Belgium

9 Nov 2021; MEMO: The European Union is not paying money to the Turkish government, but it is supporting the refugees in the country, a top EU official said on Tuesday.

"Let's make it clear—the European Commission is not paying money to the Turkish government. We are supporting Syrian refugees in Turkey," European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, told a hearing in the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee.

BRUSSELS, Nov 8 (Reuters) - EU authorities say there is no conclusive evidence of a cancer risk from synthetic face masks and have urged people to keep wearing them after a Belgian study warned last month they may contain carcinogens.

Face masks are widely considered crucial tools to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and have become an everyday item for a large part of the world's population through the pandemic.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The United Kingdom on Friday rejected European Union proposals to streamline the trade of goods in Northern Ireland as insufficient, further aggravating a standoff between both sides and bringing the prospect of a post-Brexit trade war closer.

The U.K. government said after unsuccessful talks between its negotiator David Frost and his counterpart Maros Sefcovic that the EU offers to revamp the Northern Ireland deal, which the 27-nation bloc saw as far-reaching and unprecedented, “did not currently deal effectively with the fundamental difficulties.”

01 Nov 2021; MEMO: The European Union will not label Lebanese Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post reported.

EU spokesperson for foreign policy, Peter Stano, said: "The military wing of Hezbollah is already on EU terror list."

"Any changes in the nature and scope of the existing listing are for EU Member States to discuss and decide," Stano said.

BRUSSELS, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Iran and world powers seeking to revive a 2015 nuclear deal are trying to agree a date for the resumption of talks in Vienna as soon as possible, a European Union spokesperson said on Friday.

Iran's top negotiator said after talks in Brussels this week that negotiations in Vienna will resume by the end of November.

EU spokesperson Peter Stano said the Oct. 27 meeting in Brussels was "useful" and "helped to define a way forward to resume negotiations in Vienna".

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union raised the stakes Wednesday in a standoff with Poland over judicial independence and the primacy of EU law, with the bloc’s top court fining Poland $1.2 million a day to prevent what it called “serious and irreparable harm” to the EU’s legal order and values.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union ministers met Tuesday for emergency talks focusing on energy amid deep divergences between the 27 member countries on how to tackle a crunch that has seen consumers’ bills skyrocket this year.

The wave of price hikes is not set to abate before next spring, and ministers discussed a set of short-term measures that have been put forward by the European Commission to help consumers and businesses weather the shock.

BRUSSELS, Oct 22 (Reuters) - European Union leaders made a fresh effort on Friday to overcome their differences on how to handle immigrants, but disagreed on the best way forward, with the head of the bloc's executive saying there would be no EU funds for 'barbed wire and walls'.

While total immigration numbers are low compared to the bloc's population of some 450 million people, the issue feeds support for nationalist and populist groups across the EU, making it hard to reach a compromise among its 27 members.

BRUSSELS, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) -- The leaders of the European Union (EU) member states have endorsed a package of measures to deal with the immediate effects of the spike in energy prices, the European Council said on Friday.

In the conclusions of the two-day EU summit that started on Thursday, the leaders called for medium- and long-term measures that would contribute to affordable energy prices for households and companies.

The toolbox, which the European Commission launched last week, contains measures to tackle the rising energy prices in the short and longer term.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - European Union leaders will pause their meeting in Brussels on Thursday for a farewell photograph with Angela Merkel, who is attending what could be the last of more than 100 summits over nearly 16 years as chancellor of Germany.

The doyenne of European politics has sat at the conference table with four French presidents, five British prime ministers and eight Italian premiers since her first EU summit in December 2005.

Back then, as today with Poland challenging the supremacy of EU law, there was a row blazing between members of the bloc.