Belgium

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change and the protection of nature for years. But it now finds itself under pressure from within to pause new environmental efforts amid fears they will hurt the economy.

With the next European Parliament elections set for 2024, some leaders and lawmakers are concerned about antagonizing workers and voters with new binding legislation and restrictive measures and are urging the 27-nation bloc to hit the brakes.

BRUSSELS, May 26 (Reuters) - The race to be the next NATO boss is heating up. But it is a race run largely in the dark, with no sign of a winner yet.

Jens Stoltenberg, the transatlantic military alliance's Norwegian secretary-general, is due to step down at the end of September after nine years in post.

Many alliance members would like his succession settled at, or even before, a NATO summit in Lithuania in mid-July.

24 May 2023; MEMO: European Union Representative in Palestine, Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, said Wednesday that all forms of Israeli settlement building in the West Bank are illegal, Anadolu News Agency reports.

This statement came during a visit by a delegation of European ambassadors and consuls to the Palestinian towns of Sebastia and Burqa in the northern West Bank.

19 May 2023; AA: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called on the military alliance’s member countries Thursday to step up their defense spending and indicated his expectation for an agreement to be reached on the matter at their summit in Lithuania. 

During a press conference with Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa in Lisbon, Stoltenberg praised Portugal’s support to Ukraine, including the delivery of Leopard 2 tanks and its contribution via NATO’s comprehensive assistance package.

18 May 2023; MEMO: A new report by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor (Euro-Med Monitor) has revealed a significant disparity in the treatment of unaccompanied minors of asylum seekers compared to the accompanied ones in Europe. This included depriving the unaccompanied minors of legal protections, detaining them, and the insufficiency of services provided to them in several European countries.

BRUSSELS, May 18 (Reuters) - NATO will step back to the future at its Vilnius summit in July, with leaders set to approve thousands of pages of secret military plans that will detail for the first time since the Cold War how the alliance would respond to a Russian attack.

The move signifies a fundamental shift - NATO had seen no need to draw up large-scale defence plans for decades, as it fought smaller wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and felt certain post-Soviet Russia no longer posed an existential threat.

BRUSSELS, May 13 (Reuters) - Washington and the EU will pledge joint action to tackle concerns focused on China about non-market practices and coordinate their export controls on semiconductors and other goods at a meeting this month, a draft statement showed.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager and other senior officials are due to meet for the fourth edition of the EU-U.S. Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Lulea, Sweden, on May 30-31.

12 May 2023; MEMO: The European Union has described Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip as "intolerable," calling on Tel Aviv to prevent civilian casualties, Anadolu news agency reported.

"The European Union is deeply concerned by the escalation of violence in recent days in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory," said European Commission spokesperson Peter Stano, at a press conference held in the Belgian capital, Brussels, Thursday.

BRUSSELS, May 10 (Reuters) - European Union states hold a first discussion on Wednesday on proposed new sanctions over Russia's war in Ukraine that would target Chinese and Iranian firms and allow export curbs on third countries for busting existing trade restrictions.

Talks among EU envoys start at 0800 GMT and are set to be heated, according to one diplomat, with Russia hawks upset the plan doesn't go far enough but others wary of damaging their international ties.

Widely differing perspectives mean a quick deal is not expected, several diplomats said.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is marking its Europe Day, that celebration of “peace and unity,” together with Ukraine for the first time. The display of solidarity doesn’t mean the war-ravaged country is closer to becoming an EU member, though.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive branch, made a special trip to Kyiv on Tuesday to deliver warm words about the the bloc and Ukraine’s common destiny to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.