Euractiv.com

It is reunification day tomorrow in Germany. In a country that pushes federalism up to its very core, October 3rd is celebrated from the protestant north to the catholic south, from the industrialised west to the new born east in a move to display a recovered unity. Or is it?

Green MEP Gina Dowding explains why European Greens are encouraged by the parliamentary hearing of Commissioner-designate Mariya Gabriel and why Europe needs an ambitious commitment to research and innovation.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson struck a conciliatory tone towards the EU on Wednesday (2 October) as he set out his government’s new alternative to the Irish backstop.

On Wednesday (2 October), the European Parliament's committees will be holding hearings with Commissioner-designates Sylvie Goulard (France, Internal Market) and Janez Lenarčič (Slovenia,  Crisis Management). The third candidate, Romania's Rovana Plumb, was previously rejected by the Parliament's legal affairs committee.

In the next five years, no alternative to glyphosate is going to “magically” appear in the market,  Dr Bob Reiter, a high-ranking official from Bayer, told EURACTIV.com, referring to the controversial herbicide that has been the subject of heated debates across Europe.

Futureproofing Healthcare: The Sustainability Index calls for digitisation and personalisation of healthcare to deliver sustainable healthcare systems across Europe.

Welcome to EURACTIV’s weekly Transport Brief – your one port of call for all the news moving the world and much more!

The democratic transition is not over in Central and Eastern Europe and we will continue our mission of training people and creating "free minds, people who think", Michael Ignatieff, a Canadian academic and president of the Central European University, told EURACTIV Slovakia.

The European Commission should impose more stringent measures on producers to protect the environment and consumers. Making producers responsible for their products throughout their whole life cycle benefits us all, writes Oliver Loebel.

The Commissioner-designate for economy, Italian Paolo Gentiloni, has picked director-general of ECOFIN, Marco Buti, to become his head of cabinet, three sources confirmed to EURACTIV.com.

On Wednesday (2 October), the European Parliament's committees will be holding hearings with Commissioner-designates Didier Reynders (Belgium, Justice), Helena Dalli (Malta, Equality) and Elisa Ferreira (Portugal, Cohesion and Reforms).

The Capitals brings you the latest news from across Europe, through on-the-ground reporting by EURACTIV’s media network.

The EU's copyright directive, which aims to provide legal protection and remuneration for content creators online, was adopted in April of this year and Member states are now required to transpose the reforms into national legislation by June 2021. In a pan-European survey, EURACTIV has been talking to national governments in order to obtain an understanding of how future transpositions of the directive are likely to play out.

Romania's centrist opposition is seeking to topple the government in a parliamentary no-confidence vote next week, one year ahead of a general election, the National Liberal Party (PNL) said on Tuesday (1 October).

If Polish Commission-nominee Janus Wojciechowski ultimately gets rejected by the European Parliament after his hearing on Tuesday (1 October), it will not be for political reasons, but simply because his performance was so disappointing.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the former Iron Curtain trail has become the longest biotope chain in Europe, known as the European Green Belt. Environmental NGOs are now taking steps for it to become part of the European Commission's green infrastructure strategy and UNESCO World Heritage.

Biomethane production costs are expected to fall in the coming decade as more biogas plants come on stream. But analysts warn that massive cost reductions like in the solar and wind power sector are unlikely and policy measures will be needed to prop up this fledgeling renewable energy industry.

When NATO's Centre for Strategic Communication in Riga discovered how easy it was to dupe its soldiers online, it has started looking for ways of countering false information, which comes, in large part, from Russia. EURACTIV's media partner der Tagesspiegel reports.

In an interview with EURACTIV Germany, Austria's Minister for Sustainability and Tourism, Maria Patek, spoke about her country's involvement in the European Green Belt Initiative, as well as her country's role as mediator for the various European environmental projects.

Suggestions to re-open the European Commission's proposed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) could be just enough to save the Polish Commissioner-designate after an overall poor performance in front of the European Parliament.