Languages & Culture

Yazidi activists Nadia Murad and Lamiya Aji Bashar, victims of sexual slavery carried out by Islamic State, have won the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize. EurActiv Spain reports.

The leader of the Crimean tartars, who is up for the European Parliament's Sakharov prize, has said that his people are worse off under the Russian occupation than they were during the Soviet era. EurActiv Spain reports.

The political aftermath of the refugee crisis in Europe, and the rise of far-right populism, is cause for growing concern in Azerbaijan, a country that sees itself as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world. EurActiv reports from Baku.

The European Commission cleared Spain on Tuesday (21 September) of any wrongdoing after investigating its granting of public subsidies to regional language schemes. EurActiv Spain reports.

In his invitation letter for the 16 September Bratislava summit, European Council President Donald Tusk made reference to The Leopard, the famous novel which describes the 19-century crisis of the Italian nobility, known for the famous sentence "everything needs to change, so everything can stay the same".

Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Catalonia yesterday (11 September) to support a break from Spain which local leaders want to deliver for next year in spite of legal blocks by the central government.

Germany's lawmakers will once again be able to visit troops stationed at an airbase in Turkey, after Ankara softened its stance against Berlin. EurActiv Germany reports.

Buoyed by her defeat of the best woman player in the world, Latvia's finance minister is to skip a top EU meeting this week to pursue her passion for chess, her spokesman said Wednesday (8 September.)

The Turkish government has rescinded Austria's excavation licence for the ancient city of Ephesus. The seemingly politically-motivated decision has caused outrage in the archaeological community. EurActiv Germany reports.

Twice as many British people support a ban on women wearing a burqa than oppose one, with a majority also in favour of outlawing the burkini, according to a poll published Thursday (31 August).

In his decade as a neo-Nazi skinhead in eastern Germany, Manuel Bauer says he beat up foreigners and disabled people, stabbed a cigarette in the eye of a 12-year-old boy and assaulted a Muslim man and his pregnant German wife.

Nine months pregnant and desperate to cross from Italy into Switzerland after fleeing Ethiopia, a young woman along with her husband are among hundreds stranded by a Swiss border clampdown that is drawing international scrutiny.

The European Commission has given eight EU countries just two months to incorporate into national law new rules on returning cultural items illegally taken from other member states. Failure to comply will mean the beginning of legal action. EurActiv Spain reports.

A majority of Europeans fear the recent refugee influx will heighten the risk of terrorist attacks and cost their countries jobs and social benefits, and create further problems with the integration of Muslims, said a survey released yesterday (11 July) by the Pew Research Center.

French and British leaders will participate in a commemoration ceremony of the Battle of the Somme in France on Friday (1 July), two days after an EU summit where the pair discussed Britain's withdrawal from the 28-member bloc.

The idea of dropping English as an official language of the EU is tempting many in Brussels. French politicians sense an opportunity to gain some much-needed credibility. EurActiv France reports.

English will indeed stay an official language of the European Union when the UK leaves the bloc, according to the Commission’s Representation in Ireland, refuting the claims of a senior MEP.

"I'm still alive," quipped the British monarch Queen Elizabeth yesterday (27 June) when asked about her health, in her first round of public engagements since Britain voted to leave the European Union.