Euobserver.com

France is set to take full control of the debt-laden nuclear power group EDF, prime minister Élisabeth Borne told parliament on Wednesday. She did not give any details, but president Emmanuel Macron said during his re-election campaign in March that part of the company should be nationalised to bolster French energy independence. EDF has been grappling with debt which further spiked during the energy crisis this year.

The European Parliament greenlighted the commission's controversial proposal to include gas and nuclear investments in the so-called EU taxonomy — sparking criticism and legal threats from the climate community

EU lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow natural gas and nuclear energy to be labeled as green investments, removing the last major barrier. Immediately after the vote Austria and Luxembourg announced legal challenges. "I deeply regret that today the EU parliament failed ... allowing gas and nuclear to be part of the EU sustainable finance policy," Claude Turmes, Luxembourg energy minister, tweeted shortly after the vote.

The European Commission will present an emergency plan in the coming weeks to secure enough gas supplies for next winter. EU ministers are expected to meet in Brussels to discuss it shortly after.

The phones were closed when the suspected 22-year-old perpetrator behind Sunday's shooting in Copenhagen called the Danish Mental Health Fund's crisis line shortly before he killed three people and seriously injured several others with a rifle in a shopping center. The opening hours in the private organisation had changed due to summer holidays, Danish public broadcaster DR reports. The incident has sparked a public debate about health service shortages.

The increasingly sharp debate over the rising cost of living exploded in European Parliament, with lawmakers from all stripes, liberal, left, green and conservative, calling on the EU to act.

The Socialists and Democrats group leader, Spanish MEP Iratxe García, on Wednesday urged the Czech government to ratify the Istanbul Convention as Prague takes over the EU presidency. "This is the main legal instrument to fight gender violence," she said. Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia have also not ratified the convention. García also deplored the Czech presidency programme lacks references to the Conference on the Future of Europe.

Scotland's highest legal authority, lord advocate Dorothy Bain, has said it may well be unlawful for first minister Nicola Sturgeon to call a second independence referendum without London's blessing. "In the present case, the lord advocate does not have the necessary degree of confidence [of the legality of the move], Bain said in a letter to the British Supreme Court, The Guardian reports.

British prime minister Boris Johnson has been weakened after his chancellor and health secretary resigned in complaints about Johnson's dishonesty. Both men — Rishi Sunak and Sajid Javid — are seen as potential Conservative Party leadership contenders. The anti-Johnson rebellion comes after he lied about a fellow minister's track record of sexual misbehaviour as well as trying to cover up a series of Covid lockdown-era illegal parties.

Satellite images obtained by Finnish public broadcaster Yle have revealed that much of the military equipment at Russia's Alakurtti military base near the Finnish border has been removed. "It's very likely they were transported by train to Ukraine," military expert Marko Eklund estimated. Since mid-May, more than 100 vehicles have departed from Alakurtti, enough to arm one battalion or roughly 800 soldiers.

The euro on Tuesday dropped to its lowest level since 2002 as traders fearing a potential recession rushed into the safety of the dollar. "People want dollars in times of stress and anxiety," said Jane Foley, head of FX strategy at Rabobank, to the FT. Amid growing energy and food prices inflation in the euro area hit a new high of 8.1 percent in May, OECD figures out Tuesday showed.

Norway's Labour Minister, Marte Mjøs Persen, Tuesday evening stopped a strike by oil and gas workers amid concerns it could worsen Europe's energy crisis. The strike would have cut Norway's gas production to more than half by the weekend. "When the conflict could result in such far-reaching societal impacts for all of Europe, I have no other choice than to intervene," the minister said in a statement.

Two days before Vladimir Putin launched his illegal war on my home country Ukraine, Russian energy minister Nikolai Shulginov gave an interview addressing the European Commission's taxonomy on sustainable activities — saying he was pleased it kept gas as 'green'.

Some modest headway in recognising the unrelenting tide of discrimination and violence facing women worldwide was made at last week's largely self-congratulatory and mostly irrelevant G7 talk-fest. But no one mentioned abortion, just days after the Roe vs Wade decision.

UN human rights council says push backs in Greece have become de facto general policy. Reporters without Borders says press freedoms in Greece are among the worst in Europe. Greece's PM refutes both to MEPs in Strasbourg.

The European Parliament has adopted two flagship policies aimed at enacting consumer rights and transparency of online platforms — despite concerns from digital advocates, human rights defenders and some MEPs.

"France has today undertaken the return to the country of 35 French minors who were in camps in northeast Syria. This operation also includes the return of 16 mothers from these same camps," the French foreign ministry said on Tuesday. Western governments have generally resisted repatriations from Syria, citing security issues.

Political pressure is mounting on the European Parliament to reject the inclusion of nuclear and natural gas in the EU sustainable finance plan, as a key vote approaches.

Turkey has let Sweden advance toward Nato despite an escalating dispute about extraditions and arms sales.

Turkey's ambassador joined all 30 Nato allies in signing accession protocols for Finland and Sweden in Brussels on Tuesday, despite a simmering row over Swedish extradition of Kurdish "terrorist" suspects to Turkey. The Nordic countries still need ratification by all 30 national parliaments to become full members. But Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has demanded Sweden must first extradite 73 Kurds, causing a political backlash in Stockholm.