Author: Press Room

Published on 07/03/2026 – 21:58 GMT+1 Lion-emblazoned flags of pre-revolution Iran fluttered in cities across Europe as protesters gathered on Saturday to express support for the Iranian people amid the ongoing war with the US and Israel. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Many of the demonstrators, including in Berlin, Stockholm and Paris, voiced support for the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah, who presents himself as an alternative after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in an Israeli-American strike. In London, people demonstrated against the war while some others marched in support of Khamenei. Between 5,000 and 6,000 people…

Published on 07/03/2026 – 8:00 GMT+1 France will push back against a European Commission plan to fast-track ratification of trade agreements by circulating only English-language versions during talks with EU governments and lawmakers, skipping translation into the bloc’s 24 official languages, according to several sources. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The slow ratification of the contentious EU–Mercosur trade deal has frustrated the Commission, which wants to accelerate negotiations and bring deals into force more quickly as it seeks new markets amid rising geopolitical tensions. Translating the agreements into every official EU language can take months due to the legal scrubbing required before the…

Published on 06/03/2026 – 16:05 GMT+1 Actor Nikolaj Coster-Waldau praised the United Nations and its humanitarian work in an interview with Euronews, defending the power of “coming together” in a turbulent world. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Coster-Waldau, who rose to international fame in the series Game of Thrones and is part of a group of Scandinavian actors to reach success in Hollywood, said the institution is far from a “woke club” and does valuable work for communities from climate to fighting hunger, even if he acknowledged it is in need of reform and “isn’t perfect.” “I believe it is valuable and it…

Published on 06/03/2026 – 18:35 GMT+1 El Salvador’s Vice-President Félix Ulloa fiercely defended his country’s crackdown on criminal gangs in what he described as “the miracle of Bukele” in an interview with Euronews, saying only the woke and left-wing European media disagree. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Ulloa, a lawyer by training, is one of the key engineers of an unprecedented state-led operation to eliminate gang violence under Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who has been in power since 2019. The criminality rate in what used to be one of the most dangerous countries in Latin America has collapsed, but critics point to an…

Published on 06/03/2026 – 17:34 GMT+1•Updated 17:35 The Icelandic government is proposing to hold a referendum on 29 August on the resumption of negotiations for accession to the European Union. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT A resolution is expected to be presented to Parliament next week, according to Minister for Foreign Affairs Kristrún Frostadóttir. The European Commission has welcomed the announcement. “Iceland is a close and valued partner of the EU,” said Markus Lammert, spokesperson for the European Commission. “Our cooperation is already strong and wide-ranging and we look forward to continuing and further strengthening our close cooperation with the Icelandic authorities.” Iceland…

European Commissioner Andrius Kubilius waded into Poland’s political debate on Friday urging Warsaw to approve participation in the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence loan scheme, which has been at the centre of a domestic political row. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “I am quite surprised about Polish discussions on SAFE,” Kubilius said from Warsaw on the first stop of his “Missile Tour” across the EU. “Saying no to SAFE is saying no to Polish jobs for Polish people.” Poland is set to receive the biggest allocation (€43.7 billion) out of the €150 billion SAFE programme, which was set up by the…

The European Commission has publicly urged both Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to immediately “dial down” their “inflammatory rhetoric” over the Druzhba pipeline, which has pitted the two leaders in a head-to-head confrontation without precedent. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In response to the halt in oil supplies, Orbán has vetoed a €90 billion loan to Ukraine that the 27 EU leaders had signed off on in December. “At the moment, there is a lot of escalatory rhetoric and inflammatory rhetoric,” Olof Gill, the Commission’s deputy chief spokesperson, said on Friday afternoon. “We believe that such rhetoric from…

Published on 06/03/2026 – 15:00 GMT+1 Ariane’s day starts early. Ours too: we are a group of around thirty international journalists invited to attend the maiden launch of Ariane 64, the most powerful European rocket. We arrive about a hundred metres from the launch pad shortly after three o’clock in the morning to watch the structure surrounding the rocket being moved. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Shortly afterwards, the area is evacuated in preparation for the launch. It’s a slow and delicate process. Philippe Clar, Director of Space Transport Programmes at ArianeGroup, explains: “In Europe, 13,000 people from 13 countries have been working…

As the crisis in the Middle East escalates, social media has been flooded with an unprecedented amount of misleading videos and images claiming to show strikes and military action in both Israel and Iran. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT But many of the clips online don’t show the war at all. Some are footage taken out of context from other countries, while others, viewed by millions, come from video games or are generated entirely with AI. Here are three viral videos that have gained hundreds of thousands of views but do not show what they claim. ‘Strike on Tel Aviv’ or Algerian football…

Published on 06/03/2026 – 11:22 GMT+1•Updated 11:51 The European Commission has presented its “strategy on intergenerational fairness”, an initiative intended to ensure that policies adopted today will improve tomorrow’s opportunities. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “The intergenerational fairness strategy proposes an intergenerational fairness contract,” European Commissioner Glenn Micallef said at the launch on Thursday. “This is a symbolic contract. It’s not a contract that we sign, but it reflects a commitment. It reflects a promise that we make politically.” Through this non-binding document, the European Commission is encouraging EU countries to mainstream fair policymaking, which takes into account decisions’ long-term consequences so that…