European Union

A visit by European Union ambassadors to the Xinjiang region of China has stalled over their request for access to jailed Uighur academic Ilham Tohti, a diplomatic source confirmed Wednesday (17 March).

EU countries agree with the criteria proposed by the European Commission to determine how long budgetary rules should be suspended for and should decide in May to continue the suspension in 2022, Portugal’s finance minister João Leão said on Tuesday (16 March).

Greece's Public Power Corp. (PPC), the country's biggest energy company, has surpassed expectations with its first-ever green bond. The energy utility also broke new ground at EU level by committing to pay investors a higher fee if it misses its climate goals, EURACTIV.gr reports.

By choosing to impose green objectives without undertaking a comprehensive impact assessment, the European Commission is leaving the EU farming sector vulnerable and waiting like “animals to be slaughtered”, according to the head of the EU farmers association.

A former commander of the disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) has been arrested in Belgium for alleged war crimes committed during the country's war with Serbia in the 1990s, an international court said Tuesday (16 March).

A regrettable result of the EU-Turkey Statement from 2016 is that the model continues to serve to EU member states seeking innovative ways to evade responsibility for refugees, writes Charlotte Slente.

Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Pablo Iglesias triggered a political earthquake earlier this week when he announced his resignation from the post to unite regional forces against the far-right in regional elections in Madrid. EURACTIV's partner EuroEFE reports.

Diplomats from NATO members Greece and Turkey failed to reach a breakthrough on Tuesday (16 March) during a latest round of talks on their standoff over eastern Mediterranean borders and energy rights.

The EU should start spending its €750bn pandemic recovery fund and may need to top it up later, a senior European Central Bank official has said. "It's possible the European support plan proves insufficient, but that debate is premature ... What matters now is that the European funds that have been approved are paid out as quickly as possible," bank board member Isabel Schnabel told the Les Echos newspaper.

Russia interfered in the 2020 US elections to try to help former president Donald Trump win, according to a US intelligence report out Tuesday. "Russia ran a successful intelligence operation that penetrated [Trump's] inner circle" in a campaign which "laundered misinformation into our political system with the intent of denigrating now president [Joe] Biden, damaging his candidacy", the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

China is refusing to let EU diplomats conduct a "meaningful" visit to Xinjiang, while claiming EU sanctions over its Uighur persecution are based on "lies".

Like other European countries, the Czech Republic’s buildings are in need of renovation. Unlike others, it partly funds renovation programmes with revenues generated from the emission trading scheme (ETS), an experiment that could be replicated across the EU.

Britain, the EU, and Norway have reached a three-way deal on how much cod, haddock, plaice, whiting, herring, and saithe each can catch in the North Sea in the wake of Brexit on Tuesday. The pre-deal chaos had hit Danish fishermen the worst. "Danish fishermen will have access to Norwegian waters again ... Now they can actually make money again," Danish Fishermen Organisation Kenn Skau Fischer said, Reuters reports.

French authorities are investigating a new coronavirus mutation that has been detected in eight people in a hospital in Brittany western France, Reuters reported on Tuesday. It is still unclear if the variants may evade some testing, as patients had negative results from PCR tests, which then returned positive from blood samples or those taken from deep in the respiratory system. International agencies have been notified about this new variant.

British prime minister Boris Johnson said on Tuesday the UK will prioritise diplomatic engagement with Asian countries as he unveiled a major shift in the country's foreign policy and defence priorities after Brexit. Johnson wants the UK to become a bigger player in the region, adding that he wanted a balanced approach to China. Johnson will also travel to India next month for his first major international visit since Brexit.

Belgian authorities on Tuesday arrested a Kosovo war crimes suspect, Pjetёr Shala, reports Reuters. Shala has been indicted by prosecutors at a special court in The Hague. The court is probing war crime allegations linked to Kosovo's 1998-1999 war for independence.

Britain will grow its nuclear warhead stockpile by more than 40 percent as it faces new technological threats, prime minister Boris Johnson said, Reuters reports. The country had previously been reducing its nuclear weapons stockpile, with a cap of 180 warheads for the mid-2020 period. Johnson scrapped the limit saying the number would now rise to a maximum of 260.

Covid has cut the number of high-frequency long-haul flight routes out of Europe from 61 to 19, according to data published by air-traffic control agency Euroclear Tuesday. 'High-frequency' routes mean three or more return flights between two airports in the same day. All high-frequency routes between Europe and Africa or South America were wiped out. Some 21 percent of long-haul routes (short or high-frequency) were wiped out entirely.

The European Medicines Agency has said that the benefits of AstraZeneca's vaccine continue to outweigh the risks - suggesting countries can continue using the British-Swedish jab. Several member states have suspended its use over blood-clot concerns.

The Hungarian tax initially imposed a rate of 50 percent of sales on the biggest networks. Critics saw this as an attack on RTL Klub, the country's most-watched commercial broadcaster, and as a way of undermining the free press.