A Green MEP new mother will be denied the chance to question the new commissioner-hopefuls remotely — a situation not unfamiliar to European Parliament president Roberta Metsola. Despite the experience of the pandemic and promises to push for better parental rights in the parliament, progress has proven slow.
A cross-party alliance of MEPs has called upon the next commission to reform the EU’s rules on public procurement. The current rules, which prioritise the lowest price, undermine the bloc’s social policy, they argue.
Frontex officers in Bulgaria have been offered experiencing how border guarding actually works in reality on the ground — on the condition they don’t report violations, according to internal Frontex documents seen by EUobserver.
The EU is to ban 27 cargo ships from its ports for helping Russia’s war on Ukraine, exposing the global extent of Moscow’s shadow fleet.
A social-media star, two oligarchs, and a Kremlin associate who stole Danish breweries could feature in new EU sanctions on Russia, as talks draw to a close.
Italy’s objections to the promotion of sexual rights have forced the G7 to shelve plans to include “safe and legal abortions” in a draft communique, EUobserver has learned.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen allocated a €5.2m campaign contract to a German communication agency which, according to sources close to the European People’s Party, lacks sufficient capacity to manage the campaign — just a month before the elections.
The EU Commission is officially sidelining the EU Parliament’s scrutiny role on €1bn of loans being sent to Egypt.
New EU sanctions due this week show how Putin’s jailers tortured his biggest rival, Alexei Navalny, before he died.
The EU’s administrative watchdog has faulted the European Commission for maladministration over its lack of transparency in its ‘do no harm’ policy in Libya.
The EU is putting Belarusian child-abductors on its Russia blacklist, boosting calls for ICC action against Lukashenko. North Korean defence minister also being added.
The EU is to hit Russian shipping firms that import North Korean weapons as part of its 13th blacklist on the Ukraine war.
More than 1,500 EU civil servants have signed a letter warning the bloc’s leaders of their legal obligation to ensure the application of international law in Gaza, in a sign of growing internal anger and dissent within the Brussels’ institutions.
The EU is aiming to send at least three warships to the Red Sea by March to help stop Houthi attacks on commercial vessels.
Senior diplomats believe there should be EU visa-bans on violent Israeli settlers and obstructive officials, as occupation makes Palestinian lives ever harder.
The European Broadcasting Union is wooing Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov for a splashy TV interview, despite his record of bizarre anti-Ukraine hate speech.
The Kremlin’s main tormentor of ‘foreign agents’ is to join an EU blacklist for sending dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza to die in jail.
While the European Parliament was demanding a clamp down on tax havens, many of its own MEPs were using their monthly office allowances to finance a luxury pension scheme that held corporate assets in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere.
New EU sanctions against foreign kleptocrats should take into account the size of bribes taken and be decided by majority, instead of unanimity, details of the proposals say.
EU sanctions have begun to put on record Russia’s looting of Ukrainian art, alongside abduction and brainwashing of Ukrainian children.