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Reality or alarmist?: EUobserver talks to two leading experts who question the conventional assumption that climate change will drive millions of people to migrate to Europe.

A growing majority of Swedes are in favour of joining Nato, a poll showed on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Policy-makers in both Sweden and Finland are contemplating joining the alliance after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The poll by Demoskop and commissioned by the Aftonbladet newspaper showed 57 percent of Swedes now favoured Nato membership, up from 51 percent in March. Those opposed to joining fell to 21 percent from 24 percent.

Former Slovak prime minister Robert Fico is facing criminal charges in Slovakia, police said Wednesday. Fico's former interior minister, Robert Kalinak, has been also charged in the same case, AP reported. Their attorney, David Lindtner, said they have been charged with creating a criminal group, and that they consider the charges politically motivated. Fico is currently a lawmaker for his leftist opposition Smer-Social Democracy party.

Around 2.2 million Ukrainians have been registered under the EU's temporary protection law, which gives them residency and working rights up until March next year. Of the some 5 million that have so far fled Ukraine, most have gone to EU member states and Moldova. Some 2.8 million went to Poland but around a million have since left, fanning out to other EU states like Germany, the EU Commission said.

Russia is already losing oil income due to the threat of a future EU embargo and there is no evidence of large-scale sanctions evasion, the EU Commission has said.

The Luxembourg-based European Public Prosecutor's Office became operational last June. In seven months they clawed back €147 million in assets from the EU budget.

Disastrously high gas prices and Europe's push to end gas imports from Russia are making experts wonder if fossil hydrogen is on its death bed.

Women and even children in Ukraine are being raped by Russian soldiers — causing silent suffering that doesn't diminish with time gone by.

The European Commission says people should file their complaints with national authorities in countries whose governments are suspected of using an Israeli-made Pegasus spyware against them.

Poland said Tuesday that it won't take or pay for more doses of Covid-19 vaccine under the EU's contract, prompting a legal battle with manufacturers, Reuters reported. EU countries has been receiving vaccines under contracts agreed by the EU Commission and vaccine makers. But Poland has seen low vaccine uptake and has surplus vaccine stock. "Indeed, the consequence of this will be a legal conflict," health minister Adam Niedzielski said.

French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday that an embargo on Russian oil at EU level was in the works, saying that France wants such a move. "I hope that in the weeks to come we will convince our European partners to stop importing Russian oil," Le Maire told Europe 1 radio, accordig to Reuters. Germany, Hungary and other EU members have been reluctant to impose an oil embargo.

Greece seized a Russian oil tanker off the island of Evia under the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow for invading Ukraine, Reuters reported. The Greek coast guard said on Tuesday that the Russian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, was seized near Karystos on the southern coast of Evia. Earlier this month the EU banned Russian-flagged vessels from the bloc's ports with some exemptions.

The EU Commission on Tuesday said it will assess "diligently and quickly" Ukraine's first batch of answers to the questionnaire regarding the country's preparedness to become a member of the bloc. The Ukrainian authorities delivered the first part of the questionnaire on political and economic issues on Monday, and the commission is waiting for the second part, on alignments with EU law, to be delivered before it gives its opinion.

On natural gas especially, African leaders and Europeans do not see eye-to-eye. Simply put, the words "transition fuel" have a different meaning in Brussels and Addis Ababa.

In 2017, Poterie Renault fired its kilns for the final time, having struggled to make ends meet. Its closure is a drop in the ocean — but also illustrates how Europe fails to realise the economic potential of its heritage.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has raised fears over a possible rise in criminal threats in the European Union — including an increased risk of human trafficking and sexual abuse, cyberattacks, infiltration of criminals.

Ukrainian helicopters hit residential buildings and injured seven people in the Bryansk region, the Investigative Committee of Russia said on Thursday. "Two combat helicopters equipped with heavy offensive weapons illegally entered [Russian] airspace," it said in a statement. The governor of the Belgorod region said a village there was also attacked, but that no one was injured. Ukraine's defence ministry has not yet responded to the allegation.

The war in Ukraine will hit global economic growth for 2022 and 2023, the IMF's managing director, Kristalina Georgieva, said on Thursday. Surging energy and food prices will hurt fragile economies the most. "To put it simply, we are facing a crisis on top of a crisis," Georgieva said "In economic terms, growth is down and inflation is up. In human terms, people's income are down and hardship is up."

The European Central Bank's governing council will dial back economic stimulus, without putting a firm date on when it will raise interest rates, the bank's president, Christine Lagarde, said on Thursday. Lagarde also said the bank is ready to restart its pandemic emergency-purchase programme if economic recovery takes a hit, adding that the economic outlook "will crucially depend on how the [Ukraine] conflict evolves."

Russian president Vladimir Putin told Austrian chancellor Karl Nehammer, during his visit to Moscow this week, that gas payments could continue in euros, according to the Austrian news agency APA. Nehammer said he had a "very direct, open and tough" discussion with Putin on Monday. He is the only EU leader who has met Putin since the invasion of Ukraine. Russian gas imports account for 80 percent of Austria's gas demand.