French Energy Minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher will be in Prague on Monday and Tuesday to make progress on Franco-Czech nuclear cooperation, particularly on the construction of new reactors.

For the global aviation sector, it has been a tumultuous start to 2024. The first week of the new year has already seen two major aviation incidents, focusing attention on the resilience and safety of aircraft in operation.

A proposed mandatory deposit return scheme for plastic bottles should be scrapped altogether, French local representatives say, rejecting suggestions by EU member states to exempt countries that already achieve a high collection rate for plastic packaging.

The New Year is a time for looking back and attempting to look forward. Unfortunately, we live in times when the power of the strongest – and the craziest – is replacing the international law embodied by the UN, as imperfect as it was.

Belgium's EU Council presidency will hold a scientific symposium in April on the controversial nutritional labelling of food to “share experiences” on the system, reopening the debate between member states that use it and those opposing its adoption at the EU level.

Germany will provide €900 million to Swedish battery maker Northvolt, as the first country to make use of the European Commission’s new subsidy “matching” scheme that allows EU countries to counter foreign subsidies with their own offers.

While only around a third of the world’s rivers “remain free flowing,” according to campaign group International Rivers, the situation is worse in Europe, where the number of ‘wild’ or free-flowing rivers can likely be counted on both hands.

Ireland’s main nursing organisation has slammed the Irish government after hospitals finished the year with overcrowding, long delays, and inadequate bed space, citing chronic underfunding and unsafe staffing levels.

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, forced into a bomb shelter by an air alert in Kyiv on Sunday (7 January), pledged millions of dollars to NATO to help Ukraine avert Russian drone strikes and announced donations of generators and transformers.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about German farmers threaten to block the country, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey inviting other countries to join the Black Sea demining operation, and so much more.

Britain said it plans to spend 300 million pounds (€348 million) on a new programme to produce advanced nuclear fuel suitable for the next generation of power-generating reactors, seeking to dislodge Russia as the main international supplier.

NATO members Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey have invited other countries to join the upcoming Black Sea demining operation, a joint initiative to clear the sea of mines and ensure the safety of sea lanes, Bulgaria’s Defence Ministry told Euractiv Bulgaria.

Romania’s healthcare sector is threatening to stage a general strike next month to protest the low wages and staff shortages that have plagued hospitals following the government’s decision to freeze the hiring process and cut healthcare funds last year.

Serbia’s US-sanctioned former intelligence chief Aleksander Vulin, who resigned as head of Serbia’s Security and Information Agency (BIA) two months ago, has claimed responsibility for ordering the arrest of opposition leader Nikola Sandulovic, without commenting on his brutal beating in custody, which has reportedly left him paralysed.

Following the two-year prison sentence handed to MPs Mariusz Kamiński and Maciej Wąsik for their abuse of power in previous posts, parliamentary speaker Szymon Hołownia is pushing to revoke their mandates and deprive them of parliamentary immunity.

Slovakia is implementing a curriculum reform after the latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) showed a significant decline in the skills and performance of Slovak children, which Education Minister Tomáš Drucker has called a ‘national tragedy’.

France requires more than the six new nuclear plants currently planned and possibly needs to build more than 14 new plants, its energy minister said, just days before a parliamentary debate begins on the issue.

The EU Ombudsman launched an investigation into the transfer of two former Europol officials to child protection organisation Thorn on Wednesday (4 January).

The Catalan separatist party JxCat, whose support Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez needs to pass legislation, has threatened to vote down the government’s new anti-inflation package in parliament this week, which, if confirmed, would trigger the first major crisis of confidence between Sánchez and the separatists.

Upcoming regional elections and the long-running dispute between Brussels and Rome on beach ownership will dominate Italian politics in the coming months, with the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Fratelli d’Italia (ECR), along with Matteo Salvini’s Lega (ID) and Antonio Tajani’s Forza Italia (EPP), due to take key decisions at an upcoming summit that could threaten the government’s stability.