The European Parliament concluded its legislative work on 25 April after five years of intense policymaking. Looking back, from health to economy, passing by rule of law and agriculture, here are the ten moments the European Parliament successfully asserted its power.
The message of US President Joe Biden's first overseas Europe tour has been clear: America is back, and Western alliances are not broken. But for Europeans, the realisation has come that after four acrimonious years under the Trump administration, Biden's …
Talk of an EU–Africa partnership may have only emerged in the last two years, but the promise of better trade and political relations with its southern ‘sister continent’ came from Jean Claude Juncker, who set out plans for a continent–to–continent …
The number of post-Soviet frozen conflicts has only grown, as a result of the failure of international mediation to solve them. After Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria and Abkhazia and South Ossetia, it seems that eastern Ukraine also qualifies as a frozen conflict.
Cities and regions are leading the fight against global warming, calling for the EU to be zero carbon by 2050, as world leaders prepare for the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris (COP21) in November.
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), dubbed a second-generation trade deal in the wake of the moribund WTO Doha negotiations, seeks to go beyond conventional tariffs and quotas, by strengthening the international order through greater regulatory cooperation.
Bulgaria and Greece are hard nuts to crack when it comes to implementing EU energy legislation and integrating with the wider European energy market. These two countries illustrate the difficulties of building an Energy Union.
The European Union has pledged closer cooperation in the fight against terrorism following the killing at Charlie Hebdo, building on measures already taken in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US, and subsequent bombings in Madrid and London. EURACTIV gives a round-up of existing and upcoming initiatives.
In the wake of the global economic crisis and the deadlocked Doha round of international trade talks, the EU and the United States started negotiating a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which seeks to go beyond traditional trade deals and create a genuine transatlantic single market. But the road ahead is paved with hurdles.
Since 2000, 440 million children have been immunised against preventable diseases – and an estimated 6 million deaths have been avoided. But 22.6 million children are still not vaccinated and 1.5 million children under-5-years-old die annually from preventable diseases. Changing this picture may require action, not least on vaccine prices.
Europe’s new overseas aid policy, the Agenda for Change, calls for giving the world’s most fragile nations more help through what Development Commissioner Andris Piebalgs calls “more strategic, targeted and results-oriented” assistance. But some anti-poverty campaigners say there is a risk that the agenda could end up neglecting impoverished people in emerging and middle-income nations.
With Prime Minister David Cameron having vowed to hold a referendum on UK membership of the EU, Britain's penchant for EU bashing is well publicised. But there are political parties in other member states which are far from in love with the European project, and whose stance against integration has been fanned by the worsening of the economic crisis.
The Cyprus EU presidency in the second half of 2012 will provide political leadership to the Union but “not in the traditional way”, officials say. Rather, it will be a “Brussels-based presidency”, with most of the country's officials operating from the European capital and focusing on EU affairs. Meanwhile, the island's long-standing reunification talks with Turkey will be dealt with on a separate track.
The EU has gained valuable experience in recent years in achieving visa-free travel for the citizens living in its neighbourhood. After the countries of the Western Balkans, the next on their way toward achieving visa-free travel are its eastern partners, with Russia, Ukraine and Moldova leading the way. However, this goal is unlikely to be achieved in the short term.
The European Union and Ukraine have been long-negotiating an Association Agreement tied with an unprecedentedly far-reaching free trade deal. At stake is not only the economic partnership, but also the country's political future, caught between historic ties with Moscow and uncertain prospects of prosperity and 'Europeanisation' with Brussels.
Paving the way for an "ambitious" agreement on the 2014-2020 budget, energy security and the European Union's Eastern neighbourhood are all key priorities of the Polish EU Presidency during the second half of 2011. The Poles, for their part, have pulled all the stops to ensure that the Union remains committed to redistributive policies at a time of economic austerity.
A growing number of international institutions and agreements are attempting to tackle the world's major challenges: economic, environmental or security. What is the EU's role in this emerging world order?
The Rio Earth Summit in May 2012 will try to set a global vision on greening the economy, with France leading European calls to establish a brand new World Environmental Organisation (WEO).
The cohesion policy (or regional policy) of the European Union provides a framework for financing a wide range of projects and investments with the aim of encouraging economic growth in EU member states and their regions. The policy is reviewed by the EU institutions once every seven years. The next round of programmes is to be launched in 2014.
Switzerland is the third largest economic partner of the EU, after the USA and China. Switzerland is able to participate in the EU's single market thanks to a series of bilateral agreements. This approach suits the Swiss confederation, but its complexity has become problematic for the EU and attempts are now under way to simplify the relationship.
Several pipeline projects are competing with one another to bring to life the southern gas corridor – a vague blueprint to supply Europe with gas from the Caspian and the Middle East. EURACTIV takes a look at the various European initiatives, including their common competitor: Russia's South Stream project.
Policymakers worldwide are at loggerheads over how to crack down on cyber-criminals, unlawful content and illegal downloading. But laws have been slow to arrive as legislators try to reconcile fundamental rights and Internet security.
Led by cities, EU regions are playing a frontline role in the fight against climate change as they make key investment decisions regarding the new generation of clean energy and transport projects.
Despite problems with corruption and organised crime, Montenegro, a small Adriatic country with a population of less than a million, is set to open EU membership talks as early as 2011.
