The focus is on the bilateral conversation with Mr. Erdogan. That was all Deputy Government Spokesperson Steffen Meyer offered at this week's press conference in Berlin when asked about the chancellor's upcoming two-day visit to Turkey, which begins on Wednesday. Meyer described it as an "inaugural visit" to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, noting that "a small program would surround it." Since taking office, Merz has had brief encounters with Erdogan on the international stage, including one in Tirana, Albania, in May.
The Latvian Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, commissioned by Jānis Dripe and curated by Liene Jākobsone and Ilka Ruby, explores the impact of military defense on the country's border landscape. The exhibition was designed by SAMPLING and Nomad Architects to highlight how geopolitical tensions shape both territory and daily life. In times of escalating international warfare, the curatorial team poses the question of what it means to live on NATO's external border in times of geopolitical conflict.
European leaders are meeting on Thursday with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in Brussels to reaffirm support for Kyiv. The president of the European Council, Antonio Costa, welcomed Zelenskyy, addressing him as future member of the European Union. The meeting comes as the 27 member bloc formally adopted a 19th package of sanctions against Russia for its war against Ukraine that includes a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas imports.
Catherine Connolly has still failed to answer the question of who organised her 2018 trip to Syria. She rehashed the same lines about it being a "fact-finding" mission. But she has still not said who put her in touch with Fares Shehabi - someone who was named on EU sanctions as funding the Assad regime, who she did not simply bump into but sat in meeting rooms and was shown around Aleppo by.
Catherine was working for UK banks... and they were repossessing houses. I was working in the credit union, and I was actually helping people to stay in their houses, through what was an extremely, extremely difficult financial situation. Catherine needs to come out and say exactly who she was working for and how many homes were repossessed.
"Voting 'no' in relation to a treaty is not a negative thing," Ms Connolly said. "'It's indicating the concerns that I and lots of people had. And, in fact, in voting 'no' we had to vote a second time on Nice and on Lisbon and we were given absolute, solemn promises in relation to our neutrality that seem to mean nothing at the moment.'"},{
Hungary's EU commissioner has denied any knowledge of alleged attempted spying by the Hungarian government during his time as the country's top diplomat in Brussels, a commission spokesperson said. Oliver Varhelyi sat down with European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Sunday to discuss the allegations reported by a consortium of investigative journalists last week. On Monday, the commission's chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho, said:
Where Donald Trump leads, Europe's nationalists and far right follow. After a Truth Social post last month, when Trump announced the US would designate antifa, the decentralised anti-fascist movement, a major terrorist organisation, his international allies swung into action. That same day, the Dutch parliament, where the largest party is Geert Wilders' far-right PVV, passed a resolution, noting the US decision and calling on the government to declare antifa a terrorist organisation in the Netherlands.
The EU shocked the UK steel industry on Tuesday with an announcement of 50% import tariffs with no apparent carve-out for metal crossing the Channel. The EU is the UK's biggest customer: 78% of all UK steel exports, or 1.9m tonnes, went to the bloc in 2024. The prospect of punitive tariffs on a large chunk of that would make many British products uncompetitive overnight.
dozens of flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers left stranded on the eve of a German national holiday and the famous Oktoberfest. A week earlier, Copenhagen and Aalborg airports were closed following sightings of unmanned aerial systems in Danish airspace. In the month since a swarm of Russian drones violated Polish airspace — three were shot down — a rash of similar incidents has been reported across Germany, the Baltic and Nordic countries, often over power plants and military bases.
The closer Russia's hybrid war comes to European capitals, the less EU leaders seem able to agree on how to respond. That, at least, was the worrying impression left by a dissonant EU summit in Copenhagen. Summoned last week to build consensus on the top priorities for European rearmament, the meeting was an embarrassing display of the turf wars, political squabbles and hidden agendas that are plaguing attempts to build a coherent European defence.
According to recent polls, almost 40% of Spanish men aged between 18 and 34 say that they plan to vote for Vox, the far-right party. Vox won its first seat in the Spanish parliament in 2019 and now it is surging again. Its recent success is no longer a story of just male voters, either: 20% of young women say they would vote for Vox, with the biggest increase among the youngest voters in that group.
The EU is introducing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on 1 January targeting imports produced using carbon-intensive methods, such as steel, glass and fertiliser. Businesses have been concerned about the impact of the EU tax on UK consumer bills and the prospect of cheap goods originally destined for Europe, such as Chinese steel, flooding the British market. The UK is introducing its own version of the tax but not until 2027.
EU commissioners are meeting today for a security college discussion on defence and security issues, where they will be joined by the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte. Their meeting comes amid growing concerns about drones appearing in European airspace, causing continuing disruption in parts of the Nordics. It remains unconfirmed who or what is behind them, but still prompted a strong reaction in the region.
The EU steel industry, already reeling from Donald Trump's 50% tariffs on imports, is bracing itself for further damage after the US opened the possibility of a rolling list of derivative products that could be subject to tariffs including windows and doors with some metal. In August the US listed 407 product categories as derivative inclusions, ranging from wind turbines, mobile cranes and bulldozers to rail cars and furniture.
The narrow win will come as a relief to Switzerland's main political parties, which had mostly supported plans for the e-ID. Both houses of the Swiss parliament had backed the measure with large majorities and the government had recommended a yes vote. But voters rejected an earlier version of the e-ID in 2021, largely over objections to the role of private companies in the system.
