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The EU's anti-fraud office Olaf sought to recover €527.4m to the EU budget in 2021, it said in annual report published on Wednesday. "Human health and safety, and the environment, are increasingly collateral damage of fraud schemes," said Olaf's director-general Ville Itälä, in a statement. Olaf's investigations are shared with national authorities. It is then up to national authorities to pursue the cases.

The European Commission launched on Wednesday a €7.25m project to support investigations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) into war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine. The initiative, first announced by the EU executive in early April, is part of the efforts "to fight impunity for international crimes globally," the commission said. The aim is to step up ICC's data storage and processing as well as its forensic capacity.

EU member states and MEPs reached a deal late on Tuesday evening on new rules promoting equality in the boardroom for women, after a 10-year deadlock. The Women on Boards Directive aims to increase gender balance in leadership positions. Under the rules, at least one-third of all board positions should be filled by women by mid-2026, and 40 percent of non-executive director posts should be held by women.

"[The commission's] three commitments must be fulfilled before any payment can be made," EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said as criticism of the EU executive mounts for approving Poland's recovery plan.

MEPs have urged Turkey to refrain from "undue pressure" and to act in "good faith" on Finland and Sweden''s bid to join Nato. "It is important that all Nato allies act with foresight and swiftly ratify the accession protocol," they said in a report passed by 448 votes against 67 Tuesday. They also harangued Turkey over its "authoritarian spiral" under president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who is blocking Nato's Nordic expansion.

EU countries are expected to approve their first quotas for women in charge of companies, in negotiations with MEPs Tuesday, Dutch socialist lawmaker Lara Wolters told Reuters. "It seems we've finally been able to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake," she said. The deal envisages at least 33-percent of executive and non-executive roles in publicly-listed EU firms from 2025 or 2027.

MEPs and EU countries have reached a deal on ensuring minimum wages across the bloc met common criteria, such as providing decent standards of living, but without setting one, Europe-wide, wage figure, the BBC reports. Luxembourg has the highest minimum wage at €13.05/hour while Bulgaria has the lowest on €2.19 and six out of 27 EU states have none. Some 22 EU states failed the new criteria, the Commission said.

In an exchange with the European Parliament on Tuesday, EU vice president Frans Timmermans slammed a proposal by the European People's Party to water down a ban on combustion engines in 2035 that would allow vehicles on roads using hydrogen or low carbon gases. "It is way too expensive," he said. "The car industry has made its choice. They're already on board for electric cars and vans."

Lawyers at front-LEX, a Dutch-based civil society organisation, are threatening legal action against EU border agency Frontex unless it suspends operations in Greece.

EU Commission vice president Frans Timmermans defended the EU's landmark emissions reduction strategy on Tuesday against a parliament that is poised to water down some crucial elements of the plan in a crucial Wednesday vote.

The pushback against abortion is not happening in a vacuum. It is part of a global anti-gender trend, where transnational groups of fundamentalists support and embolden each other's actions. They are funded and active in the EU as well.

As hopes of EU membership fade, southeast Europe is becoming "an enclave of economic distress, social tensions and unresolved conflicts in the middle of Europe", according to experts.

Lawyers for celebrity Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich have offered to personally tell EU officials he's not supporting the war.

A trial of the suspected gunman and the getaway driver involved in last year's killing of Dutch TV crime reporter Peter R. de Vries opened on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The two men could face life in prison if convicted. De Vries was gunned down last July in Amsterdam. The suspected gunman, 22-year-old Delano Geerman, refused to comment and the second suspect, Polish national Kamil Egiert, 36, denied any involvement.

EU countries and MEPs agreed on Tuesday on a single mobile charging port for smartphones, tablets and cameras, forcing Apple to change its iPhone connector sold in the bloc by 2024. By autumn 2024, the USB Type-C will become the common charging port, which in 2018 made up 29 percent of chargers sold with mobiles. EU industry commissioner Thierry Breton said the deal would save around €250m for consumers.

Spain's High Court on Tuesday called the chief executive officer of Israel's software firm NSO Group to testify as a witness in a case over the use of its Pegasus software to spy on Spanish politicians, Reuters reported. The government said Pegasus software was used to spy on ministers, triggering a political crisis in Spain that led to the resignation of its spy chief Paz Esteban last month.

Sweden's Social Democrat minority government looked set to survive a no-confidence vote on Tuesday, after independent politician of Iranian-Kurdish descent, Amineh Kakabaveh, decided to abstain. Prime minister Magdalena Andersson had said her government would resign if justice minister Morgan Johansson was voted out. Applications from Sweden and Finland to join Nato are currently held up by Turkey, angered by Sweden's stance toward the Kurdish question.

Campaigners have launched legal action against the European Commission for including 30 gas projects in a list of priority energy infrastructure projects

How did the ultranationalist Brothers of Italy party and its blonde founder, Giorgia Meloni, come to be players in Italian top politics in just 10 years?

German taxpayers would pay €5bn a year extra for gas after Germany sanctioned Russian subsidiary Gazprom Germania, according to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper citing industry sources. Germany put the Russian firm under trustee management due to the Ukraine war. The move prompted Russia to cut supplies, forcing Germany to buy extra volumes of gas on the more expensive spot market instead.