Belgium

14 July 2023; MEMO: The European Parliament has called on the Palestinian Authority to hold "free, credible, inclusive, transparent and fair" parliamentary and presidential elections without any further delay in order to strengthen its legitimacy.

BRUSSELS, July 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Sultan Al Jaber, Emirates oil executive and president of the most important climate summit since the Paris Agreement in 2015, has a quick answer when asked when the world will stop burning fossil fuels: when there’s enough clean energy to replace them.

“We cannot shut down the energy system of today before we build the new energy system of tomorrow that is equipped with zero-carbon emission sources,” said Jaber, head of the United Arab Emirates national oil company ADNOC.

“We don’t want to create an energy crisis.”

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Wednesday slapped a $475 million fine on U.S. biotech giant Illumina for buying cancer-screening company Grail without regulators’ approval, the latest setback for the deal.

Illumina announced an $7.1 billion acquisition of Grail in 2020, but the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm and top antitrust enforcer, said the company broke EU merger rules by completing the deal without its consent. The 27-nation bloc announced last year that it was blocking the acquisition, saying it would hurt competitors.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s parliament on Wednesday backed a major plan to protect nature and fight climate change in a cliffhanger vote that had the 27-nation bloc’s global green credentials at stake.

After weeks of intense lobbying against the plan, the legislature still supported the general outlines of a European Commission bill in a razor-thin 324-312 vote with 12 abstentions.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Protesters and legislators converged on the European Union parliament Tuesday as the bloc prepared a cliffhanger vote on protecting its threatened nature and shielding it from disruptive environmental change, in a test of the EU’s global climate credentials.

BRUSSELS, July 9 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) and New Zealand signed their free trade agreement (FTA) here on Sunday to boost bilateral trade.

The deal will cut some 140 million euro (154 million U.S. dollars) a year in duties for EU companies from the first year of application; bilateral trade is expected to grow by up to 30 percent within a decade, and EU's annual exports could potentially grow by up to 4.5 billion euros, according to a press release from the European Commission (EC).

06 July 2023; MEMO: EU lawmakers today urged Greece and the European Commission to launch an international and independent probe into last month's deadly migrant boat shipwreck off the coast of Greece.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Senior officials from Sweden and Turkey arrived at NATO headquarters Thursday to examine Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s objections to the Nordic country joining the military alliance and to see what more, if anything, could be done to break the deadlock.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg is leading the talks, which will involve the countries’ foreign ministers, intelligence chiefs and national security advisers. Top officials from Finland, which joined NATO in April after addressing Turkey’s concerns, planned to take part.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s executive on Wednesday chided Poland and Hungary for democratic deficiencies that have been accerbated by measures taken or left unaddressed by the current governments.

BRUSSELS, July 4 (Reuters) - NATO decided on Tuesday to extend Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s contract by a further year, opting to stick with an experienced leader as war rages on the alliance’s doorstep rather than try to agree on a successor.

Stoltenberg, a former prime minister of Norway, has been the transatlantic security alliance’s leader since 2014 and his tenure had already been extended three previous times.