In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Germany’s Baerbock voicing ‘concern’ about Israel’s looming military operation in Rafah, Eastern European farmers’ plans to jointly protest against the EU agricultural policy, and so much more.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday (13 February) blasted comments about NATO by his likely 2024 election opponent, Donald Trump, calling the remarks "dangerous" and "un-American" and saying they raised the stakes for the US Congress to approve new funding to support Ukraine.

Mircea Geoană, NATO deputy secretary general, has said that social democrats (PSD), including party leader and Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu, have suggested his candidacy for the upcoming presidential elections as an independent backed by PSD,  something Ciolacu denies.

Politicians and union leaders are no longer hiding their dissatisfaction regarding the current leadership in the country, with calls for protest expected to increase exponentially as the country gears up for a “super election year”.

The Belgian EU presidency is working to lay a foundation for a future EU health workforce strategy and aims to ramp up action, in contrast to the limited Council conclusions on the same topic in 2010.

Representatives of agricultural organisations from Central and Eastern European countries met in Poland on Tuesday to agree on the organisation of joint protests against EU agricultural policy, which is set to take place on 22 February.

After a group of Polish farmers blocked three Ukrainian grain lorries from crossing the border, spilling some of the grain on the road, Kyiv appealed to Warsaw to investigate the “shameful crime”, but Polish Agriculture Minister Czeslaw Siekierski said he would not take action.

Reference to the European Union should be removed from the Swedish Constitution, according to the powerful far-right Sweden Democrats’ new EU strategy presented in a joint article by party leader Jimmie Åkesson and European Conservatives and Reformists Vice-President Charlie Weimers.

Bulgaria is insisting on a fixed price for the construction of two new Westinghouse AR-1000 nuclear reactors, which should not exceed $14 billion, according to an intergovernmental agreement on nuclear cooperation between Bulgaria and the US signed in Sofia on Monday night.

Russian police have put Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, Lithuania's culture minister, and members of the previous Latvian parliament on a wanted list for destroying Soviet-era monuments, according to the Russian interior ministry's database.

Investors are taking the changes to Bratislava’s criminal legislation that was approved last week seriously, as Scope Ratings – a European credit rating agency – downgraded the country’s credit rating from A+ to A, citing the risk of losing access to EU funds as one of the reasons, Denník N reported.

The lead candidate for Germany’s Social Democratic Party in the EU elections and European Parliament Vice-President Katarina Barley has sparked a debate at a national level about the EU building its own nuclear arsenal after former US president Donald Trump said NATO allies did not deserve protection if they failed to live up to their spending commitments.

Speaking at the 50th anniversary of the International Energy Agency (IEA) at the OECD on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire said Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine had forced the EU to speed up its energy transition.

Leaders in Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw are pitching the ‘Weimar Triangle’ as a new centrepiece for Europe’s joint defence in response to concerning signals from the United States. While experts see potential for synergies, they warn that the three-way approach will hardly suffice.

The Bulgarian authorities are accused of aggravating shortages of scarce medicines by imposing administrative obstacles to parallel trade, the Bulgarian Association for the Development of Parallel Trade in Medicines (BADPTM) has claimed.

PT EBC

The first advanced drug therapies centre for children in the Nordics is opening its doors in Sweden, and it is welcoming patients from neighbouring countries.

A legally binding instrument to ensure quality traineeships in the EU is needed to prevent precariousness and abuse of young people in work, Renew MEP Monica Semedo told Euractiv in an interview.

Patients need access to medicines, equally and unobstructed across the European Union. This was the message echoing throughout the EU Pharmaceutical Roundtable, organised by MEP Adam Jarubas (EPP) at the European Parliament.

The EU's new migration rules make it mandatory for EU border guards to gather biometrics from irregular migrants over the age of six, even allowing for "proportionate coercion" if a child is resisting, according to a leaked legislative text.