Move involving companies such as Google, Facebook and X comes after evidence of Russian online interference in polls
The EU is calling on eight major tech companies including Google, Facebook and X to detail how they identify and tackle deepfake material amid concerns about the use of the technology to influence elections.
In a world first, they will be using new laws on artificial intelligence to force companies to root out fake video, imagery and audio.
Continue reading...Members of justice committee say €150m in EU funding went straight to country’s president, Kais Saied
The European Commission has been accused of “bankrolling dictators” by senior MEPs who have claimed that the €150m it gave to Tunisia last year in a migration and development deal has ended up directly in the president’s hands.
A group of MEPs on the human rights, justice and foreign affairs committees at the European parliament launched a scathing attack on the executive in Brussels, expressing anxiety over reports that the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, was about to seal a similar deal with Egypt.
Continue reading...Directive aims to give taxi and delivery drivers such as those working for Uber and Deliveroo rights similar to those enjoyed by full employees
New laws designed to improve the rights of gig economy workers in the EU contracted to companies such as Uber have been saved from oblivion after they won the majority backing of member states.
The legislation had been blocked by a group of countries last month, when France said it could not support the text on the table and Germany abstained.
Continue reading...Commission president says pilot delivery is expected to set sail on Saturday but did not say where shipments would land or unload
The EU has announced the opening of a sea corridor this weekend for shipping humanitarian aid from Cyprus to Gaza in the race to stave off a famine that is already claiming lives.
“We are now very close to the opening of the corridor, hopefully this Sunday. And I’m very glad to see that an initial pilot operation will be launched today,” the EU commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, told reporters after touring harbour facilities at the Cypriot port of Larnaca, the departure point for the aid shipments.
Continue reading...Prime minister will reportedly meet CEO of semiconductor equipment maker ASML, which has warned against anti-migrant stance
The Dutch government is scrambling to ensure that the country’s largest company, the semiconductor equipment maker ASML, does not move operations or expand abroad after the tech firm voiced concerns over the country’s hardening stance on migrants.
On Wednesday, the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the Dutch government had launched a cross-ministry effort, dubbed “Operation Beethoven”, to encourage ASML to continue to invest in the country.
Continue reading...Centre-right European People’s party says it wants to create deportation deals with non-EU countries to head off rise of far right
The European Commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, has given her support to controversial migration reforms that would involve deporting people to third countries for asylum processing and the imposition of a quota system for those receiving protection in EU countries.
Manfred Weber, the leader of the European People’s party (EPP), said the policies – similar to the UK’s Rwanda scheme – had been worked out with all the parties in the EPP political group, which includes von der Leyen’s Christian Democrat Union in Germany.
Continue reading...Penalty for breaching competition law is four times higher than forecast as Brussels looks to send message to tech firms
Apple has been fined €1.8bn (£1.5bn) by the EU after an investigation found it had limited competition from music streaming services such as Spotify.
The fine is nearly four times higher than expected as the European Commission attempts to show it will act decisively on tech companies who abuse their dominant position in the market for online services.
Continue reading...Destroyer Caio Duilio, part of the EU shipping protection force, took out weapon when it came within four miles of the vessel
An Italian warship participating in the EU naval protection force in the Red Sea was forced to shoot down a Houthi missile on Saturday in a rare engagement by the country’s navy, which has largely avoided direct action since the second world war.
The incident came as Houthi officials vowed to continue to attack British ships after the UK-owned Rubymar sank on Saturday having taken on water for a fortnight after being hit by one of the group’s missiles.
Continue reading...Producers say the labelling could add £250m a year to their costs, further fuelling inflation
Food industry trade bodies are discussing whether to take legal action against the government over post-Brexit plans that will require all meat and dairy products sold in the UK to be labelled as “not for EU”.
Food producers say the labelling could add £250m a year to their costs, further fuelling inflation, and they are discussing a legal challenge as a viable option if a solution with the government is not found.
Continue reading...Ombudsman says papers show EU agency made four offers to help Greece with surveillance of boat that sank, but got no response
The rules governing the EU’s border and coastguard agency Frontex must be urgently revised if Europe is to avoid a repeat of last year’s tragedy off the coast of Greece in which about 600 people are thought to have died, an official investigation has found.
In one of the worst disasters in the Mediterranean sea in recent years, the Adriana, a dangerously overcrowded fishing trawler en route to Italy from Libya, capsized and sank in the middle of the night near Pylos on 14 June. Only 104 survivors were rescued and 82 bodies recovered after the ship, estimated to have been carrying more than 750 people, sank off the Peloponnese.
Continue reading...French president tells Paris conference Moscow ‘must not and cannot’ win the war and that Europe’s security is at stake
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has called for western countries to step up their support for Ukraine, warning that Moscow’s actions in recent weeks signal that Russia could attack Nato states in the next few years.
Speaking at the opening of a hastily convened conference of 20 mainly European leaders in Paris designed to speed up the supply of weapons and financial aid to Ukraine, Macron said Russia “must not and cannot win this war” and that Europe’s own security was at stake.
Continue reading...Ukraine’s president met the prime ministers of Italy, Canada and Belgium in a show of unity after recent battlefield defeats
Volodymyr Zelenskiy welcomed western leaders to Kyiv on Saturday on the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “must lose absolutely everything”.
Ukraine’s president met the prime ministers of Italy, Canada and Belgium – Giorgia Meloni, Justin Trudeau and Alexander De Croo – as well as the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Continue reading...European Commission president seeks a second term and says there’s no place for ‘Putin’s friends’ in bloc
The chief of the European Commission has vowed to never work with extremist parties such as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, no matter how big a vote they get in the European elections in June.
Ursula von der Leyen, officially launching her campaign for a second term in Brussels’s top job against a backdrop of rising concern over security and Russia, said on Wednesday she would only work with “pro-European, pro-Nato, pro-Ukrainian, clear supporters of our democratic values”.
Continue reading...European Commission president says she will never work with parties such as AfD or National Rally, no matter how big a vote they secure in European elections
Campaign Corner: Slovakia
As the campaign kicks off for the June European elections, more parties are presenting their candidates.
We believe that this is an attempt to take over the agricultural protest movement by extreme and irresponsible groups, possibly under the influence of Russian agents.
Continue reading...Rules hailed as once-in-a-generation chance to improve air quality but loopholes will let member states delay by up to a decade
The European Union has agreed to set stricter limits on the toxic particles and dangerous gas that dirty its air, but will not aim for the levels that doctors and economists recommend.
The new rules slash the yearly limits for fine particulates known as PM2.5 – which wreak havoc on the whole body because they are small enough to slip into the bloodstream – from 25 µg/m³ to 10 µg/m³, and for nitrogen dioxide, a gas that hurts the lungs, from 40 µg/m³ to 20 µg/m³.
Continue reading...Volodymyr Zelenskiy accuses Warsaw of ‘mockery’ as farmers blockade Ukrainian grain at border
Poland’s bitter dispute with Ukraine over farm imports has escalated as Polish farmers dumped grain from a freight train as part of nationwide protests and Volodymyr Zelenskiy accused Warsaw of “mockery”.
In a video address on Monday, Ukraine’s president described the blockade by Polish farmers as absurd at a time when Russia was bombing his country. “The situation is not about grain, but rather about politics,” he said, after a visit to the frontline town of Kupiansk.
Continue reading...Diplomatic search for ceasefire in Gaza gathers pace as threatened ground offensive in Rafah draws near
In New York at the UN, in Brussels at the EU, in The Hague, in Cairo, in Rio and even at Westminster, a set of subtle and interrelated diplomatic dances are under way.
Israel’s foremost supporters are attempting to apply the squeeze on their ally while avoiding making undiluted calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza they fear would leave a battered Hamas in charge, its leadership at large.
Continue reading...Video platform under scrutiny over potential breach of Digital Services Act in areas such as age verification
The EU has launched a formal investigation into whether TikTok has broken online content rules including the safeguarding of children.
The European Commission said it had opened official proceedings against the Chinese-owned short video platform over potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Continue reading...Beijing’s move comes at a time when Budapest’s relationship with its EU and Nato allies is at a low point
China has offered to deepen security cooperation with Hungary, underscoring Budapest’s warming ties with Beijing just as Hungarian officials snubbed a visiting delegation from Washington.
Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, met China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong, on Friday.
Continue reading...With ongoing US support far from guaranteed, Ukraine urges Europe to back fight against Russia, for its own sake
On the top floor of Literaturhaus in Munich, the Ukrainian veteran Yuliia Paievska was asked to speak to the elite of the transatlantic security and political establishment, including Hillary Clinton and the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas, as they lunched on a three-course meal, served with military precision.
“We are the dogs of war,” Paievska said as she introduced herself, explaining how she had started out as a volunteer and then worked as the chief medic at a hospital on the frontline during the siege of Mariupol. “I had children die in my hands, civilians, elderly. I do not know how you can forgive that. Thousands of soldiers have gone through my hands, thousands of civilians, streams of blood, rivers of suffering.”
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