European Union

German chancellor Angela Merkel hosts on Tuesday talks with French president Emmanuel Macron in preparation for next week's EU summit. They need to table new European migration policies to fend of domestic political pressure on Merkel. The two leaders of Europe's biggest economies will also seek to thrash out a compromise between Macron's vision for a common eurozone budget and Germany's more cautious financial stance.

British MPs will vote again on Wednesday on how much of a say they should have if there is no final agreement with the EU when Britain leaves the bloc in March 2019. A large 354 to 235 majority in the upper chamber House of Lords approved on Monday an amendment giving the MPs a "meaningful vote" even if the government fails to reach a Brexit deal.

Italian interior minister and far-right leader, Matteo Salvini, said on Monday that his ministry is preparing a register of Roma people in Italy to see "who, and how many" there are. "We'll have a register," he told TV station TeleLombardia. The registry would provide an overview of the situation of Roma camps, and Roma people who do not have the legal right to be in Italy would be deported.

Slovenian prime minister Miro Cerar announced on Monday that the government will take neighbouring Croatia to court because it is unwilling to implement a ruling handed down by a Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague last summer over the route of the 670km border between the two EU countries. 

Croatia's EU accession in 2013 was, at the time, made conditional on its acceptance of international arbitration.

Many forces wish to undermine Georgia’s democratic development, and this is why the EU engagement and cooperation must be much more active, writes Gunnar Hökmar.

The prospect of securing major private-sector investments could offer Iran an incentive to uphold its side of the nuclear agreement despite Washington’s withdrawal. Laura von Daniels argues that a private German Iran Bank could do the trick. Dr. Laura von...

The European Commission’s much-awaited communication on the environmental impact of pharmaceuticals is at an “advanced stage” but might not be adopted in the near future because of other legislative initiatives on the agenda, an EU official has told EURACTIV.com.

Romania's lower house of parliament on Monday night (18 June) approved amendments to the country's criminal procedure, which critics and the centrist opposition say would weaken prosecutors' powers to probe high level corruption.

Italy's new government plans to carry out a census of the Roma community with an eye to kicking out anyone staying in the country illegally, Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said yesterday (18 June).

The Baltic Sea is almost an inland European lake - it borders Norway, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Kaliningrad and Russia. It also has an EU strategy - and an action plan.

Czech billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babiš yesterday (18 June) rejected the European Commission's multi-year draft budget as "completely unacceptable", lashing out at spending priorities imposed by Brussels.

The EU and China have to live up to their responsibilities on climate change and use every opportunity to support the Western Balkans and Turkey to move beyond coal. This means renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, not new coal, argue Elif Gündüzyeli and Igor Kalaba.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday (18 June) she wanted to support Italy in its efforts to reduce the number of migrants arriving on its shores, possibly handling asylum requests for Europe in non-European countries including Libya.

Leaders of South American trade bloc Mercosur pushed for trade deals with Asian and other Western Hemisphere countries during a summit on Monday (18 June), as roadblocks remained in talks with the EU despite optimism earlier this year.

Any country resisting an EU-wide objective to reduce emissions to net-zero by mid-century is essentially “in the same camp as Mr. Trump” when it comes to climate change, says Claude Turmes, the lead European Parliament negotiator on the Energy Union governance proposal.

The CO2 emissions reductions achieved by plastic recycling is very costly when compared to alternatives like wind energy and solar PV, while much energy can be extracted from burning plastic waste, argue Raymond Gradus and Henriëtte Prast.

Almost half of the 630 migrants that were rescued from the Mediterranean and arrived in Spain's port of Valencia at the weekend want to seek asylum in France, the Spanish government said yesterday (18 June).

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Bavarian allies agreed to give her two weeks' breathing space yesterday (18 June) to find a European solution to a row over immigration that threatens to scupper her three-month-old coalition government.

Enough tears have been shed, egos and emotions shaken and obituaries written about the transatlantic relationship. It is time to move on. So wipe the tears, stop the whining and turn over a new page. The US has embarked on a new journey, and the EU should do the same, writes Shada Islam.

Council conclusions on the EU medium-term priorities for the FAO