European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen ponders as a possibility for some parties within the conservative group (ECR) to join her centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) in the new European Parliament after June’s EU elections.

The European Union faces a looming threat to its (SMEs) due to the complexities of standard essential patent licensing. SMEs struggle with opaque negotiations, unfair pricing, and the risk of market exclusion. The proposed regulation promise transparency, fairness, and support for innovation.

In the wake of the farmers' protests, the German government has tried to pin the blame on supermarkets. The German Monopolies Commission has now concluded that there are indeed imbalances, although it warns against hasty political decisions.

The hot topic of the month in Brussels is industrial competitiveness and how it can be connected more closely to the European Green Deal. European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič, appointed to lead the Green Deal portfolio last year, has a plan.

In recent decades, political institutions have witnessed a gradual erosion of trust among their constituents, a trend exacerbated by the economic and financial crisis. According to the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS), over the past 20 years, vote turnout in both Western and Eastern democracies has dropped by an average of 10 percentage points. Within the European Union, which has faced criticism from citizens, non-governmental organizations, and other civil society groups, the challenge of greater involvement in European policy-making is consistently highlighted. From 2002 to 2010, the percentage of Europeans expressing dissatisfaction with politics increased from 31% to 43% (EPRS). Participatory budgeting (PB) emerged as a solution to rejuvenate democratic participation, reinforce civil society, modernize public services, and combat corruption in the EU. According to the EPRS, the number of participatory budgeting experiments in the EU surged from 55 to over 1,300 between 2005 and 2012, engaging more than 8 million EU citizens. Currently, PB is primarily employed at the municipal level, where citizens are invited to propose and vote on initiatives to be executed through the local budget. Although there are instances at regional and national levels, this practice has yet to be implemented on a European scale. In the context of the H2020 project DEMOTEC , join this Euractiv Virtual Conference to discuss PB and its potential at an EU level. Some questions to be discussed include: - How will PB work in practice concerning specific policies at an EU level? - How can PB complement representative democracy? Is it a valuable tool for improving citizens' trust in EU institutions? - What challenges are associated with implementing such a process at an EU level?

In Paris on Wednesday (February 21), French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire said he would convene a meeting of the Nuclear Alliance on March 4. This will be an opportunity to discuss the implementation of nuclear projects of common interest.

President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a "crazy SOB" during a fundraiser in San Francisco on Wednesday (21 February), warning there is always the threat of nuclear conflict but that the existential threat to humanity remains climate. "

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about Macron’s party struggling to find an EU lead candidate, Central European farmers rallying against EU policies and being backed by national governments, and so much more.

The US administration's decision to suspend the granting of permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals will have major consequences for the energy security of the EU, writes Andrea Di Giuseppe.

China said it sees Europe as increasingly viewing the country with a "rational perception," and that Europe should "not be afraid of it," Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said.

Croatian NGO Gong has investigated the HDZ’s use of Facebook and judged that its bots are deceiving citizens and manipulating the public – a problematic assessment in Croatia’s ‘super election’ year, when Sabor (parliament), head of state and EU elections are due to take place.

The Albanian government has called on social media platforms, including Meta and TikTok, to crack down on illegal activities such as revenge porn, bullying and facilitating human smuggling, demanding tougher measures and adequate monitoring capacity in the Albanian language.

Israel intensified its bombardment of Rafah in Gaza's south and over a dozen members of one family were killed in an air strike, residents said, as the ruined Palestinian enclave's health ministry announced 29,313 deaths in the war so far.

The PSD and the PNL have agreed to merge the European elections with the local elections and to present joint candidates for the EU Parliament to ensure the largest possible turnout of citizens to vote.

Bulgaria's ruling coalition parties on Wednesday began threatening each other with the withdrawal of support for the government amid a battle for top executive posts that could lead to early parliamentary elections alongside European elections in June.

An agreement on reimbursing member states for their donations to Ukraine remains out of reach, as Paris and Berlin are not giving in on their demands to reshape the facility according to their national priorities.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez praised his country’s bilateral relations with Morocco during an official visit to the North African country on Wednesday, where he met with King Mohamed VI.

Over 500 tractors from several regions descended on the Spanish capital, where they vowed to continue their struggle until Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his left-wing coalition implement concrete measures to secure the sector’s viability.

Iran has provided Russia with a large number of powerful surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, six sources revealed, deepening the military cooperation between the two US-sanctioned countries.

Farmers from eastern European and Baltic countries – namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria – joined forces on Thursday to protest against EU policies, with many of their governments either supporting the farmers or at least expressing their understanding.