Europe Today

Since European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced her proposals for the new batch of European Commissioners, the legal affairs committee, also known as JURI, has been in charge of examining the conflict of interest declarations for each candidate. However, many members of the committee from the Greens and The Left walked out of the meeting, arguing that the examination w...

In this podcast, Radio Schuman interviews Péter Magyar, leader of the Tisza party in Hungary, who has recently emerged as the only popular alternative to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán . Magyar spoke to Euronews political reporter Vincenzo Genovese in his office in Strasbourg, where the Hungarian MEP talked frankly about Orbán's media machine, his own court cases in Hungary and where he stands on Ukr...

Halfway through its six-month rotating presidency, rather than playing the honest broker, Budapest has blocked many files, including the ones on aid to Ukraine. It further blocked a statement denouncing Moscow's media ban, and it voted against the EU’s plan to impose tariffs on electric vehicles. It's unclear what exactly broke the camel's back, but one thing is certain: the EU has lost its patien...

Monday marked a year since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, which led Brussels to repeat its calls for a ceasefire and the immediate release of hostages. One year later, Europe is still not on the same page, and in just a few weeks, Kaja Kallas, the former Estonian prime minister, will become the EU's new foreign policy chief. But Kallas is known to be less committed and outspoken on the Midd...

Last Friday, EU countries agreed to impose definitive tariffs on imports of electric cars from China, a move with far-reaching implications for the bloc's trade policy with Beijing, the future of the EU's car industry and, most importantly, Berlin's influence in Brussels. In an unprecedented move, Germany was one of only five other European countries to vote against the tariffs, as Berlin feared a...

Last Sunday, Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) became the latest far-right political group to win a national election in Europe. The party now faces a familiar challenge encountered by many of its counterparts across the continent: will it form a coalition with the centre-right Austrian People's Party? Will Herbert Kickl become Austria’s next Chancellor, or will he be sidelined? Political analyst Cas...

With the ongoing escalation of violence in the Middle East, the number of displaced individuals continues to rise rapidly. The UN refugee agency UNHCR has reported that thousands of Lebanese and Syrian refugees in Lebanon have already fled towards the Syrian border to escape Israeli strikes. Experts warn that the current situation could mirror the 2015 refugee crisis, when the Syrian conflict forc...

In Brussels, exit interviews are often particularly insightful, especially with a commissioner responsible for a complex portfolio where decision-making predominantly rests with individual governments. While Kyriakides did not always assume a central public role during the COVID-19 crisis, her team was tasked with overseeing vaccine procurement in Europe and introducing numerous other significant...

Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, or FPÖ, led by Herbert Kickl, is one of Europe's biggest opponents of migration, including ending asylum rights and promoting “remigration” — a vague concept of shipping foreigners away to protect what sounds like its racial and religious purity. Even without the FPÖ in power, the Alpine country already enforces strict immigration laws and has abstained or voted...

As EU Ombudsman since 2013, Emily O'Reilly oversees an independent body tasked with holding EU institutions accountable. She investigates cases of maladministration, either on her own initiative or in response to complaints from EU citizens. O'Reilly has also urged the Commission to combat secrecy, which she argues undermines public trust. In 2022, her office criticised Ursula von der Leyen's undi...

Two years ago, the EU adopted a ground-breaking deforestation law, set to take effect in January, aiming to ban imports of products linked to forest loss, such as coffee, soy, timber, and cocoa. The regulation requires suppliers to certify that their goods are not sourced from areas that were recently stripped of woods to make way for farms and plantations. While supported by environmental groups...

Ursula von der Leyen’s decision to nominate Olivér Várhelyi raised many an eyebrow in Brussels — and elicited a couple of hearty chuckles. When the European Commission president made the announcement during a press conference in Strasbourg earlier this month, it drew laughter from journalists and sent EU-themed meme-making social media accounts into overdrive. Várhelyi, a former Commissioner for e...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled her plans for the new top team at the European Commission last week, but the reactions were mixed. Many politicians argued that the portfolios were too broad and overlapped each other. The fear is that the upcoming commissioners will constantly step on each other's toes, as many did in the previous mandate. But the underlying question mig...

Last week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen chose Lithuania's former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius as the EU’s first defence commissioner. The EU does not have strong army and is not responsible for each member state's armed forces. Yet, defence has become a crucial issue in Europe, especially since Russia's war in Ukraine highlighted the bloc’s weak and fragmented defence indu...

On Saturday, Michel Barnier, France's newly appointed prime minister and former EU Brexit negotiator, unveiled his government, which is dominated by conservatives and centrists from French president Emmanuel Macron's Renaissance party. Among the most contentious appointments is Bruno Retailleau as interior minister, a staunch conservative who has consistently opposed same-sex marriage and voted ag...

Is EU policy on equality going to take a backseat in the upcoming mandate of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen? Back in 2019, von der Leyen named Malta's Helena Dalli the EU's Commissioner in charge of equality. But last week, when she announced her proposal for the new team of European Commissioners, von der Leyen ditched the equality portfolio, combining it instead with "prepare...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's decision to assign the migration and home affairs portfolio to Austrian nominee Magnus Brunner was one of her most unexpected choices when deciding on the portfolios for her new College. Vienna's recent tougher stance on EU migration policy, as well as Brunner's own background, sprung to the fore. Austria was behind a long-standing veto against...

The European Parliament in Strasbourg was again divided — this time, it was the MEPs' opinions that were split after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced her new batch of Commissioners. Radio Schuman gathered different reactions from the MEPs Peter Liese, Christel Schaldemose, Moritz Körner, and Sergey Lagodinsky on the entire affair, including the fitness of individual Com...

Thierry Breton's surprisingly public last-minute resignation as France's European Commission nominee was the talk of the town on Monday. While Paris quickly replaced the outgoing Commissioner with former MEP and Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Séjourné, Breton's final salvo aimed at Commission President Ursula von der Leyen further made sure her new mandate was off to a rocky start. Will von der...

Back in July, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that she would appoint a Commissioner for housing and launch the union's first-ever European Affordable Housing Plan.   The announcement was part of a favour made to the European Parliament's centre-left S&D group, which had asked the Commission to include the lack of affordable housing and the rising cost of...

The leader of the Slovene European People's Party (EPP) delegation in the Parliament, Romana Tomc, has told Euronews that the country's new Commissioner pick Marta Kos is "unacceptable". Slovenia's opposition, led by the conservative SDS party of former Prime Minister Janez Janša, has criticised liberal Prime Minister Robert Golob for yielding to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen...

Heated discussions are set to start next week as MEPs vote in Strasbourg on the EU 2025 budget. The European Parliament and European Commission are likely to fight back against cuts — including to the Erasmus+ programme — agreed by the Council before the three institutions are set to wrangle the 2025 budget in November. The Council proposed reducing Erasmus+ by almost €295 million each year when s...

What are the real reasons underlying European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen delaying announcing the portfolios for her executive? The official reason for the delay is that Slovenia has changed its nominee and the country’s parliament needs to ratify the new name. But the path to nominate commissioners is often turbulent, what else is afoot? Today Radio Schuman looks for answers with Eu...

A key and controversial recommendation of former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi's competitiveness report was for Europe to have recourse to common debt instruments to keep the pace with competitors such as the US and China. But what happens when Draghi's recommendations come face to face with political reality in the EU? My colleague Vincenzo Genovese found out from Guntram Wolff, from t...

After European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen presents her list of Commissioners to the European Parliament this week, the legal affairs parliamentary committee will assess whether any conflict of interest would make them unable to carry out their duties. In 2019, von der Leyen asked Hungary and Romania to present new candidates for the European Commission after the legal committee foun...