World

Pro-EU parties can ward off far-right surge – Metsola

Published

2 years ago

January 15, 2024

Pro-EU parties can ward off far-right surge – Metsola

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has told Euronews she is “confident” that mainstream, pro-European political parties can ward off a far-right surge in June’s European elections.

Speaking in an interview in Strasbourg on Monday, Metsola said Europe’s moderate, pro-European parties needed to offer an “alternative” to voters.

“I’m worried that if we don’t – as part of the pro-European, constructive (…) majority at the centre – appeal to our voters, then our voters will feel that they have no choice, that they have to retreat to the fringes, to those people who want to destroy rather than to build,” Metsola explained, referring to the eurosceptic far-right.

Current polls predict a surge in support for far-right parties in the European elections, which take place across the continent on 6-9 June.

It follows far-right leader Geert Wilders’ surprise electoral victory in November’s Dutch election, and comes as far-right parties including Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland and France’s Rassemblement National make historic gains in national polls.

But projections also suggest that the European Parliament’s current ruling coalition of social democrats, conservatives and liberals – who work together to ensure EU legislation can be passed – will cling on to its majority.

Metsola, who belongs to the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and who took over the presidency of the European Parliament in January 2022, said that by finding solutions to challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the coalition had proved its resilience.

“These are big challenges that we have overcome and that we continue to show unity over, and I think that’s where we would find that unity in that centre,” Metsola explained.

“So I think we can provide an alternative. We can counter that (far-right) threat if we want to call it a threat, and I’m confident we can do so,” she added.

Next five years ‘will not be any easier’

But Metsola also warned that the European Parliament’s next five-year term “will not be any easier” than the previous one.

Since the 2019 European elections, the 27-country bloc has faced a raft of unforeseen challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and a looming economic crisis.

The 720-seat European Parliament, the bloc’s only democratically-elected institution has also been rocked by the so-called ‘Qatargate’ cash-for-influence scandal.

In December 2022, the parliament’s vice-president Eva Kaili and other senior parliamentary figures were accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of euros for influencing EU decisions to the benefit of Qatari and Moroccan officials. All vehemently deny the allegations.

Suspects were predominantly social democrats, threatening to stain the centre-left group’s reputation.

The scandal also sent shockwaves across Brussels and forced parliament to clamp down on lax rules on staff conduct. The European Ombudsman has nonetheless questioned whether the reforms introduced under Metsola’s initiative are sufficient to restore voter confidence.

Asked whether she feared the scandal had eroded trust in the European Parliament, Metsola urged voters to judge the parliament on its response to the sprawling graft case.

“We took the immediate decision to introduce measures to make sure that we saw where the gaps were, to insert firewalls and to make sure alarm bells are sounded earlier,” Metsola explained, reassuring that rules “are observed” in the parliament.

“We have done a lot of work in the past year, and I would like us to be judged on that, rather than the (…) allegations with regards to a small number of individuals,” she added.

Asked whether some far-right parties could choose to join a new European coalition, Metsola refused to speculate on the formulation of the future parliament, assuring that the current parliament has “found unprecedented unity in the centre.”

There is speculation that the European People’s Party (EPP) – the parliament’s biggest political group at the centre-right – could be open to an alliance with Italian premier Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Fratelli d’Italia party.

EPP Chairman Manfred Weber met with Meloni last year to discuss a potential collaboration at the EU year, although the prospect has been dismissed by other prominent figures from Europe’s centre-right.

“Let’s look at what we have done in that centre, that pro-European centre,” Metsola said.

“It is that that we need to build on, and I look forward to be able to continue to do that from 2024 to 2029.”

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World

How the Iran War Has Rippled Across the World

Published

4 hours ago

March 30, 2026

Press Room

How the Iran War Has Rippled Across the World

Butter chicken has disappeared from some Indian menus. So has dosa.

These culinary staples consume cooking gas, which has become harder to get from India’s suppliers in the Gulf.

Australian farmers are planting less wheat.

Farmers around the world are worried about their harvests as fertilizer prices rise. A third of the world’s fertilizer is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz.

South Koreans were urged to take shorter showers.

Much of the energy they use to heat water comes from the Middle East.

A shorter workweek in Sri Lanka. A shorter school week in Laos.

To curb commutes and conserve fuel, Sri Lanka declared Wednesdays a public holiday, and Laos adopted a three-day class schedule.

Track suits could get more expensive.

The polyester in them is made from petrochemicals. Oil and gas prices are rising.

Party balloons may be harder to find.

Qatar produces a third of the world’s helium, a byproduct of natural gas. As production and exports halt, balloon suppliers may run short.

Formula 1 canceled some races.

With missiles targeting Gulf nations, competitions in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were scratched.

Concerts were postponed.

Shakira, Christina Aguilera and others postponed shows in the region over security concerns.

Cancer drugs might not reach some patients on time.

Shutdowns in cargo hubs like Dubai and Doha threaten medicines that must be kept refrigerated.

Buying a house in the United States is more expensive.

Oil prices are driving fears of higher inflation, pushing up mortgage rates.

Sugar mills in Brazil, the world’s biggest producer, may switch to making more biofuel to cash in on high energy prices.

Airlines are paying more for jet fuel, and passing along the costs.

Usually a safe investment in turmoil, gold has fallen for myriad reasons including speculative investors cashing out gold investments.

Tens of thousands of flights canceled.

With some airspace closed in the Middle East, carriers have had to suspend routes. At the same time, jet fuel costs are soaring.

Venezuela gets to export fertilizer again.

The Trump administration loosened sanctions to help U.S. farmers.

Even the chess world has been shaken up.

A grandmaster withdrew from a major competition in Cyprus over safety concerns. A drone hit a British base there early in the war.

Ukraine may run short on Patriot missiles.

The war has depleted stocks of the U.S. interceptors used by Kyiv to fend off Russian attacks.

Thailand’s premier wore short-sleeved shirts to work and urged others to do the same.

Government offices are required to cap air conditioner use to conserve energy.

Take the stairs. Leave the mall.

To conserve energy, the Philippines asked civil servants to skip the elevator, and Egypt curtailed shopping hours five days a week.

Zara clothes piled up at airports in Bangladesh.

Textile exports have also been disrupted by the canceled flights.

Gas lines are back. Even in Texas.

Worried about a price spike, drivers in San Antonio lined up for 30 minutes at a Costco.

World

US allows Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba amid blockade as Trump says island ‘has to survive’

Published

5 hours ago

March 30, 2026

Press Room

US allows Russian oil tanker to reach Cuba amid blockade as Trump says island ‘has to survive’

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The U.S. government will allow a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba, effectively easing a blockade that has pushed the island into an energy crisis, according to a report.

The Russian-flagged tanker, the Anatoly Kolodkin, was headed for Cuba on Sunday, carrying an estimated 730,000 barrels of oil, The New York Times reported, citing a U.S. official who had been briefed on the matter.

The tanker Anatoly ⁠Kolodkin was just off the eastern tip of Cuba on Sunday, ship tracking data showed.

“We have a tanker out there. We don’t mind having somebody get a boatload, because they need … they have to survive,” President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday when asked about the report.

CUBA’S ENTIRE ELECTRICAL GRID COLLAPSES, LEAVING WHOLE ISLAND WITHOUT POWER

The U.S. government will allow a Russian tanker full of crude oil to reach Cuba. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)

“If a country wants to send some oil into Cuba right now, I have no problem whether it’s Russia or not,” he added.

Trump had sought to restrict oil shipments to Cuba in an effort to pressure its government.

The U.S. government has temporarily eased some sanctions on Russian oil shipments to help stabilize global energy markets amid disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz following U.S. and Israeli military strikes on Iran that began last month.

CUBAN OFFICIAL REVEALS MILITARY ‘PREPARING’ FOR CONFLICT AFTER TRUMP CONSIDERS ‘TAKING’ ISLAND

President Donald Trump had sought to restrict oil shipments to Cuba in an effort to pressure its government. (Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo)

The Anatoly Kolodkin, which departed from Primorsk, Russia, could soon dock at the Matanzas port in Cuba if it remains on its current path, according to tracking services MarineTraffic and LSEG.

The oil would provide significant relief to Cuba, where President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said fuel shortages have persisted for months, forcing strict gas rationing and deepening the island’s energy crisis.

The U.S. capture of then-Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January stripped a key Cuban ally who had been providing oil to the island on favorable terms.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has said fuel shortages have persisted for months. (PABLO PORCIUNCULA/AFP via Getty Images)

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The Trump administration then blocked all Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and vowed to impose punitive tariffs on any third country that supplied shipments to the island, forcing Mexico to stop its exports to Cuba.

Another ship, the Hong Kong-flagged Sea Horse, was also carrying about 200,000 barrels of Russian fuel to Cuba, but was rerouted to Venezuela.

World

Newsletter: G7 ministers to hold talks on war’s economic fallout

Published

6 hours ago

March 30, 2026

Press Room

Good morning and welcome to Monday – I’m Mared Gwyn.

Criticism has poured in from all corners of the world after Israeli police stopped the heads of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem from entering the Holy Sepulchre on Palm Sunday, preventing them from privately celebrating mass in what the Latin Patriarchate has said is a first in “centuries”. We have more in our top story below.

But first, G7 crisis talks: G7 energy and finance ministers as well as central bank governors will hold urgent online talks later today amid fears that the economic fallout of the war in Iran is about to hit a tipping point – with another release of strategic oil reserves under consideration.

The US’s European and Asian allies are most vulnerable to the looming economic shock, putting added stress on the fraught Group of Seven. Tensions brimmed to the surface when G7 foreign ministers met in France last week, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio clashing with the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas when she asked when US “patience” with the Kremlin would run out, according to an Axios scoop.

European markets opened lower on Monday, with futures pointing to declines across major indices.

With oil and gas prices already spiralling, there is now fear that a protracted conflict could upend global supply chains as key commodities including fertilisers are trapped in the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway which has been effectively closed since the conflict broke out a month ago.

Signs of inflationary pressure and soaring borrowing costs are now making the looming crisis hard to ignore for the G7, which is yet to jointly introduce radical measures to cushion the impact on their economies beyond the release of strategic oil reserves. Several developing countries are already rationing fuel and subsidising energy costs.

My colleague Marta Pacheco reports that EU energy ministers are mulling a cap on oil prices or taxing the windfall profits of energy companies to rein in prices ahead of a virtual meeting tomorrow, Tuesday. Officials in Brussels acknowledge that while the crisis is not yet as acute as that of 2022 in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, there is more limited “financial manoeuvring room” this time. Marta has the details.

Marta also reports that agriculture ministers gather in Brussels today, with France leading calls for swift action to tackle insecurity in Europe’s fertiliser market by easing measures tied to the EU’s carbon border rules. Fertilisers are essential to food production and EU farmers are already hit by soaring prices since the EU banned these chemicals from Belarus and Russia in July 2025.

Paris wants the bloc to temporarily suspend the bloc’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism – a pricing tool based on carbon emissions with which importers need to comply – on fertilisers and ammonia with retroactive effect from 1 January 2026.

An EU official told Marta that, should a suspension not get adequate political support, Paris could table a workaround which would involve compensating farmers using existing EU budget resources to cushion the impact of higher fertiliser costs.

France is also pressing the European Commission to accelerate work on a long-promised “European Fertilizer Sovereignty Plan” – a sign that concerns extend beyond short-term relief to the bloc’s long-term strategic autonomy.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East: The situation remains on a knife edge, with no warring party represented in talks on de-escalation between the top diplomats of Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in Islamabad on Sunday.

Discussions explored ways to reopen the Strait of Hormuz including introducing toll-like systems similar to the Suez Canal, Reuters reported, while broader diplomacy aims at a ceasefire and stabilising oil flows disrupted by the conflict. The mediators also contemplated the 15-point plan President Trump has passed on to Iran through Islamabad.

Yet, Trump has told the Financial Times in an interview that his preference is to “take the oil in Iran” by seizing the Iranian export hub of Kharg Island, all the while insisting that he is “pretty sure” that Iran will strike a deal.

The Washington Post meanwhile reports this morning that the Pentagon is preparing for a possible ground invasion into Iran. The Iranian parliament speaker accused the US yesterday of plotting a ground invasion in secret while publicly signalling appetite for talks, warning Tehran is waiting to “rain fire” on any American soldiers who enter its territory.

Outrage after Israeli police block Latin Patriarch from Palm Sunday mass

World leaders have voiced deep concern after Israeli police prevented the head of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, from entering the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for Palm Sunday mass, with the Vatican and Italy convening their Israeli ambassadors in response.

Both Cardinal Pizzaballa and the Custos of the Holy Land Father Francesco Ielpo were turned away by authorities in an incident the Latin Patriarchate has said “disregards the sensibilities of billions of people around the world”. It said the two were stopped while proceeding privately without any characteristics of a procession or ceremonial act, and had to turn back.

Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has led criticism, describing the Israeli police’s actions as an “offence to the faithful” and to “every community that recognises religious freedom”. French President Emmanuel Macron condemned the incident and said it fits in a pattern of a “worrying increase in violations of the status of the Holy Places in Jerusalem”.

Israel has claimed the priests were stopped due to “security concerns” amid the ongoing war with Iran. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said overnight that Cardinal Pizzaballa had been asked to “refrain from holding mass” out of “special concern for his safety”, but that Israel has since ensured he is “granted full and immediate access to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.”

Yet a spokesperson for the Latin Patriarchate has said that private masses have been taking place at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre since the start of the war, and that it remains unclear why the access of the two priests to Sunday’s Mass was any different.

Aadel Haleem and Orestes Georgiou Daniel have more.

Israel says it will crack down on settler violence in the West Bank, expands Lebanon incursion

A document seen exclusively by Euronews’ Sophie Claudet shows instructions by the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Israeli army and police to crack down on settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The instructions, shared in a non-public document titled “Prime Minister’s Directive on Combating Nationalist Crimes in Judea and Samaria,” are an exceedingly unusual move for the Netanyahu administration. Judea and Samaria are the biblical names of the area known today as the West Bank.

The army had announced last week it was diverting troops away from its ongoing offensive in Lebanon to the West Bank in order to rein in Jewish settler violence, in what would be the first time Israel pulls out forces from an active war front to dispatch them to a territory deemed far less dangerous or critical.

Yet since, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the military to “further expand the existing security buffer zone” in southern Lebanon, as its war against Hezbollah intensifies. Almost a fifth of Lebanon’s population has now been

displaced as a result of the conflict.

Read the full story.

More from our newsrooms

EU calls for Black Sea grain model to unblock Strait of Hormuz. The EU’s special envoy to the Gulf, Luigi di Maio, told Euronews in an interview in Doha on Friday that the EU wants to replicate the Black Sea deal agreed in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to unblock global supplies of grain in the Strait of Hormuz. Aadel Haleem has thefull story.

Two unidentified drones crash in southeastern Finland in ‘suspected territorial violation’. Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo says they are likely Ukrainian drones that went astray due to Russian jamming of signals as Kyiv carries out drone attacks on Russian territories along the border with Finland. Malek Fouda hasthe story.

Huge crowds protest against Trump in ‘No Kings’ rallies in the US and abroad. Millions of people took to the streets across the US – and to a lesser extent worldwide – on Saturday to protest against what they see as Trump’s authoritarian style of governance, hardline immigration policies, climate change denial and the war with Iran. Lucy Davolou has the details.

We’re also keeping an eye on

EU agriculture and fisheries ministers gather in Brussels
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Germany for talks with Chancellor Friedrich Merz

That’s it for today. Marta Pacheco contributed to this newsletter. Remember to sign up to receive Europe Today in your inbox every weekday morning at 08.30.