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The European Commission on Thursday (24 September) set out plans to create what its officials described as the world’s most comprehensive set of rules for crypto-assets and their underlying blockchain technology.

Four Eastern European countries rejected the EU's latest plans for handling migrants on Thursday (24 September), after talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels, and insisted that the plans for tougher new asylum rules do not go far enough.

Instead of coming up with a meaningful plan, the EU’s new migration pact explicitly doubles down on containment and border security and opens the door to increasingly more draconian tools of surveillance using new technologies, write Petra Molnar and Kena-Jade Pinto, who recently travelled to the Moria refugee camp in Lesvos.

The Chinese business community in Europe would like to see less 'red tape' and regulatory barriers for its firms on the bloc, but is also open to the idea of offering further opportunities for EU business in China, says Zhou Lihong.

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier became the country's second cabinet member to enter quarantine, writing that he would stay at home after coming into contact with the aide of another European Union minister who had tested positive.

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about how the EU member states reacted to the European Commission's proposal for the New Pact on Migration and Asylum, as well as other news from the Capitals.

Speaking at the inaugural session of Montenegro’s new parliament yesterday (23 September), Democratic Front MP Milan Knezević announced that his alliance had nominated Aleksa Bečić, leader of the coalition Peace is Our Nation, as the Montenegrin speaker, and Zdravko Krivokapić,...

Laws related to the employment of foreign nationals will be amended so as to ensure more revenue is generated from an increasing number of foreigners who work remotely from Serbia but for companies located in other countries, announced Serbian Labour...

Two Russian diplomats were declared ‘personae non gratae’ yesterday and given 72 hours to leave the country, Bulgaria’s interior ministry announced. Although Bulgaria’s prosecution office decided to open a case against them with the charge of espionage as a crime...

.Croatia’s central bank governor Boris Vujcic told a business panel that the country’s GDP could fall by around 8% this year – compared to an estimated 9.7% percent contraction the bank forecast in July. Speaking at a business panel, Vujcic...

The response to the current crisis requires unity, said Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa yesterday, adding that the execution of European financial resources over the next few years requires minimal bureaucracy and maximum transparency. “Once again, I invite the political...

Spain’s GDP shrunk 17.8% in the second quarter of the year, which is seven tenths less than previously forecast on 31 July, right after the end of the national “state of alarm” implemented by the government to contain the rapid...

The defence ministers of Finland, Sweden and Norway held a meeting on Wednesday (23 September) in the town of Lemmijoki in northern Norway to discuss “Nordic defence cooperation and matters related to regional security”. According to analysts, however, the meeting...

Chancellor Rishi Sunak is expected to unveil on Thursday (24 September) a new package of support measures for businesses and employees hit by COVID-19. The government’s furlough scheme, under which the state has paid employee wages since March, comes to...

Hungary’s nationalist government said the EU’s external borders should “remain perfectly sealed along all sections”. Hungarian politicians insisted they will reject political blackmail. Since Europe’s migration crisis in 2015 Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has erected heavily guarded fences along...

Even before the planned pact was laid out Austria’s Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, had said it would not work. However, Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer praised the Commission’s proposal and said he “welcomes the fact that there are now improvements in...

For Spain, the proposal did not reflect the country’s main demand of a “mandatory solidarity mechanism” in Europe to alleviate the pressure and the heavy burden put on entry countries, and it imposes new border procedures that the Spanish government...

Migration is a divisive issue in Italy where arrivals have almost quadrupled since 2019. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called the new pact “an important step towards a truly European migration policy. “The European Council needs to achieve a true balance of...

Coinciding with the publication of the pact, France said it will take in 500 migrant minors from the fire-ravaged Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, 150 more than initially planned, the government said Wednesday (23 September). Paris also...

Having taken in a million refugees in 2015 and struck a deal with Turkey to cut Mediterranean arrivals a year later, Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, the current host of the EU presidency, is the driving force behind the new migration...