Norway’s Arctic oil and gas pitch to Europe is built on exaggeration, not energy securityNorway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre has been vigorously touring the continent since the start of the US-Israeli war with Iran, telling everybody who wants to listen that Norway’s Arctic oil and gas are crucial for Europe’s energy security. But is it?
Since Donald Trump’s return, Europe has consistently failed to get into the rooms where straight answers exist. What Europe has not done is structurally engage enough with the one constituency that can actually give it clear eyes: the opposition.
Will Ireland’s diplomatic charm fix budget wars and Gaza trade row in next six months?For the next six months, Dublin will try to play neutral on defence and Middle East policy while simultaneously pushing for a contentious EU budget deal that many in Brussels still think could easily collapse.
Europe’s standing will not be restored by shifting responsibilities from one building to another, moving competences between commissioners and directorates-general, or publishing yet another security strategy.
The EU´s inaction and silence during the war in Gaza landed a heavy and long-standing blow to the EU’s credibility in the Global South. But we now have both instruments and a window of opportunity to address it, writes S&D MEP Nacho Sánchez Amor.
Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine label homes “ownerless.” That allows authorities to transfer them into municipal ownership by Russia-installed courts and redistribute them, including to new residents holding Russian passports. This sham process violates international law on occupation and international human rights law.
Uncertainty about the US military commitment to Europe, plus the near-certainty of a continuing threat from Russia, places the UK centre-stage in all defence and security discussions. So who prime-minister designate Andy Burnham appoints as foreign secretary, and defence secretary, is crucial.
Bulgaria’s threat to block the bloc’s 21st Russia sanctions package shows that the Union’s weakness was never Viktor Orbán alone. It is a rule under which one capital’s refusal binds the other 26 and owes them no reason.
Ireland takes over the EU presidency as analysts ridicule its defence spending – Europe’s lowest at 0.2 percent of its GDP. But contributions to European security should not be measured by spending on arms alone: and Ireland is the case in point.
EU commission see ‘no overriding public interest’ to release secret Gaza reports, on day UN calls out genocideOn the same day that the UN human rights office called out genocide in Gaza, the European Commission told me there was no public interest in releasing 17 documents it wants to keep secret on the enclave.
Large trucks equipped with biometric cameras were stationed around last year’s Budapest Pride march to discourage participation. The objective was not only punishment, but deterrence. Despite the new government, this logic remains embedded in Hungarian law today.
Europe’s ugly anti‑migrant politics just found a new stage: South AfricaSouth Africa is facing a anti-migrant crisis that is rerunning many of the arguments, rhetoric and racism seen in Europe over the past decade.
To fundamentally understand why it’s strange the EU Commission is throwing its weight behind this new for-profit social platform, you need to understand what lies beneath.
The EU is tightening its restrictions on the disclosure of its activities and documents. Of particular concern is the pending legislation on information security, which would introduce security classifications for documents in all policy areas.
Brexit: A stormy night in Brussels 10 years ago – and a failure of journalismIn 2016, I had had a very uneasy feeling for many months that Leave, under the joint leadership of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson, was going to win. Not a single other British journalist in Brussels agreed with me.
Over recent decades, presidents and prime ministers have become the leading actors on foreign policy. The more important foreign policy debates now happen in the European Council, where the high representative has a relatively weak role. Henry Kissinger’s famous question, whom to call when the US wishes to talk to Europe, now has a clear answer: the president of the European Commission.
Tuesday, 23 June 2026, marks the 10th anniversary of the UK decision to leave the European Union. Ten years on has anything been learned?
Aligning import standards with domestic ones would begin to rebuild the trust that has been eroded between farmers, institutions and citizens. It would send a clear signal that the EU is serious about fairness.
Are oil markets too optimistic?The economics of reopening a chokepoint that handles a fifth of the world’s oil and overseas gas supply may prove more difficult than market prices suggest.
Beyond attempts to copy ‘foreign agent’ laws seen in other countries, Slovak authorities are deploying a well-worn playbook to villainise those who hold them to account. Robert Fico and his minister of interior have gone so far as to accuse civil society groups of plotting a “state coup”. The hostility extends to minority rights as well, with the minister of culture publicly disparaging LGBTI human rights defenders and branding them a ‘malignant ideology’ and stating they will ‘no longer receive a cent’