European Union

The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is not exempt from European Union rules that require the owners of pipelines to be different from the suppliers of the gas that flows in them to ensure fair competition, a German court ruled.

EU antitrust regulators will decide on 7 January 2022 whether to clear Facebook's purchase of US customer service startup Kustomer, a European Commission filing showed on Wednesday (25 August), extending the deadline for a second time after Facebook asked for more time.

The European Commission has amended the EU's feed ban regulation to authorise the use of processed animal proteins derived from insects in poultry and pig feed, hoping to help create a "more sustainable feed chain", in line with its flagship food policy.

Denmark and Costa Rica are trying to forge an alliance of countries willing to fix a date to phase out oil and gas production and to stop giving permits for new exploration, government ministers said and documents showed.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Wednesday (25 August) that wildfires that ripped through the outskirts of Athens and other parts of Greece this month underlined the need for radical shifts in behaviour to tackle global warming.

Net zero pledges have grown in popularity in the last few years, but there is a worrying over-reliance on carbon removals without enough clarification on how they are used, experts have warned ahead of the COP26 UN climate summit in November.

In Europe's key election this year, Germany chooses a new parliament - and Angela Merkel's successor - on 26 September. Who will get to lead the continent's biggest economy? Will the Greens with Annalena Baerbock have the edge over Armin Laschet's conservative CDU/CSU? Or will the Social Democrat SPD be the dark horse of these polls?

The EU and the US have sounded the alarm over the recent deployment of troops from Eritrea to the Ethiopian region of Tigray, where nine months of war have killed thousands of people and unleashed an increasingly serious humanitarian crisis, Reuters reports. Forces from the Ethiopian Tigray rebels recaptured much of the territory in June. But the new Eritrean deployments raises the prospect of an escalation in fighting.

"Hungary is and will remain a member of the European Union," Hungarian foreign minister Péter Szijjártó told a news conference on Tuesday in response to a reporter's question, Reuters reports. The European Union can be strong if it is built on strong member states, Szijjártó also said after meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

British tourists face difficulties in proving their vaccine status in Europe following a delay in linking the British National Health Service's (NHS) Covid pass to the EU's system due to gaps in the British government's application to Brussels, The Guardian writes. While at least 19 EU countries, including France and Spain, have unilaterally accepted the NHS app as proof of vaccine status, difficulties remain due to lack of pan-EU recognition.

Europe's medicines regulator has approved additional manufacturing sites for mRNA-based coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to help boost production amid a resurgence in infections, Reuters reports. The European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam said on Tuesday its human medicines committee had approved a site at Saint Remy sur Avre in France for making the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, Comirnaty.

Ukraine claims Germany did a deal with Russia on Afghan refugees to snub its recent Crimea summit, but EU diplomats find it hard to believe.

The world's biggest shipping company, Maersk, is investing €1.2 billion to speed up its switch to carbon-neutral operations, ordering eight container vessels that can be fuelled by green methanol as well as traditional bunker fuel, The Guardian writes. The Danish shipping business said the investment in new vessels would be saving more than 1m tonnes of carbon emissions a year by replacing older fossil fuel-driven ships.

Crises disproportionally affect girls and women because of their gender. Afghanistan is no different. The EU must ensure that feminism is at the core of its external policy.

Western allies hope that the leverage of not recognising the Taliban, which would mean withholding funds, would be enough to tame the extremist group that took over Afghanistan after 20 years of Nato and US involvement.

The UN and the EU expressed concern Tuesday (24 August) over a spate of arrests of activists by Palestinian security forces, as the death of a leading activist in custody sparked persistent protests.

After announcing plans to operate a small carbon-neutral vessel by 2023, Danish shipping giant AP Moller-Maersk has ordered eight large ocean-going container vessels capable of running on 'green' e-methanol.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR and rights groups urged Poland to offer medical and legal support and shelter to migrants camping on the border with Belarus, a day after Warsaw said it would build a fence to prevent migrants crossing.

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Tuesday (24 August) criticised a decision by Greek Cypriot rivals to rescind his passport, saying the move was designed to undermine his community.

Germany's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) have pulled ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives for the first time in 15 years, according to an opinion poll published on Tuesday (24 August), just a month before the country's federal election.