Euobserver.com

Civil society groups in Hong Kong have suffered the wrath of the John Lee-led crackdown as security tsar. Now he is the chief executive of Hong Kong itself.

Orbán's government is still beating up and pushing back non-Ukrainian migrants, including one Lebanese man who fled the Ukrainian war zone to Europe.

During the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection (CPDP) conference, many high-level discussions will touch upon the dynamics of decision-making in the design of new technologies, including the importance of inclusion, diversity, and ethics perspectives within these processes.

The EU may spend up to €20m in non-lethal weapons to help Rwanda's military operations in Mozambique. The EU is also training Mozambique armed forces, which has courted Russia's Wagner group.

Bilateral relations between Warsaw and Budapest are at a nadir on Russia, but some cooperation on rule-of law-issues, where both countries face EU pressure, will likely continue.

Thirteen EU countries have signed a document opposing French president Emmanuel Macron's plans to launch a convention in response to the Conference on the Future of Europe where citizens have addressed issues that require treaty changes. "We do not support unconsidered and premature attempts to launch a process toward treaty change," the paper said. Last week, Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said he would support treaty change.

Inflation is driving up cost of living across the continent, calls to rapidly increase interest rates are mounting. But some senior ECB council members cautioned against higher borrowing costs for fear of economic damage.

In a major blow to the anti-corruption rhetoric of the ruling coalition, the Slovak parliament has rejected a request for the arrest of ex-prime minister Robert Fico.

The war in Ukraine is fueling the "perfect storm" for a new and serious food crisis that could have been avoided, a new report has found.

As EU ambassadors discuss the sixth round of sanctions against Russia in Brussels, senior EU officials are presenting the plan of citizens for the future of the EU in Strasbourg.

Europe Day should remind us that the values we share can only thrive when they are nurtured, and that the EU needs to help protect those who tend to our democracies.

NGOs and academics say Poland's wall with Belarus violates EU environmental laws. The EU commission says "public safety" exemptions exist — in a possible endorsement of the 186km-long wall.

The EU can wean itself off Russian gas by 2025 without additional imports from other countries, a report from NGO Climate Action Network Europe found on Friday. It argues this would require five million building renovations, five million new solar PV rooftops, and five million new heat pumps by 2025. Calls to ramp up renewables come ahead of the EU's new energy plan, expected in mid-May.

Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán on Friday said the EU's proposed oil embargo is a red line for his country. "The European Commission's proposal amounts to an economic atomic bomb," he said, adding that it would take four-five years to change the oil supply. Orbán said he also did not back the sixth sanctions package because of the blacklisting of Patriarch Kirill, the head of Russia's orthodox church.

Countries such as Finland, France, the Czech Republic, Croatia and others pledged a total of billions of euros to support humanitarian and military efforts in Ukraine.

Brussels is to wave goodbye to Russian lobbyists under new sanctions, ending a 20-year era of influence peddling in Europe.

Oil prices rose on Thursday over supply concerns, after the EU set out plans for new sanctions against Russia, including an embargo on crude in six months. "The oil market has not fully priced-in the potential of an EU oil embargo, so higher crude prices are to be expected in the summer months if it's voted into law," Reuters quoted Rystad Energy's head of oil markets research, Bjornar Tonhaugen.

There are around 180 Lukoil stations in Belgium. The company entered the Belgian market in 2007, and expanded in 2009, one year after Russia invaded Georgia, and added another 19 stations in 2014, the year Russia invaded Crimea and Donbas.

MEPs called on all EU member states, especially Poland, to guarantee Ukrainian women access to emergency contraception and abortion — after growing reports of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine.

MEPs welcomed Moldova's formal EU membership application, submitted in early March, supporting its candidate status under the treaties. In a resolution adopted on Thursday, the European Parliament raised concerns over the explosions and rocket attacks recently reported in the Russia-controlled Transnistrian region. Additionally, EU lawmakers called on the EU to provide more financial assistance to Moldova, one of the major destinations for Ukrainian refugees.