Benjamin Fox
Despite its insistence that it supports ‘rules-based trade’, the EU has accepted president Donald Trump’s tariffs. And its own trade agenda is more complicated than just free trade.
France’s plans for a €70bn expansion of its nuclear energy production come after EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said that abandoning nuclear had been a “strategic mistake”.
Corruption, judicial bias and threats to media freedom – plenty of it exists across the EU, despite the institutions in Brussels making their absence a prerequisite for joining the bloc. In truth, the EU has been very reluctant to impose sanctions for rule of law breaches.
The new funds are from the European defence industry programme, part of the bloc’s plans to scale up its defence industry.
MEPs have inserted a series of safeguards into the EU-US trade tariff deal that will require Washington’s approval, as US urges the EU to sign it off.
A report by the All Eyes on Wagner investigative group listed 1,417 fighters from 35 African countries who had joined the Russian army between 2023 and mid-2025, 316 of whom have been killed. Ghana’s West African neighbour Cameroon has suffered the highest losses: 94 of its 335 recruits have been killed during Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The EU and Nigeria have made progress on the ‘strategic partnership’ first announced in 2023, unveiling a returns and readmission agreement for failed migrants on Monday.
Beef quotas and the scrapping of an Australian tax on luxury cars are the main issues to be resolved by officials.
MEPs expect to take a final plenary vote on a hotly contested EU-US trade deal in Strasbourg next Thursday.
The South African tribunal on agrotoxins wants its government to overhaul national laws on chemicals and pesticides and for the EU to apply a blanket ban on the sale of banned substances.
MEPs are going to press ahead with a vote to approve the EU-US trade pact —despite most observers believing that it clear favours the US.
Mozambique wants the EU to rethink a decision to end €20m monthly payments for a Rwandan-led peacekeeping mission in its northern Cabo Delgado province.
Amid concerns about waning US aid and shortages of air‑defence systems for Ukraine linked to the Iran war, there are expected to be renewed calls during Monday’s foreign affairs council meeting for increased bilateral military support for Kyiv alongside the stalled €90bn in EU funding that Hungary is currently blocking.
The EU’s bodies on oil and gas supply held meetings on Thursday morning following the International Energy Agency’s decision to open access to 400m barrels of reserves.
The EU’s defence industry needs to be fully integrated into the bloc’s single market, MEPs said in a new report approved on Wednesday.
With EU foreign ministers ready to discuss possible sanctions on Rwanda at a meeting in Brussels next Monday, DR Congo communications minister Patrick Muyaya says the EU should match US sanctions over the eastern DR Congo invasion and reconsider its controversial minerals deal with Rwanda.
The EU has signed a series of new bilateral defence pacts, but critics say they are more about symbolism than policy detail.
Cocoa prices have collapsed, defying expectations that EU due diligence requirements would push up the cost of cocoa and chocolate.
The US Treasury imposed sanctions under its Global Magnitsky Act in the wake of the Rwandan army and the M23 militia group capturing the city of Ulvira in the South Kivu province of eastern DR Congo last year
Migration control is at the heart of a planned ‘strategic partnership’ between the EU and Senegal.