Italy has officially given its go-ahead for the European mission EUNAVFOR Aspides in the Red Sea to counter attacks by Shiite Houthi rebels in what Alessandro Politi, director of NATO’s Defence College Foundation, says is a crucial step for Europe and other countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s “boots on the ground” comments last week are part of a strategy to push EU countries out of their comfort zone and start acting decisively for Ukraine, the French leader told reporters in Prague on Tuesday.

A balance of power shift after the European Parliament elections will give the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) the upper hand, allowing them to bend the left while also reaching out to the right in a delicate balancing act that has the potential to backfire.

Russia and China are considering putting a nuclear power plant on the moon from 2033-35, Yuri Borisov, the head of Russia's space agency Roscosmos said on Tuesday (5 March), something he said could one day allow lunar settlements to be built.

With Finland, and most recently Sweden, joining NATO, the strategic situation in the Baltic Sea region and on the Western military alliance's Northern Flank is changing radically, but Russia still poses a threat above and below water.

The new cooperation agreement between the EU's border agency Frontex and the UK was set up at the request of the British government, an official source from Frontex confirmed to Euractiv. 

The president of the European Economic and Social Committee has urged the EU's lending arm to create a special fund to address Europe’s growing housing crisis, as a more effective vehicle of long-term capital for social housing and the real estate sector's energy transition.

Hungary's president ratified Stockholm's accession documents to join the military alliance on Tuesday (5 March) as the 32nd member, paving the way for a swift accession in the next few days after almost two years in the waiting room. 

The German government hopes to secure the long-term financing of its pension system with a new capital stock of up to €200 billion, which should be invested in global markets and yield €10 billion annually starting from 2036. 

As Poland considers following in Latvia's footsteps by banning agricultural imports from Russia that it says are destabilising the Polish market, EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski stepped in to deny that Russian grain imports to the Eastern European country are significant.

The EU's renewable energy targets adopted in March last year are too restrictive and unsatisfactory as climate goals, French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, who took over the environment portfolio in a recent government reshuffle, said on Monday (4 March).

Three months ahead of the EU elections and just two weeks before their grand electoral launch, the EU’s liberals are lagging behind the other political forces and struggling to find their common leaders. Who is in the running?

The proposed reform of the Schengen Borders Code will legalise and expand targeted checks on racialized communities, giving carte blanche to member states to potentially use violence when larger groups of people try crossing their borders, writes Michele LeVoy.

Hungary's government cannot support Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to become NATO's next secretary-general, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said on Tuesday (5 March).

French President Emmanuel Macron reiterated on Tuesday (5 March) that all options should be on the table in fighting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, warning, however, that being too transparent on the EU's next steps could hinder hopes for Ukraine’s victory.

Ahead of the EU parliament election in early June, it's currently party congress season.

The European Commission tabled a modest fund on Tuesday (5 March) to start up its first defence production programme and strategy, to increase industrial output, give the sector more visibility, and prepare for potential shortages in crisis times.

EU negotiators reached a deal on Tuesday morning (5 March) on a new regulation aiming to ban products linked to forced labour from the bloc’s market, with potential implications for agricultural and food commodities produced in and outside the bloc. 

EU co-legislators sealed a provisional deal in the early hours of Tuesday (5 March) on rules that will ban forced labour products from the bloc's import and export markets, overturning expectations that the law would fail to pass within the current legislative mandate after months of stalling progress. 

Nuclear technologies should benefit from all types of EU funding, such as the European Investment Bank (EIB) and innovation funds, the French-led nuclear alliance, which now has 12 EU member states, said at its meeting on Monday.