Euractiv.com

As Romania prepares to hold the rotating EU presidency at the start of 2019, EURACTIV met with Dacian Cioloș. The former prime minister and agriculture Commissioner has just set up a party in Romania similar to Emmanuel Macron's En Marche, with one eye on the European elections.

68.5 million people in the world are displaced due to wars, conflict and persecution - a new high in 2017 for the fifth year in a row, an UNHCR report published on World Refugee Day revealed.

EU negotiators sealed an agreement that will allow non-personal data to move freely across the bloc and ban national laws that require companies to store data within a country’s borders.

A sweeping and controversial copyright reform bill passed through the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) on Wednesday (20 June), but the legislation could still be toppled during a make-or-break vote in the full house’s plenary session next month.

A new EU-UK trade deal will not be concluded before the end of a post-Brexit transition period, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, told UK MPs on Wednesday (20 June).

More than a year after Emmanuel Macron won the presidential elections in France, and following three months of arduous negotiations between Paris and Berlin, the French president finally got his trophy: a specific budget for the eurozone.

A meeting between Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron was meant to foster a breakthrough on possible eurozone reforms. But the declaration brokered on Tuesday (19 June) is full of language that leaves a lot of room for interpretation. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Millions are fleeing war or persecution worldwide. As we commemorate their strength and courage on World Refugee Day, we try to be calm quoting the record high number of 68.5 million displaced people – 3 million higher than the total population of the UK – 25.4 million refugees, 40 million internally displaced and 3.1 million asylum seekers, writes Luca Jahier.

The European Commission will hold an informal working meeting with EU leaders on migration and asylum issues on 24 June in a bid to find a European solution to the refugees crisis at the EU summit on 28 and 29 June.

In theory, the EU policy decision-making process is based on the principal that excellence, independence, accountability and efficiency in science or evidence-based advice should inform political choices.

Europe's reconstruction and development bank is excited about investing in Kazakhstan under the announced third stage of the country’s modernisation, always looking to combine investment with policy reform and technical advice, the head of the bank’s Brussels office said on Tuesday (19 June).

Luxembourg will have to recover about €120 million in unpaid tax from French energy giant Engie, after the European Commission found the Grand Duchy guilty of breaching strict state aid rules.

The Nature4Climate Initiative is officially being launched in Brussels on Wednesday (20 June) by a coalition of conservation organisations, business groups, the UNDP and other major environmental NGOs.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s 2017 address to the nation focused on what he termed a new, third stage of the country’s modernisation. The EU is not only monitoring progress closely, but has an interest to see Kazakhstan as a prosperous, politically-balanced, democratic country in the region.  

Brussels and London have made progress on several technical sections of Brexit negotiations but "serious divergences" remain over the issue of Northern Ireland after a final round of talks ahead of this month's European summit, the EU said Tuesday (19 June).

OECD Secretary-General Ángel Gurría has blamed governments for the rise of populism and political fragmentation across Europe, claiming they also did not deliver benefits that were promised to citizens, he told EURACTIV in an interview.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday (19 June) won German Chancellor Angela Merkel's backing for reforms that are aimed at bolstering the eurozone against crises, including a vaunted budget for the bloc.

The head of the European Parliament's pesticides committee has warned the European Commission about the possible impact on organic wine-growing if the use of copper, a toxic substance according to EFSA and ECHA, is outlawed.

Deep cuts to public finances were not necessarily needed after 2007-2008's financial crisis in order to rebuild the economy, according to British Labour politician Sion Simon, who spoke to EURACTIV Czech Republic's media partner, Aktualne.cz.

The EU is considering setting up "disembarkation platforms" outside the bloc to process migrants, according to draft summit conclusions seen Tuesday (19 June) by AFP, as Brussels tries to solve a political crisis over immigration.