Formal investigation opens amid concerns Chinese shopping website is breaching Digital Services Act
The EU has launched formal proceedings against the Chinese shopping website Temu amid concerns it is failing to halt the sale of illegal products online.
A formal investigation was opened on Thursday with the European Commission citing concerns over the platform, which is a cut-price rival to Amazon.
Continue reading...EU and US demand investigation as opposition and pro-European president cry foul
Officials in Georgia said a partial recount confirmed the ruling party had won its disputed election, while a global research and data firm called the official results reported by the electoral commission “statistically impossible”.
The pro-western opposition on Thursday repeated its earlier assertions that the parliamentary vote had been “stolen” by the ruling Georgian Dream party and it refused to recognise the results, plunging the Caucasus country into uncertainty.
Continue reading...Western powers call for investigation into Georgian Dream party election win amid reports of voter intimidation and fraud
The European Commission has said it will not recommend opening EU membership talks with Georgia unless the country changes course, days after the increasingly anti-western Georgian Dream (GD) party won pivotal parliamentary elections amid reports of irregularities and voter intimidation.
The commission recommended that Georgia be granted EU candidate status last year – something Ukraine and Moldova had already achieved – but made clear at the time that this could be withdrawn if the government in Tbilisi did not follow through on agreed reforms.
Continue reading...Campaigners say 21% of people at workshops did not disclose on their applications relationships with firms being discussed
More than one in five attenders at EU events on regulating big tech companies did not disclose links to the industry when applying to take part, according to transparency campaigners who say hidden networks are distorting public debate.
Researchers at three NGOs analysed nearly 4,000 registrations at European Commission workshops organised earlier this year to test companies’ compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), a law to curb anti-competitive behaviour.
Continue reading...Mood among protesters is one of deflation as some say Georgian Dream has already won
Thousands of Georgians have taken to the streets in the capital, Tbilisi, to rally against the results of a contested weekend parliamentary election in which the increasingly anti-western governing party was declared victorious amid reports of irregularities and voter intimidation.
The demonstration outside the parliament in the city centre was organised by the country’s pro-western opposition, which has refused to concede defeat and has accused the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party of election rigging.
Continue reading...Trade body for France’s travel industry reportedly writes to UK home secretary over concerns for programme’s future
A scheme designed to boost the numbers of French children able to travel to Britain for school trips is reportedly in peril as a result of an overhaul of entry requirements in the UK.
New rules for French school trips were introduced in December last year after a meeting between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the then UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
Continue reading...Trade body Energy UK also estimates total energy cost of leaving bloc could reach £10bn by end of decade
Brexit has added up to £370m a year to the price of power supplies from Europe, according to industry representatives who calculate that the total energy costs of leaving the EU could amount to £10bn by the end of the decade.
Energy UK, the sector’s trade body, has called on Keir Starmer to negotiate a closer trading relationship with the bloc as part of the “reset” he is seeking with Brussels.
Continue reading...Sakharov prize goes to María Corina Machado and Edmundo González after contested presidential election
The European parliament has awarded its top human rights honor, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, to Venezuelan opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo González for “representing the people of Venezuela fighting to restore freedom and democracy”.
Machado was set to run as the democratic opposition candidate against the incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, in Venezuela’s contested 2024 election, but she was disqualified by the government, so González took her place. He had never run for office before the presidential election.
Continue reading...Chipmaker disputed 2009 decision that it abused its market position in case dating back two decades
The US chipmaker Intel has won a long-running battle to quash a fine of more than €1bn imposed by the European Commission for allegedly abusing its market dominance in the sale of computer chips.
In a final ruling on Thursday, theEuropean court of justice upheld an earlier judgment that had quashed the €1.06bn (£880m) fine and partly dismissed the charges of anticompetitive behaviour.
Continue reading...‘Dehumanising rhetoric’ blamed as almost half of respondents say they recently suffered discrimination
Muslims across Europe are grappling with a “worrying surge” of racism that is being fuelled in part by “dehumanising anti-Muslim rhetoric”, the EU’s leading rights agency has said, as it published a survey in which nearly half of the Muslim respondents said they had recently experienced discrimination.
Published on Thursday by the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), the survey of 9,600 Muslims across 13 member states found that racism and discrimination threads through most aspects of their lives.
Continue reading...Inquiry preceded controversial migration deal linked to claims of abuse in increasingly authoritarian country
The European Commission is refusing to publish the findings of a human rights inquiry into Tunisia it conducted shortly before announcing a controversial migration deal with the increasingly authoritarian north African country.
An investigation by the EU ombudsman found that the commission quietly carried out a “risk management exercise” into human rights concerns in Tunisia but will not disclose its results.
Continue reading...Former teacher was detained in Budapest for alleged attack on neo-Nazis before being released in June
Hungary has called on the EU to strip parliamentary immunity from the Italian MEP Ilaria Salis, who was detained for 16 months in Budapest after an alleged attack on neo-Nazis.
The case of Salis, 39, a teacher from Monza, near Milan, sparked diplomatic protests and anger in Italy after she was brought last January to court in Hungary in chains, her hands cuffed and feet locked together.
Continue reading...Final result sees ‘yes’ vote scrape ahead by 13,000 votes, narrowly avoiding shock setback for pro-western president
Moldovans have voted by a razor-thin majority in favour of joining the EU after a pivotal referendum clouded by allegations of Russian interference.
On Sunday, Moldova held key votes in a presidential election and a referendum on EU membership, marking a critical moment in the continuing struggle between Russia and the west for control over the small, landlocked nation in eastern Europe, home to 2.5 million people.
Continue reading...Pro-western leader Maia Sandu condemns ‘assault’ on country’s freedom and democracy by ‘foreign forces’
Moldova’s pro-western president, Maia Sandu, blamed an “unprecedented assault on our country’s freedom and democracy” by “foreign forces” on Sunday night, as a pivotal referendum on EU membership remained too close to call with most votes counted.
Moldovans went to the polls earlier in the day to cast their vote in a presidential election and an EU referendum that marked a key moment in the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the future of the small, landlocked south-east European country with a population of about 2.5 million people.
Continue reading...Presidential election and EU referendum take place amid concerns over interference from Moscow
Moldovans are voting in a presidential election and an EU referendum that will mark a pivotal moment in the tug-of-war between Russia and the west over the future of the small, landlocked south-east European country of fewer than 3 million people.
The pro-western president, Maia Sandu, hopes to advance her agenda by winning a second term and securing a “yes” in a referendum to affirm EU accession as a “irreversible” goal in the constitution.
Continue reading...Judges’ decision on 12 men held in Italian migration hub in Albania also casts doubt on EU’s hardline plans
The last 12 asylum seekers being held in a new Italian migration hub in Albania must be transferred to Italy, a court has ruled, in a heavy blow to a controversial deal between the far-right Rome government and Tirana aimed at curbing migrant arrivals.
The decision casts further doubt on the feasibility and legality of plans by the EU, discussed on Thursday, to explore ways of establishing migrant processing and detention centres outside the bloc as part of a new hardline approach to migration.
Continue reading...The new mood to tighten laws is driven in large part by the success of far-right parties, in power in seven countries
EU leaders met in Brussels today with migration at the top of the agenda. Here we examine why that has happened – and what the European Commission, as well as national capitals, might do about it.
Continue reading...Idea of ‘return hubs’ gains traction after mainstream EU politicians were unnerved by rise of far right
The EU has opened the door to the untested idea of “return hubs” – offshore centres for people deported from the bloc – at a summit dominated by plans for a tougher migration policy.
The idea of the offshore processing of asylum claims or vaguely defined “return hubs” in non-EU countries has gained traction in recent weeks, after large gains for the far right in European elections in June unnerved mainstream leaders across the continent.
Continue reading...Fall in inflation enables central bank to bring in quarter point cut to 3.25% after business and consumer slowdown
The European Central Bank has intervened to prevent a sharp slowdown in the eurozone economy with its first back-to-back interest rate cut since the euro crisis in 2011.
With Germany on the brink of a recession and inflation tumbling across the 20 member single currency bloc, the ECB followed a reduction in the cost of borrowing at its previous meeting in September with a further 0.25 percentage point cut in its key deposit rate to 3.25%.
Continue reading...Ukrainian membership would be part of five-point ‘victory plan’ to end war, president tells Brussels summit
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged European leaders to issue an “immediate invitation” to Ukraine to join Nato as he pitched his “victory plan”, which he said would end the war in 2025 at the latest.
Addressing the EU’s 27 leaders at a Brussels summit, Ukraine’s president outlined his five-point plan, which urges allies to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons on military targets inside Ukraine’s occupied territories and Russia, as well as to help increase air defences.
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