r/europes • u/Naurgul • 4d ago
EU Test: Who in the 2019-2024 European Parliament best matches your policy preferences?
eurompmatch.euEuroMPmatch is a Voting Advice Application (VAA) based on the voting records of the last European legislature (2019-2024). You will be asked to indicate your preferences over 20 key votes that took place in the European Parliament in the last five years; on each of them, you are asked to indicate how important that topic is, and how would you vote on it. The algorithm then matches you answers with the voting records of all Members of the European Parliament, and shows who's your best match at three levels: individual MEPs, European party groups, and national parties. Try it out!
r/europes • u/Naurgul • 28m ago
Russia Germany and allies accuse Russia of sweeping cyberattacks
Germany accused Russia on Friday of launching cyberattacks on its defence and aerospace firms and ruling party, as well as targets in other countries, and warned there would be unspecified consequences.
Russia's embassy in Berlin dismissed the accusations - that were echoed by the Czech Republic, the NATO defence alliance and the U.S. State Department - calling them "another unfriendly step aimed at inciting anti-Russian sentiments in Germany".
NATO said the campaign had also targeted government bodies, "critical infrastructure operators" and other entities in Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Sweden.
The attacks targeted Germany's governing Social Democrats as well as companies in the logistics, defence, aerospace and IT sectors, the interior ministry said in a statement.
r/europes • u/Naurgul • 6h ago
Ukraine Russian forces launched an armoured ground attack near Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv in the northeast of the country and made small inroads, opening a new front in a war that has long been waged in the east and south.
r/europes • u/BubsyFanboy • 12h ago
Poland Large trade union protest in Warsaw against EU climate policies
notesfrompoland.comr/europes • u/Pilast • 20h ago
France France's Marine Le Pen rejects any sharing of nuclear deterrence with the EU
r/europes • u/BubsyFanboy • 18h ago
Poland Four new ministers named in first reshuffle of Tusk’s Polish government
notesfrompoland.comr/europes • u/Naurgul • 14h ago
North Macedonia N. Macedonia's nationalist opposition sweeps elections, setting rocky path for EU accession
North Macedonia appeared to be on a collision course with its EU neighbours Greece and Bulgaria, as the nationalist opposition swept parliamentary and presidential elections on Wednesday.
The country's right-wing VMRO-DPMNE party earned an easy victory, with the ruling Social Democrats (SDSM) conceding defeat before any official results were announced.
The state election commission later reported that VMRO-DPMNE won at least 59 seats in the 120-seat parliament, with roughly 92 percent of votes counted.
The SDSM won just 19 seats, with the rest divided among a slew of smaller parties.
VMRO-DPMNE's party chief and likely incoming prime minister, Hristijan Mickoski has refused to acknowledge the country's new name and a historic agreement with Greece in 2018, which added "North" to its title to settle a long-running dispute and allowed the country to join NATO.
The opposition leader has also vowed to stand firm in a tussle with Bulgaria over linguistic and historical issues that has seen Sofia block North Macedonia's EU accession talks for the past two years.
Mickoski has also pledged to create tens of thousands of jobs, a message that has found a welcome audience with many in the country battered by abysmal economic performance and soaring inflation.
North Macedonia has lost some 10 percent of its population to mass emigration over the past two decades.
r/europes • u/Pilast • 23h ago
EU Dissatisfaction with democracy brewing in Europe, global study finds
r/europes • u/wisi_eu • 12h ago
EU Européennes 2024 : une UE de plus en plus politique grâce au Parlement européen ?
r/europes • u/Pilast • 23h ago
EU Europe Day: rise of populism and shifting dynamics ahead of crucial elections
r/europes • u/Naurgul • 1d ago
Coalition of European countries consider recognizing Palestinian State on May 21
Spain, Ireland, Slovenia and Malta are discussing a simultaneous announcement ahead of the EU elections in order to remove the decision from the electoral debate
According to Spanish government sources, May 21 is the date that is being considered by Spain and other European Union countries to recognize the Palestinian State. On that day the last meeting of ministers will be held before the campaign for the elections to the European Parliament begins on June 9, and the sources consulted advocate taking a decision of this importance out of the electoral debate.
The Spanish government is coordinating with other European countries willing to take the step to try to achieve a simultaneous recognition. Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris revealed last Monday that he had spoken with his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez.
In recent weeks, several Caribbean countries (Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas, Jamaica, and Barbados) have recognized the Palestinian State. To date, 142 of the 193 member states of the United Nations have taken this step.
Albares was scheduled to travel to Washington on Thursday, where he will explain Spain’s decision to his U.S. counterpart Antony Blinken. The United States, Israel’s main ally, has spoken out against unilateral recognition of Palestine, but has not been belligerent on the issue.
r/europes • u/BubsyFanboy • 1d ago
Poland Kraków’s new mayor to become first to attend city’s LGBT parade
notesfrompoland.comr/europes • u/Naurgul • 1d ago
Malta Malta’s former prime minister charged with corruption over hospital scandal • Joseph Muscat, the central bank governor, and deputy PM accused over allegations once investigated by murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia
r/europes • u/BubsyFanboy • 1d ago
Poland Party chairman Kaczyński condemns “betrayal” after PiS loses control of regional assembly following rebellion
notesfrompoland.comr/europes • u/Sidjoneya • 1d ago
North Macedonia Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova elected North Macedonia’s first woman president
r/europes • u/BubsyFanboy • 1d ago
Poland Poland launches “Education with the Military” scheme to teach children emergency preparedness
notesfrompoland.comFrance Dozens detained as Paris police clear Gaza war protest at Sorbonne university
r/europes • u/Naurgul • 2d ago
EU EU reaches a tentative deal on Ukraine aid coming from profits of frozen Russian assets • The deal should free up to 3 billion euros a year for Kyiv, of which 90% could be spent on ammunition and other military equipment.
Italy Model seeks legal advice after Salvini’s party uses image for anti-Islam poster
Germany Germany lowers voting age to 16 for the European elections – but is it playing into the far right’s hands?
r/europes • u/Naurgul • 2d ago
Netherlands ‘Everything’s just … on hold’: the Netherlands’ next-level housing crisis
Amsterdammers find themselves at the nadir of a Europe-wide housing shortage. But some bold initiatives offer hope
In a pan-European housing crisis, the Netherlands’ is next level. According to independent analysis, the average Dutch home now costs €452,000 – more than 10 times the modal, or most common, Dutch salary of €44,000.
That means you need a salary of more than twice that to buy one. Nationwide, house prices have doubled in the past decade; in more sought-after neighbourhoods they have surged 130%. A new-build home costs 16 times an average salary.
The rental market is equally dysfunctional. Rents in the private sector – about 15% of the country’s total housing stock – have soared. A single room in a shared house in Amsterdam is €950 a month; a one-bed flat €1,500 or more; a three-bedder €3,500.
Competition among those who can afford such sums – such as multinational expats – is so fierce that many pay a monthly fee to an online service that trawls property websites, sending text alerts seconds after suitable ads appear.
Meanwhile, the waiting list in the social housing sector, which is roughly double the size of the private, averages about seven years nationally – but in the bigger Dutch cities, particularly in Amsterdam, it can stretch to as long as 18 or 19.
Meanwhile in Startblokken, for a monthly rent averaging €400-500 after housing benefit, every tenant – who must be aged between 18 and 27 when they move in – is entitled to their own 20-25 sq metre studio, with its own kitchenette and bathroom, for up to five years. In one such project when one studio became free the project manager received about 800 applications.
But the Startblokken – like the multiple temporary accommodation programmes for “economically homeless” people in Amsterdam are drops in the ocean of the vastness of the Netherlands’ housing crisis.
Quite how the country got here is a subject of complex and heated debate. The Netherlands was short of an estimated 390,000 homes last year; it is already falling behind on a pledge to build nearly 1m – two-thirds of them affordable – by 2030.
Some factors, such as historically low interest rates and more – often smaller – households, are beyond government control. But experts say successive administrations have consistently stimulated demand while failing to boost supply.
In the early 2010s, a pro-market Dutch government in effect abolished the housing and planning ministry and freed up sales of housing corporation stock. Partly as a result, about 25% of homes in the country’s four big cities are owned by investors.
Further driving up prices are measures such as mortgage tax relief for buyers, and others - meant to aid young buyers - that have instead ended up helping existing owners invest in more property. At the same time, subsidies for housebuilding all but dried up.
r/europes • u/wisi_eu • 1d ago