Belgium

BRUSSELS, January 18. /TASS/: NATO is ready to engage with Russia to exchange briefings on exercises, discuss arms control and reduce the threat from nuclear weapons, Jens Stoltenberg, the alliance’s secretary general said on Tuesday.

He on Tuesday invited all the members of the NATO-Russia Council to hold a series of meetings to discuss Ukraine and mutual security concerns, he said at a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that was broadcast online.

BRUSSELS, Jan. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Parliament on Tuesday elected conservative politician Roberta Metsola from Malta as its new president, succeeding David Sassoli who died of illness last week.

Members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg elected their new leader in the first ballot with 458 out of 616 valid votes. The 43-year-old Metsola is the youngest president of the European Parliament in the institution's history and the third woman to chair it.

BRUSSELS, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Poorer nations last month rejected more than 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines distributed by the global programme COVAX, mainly because of a rapidly approaching expiry date, a UNICEF official said on Thursday.

The big figure shows the difficulties of vaccinating the world's population, despite growing supplies of shots, with COVAX getting closer to delivering 1 billion doses to nearly 150 countries.

BRUSSELS, January 12. /TASS/: The Russia-NATO Council ended a meeting in Brussels that lasted four hours, according to a TASS reporter.

NATO had expected the talks to last a little less time, as a news conference by its Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was scheduled for 1:30 pm local time, while the meeting started at 10 am local time. The news conference has now been moved back to 2:15 pm (4:15 pm in Moscow).

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United States and NATO on Wednesday rejected key Russian security demands for easing tensions over Ukraine, but left open the possibility of future talks with Moscow to discuss other issues like arms control, missile deployments and ways to prevent military incidents.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that the 30-country military alliance halt its expansion and withdraw troops or military equipment from countries neighboring Russia like Ukraine, but also NATO allies like Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

BRUSSELS (AP) — David Sassoli, an Italian journalist who worked his way up in politics while defending the downtrodden and oppressed to become president of the European Union’s parliament, died in an Italian hospital on Tuesday at 65.

European Council President Charles Michel called Sassoli a “sincere and passionate European. We already miss his human warmth, his generosity, his friendliness and his smile.”

BRUSSELS, January 7. /TASS/: Top diplomats of the NATO member nations have called for dialogue, diplomacy and de-escalation in relations with Russia ahead of a NATO-Russia Council meeting on January 12, the US mission to NATO said on Friday after an emergency videoconference of NATO top diplomats.

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO foreign ministers on Friday discussed Russia’s military build-up around Ukraine amid skepticism about the credibility of President Vladimir Putin’s offer to ease tensions, ahead of a week of high-level diplomacy aimed at ending the standoff.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his counterparts held online talks to prepare for the first meeting of the NATO-Russia Council in more than two years. That meeting on Wednesday in Brussels will give NATO ambassadors the chance to discuss Putin’s security proposals with Russia’s envoy face to face.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe’s sky is filling up with near-empty polluting planes that serve little other purpose than safeguarding airlines’ valuable time slots at some of the world’s most important airports.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s foreign policy chief insisted on Wednesday that the 27-nation bloc must have a bigger role to play alongside Washington and Moscow to defuse the West’s standoff with Russia over Ukraine.

In the diplomatic flurry surrounding the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border the EU has largely been a bystander. This highlights a deeper frustration in Brussels: even though the EU is a massive global economic powerhouse, its strategic geopolitical footprint remains disproportionately small.