The European Union's top diplomat confirmed on Tuesday (5 September) that Johan Floderus, a Swedish diplomat working for the EU, has been held captive in Iran for more than 500 days.

Iliana Ivanova, Bulgaria’s commissioner-designate for innovation, research, culture, education and youth, successfully sailed through an almost three-hour European Parliament hearing on Tuesday (5 September), winning applause from MEPs.

German transport minister Volker Wissing argued that e-fuels should be permitted as a climate neutral alternative to electric mobility for road transport. But whether e-fuels are truly climate neutral is a matter of controversy.

The European Commission has hinted it might review the high protection status of wolves on the back of increasing tension around the predator in rural areas, but the move has been slammed by environmentalists as a political pandering ahead of upcoming elections. 

The registration of new cars with internal combustion engines running on e-fuels should be allowed after 2035, even if the fuels are not 100% climate neutral, German transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP/Renew Europe) said at an e-fuels conference on Monday (4 September).

The German agriculture ministry is considering starting talks with Brussels on partially exempting grassland farms from rules on fertiliser use, three months after the European Commission closed its nitrate pollution case against Berlin.

The German government appears to have dropped a much-debated idea of cutting diesel subsidies for farmers for now, but the question of what climate-friendly alternatives there are for tractors and other agricultural machinery remains.

I very much enjoy visiting people working on farms, getting to know them, getting to understand their challenges. Human interaction is so important for a company like Syngenta as we provide solutions to help farmers increase crop yields and protect...

The massive development of intermittent renewable energies is set to dramatically increase the need for flexibility in the electricity grid. Market players, such as France's Schneider Electric, are calling for increased focus on demand management as a source of grid optimisation.

The number of migrants lodging asylum applications in the EU has jumped 28% in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, official figures released Tuesday (5 September) showed.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about France's Education Minister suggesting students follow a dress code in schools, a Czech ambassador to NATO saying Sweden should soon be joining he NATO alliance, and so much more.

Russia organises flights from the Middle East to Moscow, giving migrants access to the Belarusian and then EU borders, ministers from the Baltic region said during a hearing with MEPs on Monday (4 September).

Ukraine said on Monday (4 September) its troops had regained more territory on the eastern front and were advancing south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited two front-line areas.

Together for Catalonia leader Carles Puigdemont (JxCAT) met with Sumar candidate Yolanda Díaz at the EU Parliament on Monday to fine-tune positions between Puigdemont’s separatist party and a future left-wing government, in which Díaz would likely be deputy prime minister...

Sweden will likely join the NATO alliance this autumn, Jakub Landovský, the Czech ambassador to NATO, has recently said. Sweden’s bid to join NATO, a joint one with Finland before its neighbour was accepted into the club, has been on...

Serbia is experiencing a rapid increase in the number of foreign workers, with numbers for the first six months of 2023 reaching almost the entire total of 2022, official data from Serbia’s National Employment Service finds. Last year, 35,000 foreign...

Led by MEP Petar Vitanov (S&D), supporters of Bulgaria’s pro-Russian President Rumen Radev have launched a referendum to keep 3 March as the country’s national holiday in response to the ruling coalition’s plans to change the national holiday to Slavic...

With a little over a month to go before the national elections, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (ODIHR) has deployed a Limited Election Observation Mission (LEOM) to Poland, with a particular focus on recent legislative changes, the...

Swedish EU official Johan Floderus has been imprisoned in Iran for over 500 days after travelling there to visit a friend who was employed at the Swedish Embassy in Tehran, the New York Times reported on Monday. Swedish EU official...

Belgian army leadership believes that F-16 planes are in poor condition and cannot be sent to Ukraine, Lieutenant Frédéric Goetynck told De Standaard on Monday. “It’s not that we don’t want to, but when our planes are retired, they’re worn...