Photo by Yellow Cactus on Unsplash MEPs will tackle everything from child sexual abuse to the the EU’s anti-money laundering agency this week. Current derogations from EU e-privacy rules, which allow companies to voluntarily detect child sexual abuse material and remove it, will expire in August 2024. As the passage of new permanent rules before August is uncertain…
Photo by Artem Kniaz on Unsplash More than 200 experts attended an international conference on European civil society’s humanitarian response to the integration of refugees and asylum-seeking children from Ukraine. The Federation of Non-Governmental Organisations for Children (FONPC), together with CARE France, SERA Romania, Eurochild, and ICVA, hosted a two-day international conference, RE:Think Bridges in Bucharest. It brought together over…
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash There is a good chance that Donald Trump will return to the US presidency in 2025. That would endanger European interests, but Europe is not investing in mitigating the risks, writes Ian Bond. In less than a year, the next US president will be inaugurated. Donald Trump, who has just thumped his…
Photo by redcharlie on Unsplash UN Tourism has opened applications for the 2024 edition of its Best Tourism Villages initiative. Over the past three editions, UN Tourism – the new name of the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) – received almost 600 applications from nearly 100 countries. Currently, the UN Tourism Best Tourism Villages Network brings together 186 members…
Russia will hold another presidential election in March 2024. Given the totalitarian reality of Russia, there is no doubt that Putin will be re-elected for another 6 years, and that this will herald a period of geopolitical turbulence for Europe. Holding such elections in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine is a challenge for the…
MEPs are set to scrutinise fossil fuel companies’ “undue influence” on energy policy, it has emerged. This comes after the European Parliament confirmed it will hold a public hearing to investigate the role played by fossil fuel firms in the EU’s energy crisis response. A petition has already been submitted to the EU by the “Fossil…
Photo by Precious Madubuike on Unsplash The EU’s CO2 emissions reduction targets for new passenger cars will not be achievable as long as important prerequisites are missing, says a report published today by the European Court of Auditors. Despite lofty ambitions and strict requirements, most passenger cars on EU roads still emit the same quantity of CO2 as 12 years…
The Republic of The Gambia reiterated on Thursday in Dakhla its “unwavering” support for the territorial integrity of the Kingdom and its endorsement of the Autonomy Initiative as the only “credible and realistic” solution for resolving the dispute over the Moroccan Sahara. This stance was expressed in a joint communiqué issued at the end of…
Photo by Håkon Grimstad on Unsplash Irene Shashar, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto, has addressed MEPs in a plenary session in Brussels to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On a highly-charged occasion on Thursday she described how she survived the horrors of Nazism in Warsaw as a “Holocaust Hidden Child”. This involved fleeing through a sewer to…
Tonight (25th January) we celebrate the life and poetry of Robert Burns, the national poet of Scotland. Honouring a national poet is something that Scotland shares with Ukraine, two of the few countries in the world to do so. Robert Burns is renowned for the respect in which he held his fellow man. He was…
