Category Archives: European Union

EU discusses earmarking €1bn for Ukraine

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Josep Borrell says 1,300 missiles given to Ukraine as EU discuss raising Europe’s military budget

EU countries have provided 220,000 artillery shells and 1,300 missiles to Ukraine since March, its foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said, as member states discuss raising Europe’s military budget by another €3.5bn.

Following a meeting of defence ministers in Brussels, Borrell said “the overwhelming majority of member states” had said they were in favour of increasing the European Peace Facility budget, €1bn of which would be earmarked for Ukraine. The fund is used to reimburse EU member states that supply military aid to Kyiv.

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Austria tightens border controls as Hungary frees convicted people smugglers

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Budapest blames EU for decision to release foreign detainees provided they leave country within 72 hours

Austria has stepped up security on its borders after Hungary released convicted people smugglers from its prisons in a row that has also raised tensions with Brussels.

Following reports that hundreds of detainees may have been released on Monday provided they left the country immediately, Hungary’s state secretary of the interior ministry, Bence Rétvári, blamed the European Union for the move.

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Facebook owner Meta fined €1.2bn for mishandling user information

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Penalty from Ireland’s privacy regulator is a record for breach of EU data protection regulation

Facebook’s owner, Meta, has been fined a record €1.2bn (£1bn) and ordered to suspend the transfer of user data from the EU to the US.

The fine – equivalent to $1.3bn – imposed by Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC), which regulates Meta across the EU, is a record for a breach of the bloc’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Paralysed Swedish woman in London cannot return home due to bureaucracy

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52-year-old, in hospital for more than a year after bike accident, wants to be repatriated but is not listed as a resident in Sweden

A Swedish woman left paralysed after a catastrophic bike accident has been stranded in a London hospital for more than a year after efforts to repatriate her to her home country failed due to Stockholm bureaucracy.

The situation, described by her husband as “shameful”, comes following a similar case in which authorities threatened to deport a 74-year-old British woman with Alzheimer’s because of strict adherence to Brexit red tape.

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As Greece goes to the polls, scandal, disaster and apathy eat into PM’s lead

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Economic resurgence may not be enough to win Kyriakos Mitsotakis a new term in Sunday’s election

With the Acropolis behind him, Kyriakos Mitsotakis ascends to the podium amid thunderous music and the cackle of whistles and horns. It is the last rally of the last day of his re-election campaign before polls open on Sunday, and the prime minister is in a combative mood.

“Do we want stability or continuous uncertainty?” he asks. “That is the dilemma we are being called to answer.” It is a question that has dominated an election that Mitsotakis once thought he had in the bag.

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Hungary steps up threat to block EU weapons aid for Ukraine

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Foreign minister’s comments at odds with unity G7 nations want to project at summit in Hiroshima

Hungary has stepped up threats to block further EU funds for weapons to aid Ukraine, marring a show of unity from western nations at the G7 summit.

The Hungarian foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, has said his government will block a further €500m from the European peace facility, a fund used to reimburse EU member states that supply military aid to Ukraine, unless Kyiv removes Hungary’s OTP Bank from its list of war sponsors.

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European leaders urged to help Tunisians resist assault on democracy

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International academics join effort to highlight crackdown on freedom after jailing of opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi

European powers must stand by pro-democracy Tunisians resisting a fierce onslaught designed to take the country back to the darkest days of dictatorship, a letter from more than 70 academics has urged.

The letter, designed to shine a light on the Tunisian crackdown, was in part collated by Soumaya Ghannoushi, whose father, the Tunisian opposition leader, Rached Ghannouchi, was sentenced to a year in jail on Monday.

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Ford, Vauxhall owner and JLR call for UK to renegotiate Brexit deal

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Carmakers call on Britain to change rules on batteries that they say threaten electric vehicle production

Three big global carmakers have called on the UK government to renegotiate the Brexit deal, saying rules on where parts are sourced from threaten the future of the British automotive industry.

Ford and Jaguar Land Rover have joined Stellantis, which owns the Vauxhall, Peugeot and Citroën brands, to warn the transition to electric vehicles will be knocked off course unless the UK and EU delay stricter “rules of origin”, due to kick in next year, that could add tariffs on car exports.

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Ursula von der Leyen steps up calls for tribunal for Russia’s ‘crime of aggression’

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Speaking before Council of Europe summit, European Commission president says ‘accountability for Russia’ will be big topic

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is stepping up calls for a special tribunal to try Russia for the crime of aggression.

Speaking ahead of a summit of European leaders in Reykjavik on Tuesday, Von der Leyen said “accountability of Russia for the crime of aggression” would be a big topic. Earlier this week, she promised to “strongly support the creation of a dedicated tribunal to bring Russia’s crime of aggression to trial”.

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UN labour rights watchdog facing backlash over Qatar conference nomination

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Exclusive: Qatari minister expected to take presidency of ILO event despite bribery investigation

The UN’s labour rights watchdog, the International Labour Organization (ILO), is facing a backlash over the nomination of Qatar to chair its flagship annual conference despite a police investigation into alleged bribery of EU lawmakers by the Gulf state.

The Guardian has learned that Qatar’s minister of labour, Ali bin Saeed bin Samikh Al Marri, is expected to take the presidency of the ILO’s international labour conference in Geneva in June, an annual event intended to advance global standards on workers’ rights.

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‘We have a violent society’: hate speech in spotlight after Serbian mass shootings

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Mass shootings prompted arms amnesty, but many see politicians and media as part of the problem

In the first week an amnesty after mass shootings plunged their country into shock and soul-searching, Serbians surrendered more than 13,500 weapons, from guns through hand grenades to anti-tank launchers, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition.

But in a deeply divided nation awash with lethal weaponry, where war criminals are glorified, reality shows on state TV star convicted murderers, and memories of savage recent conflicts run deep, many doubt whether the president’s pledge to “disarm” the country will be enough.

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EU tells ministers they must ‘recalibrate’ China policy over support for Russia

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Josep Borrell says relations will worsen if Xi Jinping does not push Putin to withdraw from Ukraine

A Russian defeat in Ukraine will not derail China’s rise, while relations between Beijing and the EU will be “critically affected” if Xi Jinping does not push Vladimir Putin to withdraw his forces, European ministers have been told.

The message comes in a paper drawn up by the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who is meeting the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Friday in Stockholm to discuss how the bloc should “recalibrate” its policy towards Beijing.

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EU parliament report calls for tighter regulation of spyware

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Non-binding vote bans surveillance software after concluding Hungary and Poland used it to track journalists and opponents

The EU needs tighter regulation of the spyware industry, a European parliament special committee has said, after concluding that Hungary and Poland had used surveillance software to illegally monitor journalists, politicians and activists.

A special European parliament committee voted on Monday for a temporary ban on the sale, acquisition and use of spyware while the bloc draws up common EU standards based on international law. The moratorium would be lifted only on strict conditions, including independent investigations into the abuse of spyware in the EU.

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Germany’s regional leaders demand more financial support for refugees

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Leaders of country’s 16 states will call on Chancellor Scholz to increase daily rate for feeding, housing and schooling asylum seekers

German lawmakers are at loggerheads over how to manage the number of refugees coming into the country, with regional leaders calling on the government to provide more financial support.

On Wednesday, the leaders of Germany’s 16 states will meet Olaf Scholz, the chancellor, in Berlin, and call on him to ensure that the federal government takes on more responsibility for immigration, including increasing the daily rate allocated to cover the costs of individuals.

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EU leaders set out hopes for post-Brexit relations with Britain

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Representatives of 27 member states mark Europe Day by calling for further strengthening of trust rebuilt by Windsor framework

EU leaders have signalled their desire to reset relations with the UK, seven turbulent years on from the seismic Brexit vote.

Representatives from all 27 member states said on Monday that they wanted to “develop further ties between the EU and the UK” after a deal sealed on Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland.

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Battery passports: how a meeting at Davos helped set a car industry standard

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Mining groups hope their joint project, ReSource, will have an influence on the global business

“It’s incredibly exciting,” said Benedikt Sobotka, the chief executive of mining company Eurasian Resources Group (ERG). Sitting in front of an audience in January at Davos, the ski resort that hosts an annual gathering of the world’s business elite, he waved a piece of paper with a QR code that he hopes will eventually be attached to every electric car battery in the world.

Sobotka’s excitement reflected his involvement in setting up ReSource, a joint project with fellow miners Glencore and IXM to provide battery “passports” for electric cars. It also hinted at his bigger hopes: that his mining company and its partners could take an influential role in the future of the automotive industry.

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EU lawyers say plan to scan private messages for child abuse may be unlawful

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Under proposed ‘chat controls’ regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to screen for ‘identifiers’

An EU plan under which all WhatsApp, iMessage and Snapchat accounts could be screened for child abuse content has hit a significant obstacle after internal legal advice said it would probably be annulled by the courts for breaching users’ rights.

Under the proposed “chat controls” regulation, any encrypted service provider could be forced to survey billions of messages, videos and photos for “identifiers” of certain types of content where it was suspected a service was being used to disseminate harmful material.

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European Central Bank chief suggests firms are engaging in ‘greedflation’

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Comments by Christine Lagarde come after central bank raises interest rates for seventh time in succession

The president of the European Central Bank suggested companies were taking advantage of high inflation when raising prices, after the bank raised interest rates by a quarter of a percentage point to tackle the cost of living surge.

Christine Lagarde said wage pressures in the eurozone had strengthened, as workers try to recoup some of the purchasing power they have lost due to inflation, but hinted some firms were engaging in so-called greedflation.

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EU urged to protect grassroots AI research or risk losing out to US

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Experts warn Brussels it cannot afford to leave artificial intelligence in the hands of foreign firms such as Google

The EU has been warned that it risks handing control of artificial intelligence to US tech firms if it does not act to protect grassroots research in its forthcoming AI bill.

In an open letter coordinated by the German research group Laion, or Large-scale AI Open Network, the European parliament was told that “one-size-fits-all” rules risked eliminating open research and development.

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‘I was in tears’: Briton with valid passport barred from flight over Brexit rules

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Experts say it is vital to check you meet EU requirements, or you could risk losing your holiday

Travellers who have not used their passport for a while were this week being urged to dig it out and check it conforms to the post-Brexit rules for entering the EU – because if it doesn’t, you will almost certainly be denied boarding this summer.

Despite previous warnings in Guardian Money and some other publicity, UK travellers trying to enter the Schengen zone are being turned away on a daily basis by airline staff at boarding gates – in most cases because their UK passport was issued more than 10 years ago.

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