Euractiv.com

EU leaders are next week expected to call for new sanctions targeting Belarus, North Korea, and Iran over their support to Russia's war efforts in Ukraine as the bloc attempts to further crack down on circumvention by third countries

Ukraine pounded targets in Russia on Tuesday (12 March) with dozens of drones and rockets in an attack that inflicted serious damage on a major oil refinery and sought to pierce the land borders of the world's biggest nuclear power with armed proxies.

Germany should return to conscription from 2025, the parliament's armed forces commissioner said on Tuesday (12 March) as the defence ministry is working on a new model inspired by Nordic countries.

Late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's long-time aide Leonid Volkov was assaulted with a hammer in the Lithuanian capitol Vilnius on Tuesday (12 March), former Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh said.

On the latest episode of Euractiv’s Today in the EU, we’re looking into the AI Act vote in Strasbourg - and why the lack of reference to how AI will be used in the defence sector is causing some concern.

Israel was using starvation to wage war in Gaza, with the lack of aid being a "manmade" disaster, the EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell told the UN Security Council on Wednesday (13 March), in one of his strongest remarks since 7 October.

EU member states are set to close a deal on a €5 billion Ukrainian military aid fund, as the United States on Tuesday (12 March) signed off a $300 million stop-gap military aid package for Kyiv.

To achieve the EU's target of having at least 42.5% renewable energy by 2030, with a goal of reaching 45%, a significant boost in wind power capacity is essential. This report examines the wind industry and its transition into 2024.

Although Polish access to novel cancer medicines has improved significantly, Poland still lags many EU countries for availability of innovative therapies, retaining one of the longest waiting periods in Europe between drug registration and reimbursement, according to a new report.

Amid a startling surge in whooping cough cases in Czechia, health experts and officials have raised the alarm over the escalating situation, the Czech State Health Institute describing it as the worst outbreak in a decade.

The European Parliament legal affairs committee (JURI) unanimously decided that Eva Kaili's immunity defence is inadmissible in the context of the Qatargate investigation, because everything was done 'by the book', a note from the parliamentary committee, seen by Euractiv, states.

The European Parliament voted in support of longer and heavier trucks on EU roads on Tuesday (12 March), adopting its position on a new law that will also see the harmonisation of the cross-border movement of these trucks. 

Spanish tax authorities are investigating the partner of Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso for alleged fraud involving false invoices and front companies for the supply of medical equipment during the worst years of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, in what is the latest pandemic-related scandal to hit the country in the past two weeks.

The EU executive published on Tuesday (12 March) a delegated regulation to allow more flexibility to member states when applying one of the 'good agricultural and environmental conditions' (GAECs), the environmental requisites to receive EU subsidies. 

The 2020s have been a great decade for Austrian communists so far. In 2021, a communist became mayor of Graz, the country’s second-largest city, and a year later, a sprouting of the communists won 12% in Salzburg’s state election and might now get a mayor too.

The European wind industry is starting 2024 with new optimism. An uptick in permitting, new investments and auction volumes has brought the EU’s 2030 wind energy target within reach. But there is absolutely no room for complacency.

The European Parliament rubber-stamped a revised version of the EU’s rules on emissions generated by industrial installations, which will extend to more pig and poultry farms, despite efforts from right-wing lawmakers to topple the law during a final vote in Strasbourg on Tuesday (12 March).

In Strasbourg, EU lawmakers adopted the controversial Energy Performance of Buildings Directive with a large majority, putting the law one step away from conclusion.

EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides addressed for the first time the concerns among EU lawmakers and health stakeholders about a planned €1 billion cut in the EU's main funding programme for health, saying a comprehensive assessment was still needed. 

The European Parliament’s Environment Committee (ENVI) on Monday evening (11 March) adopted a draft report on the EU’s first soil law, taking the first step towards healthy soils by 2050 by requiring countries to improve the ecological status of their soils within six to ten years.