European Union

A report from NGO Oxfam and the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) found that people who seek protection in Greece are regularly denied access to a "fair and efficient asylum process" due to a lack of lawyers and access to information in the overcrowded camps on the Greek islands. "The Greek government is weakening fundamental safeguards of the reception and asylum systems," said Maria Papamina from GCR.

The Arctic future conference kicked off with optimistic presentations by ministers and officials of the Russian government — but also a burst of scepticism from representatives of those actually living in Russia's Arctic and Far East regions.

As Ursula von der Leyen prepares to make Ethiopia her first overseas visit, MEPs Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, Norbert Neuser and Carlos Zorrinho explain why the new Commission president must reach out to Europe's African allies.

EU leaders will try to agree on the 2050 emission-free target - but they will deeply disagree on EU spending over the next seven years. Meanwhile the UK will elect its new political leadership.

A new report of a Nato-accredited group concludes that social media companies like Facebook and YouTube are "the new frontier for antagonists seeking to influence elections, polarise public opinion, and side-track legitimate political discussions." These companies fail to stop fake accounts, content, likes, and followers that might influence public opinion. "The manipulation industry is growing year-by-year [and] self-regulation is not working," the report states.

To honour the legacy of late Erasmus "father" Domenico Lenarduzzi, who passed away on Tuesday (3 December), EURACTIV is reposting an interview with him that was originally published on 22 September 2011.

Turkey condemned on Friday Greece expelling its Libyan ambassador, following a dispute over an agreement signed between Libya and Turkey on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean. The Greek PM, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, believes that "the deal will collapse" because it has no legal merits. "Expelling an ambassador just because of the [agreement] that we signed is not a mature behaviour in diplomacy. This is outrageous," said Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The new incoming co-leader of the of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Saskia Esken, said on Friday that she was sceptical about the future of their ruling coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, Reuters writes. "I was and I am sceptical about the future of this grand coalition. But with this resolution, we give the coalition a realistic chance of continuing - not more, not less," she told SPD delegates.

In November 2018, the European Commission presented its Digital Strategy, where it set the vision to become a ‘digitally transformed, user-focused and data-driven administration by 2022’.

Just when the European Union needs to act as one to prevent major powers from fomenting division, EU institutions and member states seem to lack the political will to set aside their disagreements and focus on the common interest, write Steven Blockmans, Loes Debuysere and Stefani Weiss.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will be in Ethiopia on Saturday in her first visit outside the EU as president of the institution. "My visit is a political statement. The African Union is a partner on which the European Union counts. Together we will continue to work on joint interests and common objectives, in the spirit of a true partnership of equals," she said in a statement.

More than 5,500 scientists and academics on Friday called on the EU Commission to enforce the European Water Framework Directive, ensuring Europe has "healthy and resilient freshwater bodies to support people and nature, today and in the future". About 60 percent of surface water in the EU is currently not in a good state. "There cannot be an effective European Green Deal without healthy water ecosystems," the statement concludes.

Whether €5 billion or €35 billion, the EU’s upcoming Just Transition Fund alone is unlikely to be enough to pay for the energy transition of Europe’s remaining coal countries. Nor is it necessary, argue Pieter de Pous and Rebekka Popp.

With thousands of fans travelling to matches and giant stadiums being built, football has a considerable climate impact. Some clubs are increasingly aware of this and try to limit their carbon emissions. A club from the small city of Mainz has been leading the movement for a decade.

Alternative fuels are the long-term solution to reduce emissions from aviation, but incentives are needed to scale them up, an official from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) told EURACTIV.com.

A trend has emerged over the past few months where desperate people are paying to get locked up in Libyan detention centres to escape the conflict and with the hope they stand a better chance of getting resettled to Europe.

Iran was "determined to resolutely continue its activities related to ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles" in violation of a UN resolution related to a 2015 nuclear non-proliferation deal, its UN envoy, Majid Takhte Ravanchi, has said in an open letter. Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the EU had shown "incompetence in fulfilling [the] bare minimum" of its side of the nuclear pact after the US abandoned it.

The European Committee of the Regions has approved a resolution that supports a bigger budget for a far-reaching Green Deal. Karl-Heinz Lambertz, president of the committee, said: "The Finnish EU Presidency budget proposal is not enough to respond to the climate emergency – we need 1.3 percent of the EU-27's GNI and a clear plan on where the new funds for the Green Deal will come from."

Bosnia has finalised the three-year overhaul of a heavily-polluting power plant, the Ugljevik coal facility, which used to emit 60 times more the amount of suffer dioxide, a poisonous gas, than is normally allowed in the EU. The €80m renovation was financed by a Japanese investor and designed to meet EU demands, but a recent French veto on further enlargement has rocked confidence in Europe's commitment to the region.

EU finance ministers said on Thursday aviation could be a sector which needed to "update provisions" on taxation to fall in line with climate goals. Airlines currently pay no fuel taxes in Europe in a move which saves the industry €27bn a year, according to one NGO, and which has helped to boost cheap air travel and related emissions. Sea transport has a similar tax waiver in the EU.