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Voters could propel a leader into a fifth decade in power or back a change candidate.

A project in South Africa is putting radioactive material in rhino horns to make it harder to smuggle them over borders.

The annual visit to 4-5 African countries has become traditional – but each year it’s still accompanied by concrete objectives.

It's one of the most consequential questions in the world today – and no one really knows the answer.

Written by Sarah Sheil.

What are the challenges and issues that the European Union will have to take on in 2026? For ten years now, the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) has asked its policy analysts to identify ten issues to watch in the year to come. While not exhaustive, the annual outlook produced by the Members’ Research Service seeks to explore some major political debates as well as put the spotlight on issues that are not so well known. Over a challenging and defining decade, the series has tackled themes across the European Parliament’s various fields of competence, from citizens’ policies and structural policies to the economy, digital and climate issues, to budget and international affairs.

Such periodic analysis enables us to better understand today’s opportunities and challenges. When reflecting on issues that have affected the European Union in the past decade, dramatic changes immediately come to mind: the COVID-19 pandemic, the war on Ukraine, and the shift in global power balances. But this annual exercise has also covered long-standing, recurrent issues: addressing climate change, shaping the long-term budget for Europe, monitoring the Union’s weight in global trade, and analysing the changing dynamics of the transatlantic relationship.

This tenth edition comes at a highly turbulent time in geopolitics. The balance of power in the world is shifting, and the rules-based international order now faces greater and more frequent challenges than ever before. The selection of issues for 2026 reflects this heightened focus on external policies. The publication addresses three directly affecting the EU: Ukraine’s integration into the EU, European defence capability gaps, and EU-China relations. These issues interact with other trends and developments with geopolitical consequences, such as the impact on the web of artificial intelligence (AI), the potential of Europe’s startup companies, the tougher stances on irregular migration being taken around the world, including in Europe, and challenges on climate policy and ocean protection – all covered below. All these issues, as well as the ‘normal business’ that is not highlighted in this paper but is the European Union’s daily work in delivering for its citizens, require financial means and governance. So this paper also covers the discussions on shaping Europe’s long-term budget, or multiannual financial framework, for the coming years, as well as lessons drawn from implementing the post-COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Facility.

EPRS provides independent, objective and authoritative information to Members of the European Parliament. As with all EPRS publications, this paper is based on research, robust facts and figures, and informed analysis, with the aim of providing Members with the elements they need to do their work. Readers will find links to the previous editions of this publication listed under the ‘Further reading’ section. Analysis on countless other topics and issues requiring closer, more regular monitoring can be found in the thousands of publications that EPRS has issued over the years, enriching Parliament’s knowledge environment. We hope that this tenth edition of ‘Ten issues to watch’ will provide you with material for reflection as we enter 2026.

Read the complete in-depth analysis on ‘Ten issues to watch in 2026‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

© EPRS 2026

Les quarts de finales démarrent aujourd'hui avec le derby Sénégal-Mali et le choc Maroc-Cameroun. Sept anciens champions sont encore en lice, confirmant la domination des grandes nations africaines sur cette édition.

L'influenceur d'extrême droite Papacito sera jugé le 26 février à Paris pour avoir harcelé en ligne la boxeuse algérienne Imane Khelif. Lors des JO de Paris, elle avait été la cible d'une polémique sur son genre.

By Mario Osava
NITERÓI, Brazil, Jan 9 2026 (IPS)

“We moved from a context of socio-environmental exclusion to one of environmental justice,” said Dionê Castro, coordinator of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program which led Brazil’s largest nature-based solutions project.

Having won national and global awards, the Orla Piratininga Park (POP) built 35,000 square meters of filtering gardens and improved the water quality of the Piratininga lagoon, in the oceanic south of Niterói, a municipality in metropolitan Rio de Janeiro, across the Guanabara Bay.

The project, named after the late Brazilian environmentalist Alfredo Sirkis, began in 2020, and aims to environmentally restore an area of 680,000 square meters on the lagoon’s shores whose waters cover an area of 2.87 square kilometers.

At the heart of the project are the treatment systems for the waters of the Cafubá, Arrozal, and Jacaré rivers, which flow into the lagoon. Sedimentation and pollution were deteriorating the water resource and the quality of life in the surrounding area.

A weir, which receives the river flow, a sedimentation pond, which removes solid waste, and the filtering gardens make up the chain that partially cleans the water before releasing it into the lagoon, reducing environmental impacts, in a process called phytoremediation.

The gardens are small reservoirs where aquatic plants called macrophytes are planted, which feed on the nutrients from the pollution, explained Heloisa Osanai, the biologist specialized in environmental management of the Sustainable Oceanic Region Program (PRO Sustainable).

Three polluted water treatment stations are in the neighborhoods crossed by the rivers, based on natural resources, “without the use of electrical energy, chemicals, or concrete,” explained Castro, the coordinator of PRO Sustainable.

Furthermore, some macrophytes produce abundant flowers. Only native Brazilian species are planted, with priority given to biodiversity, added Osanai.

Along with these water treatment systems, 10.8 kilometers of bike paths, 17 recreation centers, a 2,800-square-meter Eco-Cultural Center, and other environmental works with social goals were built.

The bike path, generally along a pedestrian sidewalk, caters to physical and leisure activities but is also a factor in protecting the lagoon shoreline by blocking urban occupation and real estate invasions, explain the officials.

The area where the water system was built at the mouth of the Cafubá river was highly degraded by an open-air dump and flooding. A reformed “belt channel,” in some sections also reinforced by macrophyte islands, corrected the waterlogging.

On the other side of the lagoon, 3.2 kilometers of bioswales improve the drainage of rainwater. They are trenches with pipes, stones, and other materials, plus vegetation, that accelerate drainage and prevent pollutants from reaching the lagoon.

The main result, according to Castro, reconciled the local population with the lagoon. The old houses that “turned their backs on the lagoon” are joined by new buildings facing the water, some with balconies overlooking the new landscape, said Mariah Bessa, the engineer in charge of hydraulic aspects of the project.

The local population was highly involved in the design and construction of the new environmental and social facilities that transformed the lagoon shoreline. This led to new attitudes, such as not littering on the ground or in the water and preventing others from doing so, according to Castro.

The Ecocultural Center promotes permanent environmental education, with films, children’s games, audiovisual resources, and a large space for visits and classes.

“We moved from a context of socio-environmental exclusion to one of environmental justice,” said the coordinator of PRO Sustainable.

Committee and political groups meetings, Brussels

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Lockheed Martin said it set a record delivering 191 F-35 Lightning II jets in 2025, clearing backlog deliveries in the process, with a global fleet that now counts 1,300 aircraft. Lockheed Martin announced that it has delivered a total of 191 F-35 Lightning II fighter jets in 2025, setting a new record that surpassed the […]

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

BERICHT über die Umsetzung der Gemeinsamen Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik – Jahresbericht 2025
Ausschuss für Sicherheit und Verteidigung
Thijs Reuten

Quelle : © Europäische Union, 2025 - EP

Ayant grandi dans un quartier de Strasbourg, Kadiatou Tapily a longtemps douté de sa place. Avocate et basketteuse depuis 25 ans, elle dirige son propre cabinet et met le droit au service des habitants des quartiers. 

Food solutions were on display everywhere around COP30—from the 80 tonnes of local and agroecological meals served to concrete proposals for tackling hunger—but none of this made it into the negotiating rooms or the final agreement. —Elisabetta Recine, IPES-Food panel expert

A la une de la presse ce vendredi : des gagnants et des perdants, une bonne nouvelle sanitaire et une ferveur.

Credit: WMO/Daniel Pavlinovic / UN News

By Center for International Environmental Law
WASHINGTON, USA, Jan 9 2026 (IPS)

The Trump Administration’s sweeping executive order to withdraw the United States from dozens of United Nations bodies and international organizations, as well as a treaty ratified by the United States with the advice and consent of the US Senate, is a targeted assault on multilateralism, international law, and global institutions critical to safeguarding human rights, peace, and climate justice.

This move, the constitutionality and legal effect of which are questionable, was announced under the guise of protecting US interests, but does exactly the opposite. By divesting from global cooperation on the environment, human rights, democracy, and peace, the US puts its own future, and that of the planet, at greater risk.

The Executive Order represents a deliberate effort to dismantle the international infrastructure designed to uphold dignity, protect children, improve gender and racial equality, advance sustainable development, preserve the oceans, and confront the climate crisis. It undermines bodies that safeguard the global commons and ensure basic protections for marginalized people and those in vulnerable situations around the world, including refugees, women, children, people of African descent, and many others.

Rebecca Brown, President and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) said:

“This executive order is not just a policy shift— it is a direct assault on the multilateral system that has helped prevent conflict, advance human rights, and protect the global commons for nearly eighty years. At a time when rising seas, record heat, and deadly disasters demand urgent, coordinated action, the US government is choosing to retreat.”

“The decision to defund and withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) does not absolve the US of its legal obligations to prevent climate change and remedy climate harm, as the world’s highest court made clear last year. This action is simply a continuation of this Administration’s efforts to prioritize corporate interests over people and planet, and flout the rule of law.

Withdrawing from institutions designed to support global climate action does not change the stark reality of the climate crisis, rebut the irrefutable evidence of its causes, or eliminate the US’s clear responsibility for its consequences. Withdrawal only serves to further isolate the US to the detriment of its own population and billions around the world.”

IPS UN Bureau

 

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Global development policy is a particularly revealing field in which the Trump administration combines crude transactionalism with a high level of ideological commitment, namely an authoritarian libertarianism oriented toward elite interests. This is coupled with, at times, a chaotic absence of tactical or strategic coherence. With Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025, a significant phase in international affairs, including global development policy, began. 
This policy brief traces the evolution of the US approach to development cooperation and exposes how Trump’s approach represents an overtly aggressive assault, delivering a high voltage shockwave to global sustainable development policy, undermining multilateral norms, institutional commitments and long-standing principles of international solidarity. The United States (US) has played a decisive role in the conception and evolution of global development policy since the mid-20th century. From the establishment of the post-Second World War order onward, the US shaped the normative, political and organisational foundations of development cooperation, often setting agendas, defining standards, and providing leadership and personnel for key multilateral institutions. Early reconstruction efforts such as the Marshall Plan and the establishment of the World Bank embedded development within a broader framework of power politics, positioning aid as both a tool of reconstruction and geopolitical influence. Since January 2025, US development cooperation has undergone a dramatic rupture. The administration rapidly withdrew from multilateral institutions, cut budgets, and de facto dissolved USAID, transferring residual functions to the State Department. This shift was accompanied by conspiracy narratives and an explicit rejection of multilateral norms, marking a sharp departure from previous Republican and Democratic approaches alike. The brief conceptualises this shift as the emergence of a “New Washington Dissensus”: a model of transactional, nationalist development cooperation that treats aid as an instrument of power rather than a global public good. Under this paradigm, development engagement is ideologically conditional, hostile to climate and equity agendas, oriented toward migration control, and explicitly transactional. The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy (December 2025) is consistent with this in the sense that it frames an “America First” approach that narrows US priorities to “core, vital national interests” and places strong emphasis on Western Hemisphere pre-eminence via a stated “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. For global development, foreign assistance and development finance are thus instruments of strategic competition and commercial diplomacy. US agencies are mobilised to back US commercial positioning. The consequences are dramatic and systemic. The US retreat has destabilised the global development architecture and intensified geopolitical fragmentation. For many countries in the Global South, this represents a watershed moment, creating both new room for manoeuvre and new dependencies as states pursue multi-alignment strategies amid intensifying great-power rivalry. At the same time, humanitarian impacts are severe. Overall, the brief concludes that development policy has entered a new phase, which is narrower, more instrumental and overtly geopolitical, and is reshaping not only US engagement but the future of global development policy itself.