Europe politics

Europe politics

The process of forming the 3-week-old right-wing coalition government in Prague after the general election in early October was protracted and difficult. One ministerial post remains empty after backlash against the coalition's preferred candidate. In addition, the requisite vote of confidence for the new Cabinet has not yet been held in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Czech parliament.

The Minister for Media, Patrick O'Donovan, has deactivated his X account, saying he is "uncomfortable" with the platform and its AI tool Grok, which has been criticised for allowing the creation of sexually-explicit images without consent. The Fine Gael TD confirmed the move after attending the Stripe Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in Dublin yesterday, where he was questioned by media about the controversy surrounding Grok and the wider misuse of artificial intelligence.

This week, Sanchez did not wait for a joint EU statement to issue judgment on the US's illegal military intervention to capture the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro: he swiftly joined Latin American countries in condemning it. A few hours later he went even further, saying the operation in Caracas represented a terrible precedent and a very dangerous one [which] reminds us of past aggressions, and pushes the world toward a future of uncertainty and insecurity, similar to what we already experienced after other invasions driven by the thirst for oil.

Italy has increased its demands around safeguards in the Mercosur trade deal, even as EU officials insist the long-delayed agreement is edging closer to completion, a development that has sharpened tensions within the Irish Government ahead of a major farmer-led protest planned for Saturday. Rome is now seeking to lower the trigger point for suspending Mercosur imports to 5pc, down from the 8pc threshold currently proposed, Italy's stance on the deal is said to be decisive ahead of a crucial EU vote expected on Friday.

It's one step forward, one step back in Europe's relations with the US. Just hours after the Coalition of the Willing made a big step towards providing Ukraine with long-awaited security guarantees with potential UK and French troops deployments and all briefly seemed to be going in the right direction once again, the White House said that using US military is always an option for acquiring Greenland.

"The new right-wing populist government of Andrej Babis has made a firm pledge to ensure Czechia never adopts the euro. Instead, the government will seek to enshrine the Czech crown as legal tender and guarantee the right to use cash. "We commit that our government will not adopt the euro nor take any steps towards its introduction," reads the policy program approved by the new government a coalition of Babis's ANO party, the euroskeptic Motorists for Themselves and the far-right SPD at its inaugural cabinet meeting on Monday."

Vladimir Putin's war has upended security and defence across the continent, and as the European Union and Nato dig in for a fourth year of fighting, senior officials have a message for countries around the globe. Almost everyone who spoke to Guardian Australia during a recent visit agrees: war in Europe has made conflict in the Indo-Pacific more likely and countries including Australia need to be better prepared.

The document was widely condemned in Europe as representing a seismic shift in the 70-year transatlantic alliance with its dark references to a purported threat of civilisational erasure with migration and censorship creating strife, cratering birthrates and loss of national identities. Its threat to interfere in European politics and oppose what it termed as elite-driven, anti-democratic restrictions on core liberties in Europe was condemned as unacceptable by the president of the European Council of leaders, Antonio Costa.

Irish MAGA and an Irish Trump

In countries with ageing populations, there's a growing likelihood that many of us will be. But behind the dream of a cosy retirement, the economic reality is ever more complex. As populations age, the number of younger people entering the workforce is shrinking and that's a big problem for pay as you go state pension schemes where employees fund the pensions of an expanding cohort of retired people.

The biggest shake-up of green trade rules for decades comes into force today, as companies selling steel, cement and other high-carbon goods into the EU will have to prove they comply with low-carbon regulations or face fines. But a lack of clarity on how the rules will be applied, and the failure of the UK government to strike a deal with Brussels over the issue, could lead to confusion in the early stages, experts warned.

Powerful new IRA mortars had significantly impacted the morale of British Army personnel stationed in south Armagh.

"The police concluded their investigation against me in connection with the Budapest Pride march in June with a recommendation to press charges," he said in a video posted to Facebook. "They accuse me of violating the [new law on] freedom of assembly, which is completely absurd." Karácsony approved the Pride event and took to the streets with hundreds of thousands of marchers in defiance of the ban. Celebrants anointed Orbán "King of European Pride."

Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the five people targeted with visa bans who include former European Commissioner Thierry Breton have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to censor, demonetize, and suppress American viewpoints they oppose. These radical activists and weaponized NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states in each case targeting American speakers and American companies, Rubio said in an announcement.

China will impose provisional duties of up to 42.7% on certain dairy products imported from the EU from Tuesday after concluding the first phase of an anti-subsidy investigation widely seen as retaliation for the bloc's electric vehicle tariffs. The tariffs will range from 21.9% to 42.7% although most companies will pay about 30% and target products such as milk and cheeses including protected origin brands such as French Roquefort and Italian Gorgonzola.

"Specifically, the EU countries want ... the Commission to help ensure, going forward, that the financing of, among other things, return centres can be done using EU funds," the Danish immigration ministry said in a statement, with the signed letter sent to the Commission attached. The European Parliament must still vote on the measures. Denmark has made illegal immigration one of its main battle horses during its six-month stint at the helm of the EU presidency, which ends at the end of the month.

GAA president Jarlath Burns has revealed plans for a "high-performance licence" aimed at controlling the cost of running inter-county teams.

European leaders including Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron will meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday in a show of support hosted by the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as the US pushes for a swift end to the war in Ukraine. The British prime minister, French president and the heads of Nato and the EU, who have criticised previous US proposals to end the Russian invasion as too favourable to Moscow, are set to convene with Zelenskyy on Monday evening at Merz's offices in central Berlin.

The EU's outright ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035 is poised to be watered down, a senior European parliament politician has said. The decision, expected to be unveiled by the European Commission on Tuesday in Strasbourg, would be a divisive move, angering environmental campaigners who argue it would amount to the gutting of the EU's flagship green deal.

Lawmakers in Austria have voted overwhelmingly to ban headscarves in schools for girls under the age of 14, despite concerns the legislation will deepen societal divisions and marginalise Muslims. The law could also be struck down by the country's constitutional court. The ban was proposed earlier this year by Austria's conservative-led government, which took office in March after a far-right party came first in the elections but failed to form a government.

The European Commission president was in Serbia as part of her tour of the Western Balkans to discuss EU enlargement with candidate countries in the region. That day, she invited Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic to come to Brussels a month later so that the two could "take stock together." That was October; this is December. According to multiple sources who spoke to DW, the meeting was postponed because Serbia had no progress to report.

A new bill aims to make it significantly harder to obtain - or keep - Italian citizenship, with proposals ranging from testing knowledge of Italian culture to making it possible to leave people stateless. The hard-right, anti-immigration party presented the bill to the Chamber of Deputies on Monday, saying it believed Italians wanted tighter limits after a failed referendum in June on easing citizenship requirements. "Citizenship is a serious matter and must be treated as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, the League's leader.