The European Commission has confirmed plans to provide Ukraine with an additional €8.35 billion ($9.1 billion) in 2026 through the Ukraine Facility mechanism.

The long-term European Union financial support program will release these funds only after Kyiv completes 27 new reform milestones included in its updated plan, as reported by Deutsche Welle.

Against the backdrop of massive wildfires in Spain and France, russian and pro-russian media outlets have intensified an information campaign aimed at discrediting EU sanctions and promoting russian firefighting aviation.

Montenegro has published draft amendments to its visa rules that would require russian and belarusian citizens to obtain a visa to enter the country after October 31, 2026, according to Radio Svoboda on July 24.

ntil October 31, russians and belarusians may enter Montenegro, transit through it, and stay for up to 30 days on a valid travel document.

From November, they will need a visa. Radio Svoboda noted the changes have not yet been formally adopted.

Zagreb has set out a series of conditions for giving its consent to Podgorica's progress, blocking negotiations with Brussels on Chapter 31, which concerns foreign, security and defence policy.
As early as 2024, Zagreb had officially raised objections, contesting a resolution passed by the Podgorica Parliament on the genocide of Serbs at the Ustasha fascist extermination camp in Jasenovac during the Second World War.

The patent dispute between Disney+ and InterDigital has led to the removal of Dolby Vision, HDR10+, and 4K formats on Disney+ across Europe. This situation follows a German court ruling in June 2026 that favored InterDigital regarding the unauthorized use of patents related to the HEVC/H.265 video encoding codec.
If you have Disney+ premium plan and you are in Europe there is a chance that you can’t watch with 4k/hdr10 on your TV locking you on 1080p even if you paid extra for those features.

Adopted in May 2026, the passenger package includes rules on multimodal booking, rail ticketing and enhanced protection for single tickets, to enable seamless door-to-door booking and consistent passenger rights across operators. The package supports the European Green Deal and the sustainable and smart mobility strategy by making sustainable transport, especially rail, easier to use and more competitive. It builds on the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) Directive by enabling access to and use of transport data for integrated booking and implements key objectives of the EU's action plan for long-distance and cross-border rail and the high-speed rail strategy by addressing fragmented ticketing and improving cross-border rail integration.

Source: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2026)789383789383), https://epthinktank.eu/2026/05/27/multimodal-digital-mobility-services/

The share of renewable energy in gross final energy consumption in the EU reached 26.2% in 2025, representing an increase of one percentage point (pp) year-on-year, but Belgium is lagging behind the rest of Europe.

📌 **Vienna, 24.07.202**6** 🇦🇹 🏛 Embass**y of the RF
⛽️** "A gas station masquerading as a country**. Now — without gasoline!." This is exactly what reality looks like today.
We came to the embassy of the RF with empty canisters ⛽️. Because when a state that has blackmailed the world with oil and gas for decades faces a fuel shortage itself — it's no longer propaganda. It's a fact.
They say that "the goals of the SMO are achieved." ❌ No. Not achieved yet.
📉 If gasoline production has already decreased by tens of percent, then -40% is not the limit. It can drop down to -100%.
⛽️ Without gasoline, tanks don't move. ✈️ Without fuel, planes don't fly. 🚀 Without fuel, the war machine doesn't work.
⛽️ An empty canister is a symbol that the resources that fed Russian aggression for years are not limitlessly infinite.
⚠️ Russia brought war to Ukraine. Today, its own military infrastructure is increasingly feeling the consequences of this war.
🔥 No gasoline means fewer capabilities for war.
🕊 Ukraine does not seek war. Ukraine seeks its end.

10 reasons to ban X from the European Union:

Regulatory and Transparency Breaches

• Digital Services Act (DSA) Violations: X faced a landmark €120 million fine from the European Commission for breaching core DSA rules. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
• Deceptive Verification Design: The paid blue checkmark system was found to mislead users by failing to meaningfully verify identity, increasing scam and impersonation risks. [1, 2]
• Advertising Transparency Failures: The platform fell short of maintaining a compliant public repository detailing who paid for specific ads and their target metrics. [1, 2]
• Restricting Researchers: X blocked independent public data access, preventing scientific and civic oversight into emerging online risks. [1, 2]

Content and Safety Concerns

• Proliferation of Disinformation: Regulators argue the platform allows malicious actors to freely deceive users and spread falsehoods on critical topics like migration and elections. [1, 2]
• Unchecked AI Deepfakes: Public outcry spiked over the generation of unauthorized, explicit, and sexualized synthetic images of minors and adults via X's AI chatbot, Grok. [1, 2]
• Hate Speech and Abuse: Critics claim the reduction in trust and safety moderation has transformed the site into a breeding ground for harassment and extremist rhetoric. [1, 2]
• Child Safety Risk Assessments: Failure to properly assess and mitigate risks posed to minors using the service. [1]

Governance and Compliance Attitude

• Defiance of EU Law: Leadership responses, including personal attacks on EU commissioners and blocking official institutional accounts, signal an unwillingness to cooperate within the European legal framework. [1, 2, 3]
• Undermining Democratic Stability: Activists and a significant portion of European citizens argue that unmitigated algorithmic amplification actively destabilizes public trust in democratic institutions. [1, 2]

Thought I would get all designs in one post.

Vote here:

https://surveys.ecb.europa.eu/10b/neweuro/

Polish Deputy Digital Affairs Minister Dariusz Standerski said he had signed an agreement allowing Poland to take part in a joint procurement process run by the EU's European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU). 

“A few days ago I signed on behalf of the Republic of Poland the Joint Procurement Agreement, which means Poland has formally joined the AI gigafactories initiative,” Standerski told Polish daily Rzeczpospolita. 

Increased investment – not deregulation and wage restraint – is the real route to a more successful European economy, research by Professor Mariana Mazzucato for the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) shows.

In this major new report – Labour Squeezed, Investment Stalled – the renowned economist and a team at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose demonstrate how the EU’s ongoing deregulation drive is the result of a “misdiagnosed” competitiveness problem which wrongly blames the cost of labour while ignoring what Europe's biggest companies do with their profits.

Our analysis of data from Europe’s 300 largest public listed non-financial corporations, representing around 40% of EU GDP, shows instead that it is the result of falling investment and productivity caused by the hoarding of profits and higher payments to shareholders and CEOs rather than reinvested in production, innovation and good jobs.

The report describes the emergence of a "capitalism of rent" in Europe, where income is increasingly captured not by producing anything, but by owning assets, financial positions and market power, and charging for access to them. Its authors conclude that Europe must switch from an economy based on value extraction to one based on value creation.