French nuclear energy splits Germany's ruling coalition
The issue is expected to be a key topic at the meeting between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron, scheduled for July 23 in Berlin. The meeting is intended to lay the groundwork for the Franco-German Council of Ministers, planned for late August.
France has long advocated that nuclear energy should not be penalized in Brussels, as atomic power accounts for nearly 70% of its primary energy production. After years of fierce debate between Berlin and Paris, France hoped for a policy shift with the return of conservatives to power in Germany, especially since Merz presented himself as a staunch supporter of nuclear energy. The CDU-CSU campaign platform stated they wanted to "keep the nuclear energy option open" by investing in fourth- and fifth-generation reactors, small modular reactors (SMRs) and fusion technology. The platform even highlighted its intention to "consider reactivating the last nuclear plants that had been closed."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
LeMonde
an hour ago
- LeMonde
Ukraine: Protests erupt over law eroding independence of two anti-corruption agencies
Slogans, songs, the Ukrainian national anthem – on Tuesday, July 22, at around 8 pm, several thousand people gathered outside the offices of the Ukrainian presidency in Kyiv, despite the martial law in force since 2022. Draped in Ukrainian flags or holding signs, demonstrators protested against the adoption, in the afternoon, of a law by a wide parliamentary majority (263 votes in favor, 13 against and 13 abstentions) that severely weakens the country's anti-corruption framework, painstakingly established after the 2014 Maidan Revolution. This movement followed then president Viktor Yanukovych's refusal to sign an association agreement with the European Union, favoring closer ties with Russia instead. The vote brought a segment of the nation's youth into the streets amid full-scale war – the first such protest since Russia's invasion in February 2022, except for rallies in support of prisoners. "Shame," "Government resign, gang out!" chanted protesters gathered in Kyiv around the garden facing the national theater, just a five-minute walk from the iconic Maidan Square, where the "Revolution of Dignity" took place more than a decade ago. Early Tuesday evening, around 40 former soldiers – enlisted in 2014 (during the annexation of Crimea) or 2022 – gathered at the foot of the presidential palace, many in shorts and with prosthetics. But the vast majority of the crowd was very young: Arrests for recruitment have made those over 25 far more cautious.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
Elon Musk's X fails to deal with Russian disinformation, study says
More than 100 pieces of content published on X from Russian state media and disinformation actors that fail to comply with European rules still appear on the social media platform despite being reported to X, according to a new report. The report commissioned by German non-profit group WeMove Europe, which was shared exclusively with Euronews, found '125 clear sanction-violating posts' on the Elon Musk-owned platform. Some of the posts included programmes from the Russian state broadcaster Russia Today (RT), which has been banned by the European Union since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine. In one instance, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs account on X shared an excerpt from a documentary produced by RT, which shared a false narrative about an Adolf Hitler collaborator who was 'elevated to the rank of national hero by the Kyiv regime'. The post also provided a link to bypass sanctions and access the full film on Telegram. The researchers behind the paper had reported to X all the content deemed illegal under Europe's Digital Services Act (DSA), the bloc's digital transparency rules. The report found that only 57 per cent of the reports of illegal content received acknowledgement receipts, which breaches the DSA. Among the 125 reports, only one post was removed by X. The company said that there was no violation of EU law. In some cases, X responded to the researchers' complaints within two minutes, the report said, suggesting that automation is playing a big role in X's content moderation. The European Commission, the EU's executive body, launched a formal investigation into X this year for breaching the DSA and said it would finalise the investigation before the summer recess, which begins on July 25. However, the Financial Times reported last week that the Commission will miss this deadline as it aims to conclude trade talks with the United States. Euronews Next has contacted the Commission for comment about the latest report and the X investigation but did not receive a reply at the time of publication. In January, French prosecutors also launched an investigation following allegations that X's algorithm was being used for the purposes of foreign interference. The researchers filed the reports to X on July 8 and 9, 2025. While they were met with automatic replies in most cases that X would look into their complaints, in the majority of them, they did not hear back. Euronews Next has also contacted X for comment about the report but did not receive a reply at the time of publication. Russia's online war Under the EU sanctions regime, it is prohibited to offer content hosting services for sanctioned entities, such as broadcasters or sanctioned individuals. Russia has intensified its disinformation campaign in Europe since it invaded Ukraine in 2022, the researchers said. Along with official Russian government accounts spreading fake news, there were also accounts likely operated by the 'Social Design Agency,' a Russian company known to produce Russia's influence campaign 'Operation Doppelgänger,' as well as anonymous users repeatedly posting such material. 'Overall, the volume indeed exploded [since the war]. It's much more significant,' said Charles Terroille, a project and investigative research officer at the fact-checking group Science Feedback who worked on the paper. 'A lot of the posts that we flagged to X are for instance, documentaries, if you can call them that, so 40-minute videos hosted on X that are Russia Today showing, for example, how Ukraine deserved it all or how [President] Zelenskyy and all the government people and officials in Ukraine are just fans of Nazi figures and all these widely false and reported stories that Russia is propping,' he told Euronews Next. Terroille said another Russian method is to fabricate pages that look like well-known Western media outlets and spread them on X. He added that fake news about public health and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines are still running, among other topics, such as misinformation about the environment and are 'absolutely weaponised' by Russia. For Taïme Smit Pellure, a digital campaigner at WeMove Europe who led the report, the most shocking part of the research was that the content is also translated into people's home languages, such as French, and is 'everywhere' on X. She told Euronews Next that both the Commission and X should be acting faster and that her organisation has reached out to the Commission but it has not had a 'positive response yet'. 'We know they are working on this, we know they are, it's not like they're looking away completely, just taking their time because they want to do it right and we completely understand that,' she said. Another recommendation for the Commission is for European governments to work together in a more coordinated manner to address this issue, said Saman Nazari, lead researcher of civic campaign group Alliance4Europe, who also worked on the paper. 'As long as we stay only working in our own little bubbles, we do not stand a chance against a multi-billion euro influence apparatus,' Nazari said. His recommendation for X is that 'there is not that much nuance. It's straight-up illegal content,' and that 'it doesn't take much time' to find such content and address it. 'This is incredibly low-hanging fruit,' he added.
Euronews
an hour ago
- Euronews
The Schengen Agreement turns 40. Can its raison d'être survive?
A good example of the current dilemmas the Schengen Treaty is facing is to be found along the German/Polish border on the border town of Görlitz (Germany) and Zgorzelec (Poland), merely divided by the river Lusatian Neisse. In 2023, citing its ongoing fight against illegal migration, Germany imposed temporary here as everywhere along its border with Poland. In turn, Polish authorities imposed temporary controls from July 7, 2025. Locals on both sides of the border are suffering the consequences, including huge traffic jams. Take for instance 37-year-old data analyst Jakub Woliński. He lives and works on the German side of this border town, but he was born on the Polish side. A frequent trans-border commuter, he is at the frontline of the new reality. 'There is no increased movement of people crossing the border illegally here. This is a completely unnecessary expression of distrust of the neighbors who live right across the river.', he says. On weekends or holidays, German controls often create havoc in streets on the Polish side. Even the Italian owner of an ice-cream parlour near the checkpoint is unhappy. 'The city becomes completely blocked. It practically makes it very difficult for us to work, because customers can't get here by car, so those who don't live nearby don't come', says Antonio Scaramozzino. Residents on the Polish side are collecting signatures for a protest petition addressed to the European Commission. Jakub has gone even further. He has sued the German government. 'I strongly believe that the decisions of the German authorities limit my freedom of movement on the border areas. If I could talk to representatives of the German government, I would like to ask them if does bearing all these costs really justify the benefits?' We transmit the question to the German Federal Police. They claim they are working hard to minimize the impact of their controls. But they say they have a legal mandate that so far has proven effective. 'In my department in May this year we have now reported over 175 people for not respecting the right of residence. However, we also reported 141 people for having committed other crimes', claims Michael Engler, spokesperson at the German Federal Police Despite those statistics, Jakub sees his lawsuit against Germany as a wake-up call for Schengen members and EU institutions to reconsider their current approach. 'If we, the citizens, do not take matters into our own hands, make it clear to our governments that this is an important issue to fight for, then I fear that the Schengen area may collapse', he says. Is this the end of the Schengen dream? States can indeed reinstate controls under strict conditions. The biggest legal -and symbolic- issue is not the decision itself, but its rationale and time frame, says Jolanta Szymańska, EU programme coordinator at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. She is an expert on EU migration and internal affairs policy. 'All the controls should be put on a specific time. And as the name is 'temporary introduction', it should not be like a stable situation. But in some countries, we´ve had a decade of border checks.' , she concludes.
