Bulgaria's lack of a comprehensive strategy for rare diseases now poses a serious risk to patient health. Insufficient screening has left Bulgarians with rare diseases diagnosed late, or not at all, while fewer orphan drugs are available on average.

Belgian MEP Frederique Ries has proposed tailoring market exclusivity periods for orphan drugs to foster innovation, advocating a 12-year exclusivity period for orphan drug indications lacking authorised medicinal products in the EU.

In this week's edition: A European defence battle, a Nordic security shift and more.

Armenia is considering applying for European Union membership, foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Friday (8 March), as it seeks to forge closer ties with the West in the face of tensions with traditional ally Russia.

False GPS signals that deceive on-board plane systems and complicate the work of airline pilots are surging near conflict zones, industry employees and officials said.

A defiant and bitter Donald Trump returned on Saturday (9 March) to the state where he faces criminal charges for undermining the 2020 US presidential election, looking to win the battleground of Georgia as a stepping-stone to taking back the presidency.

US, French and British forces downed dozens of drones in the Red Sea area overnight and on Saturday (9 March) after Yemen's Iran-aligned Houthis targeted bulk carrier Propel Fortune and US destroyers in the region, the US military said in a statement.

The US embassy in Russia warned that "extremists" had imminent plans for an attack in Moscow, hours after Russian security services said they had foiled a planned shooting at a synagogue by a cell from the Afghan arm of Islamic State.

Turkey is ready to host a summit between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Friday (8 March) after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Istanbul.

A draft Eurogroup statement, obtained by Euractiv, outlines multiple “imperative and urgent” reforms that ministers want to be “taken forward” by the next European Commission

France organised a follow-up teleconference bringing together foreign and defence ministries to discuss the war in Ukraine. However, they 'learned their lesson' and did not invite Slovakia meeting because of its pro-Russian stance.

Something is really not going well between the EU centre-right and the liberals, who are expected, together with the socialists, to form a pro-EU coalition in the European Parliament after the elections in June.

In our pursuit of gender equality, the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) is committed to exposing the hurdles faced by women in local and regional politics.

As Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is meeting former US President Donald Trump on Friday in Florida, opposition liberal Hungarian MEP fears that this does not bode well for the outcome of the war in Ukraine and NATO in general. 

Ukrainian municipalities battle at a local level to keep contact with citizens and ensure services continue, despite continuous shelling. Municipal representatives spoke with Euractiv, telling their civic story as Ukraine enters its third year since the Russian invasion.

To understand the obstacles women face when participating in politics, national authorities need to generate more gender-disaggregated data, Policy and Campaign Officer for the European Women’s Lobby, Jéromine Andolfatto, told Euractiv.

Ursula von der Leyen did not forget about angered EU farmers during the launch of her election campaign for a second mandate at the European Commission on Thursday (7 March), but omitted all reference to the agricultural policies that she penned during her five-year term.

Twenty-two European countries wrote to the Commission calling for immediate initiatives to respond to the agricultural crisis, with the bloc's executive confirming its intention to table measures next week.

Several small EU countries have on Thursday (7 March) warned against the increased use of national subsidies within the EU, which they warn undermines the foundations of the single market.

As EU ambassadors were due to meet on Friday (8 March) to try to agree again a provisional deal on the platform work directive, France circulated a set of changes it wants to make to the text, throwing another spanner in the works for the ill-starred file.