AFP Archives

The European Commission on Tuesday (28 July) sharply denied claims by Greece's ex-finance minister Yanis Varoufakis that creditors overseeing Greece's bailout also controlled the country's tax agency.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras contained a rebellion in his left-wing Syriza party to win parliamentary approval on Thursday (22 July) for a second package of reforms required to start talks on a financial rescue deal.

Dutch flowers represent a sanitary "threat" to Russia and could be banned in the country, its agricultural watchdog said yesterday (21 July), as Moscow's relations with The Hague have reached their nadir.

The European Parliament approved a proposal to begin reform of the world's biggest carbon market in 2019, clearing the last major hurdle before the plan can become law.

Macedonia's prime minister, under international pressure to resolve a political crisis in the troubled Balkan country, held talks yesterday (14 May) with opposition and ethnic Albanian party leaders.

Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel is to wed his partner today (15 May), becoming the first European Union leader to enter into a same sex marriage, a symbol of growing social change across the continent.

The European Commission said yesterday (4 May) that it had no intention of adopting Australia's model of turning back boats with immigrants. The reaction was prompted by a statement made by Australia's right-wing premier, Tony Abbott, who said his country and the EU were in talks over the issue.

EU lawmakers Tuesday (28 April) demanded the bloc share the burden of accepting asylum seekers, as the pressure on southern European countries from migrants crossing the Mediterranean showed no sign of easing.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed in a phone conversation on Sunday (26 April) to maintain contact during talks between Athens and its lenders to reach a debt deal, a Greek government official said.

Hundreds of US paratroopers have arrived in Ukraine to train its forces fighting pro-Russian rebels in the east, the US army confirmed today (17 April), a move Moscow warned could "destabilise" the war-torn ex-Soviet country.

Poland will build six watchtowers to survey its 200-kilometre-long border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, the police said yesterday (6 April).

Cyprus on Monday (6 April) signalled a return to financial normality in scrapping capital controls two years after they were imposed to halt a banking meltdown, the finance ministry said.

Turkey on Monday (6 April) blocked access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube over the publication of images of a Turkish prosecutor killed by leftist militants during a hostage standoff last week.

Relations between the West and Russia remain at their lowest since the Cold War, on the first anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict. But all bridges have not yet been burned, analysts say.

Prime Minister David Cameron and opposition leader Ed Miliband face their one and only live television debate of the election campaign on Thursday (2 April), along with five others, in a seven-way contest.

Lisbon's Socialist mayor Antonio Costa, tipped to succeed centre-right Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, stepped down Thursday (1 April) to fight Portugal's parliamentary elections this autumn.

Sparsely attended far-right rallies in Britain highlight the decline of a movement in disarray, but experts say that some of its ideas have found new expression in the Eurosceptic UKIP ahead of elections in May.

Catalan nationalist parties have signed a road map to secede from Spain in 2017 if independence movements win a September regional vote.

The European Union announced that it was broadening its negotiations with Montenegro on EU membership on Monday (30 March), even though the 28-nation bloc has frozen expansion over the next five years.

The EU executive warned on Monday (30 March) that Greece and its creditors had yet to hammer out a new list of reforms despite talks lasting all weekend aimed at staving off bankruptcy and a euro exit.

Clutching a bag of pasta, canned pears and beef, David Kirk leaves a food bank in one of Britain's poorest corners -- his sixth visit in a few weeks.

EU member states are divided on how to stop the spread of a disease affecting olive trees in Italy that could result in around a million being cut down, officials said Friday (27 March).

Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker cancelled his visit to Ukraine today (30 March) due to health reasons. Instead, an EU-Ukraine summit will take place on 27 April in Kyiv, with the participation of EU heads of state and government.

Bitter exchanges between Macedonia's government and the opposition, including wiretapping and claims of million-euro bribes, have pushed the Balkan state into a deep crisis that could further hamper its already stalled bid for EU membership.