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Commission to seek approval from leaders to start talks with UK on visa-free exchanges for 18- to 30-year-oldsThe European Commission has proposed opening negotiations with the UK to allow mobility enjoyed before Brexit to millions of 18- to 30-year-olds in a major concession.It said it would now seek approval from individual EU leaders to start the talks, which could partly eliminate one of the...

Markus Pieper resigns from €17k-a-month role hours before he was due to start amid claims of favouritismEurope live – latest updatesA row threatening to overshadow Ursula von der Leyen’s campaign for a second term as European Commission president has ended after a German colleague in her Christian Democratic Union party quit his new role as her special envoy for small businesses.Markus Pieper resigned from...

Brussels vote cancelled after it became clear law would not pass final stage with majority voteThe EU’s nature restoration laws appear on the verge of collapse after eight member states, including Hungary and Italy, withdrew support for the legislation.The laws, which have been two years in the making and are designed to reverse decades of damage to wildlife on land and in waterways, were...

European Commission will open office in the territory, made strategically important by rare resources and melting iceThe president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is heading to Greenland as melting Arctic ice, demand for green-technology raw materials and competition from China increase the territory’s strategic importance.While not in the EU, the autonomous Danish territory is of strong interest to Brussels, especially for...

Members of justice committee say €150m in EU funding went straight to country’s president, Kais SaiedThe European Commission has been accused of “bankrolling dictators” by senior MEPs who have claimed that the €150m it gave to Tunisia last year in a migration and development deal has ended up directly in the president’s hands.A group of MEPs on the human rights, justice and foreign affairs...

Centre-right European People’s party says it wants to create deportation deals with non-EU countries to head off rise of far rightA group of political parties backing Ursula von der Leyen for a second term in one of the most powerful jobs in Brussels at the head of the European Commission is planning to call for further migration reforms, similar to the UK’s Rwanda policy,...

Moussa Faki welcomes Giorgia Meloni’s plan to strengthen relations but says ‘we are not beggars’The chair of the African Union Commission has said “we are not beggars” as the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, outlined a plan aimed at helping African countries to prosper in return for curbing illegal immigration.Speaking at the much anticipated Italy-Africa summit in Rome, Moussa Faki welcomed Italy’s overtures for...

Then president told European commissioners in 2020 that ‘Nato is dead’ and the US would never defend Europe if it were attackedDonald Trump told the president of the European Commission in 2020 that the US would “never come help” if Europe was attacked and also said “Nato is dead”, a senior European commissioner said.Multiple news outlets said the exchange between Trump and Ursula von...

Unless from a wealthy family, internships for many mean chipping away at savings and cutting back on essentials By day, he was mostly an unpaid intern, getting a glimpse of day-to-day life in university research as he networked with potential employers.Nightfall would often send him rushing to his second shift; this time, at a library in the suburbs of Paris as he strives to...