Presented as a transparency exercise, a draft European Parliament report would curb the Court of Justice’s power to defend judicial independence across the Union and with it the legal infrastructure on which the EU’s citizens, companies and rights depend, warns Alberto Alemanno.
With the European Parliament’s resistance weakening and the powerful European People’s Party group shifting in favour of tougher controls, this surprise win for message-scanning could clear the way for an even more far‑reaching “Chat Control 2.0” that targets encrypted apps next.
The EU’s controversial return regulation passed by an overwhelming majority, splitting the centrist parties and creating new alliances in the European Parliament with toughened measures bringing Brussels’ border policies closer to the right.
As EU lawmakers turn their fire on “foreign-funded” NGOs, Natacha Kazatchkine warns that a coordinated witch-hunt is starving civil society of money, legitimacy and space to defend basic rights.
EU states agreed to launch the legislation at the earliest in July next year – after first proposing a two-year delay. MEPs wanted an immediate launch – but agreed for 1 January 2027 as a compromise. Neither was accepted.
Boring plenary debates? Get rid of the MEPs“The Commission is also not taking the debate seriously, they’re just sitting there for three hours, and at the end they read out a script that was prepared beforehand,” complains Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Green MEP.
Tanzania, an MEP delegation – and the €156m price of repressionTanzania has hired a London PR firm to spin the killing of several thousand pro-democracy protesters last November. But its refusal to allow a European Parliament delegation to enter the country could cost it millions in lost EU funds.
Far-right and centre-right factions have long resisted creating such an ethics oversight body, although the vote squeaked through by 296 votes in favour, 292 against.
The European Parliament has proposed a €2 trillion budget for 2028-2034 that includes funding for civil society – which have come under sustained attacked over the past two years.
A senior member of the far-right Patriots for Europe in the European Parliament could face an anti-fraud investigation over allegations of millions of misspent EU funds.
Viktor Orbán’s far-right Patriots for Europe (PfE) bloc in the European Parliament opposed measures aimed at tackling rule-of-law breaches in the EU’s forthcoming long-term budget.
The political groundwork for Thursday’s likely decision was already laid years ago when the EPP crushed the European Commission’s original 2018 proposal for a return directive in order to usher in more restrictive measures.
MEPs expect to take a final plenary vote on a hotly contested EU-US trade deal in Strasbourg next Thursday.
As someone who voted twice for European Parliament president Roberta Metsola, I believe she can win a historic third term — but only if she reassures MEPs that she represents the interests of parliament, and not national governments, writes MEP Barry Andrews.