Europe

I haven't heard anything about him lately and wonder if he's still protesting?

Apparently "Wednesday [was] always the worst day of the week because we knew what we were going to be subjected to." according to a tory staffer.

It's he still there? How are the protests going?

Well written article.

https://archive.is/a2U6t

ArcelorMittal said it would turn down €1.3bn in public subsidies aimed at supporting it in adapting facilities in Bremen and Eisenhüttenstadt to use hydrogen rather than coal in its steel furnaces.

It has also warned that it could shut its flagship green ethanol plant in Belgium because of restrictive EU regulation defining biofuels and emissions reductions that means that it would have to sell its output at a loss.

France will participate in a capital increase by satellite operator Eutelsat to the tune of €717 million (US$826 million) to help the company finance the expansion of its constellation of low-orbit communication satellites and create a sovereign European alternative to Starlink.

The European Union should immediately suspend its trade agreement with Israel as long as Israel’s atrocity crimes persist, Human Rights Watch and over 110 organizations and trade unions said in a joint statement on June 19, 2025. This would be the first measure taken by the EU in the last two years to ensure some accountability for Israeli authorities’ egregious abuses of Palestinians.

EU foreign ministers are expected to discuss the EU-Israel Association Agreement on June 23, when they will receive an assessment of Israel’s compliance with article 2 of the agreement, which qualifies “respect for human rights and democratic principles” in “internal and international policy” as an “essential element” of the agreement. The review was initiated on May 20, when 17 out of 27 EU foreign ministers supported a proposal by the Dutch government. The EU is Israel’s biggest trading partner and suspending the trade pillar of the agreement would reinstate tariffs on bilateral trade.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/37084496

Archived

Thousands of North Koreans are entering Russia, posing as students on “practical training” but instead coming to labor under slave-like conditions [...] The practice directly violates UN sanctions — sanctions that Russia itself has agreed to. The workers toil six days a week, sometimes for up to 20 hours a day, while their wages are divided between the North Korean regime and Russian companies. Among those profiting from the forced labor system is an organization linked to Artem Chaika, the son of Russia’s former prosecutor general.

[...]

Pyongyang uses its labor force as a vital source of hard currency. In 2015, Marzuki Darusman, the former UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, reported that foreign employers paid the regime in Pyongyang “significantly higher amounts” than the workers themselves were told they were earning, allowing the government to collect an estimated $1.2 to $2.3 billion annually.

Meanwhile, the workers themselves often received little or nothing in exchange for working grueling shifts of up to 20 hours a day — all while living in conditions of constant surveillance and with insufficient food. In one of his messages, Tkachuk noted that each group of North Korean workers must include a designated “senior” supervisor — a minder tasked with overseeing and controlling the group on behalf of the regime.

[...]

According to Cedric Ryngaert, Head of the Department of International Law at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, given the findings of The Insider’s investigation are correct, Russia is likely to violate UN Security Council resolutions 2375 and 2397, both adopted in 2017. These resolutions, among other conditions, require member states to stop issuing work permits to North Korean labourers and repatriate all of them to their home country within 2 years.

[...]

The UK is en route to legalising assisted dying after MPs on Friday narrowly backed a contentious bill giving terminally ill people with less than six months to live access to life-ending drugs. Patients would have to administer the drugs themselves with permission from two doctors and a panel of experts.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/41843778

The European Commission said on Friday it would axe a law designed to outlaw unfounded claims about the environmental or climate friendliness of companies or their products, in line with a demand from the centre-right European People's Party.

The law was long opposed by business groups, who complained of increased administrative work, and faced hefty fines if caught 'greenwashing'

I wanted to spotlight a quietly massive success story in European digital sovereignty: GendBuntu - France’s custom Ubuntu distribution used by the National Gendarmerie.

The GendBuntu project derives from Microsoft's decision to end the development of Windows XP Back in 2005, France’s Gendarmerie began switching from Microsoft products to open-source software - starting with OpenOffice. Fast forward to 2024, and GendBuntu(Linux) is now running on 97% of their workstations (over 103,000 computers!).

France has shown what’s possible when a government actually backs open-source, in-house, and EU-grown solutions.
More countries should follow suit.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

Archived

The head of one of Russia’s largest steel producers has warned of imminent production cuts and plant closures in the country’s steel industry as a strengthening ruble and high interest rates choke off demand and profitability.

The steel industry, which employs more than 600,000 workers and accounts for roughly 10% of Russia’s export revenues, has long been a pillar of the nation’s heavy industry.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, Severstal CEO Alexander Shevelev said the industry could be unable to sell up to 6 million metric tons of steel this year, nearly 10% of last year’s total output.

The current forecast for domestic steel consumption predicts that demand could fall from 43-45 million tons to just 39 million tons this year, he said.

“That’s effectively the disappearance of an entire industry’s worth of demand,” Shevelev said.

At the same time, exporting steel has become unprofitable due to the sharp appreciation of the ruble.

“The industry … today is practically unable to export metal products, because it is economically unviable,” Shevelev said.

[...]

Meanwhile, Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned Thursday that Russia's economy is teetering on the "brink of recession", casting a downbeat tone over the annual St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), a key event aimed at attracting investment to the country.

Speaking on the second day of the forum, Reshetnikov said "current business sentiment and indicators" point to a looming downturn.

"Overall, I think we are on the brink of a recession," he told journalists. "Everything else depends on our decisions," he added, urging Russia's Central Bank to show "a little love for the economy."

Russia's economy has been marked by volatility since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with growth now slowing after a period when record defense spending led to "overheating."

[...]

Denmark will continue preparing Ukraine for EU membership in the face of Hungary blocking negotiations, when the Nordic country takes over the presidency of the European Council from July 1, its European affairs minister said on Thursday.

"Unfortunately, Hungary is blocking and we are trying to put as much pressure there as we can and also do everything we can to make Ukraine continue with the necessary reform work," European affairs minister Marie Bjerre told a press conference in Copenhagen.

[...]

Meanwhile, Sweden is also strengthening its support to increase Ukraine’s capability to implement its accession negotiations. The Stockholm School of Economics has been granted SEK 3 million via the Swedish Institute to train Ukrainian civil servants and diplomats in negotiation skills.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/41844792

Stellantis and Renault are lobbying for a new, less-regulated category of small cars with fewer safety features

Lobbyists argue there is no need for safety requirements like those for high-speed collisions when it comes to small cars designed for city drivers.

Matthew Avery, director of strategic development at Euro NCAP, which tests new cars for safety, said the idea that small city cars would not be involved in highway accidents is nonsense. The Chinese are bringing cars to Europe that consistently get five-star ratings from Euro NCAP

A change in regulations to cut some safety requirements could leave smaller European cars with two- or three-star ratings, Avery said.

[...] Norway's competition authority fined Coop, Rema 1000, and NorgesGruppen a combined €420 million [...]

[..] the companies had been using "price hunters" to scan and monitor prices in one another's shops. Instead of competing, they adjusted their prices to match, keeping them high and predictable.

Together, these three chains control 95% of the grocery market in Norway,

One of the few comparable examples is Poland, where Biedronka and Lidl together hold around 73% of the market.

Coop, Rema 1000, and NorgesGruppen have all appealed their respective fines, meaning they remain unpaid. The authorities have asked the companies to cease their use of price hunters, but as stated by the head of NorgesGruppen, they have no plans to do so.

Primary sources are at the bottom of the article.

The European Commission decided to exclude Chinese companies from EU government purchases of medical devices exceeding €5 million. This measure follows the conclusions of the first investigation under the International Procurement Instrument (IPI), and allows no more than 50% of inputs from China for successful bids.

...

Global public procurement, worth over €11 trillion per year, is an important business opportunity for European companies. The EU public procurement market remains one of the most open in the world. For example, Chinese exports of medical devices to the EU have more than doubled between 2015 and 2023.

...

China has erected significant and recurring legal and administrative barriers to its procurement market: 87% of public procurement contracts for medical devices in China were subject to exclusionary and discriminatory measures and practices against EU-made medical devices and EU suppliers, according to a 2025 Commission report. The report was the result of the Commission's first investigation under the IPI Regulation, launched on 24 April 2024.

The Commission has repeatedly raised this issue with the Chinese authorities, seeking a constructive and fair solution that would enable EU companies to access the Chinese market on terms comparable to those enjoyed by Chinese firms in the EU. Despite these efforts, China has so far not offered specific commitments that would address the discriminatory measures and practices identified.

...