A radical far-left politician who wants to make peace with Russia's Vladimir Putin looks set to play a key role in regional elections in the former East Germany on Sunday (1 September).

.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has set the bar high for her second term, stating during her July speech to the European Parliament that decisions taken over the next five years will determine Europe's “place in the world for the next 50 years.” 

EU steelmakers are pinning their hopes on Ursula von der Leyen’s plans to force public authorities and steel-using sectors to buy 'clean' as a key way to decarbonise European industries - an idea already endorsed by German politicians and seen by many experts as a more effective alternative to subsidies.

Last Monday one of Ukraine's F-16 fighter jets has crashed while repelling a major Russian attack, Kyiv's military said on Thursday (29 August), the first such loss reported since the long-awaited arrival of the US-made planes this month.

Paris prosecutors have opened a formal investigation against Telegram founder Pavel Durov as part of a probe into organised crime-related activities on the messaging app. To break it all down, we are joined by our Paris-based technology reporter, Théophane Hartmann.

Kazakhstan, a nation with vast natural resources and ambitious growth targets, is positioning itself intending to double its economy to $450 billion by 2029 and is calling on the EU to invest in new in-country value-added production.

Patient organizations in Bulgaria are launching a public campaign to force the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to provide free biomarker diagnostics to people with oncological diseases.

Poland is between a rock and a hard place, registering whooping cough cases by the thousands while the availability of vaccines remains scarce.

Italy could be in line for a prominent role in the next European Commission, said the leader of the conservative group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, citing the heavy support Italian government leaders received in the European elections.

The president of the influential farmers union, FNSEA, expressed regret over Paris's lack of involvement in shaping the new European Commission, urging French politicians to reengage actively in Brussels, in a press conference on Thursday (29 August).

Bulgaria's Movement for Rights and Freedoms party, which represents the country's Turkish minority, is trying to oust its co-leader, Delyan Peevski, who is facing US and UK sanctions for corruption.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was in Paris on Thursday (29 August) to make the case for his "once-in-a-generation reset" with the EU, just a day after meeting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

France's Health Innovation Agency (Agence de l'innovation en santé, AIS) plans to invest €170 million in innovations to improve preventative healthcare in eight fields, including children's health, mental health, chronic and rare diseases.

The German government is expanding bans on knives in public spaces in response to a terror attack in Solingen, boosting police competences and plans to speed up deportations of criminal asylum seekers and Dublin-cases.

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Instead of asking member states to reconsider their commissioner picks, von der Leyen is putting commissioners up for a vote in the European Parliament for lawmakers to separate the wheat from the chaff.  

China announced on 29 August that it would not impose provisional tariffs on EU brandy, signalling a potential easing of trade tensions with the 27-member bloc.

Ukraine on Thursday (29 August) intensified its push for Western approval to strike military targets deep inside Russia, urging allies to lift restrictions on the use of their donated long-range weapons.

Lasse Frimand Jensen invites you to Aalborg for the 10th European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns, which we like to call #Aalborg2024. This year's conference marks thirty years since the first edition of the event, also held in Aalborg in 1994. We will also celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Aalborg Charter (1994) and the 20th anniversary of the Aalborg Commitments (2004).

French president Emmanuel Macron declared the Paralympic Games open on Wednesday (28 August) after a glorious ceremony in which competitors were celebrated by joyful volunteers and spectators on a sweet summer night.