All posts tagged: European Commission

Russian drone hits apartment block in NATO state Romania

Russian drone hits apartment block in NATO state Romania

Published by Sam Flores

Police and forensic investigators examine the location of impact after a Russian drone struck an apartment building in Galati, western Romania. Daniel Mihailescu | Afp | Getty Images A Russian drone collided with an apartment building in Romania, a NATO member state, early on Friday morning. Romanian President Nicușor Dan said in a post on X on Friday morning that he had convened a meeting of his national defense council in response to what he called “the most serious incident to affect the national territory” since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in early 2022. The collision occurred in Galați, Dan said, a city near Romania’s border with Ukraine. “We will order proportionate measures in relation to the Russian Federation,” he said, adding that the strike had resulted in injuries. “The unprecedented nature of the event demands a firm, coordinated, and appropriate response — at the national, allied, and international levels.” Dan added that full responsibility lay with Russia and “the irresponsible and indiscriminate manner in which Moscow operates these weapon systems in the immediate …

Energy crisis heightens risk of poverty and social exclusion: EU Commissioner Minzatu – Talking Europe

Energy crisis heightens risk of poverty and social exclusion: EU Commissioner Minzatu – Talking Europe

Published by Sam Flores

Our guest has an important role in promoting social policies in the European Union, at a time when much of the political oxygen is being sucked out by the competitiveness and simplification agenda, as well as by defence and security issues. Roxana Minzatu is Executive Vice-President of the European Commission and is in charge of social rights and skills, quality jobs and preparedness. Minzatu is a Romanian social democrat, a former minister for European funds in the Romanian government and a former MEP. She recently presented an anti-poverty strategy aimed at dealing with the fact that one in five Europeans – or 93 million people – are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. “I want to send a signal of optimism with this strategy. I don’t want to paint a bleak picture,” Minzatu tells the programme. “But the reality is that the numbers (of people at risk of poverty) are dynamic. The cost of living is rising, the energy shocks crisis, the invasion of Ukraine, and now the Middle East crisis. There are a …

Putin’s ‘altar boy’ is finally in Ukraine’s sights

Putin’s ‘altar boy’ is finally in Ukraine’s sights

Published by Sam Flores

Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, has been a thorn in the side of Ukraine – and Europe – for more than a decade. He famously nicknamed Vladimir Putin’s rule a “miracle of God” in 2012 and characterised the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a “Holy War”. He is, the EU says, “one of the most prominent supporters of the Russian military aggression against Ukraine”. And yet the bloc has been unable to sanction him. Some 14 separate attempts by Brussels to include the religious figurehead on sanctions lists were blocked by the Hungarian government over concerns for “religious freedoms”. But now, Kyiv believes the ousting of Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s outgoing prime minister, presents a fresh opportunity to hit the 79-year-old with punitive measures over his support for the war. Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian commissioner for sanctions policy, told The Telegraph: “This is one of the issues I’m going to flesh out – the oligarchs and patriarchs who have been missing on the list for a while because of powerful advocates, governmental …

Europe’s cyber agency blames hacking gangs for massive data breach and leak

Europe’s cyber agency blames hacking gangs for massive data breach and leak

Published by skeptic

The European Union’s cybersecurity agency said Thursday that a recent hack and data breach at the EU’s executive body was the work of a cybercriminal group known as TeamPCP.  In a new report, CERT-EU also reported that the hackers stole around 92 gigabytes of compressed data from a compromised Amazon Web Services (AWS) account used by the bloc’s executive, the European Commission, which included personal data containing names, email addresses, and the contents of emails.  The breach affected the cloud infrastructure of the Commission’s Europa.eu platform, which member states use to host websites and publications of the bloc’s institutions and agencies. CERT-EU wrote that the data of at least 29 other EU entities may be affected, and that dozens of internal European Commission clients could have had data stolen as well.  The stolen data was then posted online by another hacking group, the notorious ShinyHunters.  While the size of the data breach is itself notable, the cyber agency’s attribution blaming two separate hacking groups for the same incident is unusual. A member of ShinyHunters told …

European Commission confirms cyberattack after hackers claim data breach 

European Commission confirms cyberattack after hackers claim data breach 

Published by skeptic

The European Union’s top executive body has confirmed a cyberattack after hackers reportedly stole reams of data from its cloud storage. European Commission spokesperson Nika Blazevic confirmed to TechCrunch on Friday that the Commission “discovered a cyber-attack, which affected part of our cloud infrastructure.” “We have taken immediate steps and contained the attack. Risk mitigation measures were also implemented. The investigation is ongoing but we can already confirm that the Commission’s internal systems were not affected by the cyber-attack,” the spokesperson said. In a longer statement on its website, the Commission said the breach “affected its cloud infrastructure hosting the Commission’s web presence on the Europa.eu platform,” which hosts much of the Commission’s website data.  Bleeping Computer first reported news of the breach on Friday, citing sources with knowledge of the incident. The publication said hackers had stolen hundreds of gigabytes of data, including multiple databases, from the European Commission’s account on cloud giant Amazon Web Services. The hacker provided the publication evidence of their access, including screenshots. It’s not immediately clear what kinds of …

EU Spares Apple Maps and Apple Ads

EU Spares Apple Maps and Apple Ads

Published by skeptic

The European Commission today said it found that Apple Maps and Apple Ads should not be designated as “gateways” under the EU’s Digital Markets Act. In a press release, the European Commission said that Apple Maps and Apple Ads are not big enough individually to qualify as “important gateways between business users and end users,” and therefore the platforms will not be subject to stricter regulations. This follows an investigation that began in late November. “This assessment is based on a number of considerations, including that Apple Maps has a relatively low overall usage rate in the EU, and that Apple Ads has very limited scale in the online advertising sector in the EU,” the European Commission said. Apple as a whole is still considered a “gatekeeper” under the Digital Markets Act. Apple Ads and Apple Maps will have more in common soon, as Apple reportedly plans to start showing ads within Apple Maps search results as soon as this year. Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, …

‘It’s important to finalise the EU-US trade agreement’: EU Economy Commissioner Dombrovskis – Talking Europe

‘It’s important to finalise the EU-US trade agreement’: EU Economy Commissioner Dombrovskis – Talking Europe

Published by Sam Flores

As Europe faces unprecedented geopolitical headwinds, from the Ukraine war to Donald Trump’s designs on Greenland, we speak to the EU Commissioner in charge of the economy, productivity, and simplification: Valdis Dombrovskis. A former prime minister of Latvia, Dombrovskis is very much a Brussels insider, serving in various high-profile roles in the EU Commission since 2016, and as a member of the European Parliament in 2004-2009. Asked if Europe has been too soft on Trump during the Greenland crisis, Dombrovskis answers: “The EU was very clear that threats to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of EU member states are not acceptable, and so are the tariff threats. And correspondingly, we were ready to react forcefully. I think that was one of the factors which eventually helped to change President Trump’s mind. And the focus now is where it should be: on how to strengthen security in the Arctic region.” But, we ask, is it not naïve to go back to business as usual, especially when it comes to US-EU trade, and the bilateral trade agreement? “We …

Apple Accuses European Commission of ‘Political Delay Tactics’ Over App Store Changes

Apple Accuses European Commission of ‘Political Delay Tactics’ Over App Store Changes

Published by skeptic

Apple claims the European Commission is refusing to let to implement App Store changes, instead using “political delay tactics” to levy unfair investigations and fines. Apple provided the statement to Bloomberg in response to MacPaw’s decision to shut down alternative iOS app marketplace Setapp Mobile in the EU because of the complicated business terms that it has to deal with. The European Commission has refused to let us implement the very changes that they requested. In October, we submitted a formal compliance plan and they have yet to respond. The EC is using political delay tactics to mislead the public, move the goal posts, and unfairly target an American company with burdensome investigations and onerous fines. MacPaw plans to sunset Setapp Mobile in the EU on February 16, 2026. The company said it was shutting down the app because of “complex business terms that don’t fit Setapp’s current business model,” but MacPaw did not go into further detail. Apple does indeed have a complicated fee structure in Europe, for both app marketplaces and the apps …

EU Commission says Mercosur delay means EU “weakening itself”

EU Commission says Mercosur delay means EU “weakening itself”

Published by Sam Flores

The European Union’s parliament voted on Wednesday to refer a freshly signed trade deal with South American bloc Mercosur to the EU’s top court, casting the hard-fought accord into legal limbo. The vote deals a blow to the European Commission, whose president Ursula von der Leyen had given a speech to parliament just hours earlier touting the “historic deal”. FRANCE 24’s Armen Georgian breaks it down for us. Keywords for this article Source link

Greenland row: EU to hold emergency summit on Trump tariffs

Greenland row: EU to hold emergency summit on Trump tariffs

Published by Sam Flores

EU’s Costa announces summit ‘in coming days’ over Greenland France pushes EU to consider never-before-used ‘anti-Coercion Instrument’ German soldiers leave Greenland after team completes reconnaissance mission President Donald Trump said Saturday he will impose a 10% tariff on eight European countries beginning February 1 The tariff could rise to 25% if there was no deal on Greenland by June 1 Follow below for all the latest news on Trump’s new tariff threats on European nations amid an escalating row over the future of Greenland here: EU ‘stands firm’ on sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark The European Union is committed to upholding the sovereignty of Greenland and Denmark, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said. Von der Leyen posted to X after speaking to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. “We will always protect our strategic economic and security interests,” von der Leyen said. “We will face these challenges to our European solidarity with steadiness and resolve.” …