Parliament’s final plenary session before the summer recess will see Members discuss the priorities of the Irish EU Council Presidency alongside key decisions on enlargement, foreign affairs, ...

The June 2026 plenary session saw discussion on the preparation of the European Council meeting of 18‑19 June 2026. Particular attention was paid to the future of EU‑China economic relations. Written ...

For her second mandate, European Commission President-elect Ursula von der Leyen has prioritised strengthening EU competitiveness and simplifying existing EU legislation. For her second mandate, ...

In response to United States (US) tariffs, and citing national security interests as a reason, China introduced two waves of export controls for rare-earth elements (REEs) in April and October 2025 ...

EU Member States’ defence expenditure rose significantly between 2021 and 2024. The EU has introduced several initiatives to complement national efforts in order to boost defence spending and ...

You can use our collection of graphs, charts, tables and maps with statistical data for any purpose (just please credit the European Parliamentary Research Service). The images were created by the ...

Russia’s war on Ukraine has been a wake-up call for many EU Member States in terms of defence budgets. Rising from €218 billion in 2021 to an expected €381 billion in 2025, there are significant ...

The ‘fit for 55’ package, presented in July and December 2021, is designed to realise the European Climate Law objectives: climate neutrality by 2050 and a 55 % reduction of net greenhouse gas (GHG) ...

This briefing analyses options for financing EU defence from a legal (in terms of what the EU Treaties permit), budgetary, fiscal and purpose-related perspective. Written by Sebastian Clapp, Martin ...

The February 2026 plenary session saw two key votes: on the Ukraine Support Loan, reaffirming the EU’s continued financial support for Ukraine; and on the EU-Mercosur agreement safeguard clause, ...

In 2022, collective annual EU defence budgets had already increased to €240 billion, of which €58 billion (+24.2 % compared to 2021) was for defence investment (defence R&D and defence procurement), a ...

As of May 2025, 29 countries were full members of the Schengen area, where checks at their internal borders with other Schengen states are abolished (see Figure 3): • Germany, Belgium, France, ...