Author: Press Room

The Russian embassy in South Africa has shared a picture that appears to show Russian President Vladimir Putin taking a group selfie with the 10 BRICS world leaders during September’s summit. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The 18th BRICS Summit took place in New Delhi, India, on 12 and 13 September. The verified X account posted the picture, which garnered more than 2 million views, alongside the caption “BRICS is a superpower”. However, this selfie is not real. No credible news organisation has published the image as real, and the official website of the summit did not share it either. The Cube, Euronews’…

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director General of DigitalEurope, said protecting children from social media risks is a “joint responsibility of the public and private sectors”. The association, which represents companies such as OpenAI and Meta, believes it cannot be “one party’s responsibility”.

In her State of the Union address, Ursula von der Leyen warned of a “battle of narratives” seeking to weaken confidence in Europe. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT A new study, ‘Future Nostalgia: Europe’s Unfinished Song’, published by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and the European Cultural Foundation (ECF), suggests that the confidence problem is real, and its authors call it an “imagination gap”: most Europeans still want a stronger, more united continent, but a majority doubt it will ever get there The findings, based on nearly 6,000 interviews across six countries, paint a picture of a public that hasn’t abandoned…

Published on 18/09/2026 – 8:01 GMT+2•Updated 8:22 On today’s show: Angela Skujins analyses what Canada’s newly offered “associate member” status with the EU actually means in practice, after Mark Carney told the European Parliament in Strasbourg that he welcomes “much closer ties” with Europe. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Shona Murray reports from Dublin, where EU finance ministers and central bank governors are gathering for two days of talks as part of Ireland’s EU presidency. She interviews with Simon Harris, Irish Minister for Finance. Andrew Caruana Galizia, Head of Europe and Eurasia at the World Economic Forum, joins Europe Today to discuss a…

Hello, this is Mared Gwyn holding the newsletter pen in Brussels. This morning: Eurozone finance ministers gather amid mounting economic pressures, and EU ambassadors make another push to break the Russia sanctions deadlock. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Economic jitters: Finance ministers from eurozone countries gather in Dublin, Ireland, today, against a fraught backdrop of mounting energy costs, rising inflation and weak growth. Painful at the pump: Oil prices have surged rapidly in recent days, driven by a reduction in global supplies and exacerbated by recent attacks on Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline, which have been attributed to the Iran-backed Houthi rebels. European leaders…

Taunted, scorned, belittled, pushed aside, ditched – it is fair to say that the European Union and Canada each know how the other feels. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT For the past 20 months, the two have been relentlessly subjected to Donald Trump’s threats, demands and commands. Their experiences have been nearly identical: punitive tariffs, annexationist attempts, regulatory intrusion, bitter recriminations, all amplified in scathing personal attacks splashed all over social media. The breakup has been painful, to say the least. After all, both the EU and Canada have long defined the United States as their closest ally, their main security provider, their…

With Canada, the European Union has opened the door to a new way for the European project to affiliate with third countries that aren’t even on its own continent. The rest of the world will be watching closely. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney spearheaded the idea of an alliance of middle powers in his seminal speech in Davos earlier this year. A few months later, Canada might provide the blueprint for how the EU integrates third countries. On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become “the first associate member of the European Union,”…

A new European Security Council, an emergency protocol and a new strategic enabler initiative: in her State of the Union speech on Wednesday, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen laid out a new security architecture for Europe. But several question marks still hang over it. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT With the war in Ukraine increasingly spilling over into Europe’s eastern flank and Russia intensifying its campaign of sabotage attacks and drone incursions, security and defence took centre stage in von der Leyen’s annual address. “We already have many tools. And we are strengthening our work with NATO. But our doctrine, our institutions…

Published on 17/09/2026 – 8:01 GMT+2•Updated 8:36 On today’s show: Maria Tadeo reports from Strasbourg as Canadian PM Mark Carney addresses the European Parliament this morning, a day after EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed making Canada the EU’s first “associate member”. US President Donald Trump has called this plan “laughable” and threatened with “very serious tariffs.” ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT We speak exclusively to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who reacts to this plan and the State of the Union speech yesterday. We also hear reactions to the State of the Union from European Commissioners Valdis Dombrovskis, Maroš Šefčovič,…

Expectations are high after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday offered to create a tailor-made status of “associate EU membership” for Canada, and pitched closer collaboration on tech, energy and defence (if you missed von der Leyen’s landmark annual speech, here are our five takeaways). ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Trump strikes back: The announcement has already created ripples across the Atlantic, with US President Donald Trump overnight describing the invite as “hostile” and “laughable”, threatening “very serious tariffs” or to even “stop trading with Europe”. It’s a nightmare scenario for Brussels. The bloc has been treading carefully in its…