Author: Press Room

Nine European countries and Ukraine announced the creation of a coalition to develop anti-ballistic capabilities in Europe to protect the continent. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “We believe that the protection of Europe, requires a global solution of integrated missile defence architecture to deter and defeat future missile threats,” said a joint declaration by Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. “Faced with the ballistic threat, we are making a clear choice: protect Ukraine, strengthen our collective security, and build the Europe of defence,” France’s President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X. The statement comes on the sidelines…

Published on 13/07/2026 – 16:46 GMT+2 The European Union has sanctioned VK Company, which dominates Russia’s online sphere, for colluding with the Kremlin to identify critics of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine and curtail access to independent sources of information. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT VK Company runs VKontakte, the country’s most popular social media site. Often described as “the Russian Facebook”, it has an estimated 70 million users. The decision, taken on Monday by foreign ministers, points the finger at VK Company and an associated firm for developing and managing Max App, which is state-backed and comes pre-installed on all phones and…

A four-word phrase has sparked an intense political and media row in Spain and France just days before the World Cup semi-final between the two national sides. The phrase “that is, without the French”, used by former prime minister Mariano Rajoy in a column published in El Debate, has been interpreted by politicians in both countries as a remark of a racist nature. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In his op-ed (source in Spanish), entitled “Hoy llegó el desquite” (“Today payback arrived”), the former leader of the conservative People’s Party (PP) examined Belgium’s elimination at the hands of La Roja and Spain’s upcoming…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Monday urged Spain to strengthen its prevention measures after one of the country’s deadliest wildfires in recent history killed 13 people and razed a huge area. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The Los Gallardos fire, which has been stabilised after four days of intense work, has so far left a provisional toll of 13 people dead, 23 unaccounted for, 10 reports of missing persons and almost 7,000 hectares burnt. “We must not only react when these fires happen, we must prevent” as climate change makes civil protection emergencies “increasingly frequent,” Sánchez said. The Prime Minister visited the…

The prospect of Turkey returning to the F-35 fighter jet programme has opened a new front in Washington, with the Greek-American lobby and members of Congress seeking to preserve the existing legal obstacles to the sale of US fighters to Ankara. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The issue returned to the fore after US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but so far there has been no official decision by the US administration on Turkey’s re-entry into the programme. Athens acknowledges that decisions on armaments are a sovereign right of every country and that it has no power of…

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) condemned what it called Russia’s “deliberate strategy to destroy the healthcare system” in Ukraine on Monday, documenting a consistent pattern of attacks throughout the war. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT MSF said that between April 2022 and December 2025, it had documented more than 20 attacks on facilities associated with the medical charity. Russia has launched “relentless attacks on healthcare facilities and medical staff in Ukraine,” MSF said in a statement. These “appear to constitute a deliberate strategy to destroy the healthcare system and collectively punish the population, rather than being an incidental consequence of Russia’s invasion,” it said.…

For more than four years, Russia has been waging a full-scale war against Ukraine and providing aid to soldiers of the aggressor state is widely regarded as an extremely controversial and morally repugnant act. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The reports concerning Krzysztof Tołwiński – a former member of the Polish parliament in its sixth term and former deputy state treasury minister in Jarosław Kaczyński’s government – have caused particular alarm. The politician published a video in which he announced that he had given first-aid kits to Russian soldiers, triggering a wave of criticism in the media and among the public. What did…

Published on 13/07/2026 – 11:09 GMT+2•Updated 11:17 European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for stronger protections for children online, saying the evidence presented by the Special Panel on Child Safety Online should help shape future European policy. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Von der Leyen said the evidence increasingly supported introducing a minimum age for access to social media and suggested a phased approach for different age groups. During a press conference in Brussels, the EU chief said the argument to ban toddlers from screens and digital platforms, and that children under 13 should only use social media under adult…

Hungarian lawmakers are set to vote on changing the constitution on Monday to oust the president, as Prime Minister Péter Magyar pushes to loosen nationalist ex-leader Viktor Orbán’s grip on the country. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Magyar, who won a landslide victory in April on the promise of “regime change” from Orbán’s 16-year rule, has accused unpopular President Tamás Sulyok and other top state officials of being his predecessor’s “puppets.” His push to remove Sulyok comes as the pro-European conservative rushes to undo the concentration of power that marked Orbán’s self-styled “illiberal” premiership, which won praise from US President Donald Trump but…

Updated: 13/07/2026 – 9:18 GMT+2 Martin Heydon, Irish agriculture minister, speaks to Europe Today ahead of the EU ministers’ vote on the EU’s fertiliser plan, describing it as a “very decisive clear action to support farmers”. … More