Category Archives: Europe

Spanish Puig snaps up Charlotte Tilbury makeup empire

Posted on by

Barcelona-based firm is thought to have fought off bids from Unilever, L’Oréal and Shiseido

The celebrity makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury has handed a control of her namesake makeup and skincare empire to a Spanish fashion and fragrances business in a deal that could have valued the company at up to £1bn just seven years after she started it.

Tilbury, 47, personally owned between half and 75% of the company until signing a deal with the Barcelona-based Puig will likely have handed her a cash payout worth tens of millions of pounds. The Spanish firm also owns brands including Paco Rabanne, Jean Paul Gaultier and Nina Ricci.

Continue reading...

Prague erects replica of baroque Virgin Mary statue toppled in 1918

Posted on by

Sculptor Petr Váňa installs his copy of 1652 original in Czech capital’s Old Town Square

A replica of a historic statue of the Virgin Mary has been restored to the spot in Prague where a revolutionary mob tore down the original more than a century ago.

It had been erected in 1652 to celebrate the victory of pro-Catholic Habsburg forces over Sweden in the 30 years’ war, but a group of radicals toppled it in November 1918 as the Habsburg empire crumbled at the end of the first world war. The revolutionaries saw it as a symbol of Habsburg oppression.

Continue reading...

Hungary marks treaty centenary as Orbán harnesses ‘Trianon trauma’

Posted on by

PM uses settlement, which took away three-fifths of territory, for nationalist agenda

Church bells rang out across Budapest, public transport came to a halt and people observed a moment of silence as Hungary commemorated the centenary of the treaty of Trianon on Thursday.

Signed in the aftermath of the first world war, the treaty still forms a major part of Hungary’s national identity and memories of the harsh settlement have helped fuel the nationalist agenda of the current prime minister, Viktor Orbán.

Continue reading...

Angela Merkel has become the spend, spend, spend chancellor | Larry Elliot

Posted on by

With its €130bn stimulus package, Germany is showing others how to do the recovery

And in one bound she was transformed. For Angela Merkel, the days of being lampooned as the archetypal Swabian housewife keeping tight control over the purse strings are over. Now, courtesy of a €130bn (£116bn) stimulus package, she is the spend, spend, spend chancellor.

Make no mistake, much of the past criticism of Germany’s frugal approach to government spending and budget deficits was justified. Saving some money for a rainy day is one thing but running surpluses worth 8% of national output was unnecessary and harmful to the global economy.

Continue reading...

Pamplona ‘wolf pack’ members convicted of separate sexual assault

Posted on by

Four found guilty of sexually abusing woman in southern city of Córdoba in May 2016

Four of the five men who gang-raped a young woman at Pamplona’s bull-running festival in July 2016 have been given additional prison sentences after being convicted of sexually abusing another woman in southern Spain two months earlier.

The Pamplona rape shocked the country and nationwide protests erupted after the five men were initially convicted of the lesser offence of sexual abuse.

Continue reading...

St Petersburg death tally casts doubt on Russian coronavirus figures

Posted on by

City issues 1,552 more death certificates in May than last year, but Covid-19 toll was 171

New mortality data from Russia’s second-largest city has reignited questions about whether the country’s official tally has discounted thousands of deaths tied to the coronavirus outbreak.

St Petersburg issued 1,552 more death certificates this May than in the previous year, a nearly 32% rise indicating that hundreds of deaths tied to the pandemic are not reflected in the city’s official coronavirus death toll for the month of 171.

Continue reading...

EU leaders will intervene in Brexit talks in autumn, says German official

Posted on by

Michael Clauss says talks will be a focus from September and UK needs more realistic approach

Britain must give away some sovereignty to secure free trade with the EU but Europe’s leaders will intervene in the negotiations in the autumn with the aim of sealing a compromise deal at a summit on 15 October, Germany’s ambassador in Brussels has said.

Michael Clauss, whose country will take over the rolling presidency of the EU for the second half of the year, said there had been “no real progress” in the talks so far but predicted they would become the EU’s main political focus in September and October.

Continue reading...

UK car sales slump as 2,000 workers lose their jobs in Covid-19 crisis – business live

Posted on by

Live coverage as Aston Martin and car dealer Lookers announce costs savings plans

Young’s pub chain intends to open all of its 276 sites by the 3 August, and is hopeful the business can “bounce back” once its pubs are allowed to reopen, but expects trading to be “materially below average” for the rest of the year.

Another interesting detail from the SMMT data: Tesla’s Model 3 was the most popular car during May.

Continue reading...

Madeleine McCann parents say focus on suspect ‘potentially very significant’

Posted on by

Spokesman says it is first time in 13 years he can recall police fixing sights on one individual

The parents of Madeleine McCann believe the identification of a convicted German sex offender as the key suspect in their daughter’s disappearance is “potentially very significant”, their spokesman has said.

An international appeal for information is under way after police in Britain and Germany revealed that a serving prisoner is the new prime suspect in the disappearance of the three-year-old on 3 May 2007.

Continue reading...

Putin orders state of emergency after huge fuel spill inside Arctic Circle

Posted on by

President lambasts power plant owner ‘for not reporting earlier’ incident bigger than Kerch spill

Vladimir Putin has ordered a state of emergency after 20,000 tonnes of diesel fuel spilled into a river inside the Arctic Circle.

The spill occurred when a fuel reservoir at a power plant near the city of Norilsk collapsed on Friday.

Continue reading...

Britons applying for German citizenship up 2,300% last year

Posted on by

Since Britain voted to leave the EU in 2016, 31,600 Britons have acquired German citizenship

The number of Britons applying for a German citizenship last year was up by approximately 2,300% compared to the year before the Brexit referendum, driving up the number of naturalisations in the country to a 16-year high.

According to data released by the Federal Statistical office on Wednesday, the total number of citizenship applications granted in 2019 increased by 15% year on year to 128,900, with 14,600 granted applications from British citizens accounting for almost half the increase.

Continue reading...

Irish MEP Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan caught with no trousers in EU debate

Posted on by

Flanagan jokes about having legs insured after mistakenly putting iPad in portrait mode for call

Gazing into the camera while you sit on a bed with no trousers on might, in another context, arouse certain expectations.

But Luke “Ming” Flanagan, an Irish MEP, was unaware his bottom half was showing as he beamed in from home to discuss agriculture policy on the European parliament’s official live broadcast.

Continue reading...

Covid-19: Greece quarantines all passengers from Qatar flight

Posted on by

All 91 travellers put in quarantine after 12 test positive, illustrating risk of welcoming back tourists

Greece has been forced to confront the risks of restarting international tourism after authorities announced that 12 out of 91 passengers onboard a Qatar Airlines flight to Athens had tested positive for coronavirus.

The civil protection ministry responded by suspending air links to and from the Arab state until 15 June. All 91 travellers on the flight were immediately placed in quarantine. 

Continue reading...

Women picking fruit for UK supermarkets ‘facing new forms of exploitation’

Posted on by

As Covid-19 causes workforce shortages, UN urged to urgently investigate worsening conditions in Spain’s strawberry industry

Women picking strawberries in Spain for UK supermarkets are facing new forms of exploitation, unions and lawyers warn, as the industry is hit by labour shortages caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

This week a coalition of rights groups and lawyers have appealed to the United Nations to urgently investigate allegations of deteriorating working conditions and a lack of protection for workers against Covid-19 infection.

Continue reading...

Spain rekindles a radical idea: a Europe-wide minimum income

Posted on by

Podemos leader enlists Portugal and Italy to lobby for policy as depression looms for coronavirus-ravaged southern Europe

It’s been proposed, probed and pushed to the margins of the European Union for more than two decades. Now, as Europe reels from tens of thousands of coronavirus deaths and millions of lost jobs in the worst recession for generations, ministers from Spain, Italy and Portugal say the time has come to revive a radical idea: a pan-EU minimum income.

“This is the moment for debates about social protection,” Pablo Iglesias, Spain’s deputy prime minister for social rights and leader of Podemos, told the Guardian. “Anyone who finds themselves in a vulnerable situation should have access to protection mechanisms that allow them to fill their fridge and care for their family.” 

Continue reading...

Cafe culture returns to France after lockdown – in pictures

Posted on by

In Paris, contented customers sit outside cafes and sip their morning espressos for the first time in 11 weeks. There are, however, strict rules: bars and restaurants have permission to sprawl across pavements but tables must be 1m apart. In the rest of France, customers can now be served inside while maintaining the same distance

Continue reading...

We should have done more, admits architect of Sweden’s Covid-19 strategy

Posted on by

Anders Tegnell says there was ‘potential for improvement’ in country’s strategy to fight pandemic

Sweden’s chief epidemiologist and the architect of its light-touch approach to the coronavirus has acknowledged that the country has had too many deaths from Covid-19 and should have done more to curb the spread of the virus.

Anders Tegnell, who has previously criticised other countries’ strict lockdowns as not sustainable in the long run, told Swedish Radio on Wednesday that there was “quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done” in Sweden.

Continue reading...

Health experts cast doubt on UK hopes for holiday ‘air bridges’

Posted on by

Agreements to exempt tourists from coronavirus quarantine restrictions are complicated

Public health experts and officials have warned that the idea of “air bridge” links between the UK and overseas holiday destinations may prove impossible this summer, amid continued concern over how they could operate safely.

A number of Conservative MPs are pushing for air bridges – mutual agreements with other countries to allow travellers to fly in and out without coronavirus quarantine restrictions – ahead of the imposition of the UK’s 14-day quarantine system next week.

Continue reading...

Global report: Germany eases travel ban and cafe culture returns to Paris

Posted on by

Elsewhere, Italy’s president warns Covid-19 ‘is not over’, and former UK PMs join calls for a coordinated global response

Germany lifted its blanket European travel ban as coronavirus lockdowns across the EU continued to ease, with officials saying new cases in western Europe were now in steady decline.

Parisians reclaimed their cafe terraces and Berliners took back their bars as normal life inched closer to returning in many parts of the continent.

Continue reading...

Austria unveils design to turn Hitler’s house into a police station

Posted on by

Conversion of building where Nazi leader was born will cost €5m and be completed in 2022

Austrian authorities have unveiled a design for turning the house where Adolf Hitler was born into a police station – while trying to make it unattractive as a pilgrimage site for people who glorify the Nazi dictator.

A design by Austrian architects Marte.Marte beat 11 competitors in an interior ministry tender, officials said on Tuesday. The refurbishment is expected to be completed around the end of 2022 and will cost about €5m (£4.5m).

Continue reading...