Author: Press Room

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius and his Ukrainian counterpart Mykhailo Fedorov signed an agreement in Kyiv on Monday to launch “Brave Germany,” a joint programme focused on developing defence technology and supporting innovative start-ups. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT According to the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrinform, Fedorov said Germany was now “the world’s leading provider of security support for Ukraine.” He added that Berlin accounted for around a third of all assistance provided to the country. Pistorius arrived in Kyiv on Monday for a surprise visit aimed at deepening defence cooperation between Germany and Ukraine. Speaking to German news agency dpa, Pistorius said…

Published on 11/05/2026 – 11:49 GMT+2 Around 50 farmers mobilised in the Lyon region on Monday morning following a call by the Coordination Rurale union to protest soaring fuel costs linked to the crisis in the Middle East. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT After staging a roadblock with around 20 tractors near a loading point at the TotalEnergies refinery in Feyzin, demonstrators headed along the A7 motorway towards the Rhône prefecture under police escort. By around 10 a.m., the convoy had reached La Mulatière and was moving towards Lyon’s Confluence district, where significant traffic disruptions were reported. The protest went ahead despite a…

Published on 11/05/2026 – 11:56 GMT+2 André Ventura, the leader of Portugal’s far-right Chega party, recently claimed that the Dutch capital has banned meat adverts because they could be seen as offensive to Muslims. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In this post on X, Ventura published a video of himself reacting to a headline that says Amsterdam has prohibited such adverts in all public places, and he says in the clip that it shows Europe is descending into madness. “Please see the point of insanity we’re reaching, this is in Europe,” Ventura says in the clip. “Meat adverts, for any kind of meat,…

Published on 11/05/2026 – 10:31 GMT+2 EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas on Monday rejected the possibility of appointing former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder as the bloc’s negotiator in potential peace talks on Ukraine. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed on Saturday that Schröder act as a European mediator in future negotiations, claiming the conflict was “heading towards an end”. However, Kallas dismissed the suggestion while speaking to journalists ahead of an EU foreign affairs ministers’ meeting in Brussels. “First, if we give Russia the right to appoint a negotiator on our behalf, that would not be very wise.…

Published on 11/05/2026 – 9:27 GMT+2 Latvian Defence Minister Andris Spruds resigned on Sunday following a recent incursion by two Ukrainian drones into the Baltic country’s territory. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Latvia’s Prime Minister, Evika Silina, had called for Spruds’s resignation, writing on X that he had “lost (her) trust and that of the public.” Silina said anti-drone systems had not been deployed quickly enough to counter Thursday’s incursion. “The drone incident that occurred this week clearly demonstrated that the political leadership of the defence sector has failed to fulfill its promise of safe skies over our country,” Silina wrote. “That is…

Published on 11/05/2026 – 8:00 GMT+2 On 28 April, the European Parliament has formally adopted its position on the EU’s 2028-2034 budget, the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), with 370 votes to 201 and 84 abstentions. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT MEPs demand a 10 per cent increase to the Commission’s original almost €2 trillion budget proposal from 16 July 2025, according to the Parliament’s Research Services April 2026 report. The Parliament wants funds evenly divided among the three key areas (cohesion and agriculture, competitiveness, and external action) and excludes NextGenerationEU repayments of €149.3 trillion (2025 prices) from spending ceilings. Calling for a more…

Published on 10/05/2026 – 16:47 GMT+2•Updated 17:03 One day after the new parliament convened and Péter Magyar was sworn-in as prime minister, thousands have been celebrating Europe Day in Budapest, along with the 22nd anniversary of Hungary’s accession to the European Union. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT On 9 May 1950, the anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the Schuman Declaration was issued, laying the foundations for the community now known as the European Union. Seventy-six years later, on the same day, Hungary swore in a new prime minister, something that will no doubt reshape the often tense relationship between…

There are around 44,000 to 45,000 church buildings in Germany – depending on which sacred spaces are included. Many of these buildings shape the character of villages, neighbourhoods and landscapes. But the question of how they can be preserved is being asked ever more often as congregations shrink and costs rise. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The parish church of St Andrew in the Sanderau district of Würzburg is also facing such a transformation. From the outside it stands like a silent witness to post‑war modernism. Inside, however, the church interior is to take on a new function: where services were held for…

The Spain that knocked on Europe’s door 40 years ago was a country that had only just emerged from 40 years of dictatorship. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Spain’s democratic transition, still fragile in some respects, found in European integration an institutional anchor, a guarantee that the freedoms it had won would not be reversed. Felipe González, who had applied for membership in 1977 as leader of the Socialist opposition and was now governing as prime minister, saw it clearly: joining Europe was not just about economics. It was a statement of political identity. Spain was rejoining the community of democratic nations from…

Mariano Ordaz, a 67-year-old pensioner, was finally evicted last Thursday from the home where he had lived all his life in the Embajadores neighbourhood, in Madrid’s central district, when the fifth eviction order was carried out. On four previous occasions, pressure from local residents had managed to halt the process; this time it was not possible. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT From early in the morning, a large deployment of National Police cordoned off the area with up to eight vans and four patrol cars. The spokesperson for the Madrid Tenants’ Union, Carolina Vilariño, summed it up bluntly: far too many officers to…