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Russia's war on Ukraine has laid bare the challenges facing the European defence industry as it tries to meet increased demand and ramp up production in the wake of a fundamentally changed security environment in Europe. Europe's defence industry comprises a number of large multinational companies, mid-caps and over 2 000 small and medium-sized enterprises. It faces a multitude of challenges, such as decades of under-investment, fragmentation, insufficient critical raw material and semiconductor ...

Luxembourg's national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) was initially to be financed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) with a total of €93.4 million in grants. This allocation accounted for around 51 % of the plan's total estimated value (€183.1 million), while a further 46 % of the costs were to be covered by the national budget, and 3 % from other EU co-financing. The NRRP has since been adjusted, first to factor in the European Commission's 2022 recalculations of the grants available ...

Spain's national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) is the second largest (in absolute figures) financed by the Next Generation EU (NGEU) recovery instrument and its main spending tool, the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). Following the October 2023 amendment of the Spanish NRRP, adding a REPowerEU chapter, the plan's value reached €163 billion (or 13.1 % of national gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019), an increase of roughly 135 % compared with the original plan of 2021 (€69.5 billion ...

Croatia's national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) is an ambitious outline of reforms and investment designed to mitigate the pandemic's socioeconomic fallout. Following the December 2023 amendment of the Croatian NRRP, to which a REPowerEU chapter was added, the plan's worth reached €10 040.7 million (or 18.5 % of national gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019), an increase of over 59 % compared with the original (2021) version of the plan, which was worth €6 297 million in grants only. The amended ...

In nominal terms, Poland is the third biggest beneficiary of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), after Italy and Spain. EU support for implementing Poland's amended national recovery and resilience plan (NRRP) – Krajowy Plan Odbudowy – amounts to €59.8 billion, and includes €25.3 billion in grants and €34.5 billion in loans. The amount is €24.5 billion (+69 %) higher than the one initially approved, and takes into account a 2022 update of the maximum financial contribution, additional loans ...

The first plenary session of October 2024 saw Members mark one year since the 7 October Hamas terrorist attack, as well as holding a debate on a statement by the High Representative/Vice President of the Commission, Josep Borrell, on the escalation of violence in the Middle East and the situation in Lebanon. Members also held a debate with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, current holder of the Council Presidency. Parliament adopted resolutions on Georgia's increasingly authoritarian trajectory ...

In a decree issued on 1 July, Tunisian President Kais Saied called a presidential election for 6 October 2024. In doing so Saied is setting himself up for probable re-election, as all but one of the opposition candidates are in prison or have been declared ineligible by the Tunisian electoral commission. A third candidate who had been approved by the electoral commission was handed a 20-month prison sentence on 19 September. Now seeking re-election for a second 5-year term, Saied was first elected ...

Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July, and will stay in office until 31 December 2024. This is the second time Hungary has played this role, following its first-ever presidency in 2011. Hungary is the last member of the presidency trio made up together with Spain (in the second half of 2023) and Belgium (in the first half of 2024). It will hand the baton over to Poland.

The arrival of refugees and irregular migrants in the EU in unprecedented numbers in 2015 exposed a number of deficiencies in the EU's external border, asylum and migration policy, and sparked EU action through various legal and policy instruments. Today, even though the EU has been relatively successful in securing its external borders, curbing irregular migrant arrivals and increasing cooperation with third countries, Member States are still reluctant to show solidarity and do more to share responsibility ...

Two and a half years after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, EU military aid under the European Peace Facility (EPF) is still falling behind, with fresh money needed despite the increased EPF budget reserved for Ukraine. The new plan set in place by the EU and its G7 partners to use windfall profits from frozen Russian assets only began to provide military and reconstruction support for Ukraine with the first payment on 26 July 2024. The EU will use the EPF to channel its military ...