Interviews

In a push to counter an expected drop in seats in the new European Parliament, the Greens are banking on extending their demographic and geographical base, their lead candidate Terry Reintke told Euractiv.

Europe is facing a “generational shift” in its economic architecture that will cause inflation to be structurally higher than at any period since the early 1980s, two leading BNP Paribas economists told Euractiv, warning that high price pressures and high interest rates will be the new normal.

Europe should have a containment strategy towards Russia, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský told Euractiv as his country prepares to host NATO foreign ministers on Thursday (30 May) to work on a new kind of support package for Ukraine.

Putting up tariffs on Chinese electric cars to protect the European industry was the wrong approach, German liberal Transport Minister Volker Wissing told Euractiv in an interview, promoting international competition.

While Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) is not ready for EU accession, the United Nations High Representative for Bosnia, Christian Schmidt, told Euractiv that EU leaders must be aware the country could be at great risk if the accession process is further delayed.

Right-wing arguments that Europe would need to sacrifice its climate ambitions in order to boost its competitiveness are groundless and increasingly rejected by business leaders, the head of the German members of the Greens/EFA group at the European Parliament told Euractiv.

Senior socialist EU lawmaker Jens Geier says the EU’s newest set of low-carbon hydrogen standards will be challenging, and Brussels will need to prepare industry-specific support programmes. 

In an interview with Euractiv, Eva Poptcheva also stressed that public investments should aim to “take the edge” of private investments that might otherwise be too risky to undertake.

Georgia's controversial 'foreign agent' law profoundly changes the country's relationship with its Western partners and the EU should take the outcome of the upcoming elections as a basis to reassess its ties with Tbilisi, the country's President Salome Zourabishvili told Euractiv.

Europe should deregulate its economy and “develop a culture of private investment” similar to the US, the vice chair of the European Parliament's Committee of Economic and Monetary Affairs told Euractiv in an interview.

In an exclusive interview with Euractiv, French top candidate of La France insoumise (LFI, The Left) for the 2024 EU elections Manon Aubry, strongly critised a divided left in the face of a far-right at the top of the polls.

German EU lawmaker Peter Liese is already eyeing the next revamp of the EU’s emissions trading scheme, wants a CO2 Central Bank and is campaigning for his party to stay the course on EU climate targets, he told Euractiv in an interview. 

Kyiv is looking for European Union funds to boost support for its domestic arms industry and tap into additional non-contracted capacities,  Ukraine's Minister of Strategic Industries, Oleksandr Kamyshin, told Euractiv. "[Our] objective is to find more funds to procure from Ukrainian …

The main danger facing EU-China relations is the deterioration of political ties that would hamper the global effort to combat climate change, the head of a leading European think-tank told Euractiv in an interview on Tuesday (7 May).

The EU must overcome its “ideological prejudice” against government spending and adopt state-led industrial policies similar to those in the US and China to boost its faltering economy, according to the vice-chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs José Gusmão.

The EU Prosecutor is doing a good job in investigating cases related to the rule of law as Greek citizens mistrust domestic justice and the conservative New Democracy government (EPP), Greece’s main opposition Syriza party (EU Left) leader Stefanos Kasselakis told Euractiv.com in an interview.

In an interview with Euractiv, the Maltese energy minister warned against considering the European energy crisis over and laid out a vision of her island nation becoming the power connection between Europe and North Africa.

Contrary to the current European Union reform debate, it is possible to have the enlargement process and deeper EU integration run parallel, former European Commission president José Manuel Barroso told Euractiv. "A very important lesson learned from then is that it's …

Iliana Ivanova, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth shared with Euractiv in an interview her views on how to fill the gap in financing of science and innovation in the member states which stands at €100 billion per year.

The Asylum and Migration Pact adopted by the European Parliament on Wednesday (10 April) will “weaken the right to asylum” and enshrine in law an ailing approach to migration policy, Eve Geddie, head of Amnesty International’s Brussels office, told Euractiv in an interview.

The head of the EU’s auditing body warned that there is “absolutely” a risk that recent news of the alleged embezzlement of hundreds of millions of euros from the bloc’s pandemic recovery fund could reoccur in future.

The implementation of the EU’s carbon pricing scheme for road transport is crucial to drive the business case for electric and hydrogen trucks, Martin Lundstedt, CEO of the Volvo Group, told Euractiv in an interview.

A future Israel-Palestine peace deal can only come as part of concerted international efforts, which is why the EU should not aim to act as a 'neutral actor', the bloc's Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process, Sven Koopmans told Euractiv.