Author: Press Room

Published on 09/09/2026 – 16:06 GMT+2 European cities will have greater powers to restrict short-term rentals such as Airbnb under EU plans unveiled on Wednesday aimed at tackling rising housing costs in popular tourist destinations. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The European Commission set out conditions under which local authorities will be able to limit short-term lets as part of its affordable housing package, designed to address what Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera described as a “terrible crisis”. “When the market fails to deliver something as fundamental as an affordable home, public authorities have a responsibility to act”, Ribera said. Short-term rentals are popular…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 16:48 GMT+2 The EU has announced an affordable housing plan aimed at encouraging long-term rentals and making housing more accessible for Europeans. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Unveiled on Wednesday, the plan aims to create clarity and predictability in how rules are applied by local authorities, particularly in neighbourhoods popular with tourists where short-term rentals have displaced residents. “Lack of affordable housing is a matter of concern for so many of our European citizens,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a press statement. “Essential workers and students cannot afford to live where they serve and study.…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 20:30 GMT+2 The same week that Ceuta’s president, Juan Jesús Vivas, travelled to Brussels in a cry for help, we are joined by Czech centre-right MEP Tomáš Svetechovský and German Socialist MEP Birgit Sippel for their points of view. One month on from the arrival of thousands of irregular migrants in the Spanish city, we hear how EU countries could have shown more solidarity and what more can be done to help Ceuta. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Tomáš Svetechovský criticised the Spanish government’s handling of the situation, arguing that it should have acted sooner and requested more European…

Six hours of footage and a torrent of racist, misogynistic and conspiratorial remarks. The local newspaper Midi Libre has published video from a night-time patrol by Carcassonne’s municipal police, recorded on 6 November 2025. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Captured inadvertently by one officer’s body camera, which they thought was switched off, it contains, according to the daily, comments described as “of exceptional violence”. According to Midi Libre, a preliminary investigation has been under way since January 2026, when the footage is said to have been passed to the Carcassonne public prosecutor’s office. Following the video’s publication by the newspaper, the prosecutor’s office…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 20:52 GMT+2 A plane carrying Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy from Moldova to Oslo was nearly hit by a drone, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “His flight was almost hit by a drone when it was taking off from Moldova. That is the reality he lives in,” Store told Norwegian public broadcaster NRK. The Norwegian Prime Minister did not provide further details about the incident. “I asked him how his night had been, and he said it had not been a good night because he had been on the phone receiving…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 18:33 GMT+2 The European Parliament will debate the situation in Ceuta next Tuesday in Strasbourg, in what is expected to be a heated political confrontation, following a decision by the Parliament’s political group leaders in Brussels on Wednesday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) also pushed to add a resolution to be voted on by lawmakers after the debate, in a move widely seen as an attempt to attack the Spanish government led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The debate is expected to be contentious, with…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 19:07 GMT+2•Updated 19:09 The European Commission unveiled on Wednesday a legislative proposal allowing EU public authorities to favour European companies in public procurement for key public services such as energy, water, railways, ports, airports and postal services. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The move comes as European policymakers seek to shield the bloc’s market from China amid heated trade negotiations, as the EU grapples with a trade deficit with Beijing of roughly €1 billion a day. Public procurement markets in Europe represent €2 trillion every year — 15% of Europe’s GDP. “Public money must serve our collective interests,” Commission…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 17:31 GMT+2 The European Commission has granted the Spanish government 114.7 million euros from its emergency aid fund to deal with the migration crisis that Ceuta has been facing since the end of July, in what the institution describes as an act of “solidarity” with Spain. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “This financial assistance comes on top of the Commission’s immediate response from day one, when it offered Spain both financial and operational support,” the Commission said in a statement. “The decision once again demonstrates the Commission’s full solidarity with Spain in dealing with this difficult situation.” The funding…

Four years after the European Union launched a plan to break its dependence on Russian oil and gas and accelerate the clean energy transition, an audit presented by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) on Wednesday said the bloc’s plan is falling well short of its ambitions. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Russian oil imports have plunged following EU sanctions and gas imports have declined, the ECA auditors noted, but they urge caution against attributing all of that progress to REPowerEU, the plan launched by the European Commission in 2022 to achieve energy sovereignty and end all dependence on Moscow. “In our view,…

Published on 09/09/2026 – 16:17 GMT+2 A rescue operation is underway after a passenger train collided with a truck at a level crossing and derailed in Sokolniki Suche, near Warsaw, in Poland. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT There were 120 passengers on board the train. Twenty people were injured, four of them seriously. Karolina Jaworska, a press officer for the Warsaw State Fire Service, told Euronews that one person had died. “We know of four people who were seriously injured, one of whom has died. The injured include the train driver, the truck driver and two passengers,” she told Euronews, adding that the…