Author: Press Room

General Charles de Gaulle used to talk about Europe stretching “from the Atlantic to the Urals”. At the time, he was defending a geopolitical project designed to reunify the continent as the Cold War split Europe into two blocs. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT But in the midst of the current global geopolitical shift, could the Atlantic border extend to Canada? Perhaps de Gaulle, who had a fierce desire for independence from the US, would have sympathised with Ottawa’s concerns and said “oui”. The arrival of Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney in Strasbourg in mid-September to attend the State of the Union address…

Published on 29/08/2026 – 9:00 GMT+2 Icelanders are voting today on whether to resume their EU accession bid or shelve the prospect of joining the bloc for the foreseeable future. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Polling stations are open from 9am to 10pm local time, with voters deciding whether to return to membership negotiations or reject even exploring what a deal would look like. A “Yes” vote would not commit Iceland to joining the EU, but it would reopen accession talks, with any eventual membership deal put to another referendum. Iceland applied to join the bloc in 2009, in the wake of its…

French police arrested a Russian man of Chechen origin after a deliberate car ramming in the north of the country killed two men, both believed to be Afghan nationals, and wounded nine others, officials said on Thursday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The car ploughed into a group of people gathered outside a bar late Wednesday in the Normandy city of Caen, said the Calvados department prefect David Clavière. The events occurred after a fight, according to a police source, when the 26-year-old suspect was set upon by several people. He returned with his car, driving onto a bus lane in front of…

French far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has proposed to cancel a large chunk of France’s public debt, namely the 18 percent that is currently held by the country’s central bank. The rationale is to unlock money for public spending, but is this is even feasible? ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Mélenchon, currently a candidate for the presidential elections in April 2027, and seen as a front-runner, first floated the idea during the COVID 19 pandemic and revived the controversial call this month while on the campaign trail. “All we have to do is take the 18% held by the Bank of France and chuck…

Former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves, an influential voice in the European security debate, told Euronews he is sceptical that the US dispatched CIA Director John Ratcliffe to warn Russia against escalation, arguing that Washington remains more concerned about Iran. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In an exclusive interview with Euronews, Ilves said he had “severe doubts” that concerns over the Baltic states were the reason for Ratcliffe’s visit, despite a flurry of reports suggesting Washington wanted to send Moscow a message against any form of aggression. “What is the real problem for the United States right now? The real problem is Iran,…

Spain has received the European Union’s green light to temporarily cut taxes on petrol and diesel below the bloc’s normal minimum levels to lower fuel prices for households and businesses hit by the Middle East energy crisis, an official European Commission document reveals. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The EU normally sets minimum excise-duty rates for petrol and diesel. Countries can tax fuel above those floors, but going below the EU minimum requires specific flexibilities under the EU’s Energy Taxation law, which Spain secured from July to September because of the exceptional energy crisis triggered by the US and Israel’s war on Iran…

One of the new Hungarian government’s key pledges was to recover state assets and financial instruments that have been unlawfully managed or have gone missing and to prevent further abuses. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT To this end, a special authority is being set up; its head was elected on Friday by secret ballot, with 145 votes for Anna Unger. At the same time, the institution’s deputy head, Katalin Tasnádi, was appointed as deputy president in charge of investigations. The institution will be run by a five-member leadership, three of whom will be responsible for specific areas of expertise, making it possible to…

If CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s secret trip to Moscow was intended to calm fears of a confrontation between Russia and NATO, it appears to have achieved almost the opposite. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT His sudden arrival in the Russian capital this week triggered days of speculation over what intelligence could have prompted Washington to dispatch its spy chief to deliver a message to Moscow and whether the Baltic states should be worried. US media reported that Ratcliffe warned Russia against attacking NATO members, particularly Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, amid intelligence assessments that Moscow could seek to test the alliance as its war…

Published on 28/08/2026 – 15:30 GMT+2 The Beznau nuclear power plant in Switzerland, which was shut down multiple times over the last two months due to summer heatwaves, is fully operational again, Swiss energy company Axpo said on Friday. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Axpo said the second reactor at the Beznau plant in northern Switzerland, Europe’s oldest nuclear power plant still in operation, went back online on Thursday. The heatwaves that hit Europe sent temperatures soaring in the Aare River, which the site uses for cooling. Reactor 1 has been back in operation since 21 August and Axpo said it had now…

“Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?” ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT This is the question being put to 270,000 Icelanders on Saturday 29 August. From 9am local time, eligible voters will head to the polls to chart their nation’s course closer to the European Union — or further away. The results from the referendum will determine whether the island of 400,000 people should restart negotiations to join the 27-member bloc, or place the revived idea on the backburner for the foreseeable future. Early polling shows that the results will most likely be down to the wire. An August survey by…