Category Archives: European commission

Xi Jinping to visit France, Hungary and Serbia amid EU trade tariff row

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China’s president arrives as EU anti-subsidy investigations and tensions over espionage, Ukraine and Taiwan continue

China’s president, Xi Jinping, is to visit Europe next week for the first time in five years, in a tour that will take in the unlikely trifecta of France, Hungary and Serbia.

The visit comes as China pushes to avoid a trade war with the EU, while attitudes towards Beijing in the bloc are hardening after multiple spying scandals and China’s ongoing support for Russia in the war in Ukraine.

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Von der Leyen criticises European far right for being ‘Putin’s proxies’

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Commission president, who is seeking another term, took aim at group that includes AfD and National Rally in pre-election debate

The European Commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, has criticised the far right as “Putin’s proxies”, while refusing to rule out working with other rightwing nationalists, as campaigning began ahead of June’s European elections.

Von der Leyen is seeking a second five-year term leading the commission, in the looming reshuffle of EU top jobs that follows the European elections.

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Europe live: Ursula von der Leyen accused of watering down green deal for farmers in European Commission presidential debate

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Ursula von der Leyen takes part alongside representatives from seven other parties as EU gears up for European parliament elections

The far-right Identity and Democracy’s representative, Anders Vistisen, wrote on social media ahead of the debate:

“The entire EU system has tried to prevent me and the right wing from participating in the EU top candidate debate tonight. They want to exclude right wing votes! They didn’t succeed - so tonight I will tell the truth about the EU’s disaster course directly to Ursula and the rest of the EU!”

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Sunak rejects offer of youth mobility scheme between EU and UK

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Labour also turns down European Commission’s proposal, which would have allowed young Britons to live, study and work in EU

Rishi Sunak has rejected an EU offer to strike a post-Brexit deal to allow young Britons to live, study or work in the bloc for up to four years.

The prime minister declined the European Commission’s surprise proposal of a youth mobility scheme for people aged between 18 and 30 on Friday, after Labour knocked back the suggestion on Thursday night, while noting that it would “seek to improve the UK’s working relationship with the EU within our red lines”.

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Brussels proposes return to pre-Brexit mobility for UK and EU young people

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Commission to seek approval from leaders to start talks with UK on visa-free exchanges for 18- to 30-year-olds

The European Commission has proposed opening negotiations with the UK to allow mobility enjoyed before Brexit to millions of 18- to 30-year-olds in a major concession.

It said it would now seek approval from individual EU leaders to start the talks, which could partly eliminate one of the most controversial elements of Brexit, a block on the right to live in one another’s countries, albeit for a limited period and with conditions.

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Von der Leyen’s re-election chances hit by €17k-a-month job for ally

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European Commission defends appointing adviser Markus Pieper after selection process is questioned

Ursula von der Leyen’s run for a second term as president of the European Commission has been dented after accusations of favouritism in the selection of a fellow party member for a lucrative new job.

Some of the highest-ranking people in Brussels, including the EU’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, and the French commissioner Thierry Breton, have written to von der Leyen to complain that the appointment of the German MEP Markus Pieper as a special adviser “has triggered questions about the transparency and impartiality of the nomination process”.

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UN names veteran EU official Astrid Schomaker as new biodiversity chief

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German’s appointment to head Convention on Biological Diversity follows global failure to meet any targets on protecting ecosystems

The next UN biodiversity chief will be Astrid Schomaker, an EU civil servant who will be entrusted with helping the world confront the ongoing catastrophic loss of nature.

Schomaker has been a career official with the EU commission for 30 years. A surprise appointment, she will be tasked with corralling governments to make good on their commitments to protect life on Earth – something they have not done in more than 30 years since the UN biodiversity convention was created.

Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield on X for all the latest news and features

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Crucial European Green Deal package staggers to legislative conclusion

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Key policies to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050 are being weakened by looming elections and persistent protests from farmers

The European Green Deal is limping to the legislative finish line as elections loom and farmers continue to stage fierce protests across the continent.

The policy package, launched with fanfare by the European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen five years ago, was supposed to make Europe climate-neutral by 2050. But with elections in June, in which polls suggest that some countries may take a swing to the right, the EU is gutting some of its key policies to cut pollution and protect the environment.

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EU nature restoration laws face collapse as member states withdraw support

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Brussels vote cancelled after it became clear law would not pass final stage with majority vote

The EU’s nature restoration laws appear on the verge of collapse after eight member states, including Hungary and Italy, withdrew support for the legislation.

The laws, which have been two years in the making and are designed to reverse decades of damage to wildlife on land and in waterways, were supposed to be rubber-stamped in a vote on Monday.

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European Commission accused of ‘bankrolling dictators’ by MEPs after Tunisia deal

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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.

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Aid ship expected to leave Cyprus for Gaza faces logistical delays

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Open Arms vessel, loaded with humanitarian supplies, is waiting for approval from Israel before leaving

A Gaza-bound aid ship expected to make the maiden voyage along a new maritime corridor from Cyprus has yet to set sail because of logistical challenges.

Government officials confirmed on Saturday that while a vessel belonging to Open Arms, a Spanish search and rescue group, had been loaded with food, water and other supplies and was ready to depart the Mediterranean island, it was unlikely to leave before Sunday.

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Von der Leyen’s EU group plans Rwanda-style asylum schemes

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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.

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‘Putin must lose everything’: defiant Zelenskiy hosts western leaders in Kyiv to mark two years of war

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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.

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Post-Brexit watchdog ‘ready’ to investigate flood of cheaper Chinese electric cars

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Remarks by head of trade authority come amid fears UK firms could be undercut ‘to extinction’

The head of Britain’s post-Brexit trade watchdog has said it is ready to follow Brussels in launching an investigation into Chinese companies flooding the market for electric cars, but the government has not asked it to do so.

Oliver Griffiths, the chief executive of the UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA), which advises the government on trade defence, said it was keeping lines of communication open with ministers and had been in close contact with the car industry. “We’ll be ready to go if anyone does come to us,” he told the Guardian in an interview.

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African Union Commission calls for ‘paradigm shift’ at Italy-Africa summit

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Moussa Faki welcomes Giorgia Meloni’s plan to strengthen relations but says ‘we are not beggars’

The chair of the African Union Commission has said “we are not beggars” as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, outlined a plan aimed at helping African countries to prosper in return for curbing illegal immigration.

Speaking at the much anticipated Italy-Africa summit in Rome, Moussa Faki welcomed Italy’s overtures for a mutually beneficial strengthening of relations with the African continent, but said: “We cannot be satisfied with mere promises that can’t be kept.”

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Trump told European leaders that US ‘will never come to help you’

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Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that ‘Nato is dead’ and the US would never defend Europe if it were attacked

Donald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.

Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von der Leyen at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020 was described in Brussels on Tuesday by Thierry Breton, a French European commissioner responsible for the internal market, with responsibilities including defence.

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‘Ramen noodles budget’: EU moves to end exploitation of unpaid internships

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Unless from a wealthy family, internships for many mean chipping away at savings and cutting back on essentials

By day, he was mostly an unpaid intern, getting a glimpse of day-to-day life in university research as he networked with potential employers.

Nightfall would often send him rushing to his second shift; this time, at a library in the suburbs of Paris as he strives to pay his bills.

What we see is that, many times, they [internships] are actually replacing entry-level jobs

Tea Jarc, of the European Trade Union Confederation

Unpaid internships have really become a barrier for the social mobility of young people

María Rodríguez Alcázar, of the European Youth Forum

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Why the EU budget summit is a test of European democracy

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Viktor Orbán’s threat to block funds and membership to Ukraine strikes at the heart of decision-making in the bloc

In the past three years, European leaders have weathered Brexit, the pandemic and the energy crisis, but it turns out that the biggest threat to the EU’s unity and security has come from within.

All week, ministers and EU leaders have been closing ranks to try to prevent the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, from derailing plans to greenlight the start of EU membership talks with Ukraine and a new €50bn (£43bn) facility to help the country pay its bills over the coming years.

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EU leaders hope to face down Viktor Orbán over Ukraine funds veto

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Hungarian prime minister has threatened to block extra €50bn and also Ukraine’s EU membership plans

EU leaders hope to face down the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and keep their promise to find another €50bn (£43bn) for Ukraine despite his threat to veto extra funds during a crunch summit.

“There is no [one] plan B, there are plan Bs and if need be, we can go to Z,” said one diplomat, expressing the determination of the EU to ensure Orbán’s threats are not a barrier to Ukraine securing much-needed financial and military assistance to fight Russian invasion forces.

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EU agrees plan to enable member states to end all gas imports from Russia

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New power to allow importers to sever ties would help to end Europe’s reliance on Russian supplies

EU countries may soon be able to halt their last remaining Russian gas imports under plans to ban Russian energy companies from their pipelines and terminals.

The European Council and parliament have agreed new rules that could empower the EU’s member states to crack down on companies from Russia and Belarus that have continued to import Russian gas into Europe since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine by buying import capacity at key EU import terminals and pipelines.

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