Recent reforms by Robert Fico’s government in Bratislava have drawn intense scrutiny for undermining the rule of law — prompting the European Parliament to renew its call to freeze EU funding for Slovakia.
Reflecting the sun with tiny particles sprayed from airplanes could reduce global temperatures, but would need to be maintained for decades, perhaps centuries, and the margin of error is essentially zero.
Internal conflicts in the Latvian coalition government came to a boil, after Ukrainian drones crashed into the country without interception. The formation of a new government is now in the hands of the rightwing opposition.
“We are barely making it,” admitted Roxana Mînzatu, the EU commissioner for social rights and skills, who presented a plan earlier this month to eradicate poverty by 2025 throughout the EU.
If the Strait of Hormuz remains shut and the US were to restrict gas exports to Europe, prices would jump above the 2022 peak, researchers warn.
“If nothing happens by autumn, there will be mobilisation or peace”, an influential Russian blogger wrote.
‘We got what we need’. A suspension and sunset clause give MEPs the guarantees they had demanded in trilogue talks with EU ministers on Wednesday morning, giving the parliament a major PR victory.
The EU affordable housing plan was conceived in crisis mode, mirroring the reactive logic of many national ‘housing crisis’ strategies: rushed, politically-driven, and shaped more by the need to be seen to act than by a deep understanding of the root of the problem.
EU lawmakers accuse the commission of breaching public access to information rules – by amending a law actually intended to bring transparency to the rapidly-expanding data centre sector.
call for data centre transparency after Investigate Europe revelations of Big Tech lobbying campaign
The EU has set out plans to ramp up production of home-grown fertiliser, in a blow to Morocco which has been lobbying the EU Commission to encourage imports of its phosphate-based fertiliser.
![[Interview] EU’s new merger overhaul risks ignoring the small firms that keep Europe competitive, economist says](/makepkg/implementing-https-static.euobserver.com/2026/05/bernardo-2400x1603.jpeg)
The EU is loosening merger rules to build larger European companies that can compete globally, but may be overlooking its SMEs, where much of Europe’s innovation is happening.
Why should defence spending benefit from budget flexibility, but not energy crisis spending?
“The Commission is also not taking the debate seriously, they’re just sitting there for three hours, and at the end they read out a script that was prepared beforehand,” complains Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Green MEP.
The EU is rushing to authorise its “ICE-style” migrant returns, while spending be millions of taxpayer euros to expand its detention centres in third-countries beyond bloc’s borders.
The US is still muscling in on Greenland, posing questions on whether undefended Iceland could be next, or if Russia has designs on the demilitarised Svalbard and the Åland Islands.
MEPs have rejected a request to lift the immunity of the long-serving German MEP Angelika Niebler, after a request from the European Chief Prosecutor and media reports over her alleged misuse of EU funds.
The social-media post by Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Deployment Corps was seen as a cry for help by soldiers under Russian fire near Pokrovsk.
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In the US, the backlash against AI data centres is bipartisan, organised and growing. But not in Europe, where government are bending over backwards to attract them, writes Albert Alemanno.
Why are hundreds of rare disease patients like me still waiting for European Medicines Agency approved drugs?
