Can you imagine a world without variety in food and grocery? Without specialty food ingredients, countless products would lose their characteristic colours, textures, flavours or nutritional value.

The European Parliament Research Service (EPRS) recommended that liability regulation include general-purpose artificial intelligence (AI) products and a broader legal instrument for software liability, in a study released on Thursday (19 September).

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will propose either delaying the enforcement of the new deforestation regulation or finding an alternative solution to prevent it from taking effect on 30 December, she told colleagues at a European People’s Party (EPP) meeting this week.

A famous Georgian transgender woman was stabbed to death in her apartment on Wednesday (19 September), authorities said, in a "premeditated" attack amid criticism of a government crackdown on LGBTQ rights.

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (19 September) that Russia was ramping up drone production by around ten times to nearly 1.4 million this year in a bid to ensure the Russian armed forces win in Ukraine.

Bulgaria and Norway became new focal points on Thursday (19 September) of a global hunt for who supplied Hezbollah with the thousands of pagers that exploded in Lebanon this week in a deadly blow to the militant group.

In today’s edition of the Capitals, find out more about von der Leyen pledging billions for flood-stricken reigons, Borissov calling for North Macedonia's deputy pm to resign, and so much more. 

Israeli warplanes carried out late on Thursday (19 September) their most intense strikes on southern Lebanon in nearly a year of war, heightening the conflict between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid calls for restraint.

Romania is to speed up the procurement of ammunition in response to Russia's ongoing aggression against Ukraine, the Supreme Council of National Defence (CSAT), chaired by President Klaus Iohannis, decided on Thursday.

A close ally of President Vladimir Putin warned Western governments on Thursday (19 September) that a nuclear war would ensue if they gave the green light for Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia.

Boyko Borissov, leader of Bulgaria's largest party, GERB, called for the resignation of Macedonian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Nikoloski over his comments about Bulgarian President Rumen Radev and Bulgaria, further adding fuel to the ongoing ‘missing flag’ scandal.

As the world races toward a future powered by renewable energy, critical minerals have never been so sought-after. These essential components — cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements — form the backbone of technologies driving the green revolution. But geopolitics and a divided world get in the way: while the potential lack of minerals threatens our collective capacity to achieve that energy transition, we face export restrictions, competing initiatives excluding one another, divergent regulatory standards and investments that are scattered at best, absent at worst.

Germany remains critical of further EU-level measures to steer irregular migration amid a unilateral crackdown at its borders but may be open to a European initiative to conduct asylum procedures outside the EU, insiders told Euractiv. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has pledged EU-funded aid to help repair the damage caused by recent floods as she visited the western Polish city of Wroclaw on Thursday.

The Portuguese Farmers' Confederation (CAP) has high expectations of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's choice for the new agriculture commissioner, Christophe Hansen, and is confident that he will pay attention to the sector, the group said on Thursday.

The European Commission will soon respond to the request of 20 member states, including Portugal, to postpone the deadline for submitting the medium-term structural budget plan until October, a source close to the process told Lusa on Thursday.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Thursday strongly denied that Madrid had forced Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González Urrutia to sign a document recognising the victory of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the recent elections, as a leading member of Spain's Partido Popular had previously claimed. 

Partido Popular leader Alberto Nùnez Feijòo met the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Rome and praised her migration policy, which focuses on stopping boats leaving Tunisia and Libya and setting up asylum application processing centres in Albania.

Regional elections in Brandenburg on Sunday could see Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats lose an election in the German state for the first time, with some questioning whether Scholz should run for the country’s chancellorship again.

Euractiv takes creative licence to imagine what a farewell speech by incoming Executive Vice-President Teresa Ribera could look like.