - it's very, very sad," Johnson said. "When they get it in France and they get it bad, two or three weeks later it comes to us."

Europe's vaccination campaign is "unacceptably slow" while rising infection rates in most countries across the region mean its virus situation is "more worrying than we have seen in several months", the World Health Organization (WHO) said, The Guardian reports. WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said that vaccines "present our best way out of this pandemic. Not only do they work, they are highly effective in preventing infection.