Euractiv's Transport Brief brings you the latest on the transport sector in Europe.

The next European Commission should have a commissioner with a social economy portfolio, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister and Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz said on Monday.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is due to plead guilty on Wednesday (26 June) to violating US espionage law, in a deal that will end his imprisonment in Britain and allow him to return home to Australia, ending a 14-year legal odyssey.

Ahead of the EU leaders’ meeting on Thursday and Friday (27-28 June), German Chancellor Olaf Scholz insisted for the next European Commission to conclude more free trade agreements (FTA) with third countries – without consensus among EU member states if need be.

The forthcoming report by former Italian prime minister and former European central bank president, Mario Draghi, on the future of European competitiveness is a valuable opportunity to shape the EU policy agenda for the coming EU legislative term and beyond.

The leaders of Ireland's three governing parties agreed on Monday (24 June) to nominate Finance Minister Michael McGrath as the country's representative on the European Commission, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The European Union will downgrade high-level contacts with Georgia and consider freezing financial aid to the Georgian Dream-led government after it pushed through a controversial "foreign agent" law earlier this month.

German and Polish defence ministers, meeting for talks with their French counterpart on Monday (24 June), warned against the risks of a French government coalition with the far-right and stressed that support for Ukraine was "not open for debate".

Poland is open to join two Franco-German landmark defence projects that are supposed to yield a European-made fighter jet and battle tank, the country's defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Monday (24 June). 

The European Council has adopted a recommendation on vaccine-preventable cancers that aims to slash deaths from cervical cancer.

EU countries slammed Russia for overfishing in the Baltic Sea, a region that has seen its fish stocks decline dramatically in recent years, during a meeting of the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council (AGRIFISH) on Monday (24 June).

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz voiced hope on Monday (24 June) that EU and Chinese negotiators will reach a deal on electric vehicle (EV) tariffs before 4 July - the day European duties on Chinese carmakers are meant to come into effect.

Climate change is a manmade disaster caused by mankind as a whole. But history remembers disasters of dramatic proportions caused by a single man. We are currently paying the price of at least two such disasters.

Polish President Andrzej Duda voiced hope during a visit to Beijing on Monday (24 June) his country could boost its exports to China, just as the EU is set to begin talks with Bejing on tariffs it threatened to impose on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs).

Incumbent Renew Europe group President Valérie Hayer has a high chance of being reappointed on Tuesday (25 June), as the opposing ALDE party is failing to align its members behind their nominee. 

EU member states approved on Monday (24 June) a decision to use €1.4 billion in revenue from frozen Russian assets to send military support to Ukraine, after finding a legal way to circumvent a Hungarian veto.

A proposal to transit Azeri gas through Russia and subsequently to the EU raises significant strategic and security concerns, writes Sergiy Makogon.

EU leaders are set to call on the new European Commission to present in-depth policy reviews by mid-2025 to fulfil the bloc's long-term ambitions, according to draft summit conclusions seen by Euractiv.

Ahead of the legislative elections on 30 June and 7 July, French trade unions are divided over what strategy to adopt in the face of the rise of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN), while major employers seem wary of the promises made by the left and the right.     

The European Commission said Apple's App Store is in breach of the bloc's digital competition rules in preliminary findings announced through a Monday (24 June) press release.