Author: Press Room

MCC Brussels, a right-wing, eurosceptic think tank and lobbying organisation founded by Viktor Orbán’s government, is shutting down after its Hungarian state-related funding dried up, director Frank Furedi told Euronews. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Furedi stepped down as director on Monday in protest after the Mathias Corvinus Collegium, MCC Brussels’ parent institution in Hungary, failed to provide further funding. The Brussels-based think tank was established in 2022 with a pledge to “shake up European debate” and has maintained that it is independent, despite receiving funding from the Orbán government. In Brussels, however, it was widely seen as a vehicle for promoting the…

Russia has become “more desperate” in recent weeks, and is stepping up its hostile activity towards NATO, Swedish Foreign Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard, told Euronews. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Speaking on Euronews’ flagship morning Europe Today show, she said European unity was key to deterring Russia from further aggression on NATO territory. The minister was responding to reports of a significant uptick in hybrid-war activities across Europe in recent weeks. The most significant was the discovery of an explosive-laden drone at Leipzig airport, Germany in early August. “We see a more desperate Russia,” she said. “Russia is losing territory, losing influence, losing…

Published on 01/09/2026 – 11:11 GMT+2 A police search for an armed Russian man in Montenegro ended early on Tuesday when the suspect, wanted for killing three people, killed himself after exchanging fire with police, authorities said. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT According to the interior ministry, the suspect, a 30-year-old Russian, shot dead three employees of a shooting range in Danilovgrad, close to the capital Podgorica. After an hours-long manhunt involving special units and a helicopter, the suspect was located in woods above the popular coastal tourist town of Herceg Novi, more than 120 kilometres from the crime scene. “After the suspect…

It’s well-known that smoking is harmful to your health, and the use of cigarettes in Europe is seeing a slow yet steady decline. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In 2025, one in six people aged 16 or older in the EU used tobacco and related products, such as e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches, every day, according to Eurostat. The statistics office said that 20.8% of men smoked every day, compared with 12.6% of women. However, both shares decreased slightly compared with 2022, when 22.2% of men and 13.1% of women smoked daily. Tobacco kills 1.1 million people in Europe each year, with 153,000 of…

Montenegro is the frontrunner to join the European Union. But officials, diplomats and experts fear Belgrade will do everything it can to prevent that from happening, leaving Brussels in a difficult position between the two candidate countries. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT While Montenegro closes in on the finish line, Serbia’s accession bid looks dead in the water: Belgrade has yet to open all negotiation clusters with the EU, and eight member states blocked its latest attempt last month. “We see some actions by the [Serbian] government and opposition parties that complicate the internal situation in Montenegro,” MEP Tonino Picula (Croatia/S&D) told journalists…

Published on 01/09/2026 – 8:57 GMT+2•Updated 9:07 Munich, long known for the Oktoberfest and Bayern Munich, is fast becoming one of Europe’s leading centres for defence technology, as young firms building AI-powered drones and military software cluster around the Bavarian capital. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The boom is underpinned by a dramatic rise in German government spending. Germany’s federal budget for 2026 allocates roughly €82.7 billion to defence, an increase of about €29.4 billion on the previous fiscal plan, with troop numbers set to rise by up to 10,000. Including an off-budget special fund created to modernise the armed forces, total defence…

Migration is taking center stage again in the European Union, as Brussels returns to work after a summer marked by the major crisis of recent years. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Over 70,000 irregular migrants entered the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in a single day on 30 July, more than all other irregular entries across all European borders so far in 2026, sparking a political crisis in Spain and putting other member states on alert. The Ceuta crisis increased pressure on the EU to implement its strategy to tighten the rules for asylum seekers and speed up returns, but it also highlighted the…

Published on 01/09/2026 – 7:00 GMT+2 Brussels has built one of the world’s densest regulatory frameworks for digital technologies. For experts, it is high time to centralise enforcement under a single European agency to overcome the fragmentation now holding it back. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The EU’s digital rulebook spans more than 171 laws and 315 regulatory bodies — an unwieldy structure that has opened up a significant enforcement gap, leaving the bloc structurally unable to uphold its own rules. That is the conclusion of a paper authored by Kai Zenner, head of office of MEP Axel Voss (Germany/EPP), and Maria Koomen,…

Published on 31/08/2026 – 11:08 GMT+2•Updated 11:57 On 29 August, 52.8 percent of Icelanders voted “No” in a referendum on resuming membership talks to join the European Union. The EU had already opened accession negotiations in 2010, but Reykjavik dropped them in 2013 following a change of government. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT For the EU, Iceland’s membership was about whether the EU could still attract a wealthy, stable democracy that chooses to join for reasons beyond seeking financial and economic stability. With Russia’s war destabilising Europe, weakening ties with Washington, and the conflict in the Middle East, the EU views enlargement as…

Russian forces relentlessly battered Kyiv and cities in the region around the Ukrainian capital for a fifth straight day on Monday, leaving some supermarket shelves bare after repeated strikes on warehouses as Ukraine reels from attacks with jet-powered drones. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Russia has intensified its aerial attacks in recent months, more than four years after it launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Almost constant air raid alerts in the Kyiv region in recent days have severely disrupted daily routines. Two major attacks in July killed almost 50 civilians and a strike on Saturday killed at least 38 people. Meanwhile,…