Author: Press Room

A ban on new oil and gas drilling in the Arctic will remain the European Commission’s official position in a revised strategy Brussels is due to unveil, a Commission spokesperson told Euronews, despite fierce pressure from oil-rich Norway to drop the ban. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The revised version of the EU’s 2021 Arctic strategy will be announced on 20 October, as the region gains increasing strategic importance for the bloc’s defence and climate ambitions. “Moving forward, our approach on the moratorium will remain unchanged: our policies have objectives to address climate change and environmental degradation and support sustainable economic development,” the…

Germany’s final state elections of the year have redrawn the political map, with the Left emerging as the strongest force in Berlin and the AfD taking the lead in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The CDU suffered heavy losses in both states, while the SPD made significant gains under state premier Manuela Schwesig. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In Berlin, the latest Infratest dimap projection puts the Left on around 25.3% of the vote. The CDU comes second with 19.1%, followed by the AfD and the Greens. The SPD has fallen further behind, while the BSW narrowly clears the threshold for parliament. The result means the…

Exit polls showed Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s party suffering heavy losses in two German state elections on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Merz’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union is projected to fall to 5.5% in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a largely rural state in Germany’s formerly communist east. That would be its worst result there since World War II. In Berlin, the CDU is projected to finish second with 20% of the vote, trailing the Left Party at 24.5%, according to an exit poll by the public broadcaster ARD. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) made significant gains in Sunday’s regional elections. The vote came two weeks…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 21:12 GMT+2 French President Emmanuel Macron declared that France and Canada are “two great independent nations who want to stay that way” during a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The bilateral summit—held in the French territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, located just off Canada’s Atlantic coast—comes against the backdrop of increasingly strained relations between the two nations and the United States. Carney stated that the time had come to significantly strengthen ties with France and the European Union. His comments follow a high-profile visit to Brussels and…

The Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni has announced that a bill focused on schools is about to be put before the Council of Ministers, with the aim of introducing bans on wearing burqas and niqabs in the classroom and imposing a limit on the number of foreign students in each class. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The ban on covering one’s face in public places has previously been introduced in several European countries, including France and Belgium, and more recently, it has also been applied in Austrian schools. In other countries, such as Spain and Poland, freedom of conscience and religion is protected…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 11:16 GMT+2•Updated 11:27 French President Emmanuel Macron hailed France’s relationship with Canada during a trip to Saint Pierre and Miquelon this weekend. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Macron is visiting the French overseas collectivity from 19 to 21 September and is due to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney there on Sunday. Speaking to reporters from the archipelago, which sits just off the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Macron said the goal of the visit was to help the territory “turn a new page” and gently pushed back on suggestions that the trip was intended to make…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 13:43 GMT+2 Germans are heading to the polls on Sunday in two state elections that could prove decisive for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s future. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In Berlin, Merz’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) is facing a close fight against Die Linke, which has strong support among young people and has pledged measures to tackle the housing crisis. In the coastal state of Mecklenburg–Western Pomerania in northeastern Germany, the main race is between the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the hard-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD). The AfD comes into Sunday’s vote fresh off the back of…

Published on 20/09/2026 – 12:34 GMT+2 Ukrainian forces launched their “largest-scale attack” on Moscow since the war in Ukraine began, the city’s mayor said on Sunday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a post on Telegram, Sergey Sobyanin reported that Russian air defences had shot down more than 1,600 drones across the country since Saturday, 450 of which he said had been heading towards the capital. “Several drones reached the territory of the Moscow refinery, and one struck a residential building. There were no fatalities,” he wrote. Moscow Oblast governor Andrey Vorobyov said two people had been killed in attacks across the wider…

Welcome back to this newsletter, written en route from Strasbourg to Brussels, after a week of parliamentary coverage. In case you missed it, Mark Carney stole the show and Canada is our new associate BFF, whatever that means. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT It’s easy to be cynical about the Canadian Prime Minister, but anyone who makes an intellectual effort citing Goethe on a Thursday morning gets my attention amid the sea of poor orators that populate the annual State of the Union (the EU’s, to be clear). Carney chose his references deliberately, reaching for Faust right off the bat. One can only…

Published on 19/09/2026 – 21:04 GMT+2 Dutch riot police clashed on Saturday with around 500 far-right protesters in the centre of The Hague, using baton charges, specialist dogs, and water cannon to disperse the crowd after violence erupted. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Demonstrators pelted officers with fireworks and other projectiles, shouted anti-semitic chants, and performed Nazi salutes during the “We Are The People” rally, which was organised to protest government policies on immigration and asylum. “We’re losing our country. We’re literally losing our country to mass migration,” 31-year-old mechanic Thijs Jansen told news agencies at the scene. Protesters had intended to march…