World ✳
EU's top diplomat calls for tougher Russia sanctions, but plan lacks detail
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top foreign policy official, has called for a big expansion of the EU's sanctions against Russia.
#EU
Czechia ✳
Cost of new Czech nuclear reactors nearly doubles to 700 billion crowns
Czechia's industry minister says the two new nuclear reactors being built at Dukovany by South Korea's KHNP will cost about 700 billion crowns, almost double the roughly 400 billion crowns the government announced in 2024.
World ✳
482 companies help Russia's biggest weapons maker dodge EU sanctions
Rostec, the Russian state company that builds most of Russia's weapons, has been under European Union sanctions since 2022.
EU Says Ukraine Can Use Its Loan Fund to Buy US Patriot Missiles
The European Commission says Ukraine can use the EU's SAFE loan fund to buy Patriot missiles, which are made in the United States, not the EU.
Czechia ✳
EU considers Czech countess for new euro banknote
The European Union is considering putting Bertha von Suttner, a Czech-born countess, on a redesigned euro banknote, reportedly the 200-euro note.
EU sends Ukraine first payment from interest on frozen Russian money
The European Commission has given Ukraine an initial €1.4 billion, paid for not with Russia's frozen central bank reserves themselves but with the interest those reserves have earned since being frozen after Russia's 2022 invasion.
EU ministers skip punishing Spain over migrant surge, tighten border rules instead
A surge of migrants crossing into Ceuta, a Spanish territory in North Africa, led 22 EU countries to demand Spain be punished, even suspended from Schengen, the EU zone where people can travel without passport checks.
EU adopts 21st Russia sanctions package, drops gas and tourism limits
The Council of the European Union, the body where the 27 member governments make decisions, has formally turned the bloc's 21st set of penalties on Russia into law.
Brussels stops calling it "trade friction" with China — and that quietly rewrites every file
A single phrase in Brussels' new China paper — that Beijing seeks to "reshape the global order" — reclassifies every EU-China decision from trade dispute to strategic contest.
The EU just renewed the rule letting Big Tech scan your private messages
EU member states are restoring a temporary, voluntary measure that lets platforms keep scanning private messages for child sexual abuse material — a bloc-wide privacy trade-off renewed as a stopgap.
World ✳
Europe's fire season just got political — and it doesn't stop at the border
One of Spain's deadliest wildfires killed 13, and now PM Pedro Sánchez wants prevention. Meanwhile France is chasing the possibility that a fire near Paris was set on purpose. Two countries, one blistering summer, and a fire season that no longer respects national lines.
A Permission Slip, Not a Bank Transfer: How the EU Actually Unfreezes Hungary's €10 Billion
EU finance ministers are set to approve Hungary's revised recovery plan, the last legal step before releasing €10 billion frozen over corruption concerns. But approval is not a payout — here is the machinery that turns a Council vote into an actual transfer, and what could still jam it.