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Welcome to Euractiv’s Tech Brief, your weekly update on all things digital in the EU.

US President Joe Biden said Israel's military response in Gaza was "over the top" and that he was seeking a sustained pause in fighting as diplomats sought to salvage ceasefire talks after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a Hamas proposal.

A top US Department of Energy (DOE) official on Thursday (8 February) defended President Joe Biden's pause on approvals of liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports at a Senate hearing called by a fellow Democrat who said he will investigate the decision.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Bulgaria's Constitutional Court rejecting the far-right's referendum plans about the eurozone, Czechia saying it will abstain in the upcoming Migration Pact vote, and so much more.

Scientists in Britain announced Thursday (8 February) they had smashed a record for generating fusion energy in the final experiment using the Joint European Torus (JET) machines.

Senior Nordic and Baltic lawmakers visiting Washington on Thursday (8 February) expressed alarm at what they called a lack of urgency and a clear strategy by the US to help Ukraine defeat Moscow's invasion.

Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti again called on Serbian President Aleksander Vucic to sign the EU-mediated Brussels agreement during a face-off at the UN Security Council on Thursday, but Vucic refused and was scolded by the council president for interrupting and shouting in the assembly.

“When we give vast amounts of taxpayers’ money to private industry, we should be ensuring they are creating quality jobs that make this collective investment worthwhile."

The European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for an independent international investigation into election irregularities in Serbia, with reactions in Serbia spanning between criticism and suggestions that the EU is actually keen to see democratic processes at work in Serbia.

With Klaus Landefeld, Vice Chairman of the Management Board at the Association of the Internet Industry (eco), we discuss the outcome of the AI Act and its implications for Germany. One point of discussion is real-time biometric surveillance, which was previously excluded by the federal government in its coalition agreement.

The Slovak minister of Agriculture Richard Takáč wants the constitution to require retailers to stock a minimum proportion of Slovak food on their shelves, in spite of the precedents of the Czech Republic and Romania which were forced to abandon similar efforts due to the lawsuit threats from the European Commission.

Vladimir Putin said in an interview aired on Thursday (8 February) that Russia will fight for its interests "to the end" but has no interest in expanding its war in Ukraine to other countries such as Poland and Latvia.

Romania has allowed the deployment of the high-readiness NATO rapid deployment forces on Romanian territory this year, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis informed parliament in a letter sent on Wednesday evening.

Bulgaria's Constitutional Court rejected the far-right initiative on Thursday to hold a referendum to delay the country's accession to the eurozone for at least twenty years.

After more than two months of obstructions and eight rounds of weekly protests across Slovak cities, the Criminal Code reform of Robert Fico’s government, which means dissolving the Special Prosecutor’s Office, reducing penalties and weakening whistleblower protection, has passed.

A delegation from the Council of Europe's Venice Commission arrived in Madrid on Thursday to discuss details of the controversial amnesty law that would pardon Catalonian separatists involved in the unsuccessful and illegal 2017 independence bid, which Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez promised to push through in exchange for separatist votes in parliament.

Poland is unlikely to back the European Union’s new climate target of cutting CO2 emissions by 90% by 2040, citing the economic and social risks that come with speeding up the green transitions, Polish media reported.

In an interview with Lusa, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency's office, Ihor Zhovkva, recalled that last summer, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa promised to "promote good contacts" between his Brazilian counterpart Lula da Silva and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Jean-Noël Barrot, tech minister since July 2022, was appointed as new EU minister in the final stretch of the French government reshuffle late on Thursday.

Relations between the European Parliament’s far-right ID group and the right-wing European People’s Party (EPP) seem to have cooled following the new addition of Eric Zemmour’s far-right party Reconquête!, with relations expected to cool even further if and when Orban’s Fidesz joins.