Author: Press Room
Good morning from Brussels. I’m Mared Gwyn. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT We start with a major development in Ukraine’s bid to join the European Union. Hungary last night lifted its two-year-long veto on Kyiv’s accession talks after Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced a deal on the rights of the Hungarian-speaking minority in Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region – an issue at the heart of the previous Orbán-led government’s staunch opposition to the talks. “We have reached a comprehensive agreement with Ukraine on the expansion of the linguistic, educational, cultural and political rights of the 100,000-strong Hungarian minority,” Magyar said on Wednesday in a Facebook…
Ambassadors in Brussels had been in the room for almost 12 hours straight. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The list of topics seemed endless – competitiveness, defence, migration, climate action, the conflict in the Middle East and even a tobacco taxation directive – and diplomats were beginning to feel the strain. Then, just as the meeting was drawing to a close, a new item was added to the agenda. Cyprus, the country that currently holds the EU Council’s rotating presidency, had received the signal it had spent days anxiously waiting for: Hungary was ready to lift its controversial veto on Ukraine’s accession. This…
Solar systems generate 13.4 percent of EU electricity and are a cornerstone of the European energy grid. Solar inverters are the brains behind these systems, converting the direct current generated by panels into the alternating current used by homes and businesses. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Although 61 percent of solar inverters imported into the EU come directly from China, the European Commission is now banning financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development from financing projects that use Chinese components. The measure applies only to projects in development and future installations, and stems…
A coalition of nine EU member states, plus Iceland and Norway, is stepping up pressure to tighten visa conditions for Russian tourists as the summer holiday season approaches. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The initiative was led by Sweden, with the support of Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland. All 11 countries signed a joint letter earlier this week addressed to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and Internal Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner. “What I want to accomplish is very clear. I want there to be no more shopping weekends. I want no more fancy trips to Europe while…
By Laura Fleischmann Published on 04/06/2026 – 15:19 GMT+2 The number of naturalisations in Germany has risen to a new record high, with 332,500 people acquiring German citizenship in 2025. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Compared with the previous year, that marks an increase of 14 percent, according to the Federal Statistical Office. The largest group, at 20 percent, were Syrians. However, almost 20,000 fewer Syrians naturalised than in 2024. In second place came Turks, with 10 percent of all naturalisations, followed by Russians with 6 percent. Naturalisation among Bosnian (+126 percent to 8,800), US (+100 percent to 6,600) and Albanian (+97 percent to…
By Méabh Mc Mahon & Aaron Casey Published on 04/06/2026 – 10:50 GMT+2•Updated 11:26 In the wake of Israel and Lebanon’s ceasefire agreement, Lebanon’s Culture Minister Ghassane Salamé told Euronews’ flagship morning show Europe Today that he hopes it will be more “genuine” than the previous one, which he said, “was not even a truce”. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “The agreement is still fresh, so it’s probably too early to decide how serious it is probably too early to decide how serious it is,” Salamé said. But, he added, it was “not very helpful” that some Israeli cabinet ministers had already rejected the agreement. Nonetheless,…
Two men have been charged following violent protests over the murder of teenager Henry Nowak in the UK. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Hundreds of protesters clashed with Police on Tuesday in the port city of Southampton, hurling bricks and bins as they chanted “Henry, Henry”. Hampshire Police said 11 officers and one police dog were injured in the violence, which broke out after bodycam footage of Nowak’s final moments was publicly released. Nowak, 18, was returning home from a night out with friends in December when he was attacked and stabbed multiple times by Vickrum Digwa, a 23-year-old Sikh man. Digwa was…
Cyprus and Kazakhstan signed five cooperation agreements and pledged to deepen economic ties during the first official visit by a Cypriot president to Kazakhstan, as the two countries opened embassies simultaneously in Astana and Nicosia. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev welcomed his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides in Astana, where they held bilateral talks followed by discussions with government delegations from both countries. The meeting produced memoranda of understanding covering higher education and research, culture, sport, information and communication technologies, cybersecurity and e-government, as well as a separate agreement between the two countries’ chambers of commerce. Tokayev awarded Christodoulides the…
Social media accounts sharing photos of picturesque Scottish landscapes, supporting independence from the United Kingdom, as well as criticising the British government, have, in fact, been deceiving the public. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Researchers from Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub in South Carolina found that a network of accounts sharing this kind of content was, in reality, affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — an elite paramilitary unit long accused of running foreign influence operations. The accounts spent months across X, Instagram and Bluesky cultivating followers and building up online credibility, before they started to spread pro-Iranian propaganda following the onset…
Officials and diplomats in Brussels are growing increasingly pessimistic about the chances of enforcing a full ban on maritime services for Russian tankers, as both internal and external factors weigh against the ambitious proposal. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “It’s not happening,” a diplomat bluntly said. The ban was approved in late April as part of the 20th package of sanctions to cripple Moscow’s war economy. It is designed to prohibit all maritime-related services, including banking, shipping, flagging and insurance, for tankers carrying Russian oil. Crucially, the far-reaching measure was left on hold sine die. The official reason for the pause was a…