Businessman Yorgen Fenech has been arrested in Malta in connection with the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia two years ago. According to media reports, he was arrested when he attempted to leave the island with his yacht. Fenech is the owner of the company “17 Black”, which appears in the “Panama Papers” with connections to Tourism…
The following declaration by the EU’s High Representative on Foreign Policy on behalf of the European Union was issued yesterday on developments in Hong Kong. In light of the continuing rise in violence in Hong Kong, including the latest developments at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, it is crucial that all sides exercise restraint and…
The “alarming” scale of violence and violations against journalists and press freedom in the world has been revealed at an event in Brussels. Such attacks also include Belgium where there have been no less than 11 violations registered in the last 8 months alone. This was disclosed at the event held earlier this week at…
The EU needs its own anti-money laundering authority. This is acknowledged by the six finance ministers from Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Latvia in a joint position paper. Olaf Scholz and his five counterparts want a European money laundering supervisory authority to coordinate and supervise national authorities in the financial sector and, if…
MEP Anthea McIntyre has vowed to do all she can to get answers to the mystery surrounding football fan Robert Spray’s death while in the custody of Bulgarian police. Miss McIntyre, Conservative MEP for the West Midlands, has joined with Mr Spray’s Cannock Chase constituency MP Amanda Milling to pursue the case. She will use international contacts…
A major new polling report, published today by the Open Society Foundations, examines attitudes towards politics and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe, 30 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1989 revolutions. The new report, entitled “States of Change”, draws on YouGov polling in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany,…
MEPs have adopted a resolution urging member states to work on long-overdue rules obliging multinationals to disclose what taxes they pay in each country. The resolution, adopted by 572 votes in favour, 42 against and 21 abstentions, urges member states to agree a position on the legislative proposal requiring public country-by-country reporting of taxes paid…
The spotlight had already been on Romania’s prison conditions due to a report earlier this year by the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). The international scrutiny has continued with the imprisonment of Liviu Dragnea, the leader of country’s Social Democrat party. The imprisonment…
The European Court of Auditors (ECA) has signed off the 2018 accounts of all 41 EU agencies as reliable and confirmed the positive results reported in previous years. In this year’s annual report, published today, the auditors also gave all agencies a clean bill of health as regards their income and spending – except for…
Tax havens: are European finance ministers guilty of applying double standards because they still do not blacklist the US? EU finance ministers have removed several third countries from the EU list of non-cooperative countries in tax matters. But the US are still not on the EU list of tax havens. Since June 2019, countries that…
