Author: Press Room
Published on 31/12/2025 – 7:00 GMT+1 Starting on 1 January 2026, Bulgaria will replace the lev with the euro as its national currency. The Balkan country of 6.5 million people joined the EU in 2007 and formally began the process of joining the Eurozone in 2018. It now respects the four Maastricht criteria to join the currency bloc: price stability, with an inflation rate of 2.7% in 2024, sound public finances, with public debt and deficit levels of 24% and 3% of GDP in 2024, exchange rate stability and long-term interest rates stability. In 2024, Bulgaria was the poorest EU…
EU residents took holidays in other EU countries for almost a week long in 2024, with Greece and Romania recording the longest stays by visitors, according to the latest Eurostat data. Both countries surpassed the EU mean with around nine nights on average. By contrast, Estonia and Belgium were the destinations where tourists spent the shortest stays, with 3.1 and 3.6 nights, respectively. These differences in trip duration across the European Union are often linked to transportation accessibility and proximity to other countries. For instance, the price and distance to reach Greece, Spain, or Cyprus, along with their popularity as…
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen insisted Ukraine’s accession to the European Union is a key component of the country’s future security guarantees after holding talks with European leaders to debrief peace talks on Tuesday. Von der Leyen said that accession to the 27-member bloc, which Ukraine aspires to join, represents “a key security guarantee in its own right,” in a social media post following a call within the Berlin Format, which includes the leaders of Germany, France, and Poland, among others. “Ultimately, the prosperity of a free Ukrainian state lies in the accession to the EU,” she said.…
Published on 30/12/2025 – 8:00 GMT+1 •Updated 9:10 European affairs and EU policy affect daily life all over the continent, but they can feel far away for many European citizens. The decisions that are made in Brussels impact energy prices, data protection, border rules, and how Europe handles crises – amongst many other key things. Still, many people find EU politics hard to follow. The language is technical, the processes are complicated, and the decisions often seem disconnected from everyday life. With a team of expert reporters and using AI, Euronews’ newest project, EU.XL addresses this disconnect and becomes the…
The European Commission must play a key role in ensuring fair competition among EU countries as they upgrade their power grid infrastructure to keep prices stable, Portuguese Energy and Environment Minister Maria da Graça Carvalho told Euronews. The Portuguese minister, who notably led political talks on the electricity market law, said that ensuring a level playing field will be “essential” to lowering electricity prices evenly across the EU. If electricity becomes much cheaper through artificial means in one country, it will inevitably impact the others and put their industries at risk of unfair competition, according to Carvalho. The Commission’s duty…
In 2025, the first shock came from Washington. But it wasn’t the only one. The world’s largest economy abruptly turned inward, rolling out a nationalist trade agenda and sweeping tariffs on partners worldwide. Trade flows were forced to reroute – many of them towards Europe. At the same time, as tensions between the US and China escalated, Beijing began weaponising global dependence on rare earths, which are essential for Europe’s tech sector. Then, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned against the effects of a “second China shock,” referring to the dramatic increase of Chinese exports and industrial overproduction…
By Euronews Published on 26/12/2025 – 14:42 GMT+1 NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte rejected proposals for independent European security structures, insisting the EU does not need to break from the US on defence matters despite calls from senior European politicians. Manfred Weber, head of the conservative EPP party and its European Parliament group, had called for deploying European troops under EU command to secure peace in Ukraine. “I wish that soldiers with the European flag on their uniforms, together with our Ukrainian friends, would ensure peace,” Weber told German media outlet Funke. Rutte disagreed with the proposal in an interview with…
By Méabh Mc Mahon & Alice Carnevali Published on 26/12/2025 – 8:00 GMT+1 2025 is coming to an end, and among the major developments that made international headlines was the turbulent relationship between the European Union (EU) and the United States (US). Together with Euronews’ Brussels correspondent and US expert Stefan Grobe, Brussels, My Love? tries to make sense of what happened between the EU and the US in the last year, looking ahead to 2026. What happened in 2025? 2025 started with Donald Trump entering his second term as US President. His administration brought significant changes to global politics, including gradually cutting…
The US State Department on Tuesday imposed visa bans on a former European Union commissioner and four others, accusing them of forcing American social media platforms to censor users and their viewpoints. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans “have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetise, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose”. “These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies,” Rubio said in a statement. Rubio did not initially name those targeted, but US…
The real summit started the night before European leaders descended at the Europa building last Thursday for their final gathering of the year. As it often is the case in Brussels, the ordre du jour was only indicative, and the real business was done on the sidelines. On the table was an innovative plan to issue a reparations loan for Kyiv based on immobilised Russian assets held mostly in Belgium. It was an option preferred by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen; the resistance from the Belgian Prime Minister Bart…