Despite record sales in 2023, Germany’s political target of 500,000 heat pumps for 2024 looks out of reach amid a drastic drop in natural gas prices and a drawn-out political fight over heat pump mandates.

The European Union and its member states must take "concrete and immediate" action to put sanctions on Russian food imports, Latvia's Agriculture Minister Armands Krauze stressed at the EU Agriculture and Fisheries Council on Tuesday (23 January).

Farmers taking to the streets are making headlines all over Europe, and this is not their first season of discontent.

Before the ministry was disbanded in the latest government reshuffle, former energy minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher was preparing a joint paper to be co-signed by her German counterpart as a show of conciliation ahead of the EU elections - though whether the paper will now ever see the light is unclear.

After a year-long discussions, the EU Parliament and the Council of the EU reached their negotiating positions on the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation. SBFE shares its take on the likely outcome of reuse and refill obligations, as well as suggestions for enhancing recyclability.

Lack of enthusiasm among national members of the European Left is driving the party to pick a widely unknown politician for its lead candidate in EU elections, echoing a general lack of appetite for the contested Spitzenkandidaten system.

Ukraine’s EU accession could help develop the country’s vast potential in agriculture, energy, and raw materials to the benefit of Europe’s economic security, write Philipp Lausberg and Svitlana Taran.

French MEP Valérie Hayer will become the new president of Renew Europe with “overwhelming consensus” after current interim President Malik Azamni failed to gather enough support following widespread worries about his party’s involvement with coalition talks with the far-right. 

Chinese officials just made an unprecedented, yet almost unnoticed, economic power grab. And instead of condemning the move, today, European officials could softly condone it -- by voting to implement a similar policy that would gut tech innovation across the EU.

The story got off to a rather good start almost a year ago. On March 8th 2023, Macron said he was in favour of enshrining the right to abortion in constitutional law, making France the first country in the EU to do so. 

The awaited proposal of the Commission on prolonging the food trade benefits for Ukraine, driving food sector discontent, will be tabled “next week” Czesław Siekierski told Euractiv, and it might include some Warsaw demands.

Responding to the concerns of a majority of member states on the potential impacts of the technology, Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said that the EU is on “very solid ground” when it comes to risk assessment and labelling.

The end of the European five-year term and the start of the new year have the climate community thinking about the upcoming period. Euractiv has you covered on the key debates in Brussels.

Ahead of a key summit of members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Abu Dhabi at the end of February, the EU hopes for a reform of the organisation’s “dispute settlement mechanism”, a court-like institution paralysed by the USA.

Atomic scientists on Tuesday (23 January) kept their ‘Doomsday Clock’ set as close to midnight as ever before, citing Russia's actions on nuclear weapons amid its invasion of Ukraine, nuclear-armed Israel’s Gaza war and worsening climate change as factors driving the risk of global catastrophe.

Russian missiles hit Ukraine's two largest cities, killing 18 people, injuring more than 130 and damaging homes and infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said as Moscow's war approaches its third year.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Germany backing Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's efforts to undo PiS justice reforms, the Spanish government paving the way for the return of self-exiled Puigdemont, and so much more.

Carrying more stock, switching to suppliers nearer to consumers and reducing dependence on China are tactics European and US retailers used to build more resilient supply chains following disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Party of European Socialists (PES) wants the EU to “strengthen” relations with both Washington and Beijing, while it rejects a regulatory “pause” to the Green Deal, a demand of other pro-EU forces such as the centre-right and liberals, an early draft electoral manifesto, seen by Euractiv, states.

The UK will further increase its military presence and support for Romania as an allied state, the new British Ambassador to Bucharest, Giles Portman, said at his first press conference in Bucharest on Tuesday, adding that the Royal Air Force's Typhoons will return to Romania this year for an air policing mission.