The European Social Democrats elected European Labour Commissioner Nicolas Schmit to be their lead candidate for the upcoming European elections with a large majority on Saturday.

German police briefly detained several people on Sunday (3 March) in Berlin during a manhunt for two members of the far-left militant Baader-Meinhof gang, who have been on the run for more than 30 years.

The Venice Commission, a constitutional advisory body of the Council of Europe (COE), would support Spain’s amnesty law, although it suggests improvements to the text and calls for calm dialogue before approval, according to a draft report seen by Euractiv’s partner EFE.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius warned on Sunday of the growing threat of a Russian information war after a phone conversation between German officials was intercepted and leaked to Russian media.

Since the start of 2024, farmers have been demonstrating in almost every European country, winning concessions from national governments and opening the debate on measures at the EU level. 

Turkish Cypriots will not sit at any negotiating table unless their sovereignty and equal status is recognised, the leader of the breakaway self-declared state in northern Cyprus told AFP Sunday (3 March).

In this week's edition: European ammo plans take shape, EU defence strategy preview and more.

A senior member of Slovakia's government met his Russian counterpart on Saturday (2 March) in a rare high-level encounter between a European Union member state and a country the EU has sought to isolate.

Mediators expected to reconvene in Cairo as soon as Sunday (3 March) and search for a formula acceptable to Israel and Hamas for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza, sources with knowledge of the talks said, after foreign governments resorted to airdrops to aid desperate civilians in the Palestinian enclave.

A bitterly fought election in Belgrade -- a focus of widespread allegations of fraud during Serbia's local and parliamentary polls in December -- will be re-run, the acting city mayor said on Saturday (2 March).

European socialists are seeking to lead European Commission portfolios on the green transition, economy, and social affairs for the next mandate, the socialist EU leading candidate Nicola Schmit told Euractiv in an exclusive interview.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte signed a security deal with Ukraine in the northeastern city of Kharkiv on Friday (1 March) and said the Netherlands would help fund the supply of 800,000 artillery shells to hold back Russian forces.

Thousands of mourners attended the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny in Moscow on Friday (1 March), two weeks after President Vladimir Putin's top critic died in an Arctic prison.

The centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) is close to overtaking the socialists in their two strongholds, Romania and Portugal, according to the latest EU elections projection by Europe Elects for Euractiv. And there are other interesting changes in party rankings in Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

x

A looming hard-right shift casts a shadow on June’s EU elections and Europe’s left is using the topic to mobilise their voters, but the consequences are rather damaging.

This week began with EU countries calling on the European Commission to "reorientate" the CAP. At the Council meeting last Monday, member states discussed some of the EU executive's proposals to make the CAP simpler, and pushed for more. One of the areas some of them want to explore is the protection of farmers in the food chain - as they are seen as the economically weaker players in the sector.

A broad coalition of members of the European Parliament has written to the leaders of EU institutions urging them to ban all Russian energy from Europe, including pipeline gas and LNG.

The truth behind all of Vladimir Putin’s current rhetoric is that if Ukraine falls, he will not stop there, writes Alexander Temerko. Alexander Temerko is a Ukrainian businessman who held senior posts in the Russian Defence Ministry. The first time Putin...

France's right-leaning Senate approving a bill enshrining the right to abortion in the country's Constitution - after the National Assembly did the same at the end of January - is a defeat for the far-right and the pro-life movement, Camille Butin of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) told Euractiv in an interview.