Author: Press Room

Montenegro is the frontrunner to join the European Union. But officials, diplomats and experts fear Belgrade will do everything it can to prevent that from happening, leaving Brussels in a difficult position between the two candidate countries. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT While Montenegro closes in on the finish line, Serbia’s accession bid looks dead in the water: Belgrade has yet to open all negotiation clusters with the EU, and eight member states blocked its latest attempt last month. “We see some actions by the [Serbian] government and opposition parties that complicate the internal situation in Montenegro,” MEP Tonino Picula (Croatia/S&D) told journalists…

Published on 01/09/2026 – 8:57 GMT+2•Updated 9:07 Munich, long known for the Oktoberfest and Bayern Munich, is fast becoming one of Europe’s leading centres for defence technology, as young firms building AI-powered drones and military software cluster around the Bavarian capital. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The boom is underpinned by a dramatic rise in German government spending. Germany’s federal budget for 2026 allocates roughly €82.7 billion to defence, an increase of about €29.4 billion on the previous fiscal plan, with troop numbers set to rise by up to 10,000. Including an off-budget special fund created to modernise the armed forces, total defence…

Migration is taking center stage again in the European Union, as Brussels returns to work after a summer marked by the major crisis of recent years. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Over 70,000 irregular migrants entered the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in a single day on 30 July, more than all other irregular entries across all European borders so far in 2026, sparking a political crisis in Spain and putting other member states on alert. The Ceuta crisis increased pressure on the EU to implement its strategy to tighten the rules for asylum seekers and speed up returns, but it also highlighted the…

Published on 01/09/2026 – 7:00 GMT+2 Brussels has built one of the world’s densest regulatory frameworks for digital technologies. For experts, it is high time to centralise enforcement under a single European agency to overcome the fragmentation now holding it back. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The EU’s digital rulebook spans more than 171 laws and 315 regulatory bodies — an unwieldy structure that has opened up a significant enforcement gap, leaving the bloc structurally unable to uphold its own rules. That is the conclusion of a paper authored by Kai Zenner, head of office of MEP Axel Voss (Germany/EPP), and Maria Koomen,…

Published on 31/08/2026 – 11:08 GMT+2•Updated 11:57 On 29 August, 52.8 percent of Icelanders voted “No” in a referendum on resuming membership talks to join the European Union. The EU had already opened accession negotiations in 2010, but Reykjavik dropped them in 2013 following a change of government. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT For the EU, Iceland’s membership was about whether the EU could still attract a wealthy, stable democracy that chooses to join for reasons beyond seeking financial and economic stability. With Russia’s war destabilising Europe, weakening ties with Washington, and the conflict in the Middle East, the EU views enlargement as…

Russian forces relentlessly battered Kyiv and cities in the region around the Ukrainian capital for a fifth straight day on Monday, leaving some supermarket shelves bare after repeated strikes on warehouses as Ukraine reels from attacks with jet-powered drones. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Russia has intensified its aerial attacks in recent months, more than four years after it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Almost constant air raid alerts in the Kyiv region in recent days have severely disrupted daily routines. Two major attacks in July killed almost 50 civilians and a strike on Saturday killed at least 38 people. Meanwhile,…

A 43-year-old Swiss man was arrested on Monday on “strong suspicion” of being behind a rare deadly gun attack at a rave in Switzerland. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Gunfire erupted in the early hours of Sunday morning as an annual rave was winding down at the racecourse in Aarau, capital of Switzerland’s northern Aargau canton. The attack triggered an international manhunt for the shooter, who left an Italian woman dead and wounded five others, some seriously. “A 43-year-old Swiss man was apprehended shortly before 1:00 am Monday,” Aargau police said in a statement. “The man was subsequently arrested on strong suspicion of…

Published on 31/08/2026 – 15:10 GMT+2 EU forces intercepted and boarded a suspected Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the Mediterranean on Sunday, according to the bloc’s top diplomat. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a post on X, Kaja Kallas said troops from the EU’s Operation Irini boarded the MV Sun tanker for “flag verification,” following suspicions that the vessel was sailing under a false flag in breach of international maritime law. “Illegal oil sales from shadow fleet ships are a critical lifeline for Russia’s war in Ukraine, and we’ll continue to cut them off,” she wrote, adding that it was the…

Brussels had hoped it could attract wealthier nations into its orbit by positioning itself as a pillar of defence and security in an increasingly volatile geopolitical landscape. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Icelandic voters proved it wrong. After the Icelandic government announced a referendum on whether to resume negotiations for joining the bloc, EU officials hailed the move as a sign the Union was shifting from being seen purely as a market to a fully fledged political actor. As a result, security considerations were expected to override the historic reluctance of wealthier Nordic nations to join the Union. “In a world where we…

Published on 31/08/2026 – 17:12 GMT+2•Updated 17:19 Germany and France have floated a joint plan to bring High Representative Kaja Kallas under the direct supervision of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as part of an overhaul of the European Union’s foreign policy. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The plan is set to be discussed on Wednesday during an informal meeting of EU foreign ministers in Wicklow, Ireland. Kallas will chair the session. The Franco-German project aims to address one of the bloc’s most persistent weaknesses in external action: institutional cacophony. Under the complex design of the Treaty of Lisbon, the High…