The EU and US slammed Belarus Thursday (25 January) for a series of political raids this week, as rights groups said more than 150 people were detained or interrogated by the KGB security service in a single day.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about French far-right leader Marine Le Pen questioning her alliance with German far-right party AfD, Poland's ruling parties divided on abortion law, and so much more.

Far-left Croatian MP Katarina Peović called for the reintroduction of quotas for third-country workers on Thursday as the number of immigrants working in low-paid jobs has risen sharply in recent years.

Internal discussions in the EU’s centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – the largest political family in Europe – saw an “unsettling” exchange about the drafting process of its EU election manifesto, Euractiv has learnt.

Ukrainian grain has successfully transited through Romania since the country introduced export licences under its grain export plan to help protect farmers last autumn, Adrian Pintea, state secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, said on Thursday.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe voted Wednesday to elect Bulgaria’s former GERB justice minister and current ombudsman, Diana Kovatcheva, to a nine-year term as the next Bulgarian judge at the European Court of Human Rights.

Renew Europe MEPs have proposed the rapid creation of a mini-Schengen between Greece, Romania and Bulgaria, to be operational this summer, to ease the heavy tourist traffic between the three EU Balkan countries.

The European Investment Bank is open to financing defence industries but is still reluctant to go beyond dual-use technology, a top EIB official told Euractiv, warning also that the idea of using eurobonds to finance military industry must be carefully weighed as they may not attract investors.

Ukraine expects to start construction work on four new nuclear power reactors this summer or autumn, Energy Minister German Galushchenko told Reuters on Thursday (25 January), as the country seeks to compensate for lost energy capacity due to the war with Russia.

As nationwide farmers' protests continue, the German government wants to have the market power of supermarkets and the food industry scrutinised, blaming their price-setting power for the poor economic situation of many farms.

Chinese officials have asked their Iranian counterparts to help rein in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthis, or risk harming business relations with Beijing, four Iranian sources and a diplomat familiar with the matter said.

Poland’s ruling parties have presented separate bills to liberalise the country’s abortion laws, proposing to make abortion legal up to the 12th week of pregnancy, but some MPs remain sceptical.

French President Emmanuel Macron will visit Sweden from 30 to 31 January at the invitation of Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf to discuss European defence issues, as Hungary remains reluctant to vote on Sweden’s NATO bid and EU states hold differing views on defence policy.

French farmers have called for the blockade of Paris on Friday afternoon, a week after they began protesting across the country, as new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is due to announce concrete measures.

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen questioned the collaboration with the German AfD over allegations that some members were involved in discussions about deporting German citizens with migration backgrounds, prompting her French competitor Eric Zemmour to rush to the German far-right’s defence. 

The European Space Agency gave the green light to two missions on Thursday (25 January), one to detect ripples in spacetime called gravitational waves and another to probe the secrets of Earth's closest neighbouring planet Venus.

Italian police said on Thursday (25 January) they had dismantled a tax fraud network worth €1.7 billion involving Italian and Chinese suspects using over 100 shell companies in the country's north.

The European Greens are pushing for “massive” investments to simultaneously boost the green transition and protect living conditions under what they are calling the “Green Social Deal”, according to a draft electoral manifesto seen by Euractiv.

With tractors continuing to parade through the streets of Europe, on Thursday (25 January) European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with food chain stakeholders and NGOs to launch a ‘strategic dialogue’ between agriculture groups and EU decision-makers.

France’s highest constitutional body ruled that 32 of the 86 articles in the French government's controversial immigration bill are unconstitutional, in a much-awaited judicial ruling on Thursday (25 January).