M.E. Synon

European Union leaders this morning signed association agreements with three former Soviet bloc countries, Moldova, Georgia and Ukraine, leaving Moscow in no doubt that the EU is determined to continue its expansion eastward despite upheavals in Ukraine triggered by the

David Lidington, Britain’s minister for Europe, went to Berlin yesterday “to tackle head-on some of the misconceptions about the UK’s approach to the European Union.” In a speech to an EU organisation called Europe Network Germany he insisted that “Britain

A Spanish law designed to attract foreign sports stars such as David Beckham with tax privileges has been done away with in the conservative People’s Party government’s latest tax reforms. A 2005 tax decree was known as the “Beckham Law” after

The mayor of the northern Italian city of Padua announced on Wednesday that all public buildings must display a crucifix. Massimo Bitonci, a member of the anti-EU, anti-immigration Lega Nord, made the announcement on his Facebook page: “Now every office

More than 12,000 pornographic books and pictures have been discovered in “an erotic hell” acquired by the Russian state library during the Soviet era. According to a report in Le Figaro. Japanese erotic prints, “sensual” photographs, pornographic drawings of women

Police from Austria, Germany and the Netherlands have arrested an international gang of tractor thieves, the latest move in a campaign against a Europe-wide countryside crime wave which costs farmers and agricultural equipment dealers millions every year. The gang arrested have

Nigel Farage has rejected accusations by Marine Le Pen, leader of the French anti-EU Front National, of using “dirty tricks” and pulling “political stunts” that left her unable to form an official group at the European Parliament, as as reported in Le

Cigarette vending machines will be banned in Ireland as part of the government’s attempt to create “a tobacco-free Ireland” by 2015, according to the Irish Times. The legislation was agreed by cabinet yesterday. It follows news earlier this month that

Organisations such as Greenpeace have “no culture of accountability,” and have now “become the establishment,” according to Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, which seeks to make non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace more accountable. Steinberg was speaking after the disclosure that

The “stupid” British prime minister “f**ked up” in the EU, according to the same Polish minister who was caught on a secret recording saying Poland’s ties with the US are “worthless bulls**t.” After comments by Radoslaw Sikorsky on US-Polish ties

The German defence ministry has stopped further orders of the army’s standard automatic rifle, the Heckler & Koch G36, after a secret report questioned its accuracy and said tests had to be carried out to make sure the ministry is

Spain’s justice minister had decided to allow abortion in the case of an unborn child being “malformed,” despite the government’s 2011 election promise to reform abortion laws so that a child may be killed in the womb only in case

Poland’s foreign minister Radoslaw Sikorski has been caught in a secret recording saying that Poland’s relationship with the United States was worthless, and that any feeling of security it gave was “complete bullshit.” Wprost, a Polish news magazine, said on

British officials have told the French not to display the European Union flag or other symbols of the EU during ceremonies marking the 1914-18 war, and warned them not to use the centenary of the Great War to promote the

Some call them renegade academics, others call them euro contrarians, Chancellor Angela Merkel calls them a headache. The new Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) is upsetting German political dogma, and EU politics. The party is led by a small band

After Marine Le Pen’s Front National topped the poll in last month’s elections to the European Parliament, France’s Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party – the centre-right party once led by ex-President Nicholas Sarkozy and Le Pen’s only rival

David Cameron’s over-confidence in his own powers of persuasion appear to have made veteran Brussels insider Jean-Claude Juncker the near-certain choice as next president of the European Commission. EU leaders whom Cameron thought he could persuade to join him in an

The Pope has refused to meet immigrants who have taken shelter in one of the ancient Papal Basilicas in Rome in case it is seen as a political gesture. Around 110 men, women and children from Eastern Europe and Africa

School health services in the small Swedish city of Norrköping have found 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) among schoolgirls since March, with evidence of mutilation found in all 30 girls in one class, 28 of the most severe

Nearly half of all refugees offered asylum last year in the 28 member states of the European Union were from the Muslim countries of Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia, with Syrians accounting for 25 percent of all successful asylum applications. Figures

In a slap-down of claims by Prime Minister David Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg that Britain would be “isolated” if it left the European Union, one of China’s most senior economic figures has said it would make no

Governments across the European Union are finally waking up to the fact that from September they are expected to follow EU orders to include earnings from prostitution and illegal-drug dealing in their national statistics. Statisticians at France’s national data agency,

Despite determined tactics by the British Conservatives to stop it, the Europe of Freedom and Democracy (EFD) group, the caucus in the European Parliament that has been the platform in Brussels and Strasbourg for Nigel Farage and the UK Independence