Hanoi (dpa) – Vietnam and the European Union on Thursday upgraded ties to a comprehensive strategic partnership, Vietnam’s highest diplomatic tier, amid a tumultuous period for global trade.

In a joint statement, Vietnam and EU stressed “the importance of a partnership based on common interests and shared values of peace, security, and prosperity in a rules-based international order, based on international law.”

Though US tariffs were not explicitly mentioned, at a press briefing held after meeting Vietnamese President Luong Cuong, European Council President António Costa said: “At a moment when the international rules-based order is under threat from multiple sides, we need to stand side-by-side as reliable and predictable partners.”

“Vietnam considers the EU one of its most important partners in the world and wishes to continue promoting and deepening its relationship with the EU,” Cuong said.

Cuong labelled the move a “historic milestone,” coming 35 years after Vietnam and the EU established diplomatic relations. The EU-Vietnam free trade agreement, signed in 2020, has helped drive a 40 percent increase in bilateral trade.

Vietnam is one of the EU’s largest trading partners in South-East Asia, while the EU is Vietnam’s fourth-largest trading partner. In the first 10 months of 2025, two-way trade reached nearly 61 billion Dollar (51 billion Euro), up 8.4 percent year on year.

Vietnam and the EU on Thursday also underscored the need to strengthen cooperation on peace, defence and security, and voiced support for multilateralism and respect for international law, including the UN Charter. (29 January)

Berlin (dpa) – Germany’s Greens are backing the European Union’s landmark trade deal with India, days after the party’s lawmakers in the European Parliament played a key role in challenging the bloc’s agreement with the South American Mercosur countries.

Andreas Audretsch, the party’s deputy group leader in the German parliament, said the deal with India, which was announced earlier on Tuesday, was good for businesses and workers in Germany.

In view of the “destructive rage” of US President Donald Trump, Europe must build new alliances for trade and cooperation, Audretsch argued.

The deal was finalised during an EU-India summit in New Delhi, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi proclaiming the agreement on Tuesday.

“The EU and India make history today, deepening the partnership between the world’s biggest democracies,” von der Leyen said.

The latest agreement will not be as comprehensive as the one recently concluded between the EU and Mercosur countries Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay.

Last week, several Green lawmakers in Brussels voted in favour of referring the bloc’s deal with Mercosur to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which could result in a substantial delay to ratification. Their votes were decisive in passing the motion, prompting severe criticism for the party in Germany, whose export-led economy stands to benefit from the boost to trade.

In a paper, the Green leadership has said that Germany needs “new economic partnerships” to diversify foreign trade. “That is why it is important to provisionally apply the agreement with the Mercosur countries and then ratify it,” the paper continued. (January 27)

Brussels (dpa) – The European Commission has opened a probe into the US tech company X over its artificial intelligence chatbot Grok after it created sexualised images of women and children.

“Non-consensual sexual deepfakes of women and children are a violent, unacceptable form of degradation,” EU Commission Vice-President Henna Virkkunen said on Monday.

The investigation is to probe whether X has complied with its obligations under European Union law, including the duty to “diligently assess and mitigate systemic risks,” the Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, wrote in a statement.

“This includes risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material,” it said. “These risks seem to have materialised, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm.”

Elon Musk‘s social media platform has come under heavy criticism in recent weeks after Grok allowed users to digitally replace women’s clothing with bikinis and, in some cases, create sexualized depictions of minors.

After prolonged international outrage, X introduced some restrictions in mid-January.

These include preventing Grok “from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis” and restricting the image creation feature of the AI chatbot to paid subscribers, X said in a statement.

The Commission stressed that the opening of a probe does not prejudge its outcome. (26 January)

Davos, Switzerland (dpa) – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has blasted the European Parliament for referring the contested EU free trade deal with four countries from the South American Mercosur bloc to court.

“I deeply regret that the European Parliament has put another obstacle in our way,” Merz told political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday. “But rest assured, we will not be stopped. The Mercosur deal is fair and balanced. There is no alternative to it if we want to have higher growth in Europe.”

Merz said he expects the trade deal to be implemented “provisionally” despite the Parliament’s challenge.

The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to have the Mercosur trade deal, which was signed last week following decades of painstaking negotiations, reviewed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ).

Waiting for the court’s opinion could significantly delay the ratification process for the agreement with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. It is unclear how long it will take for the judges at the ECJ in Luxembourg to submit their assessment, but previous assessments took between 16 and 26 months.

The agreement, which aims to remove trade barriers and customs duties and boost the exchange of goods and services, would create one of the largest free trade zones in the world. (22 January)

Strasbourg, France – Several thousand European farmers protested in the French city of Strasbourg on Tuesday against the European Union’s free trade deal with countries in the Latin American Mercosur bloc.

Around 5,000 protesters and several hundred tractors gathered in the city, according to local officials, where the European Parliament is holding a plenary session this week.

EU lawmakers are to decide on Wednesday if they want to seek an opinion from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on whether the contested Mercosur agreement is compatible with EU law, which could delay the ratification process.

The free trade agreement was signed in Paraguay last weekend and still has to be approved by the European Parliament.

With their protest, the farmers want to keep up the pressure on EU decision-makers. They fear disproportionate competition from cheap imports from South America.

Protesters lit smoke bombs and held up placards with slogans such as “Von der Leyen go home,” directed at European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The demonstration caused major traffic disruption in Strasbourg, with several roads blocked. (January 20)

Brussels (dpa) – European Council President António Costa will convene a special summit following US President Donald Trump‘s new tariff threats in the Greenland dispute, with Thursday being considered a possible meeting date, an EU official said on Sunday.

While the date has not been definitively determined, it is clear that a meeting will take place.

Costa said that his consultations with member states on the recent tensions surrounding Greenland had made it clear that tariffs would undermine transatlantic relations and were incompatible with the EU-US trade agreement.

He said that the EU was prepared to defend itself against any form of coercion. At the same time, it wanted to continue to work constructively with the United States. There was a common transatlantic interest in peace and security in the Arctic, particularly through cooperation within NATO.

The meeting would involve EU heads of governments and states and comes after Trump announced on Saturday that he would impose a 10 percent tariff on goods from eight European countries from February 1, rising to 25 percent from June 1 if no resolution is reached to his satisfaction, which would be the “complete and total purchase” of Greenland.

European troops in Greenland

Six of the eight countries – Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – affected by the tariffs are EU members, while the United Kingdom and Norway are also on Trump’s list.

The tariffs come as the above mentioned NATO allies have sent soldiers to the Arctic island, something the Trump strongly criticised. “Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, The United Kingdom, The Netherlands, and Finland have journeyed to Greenland, for purposes unknown,” he wrote, describing this as “a very dangerous situation for the Safety, Security, and Survival of our Planet” he wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.

On Sunday the eight nations issued a joint statement warning of a “dangerous downward spiral” stemming from Trump’s tariff announcement.

All eight countries are members of the NATO defence alliance. NATO chief Mark Rutte is to meet with ministers from Greenland and Denmark on Monday over the dispute.

Greenland, a largely autonomous Arctic island, is part of the Kingdom of Denmark and is therefore also in NATO. (18 January)

Brussels (dpa) – Germany and the other European Union member states could be required to provide assistance at Denmark’s request in the event of a violent conflict over Greenland, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Thursday.

The comments came after inconclusive talks between US and Danish officials in Washington on Wednesday.

Greenland is part of the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, a NATO member, and therefore in principle falls under the mutual solidarity clause in Article 42(7) of the EU treaty, the spokeswoman told dpa.

At the same time, she emphasised that the question of applying it is not now on the table since a military confrontation with the United States is considered very unlikely because presumably no one would take on the world’s most powerful military power.

US President Donald Trump wants to incorporate the vast, resource-rich island into the United States, saying the US needs to own the country for its security needs, which he sees as being threatened by China and Russia.

The Europeans want to convince Trump that Greenland can be best protected within NATO.

Following unsuccessful talks in Washington on Wednesday to resolve the Greenland dispute, EU states including Germany announced they would send troops to the island for a mission in support of Denmark.Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, has accused NATO of seeking to militarise the Arctic amid the US demands. He said Copenhagen was pursuing a confrontational approach by involving NATO, driving a rise in military tensions in the Arctic. (15-16 January)

Warsaw (dpa) – The number of irregular border crossings into the European Union fell by more than a quarter in 2025 compared to the previous year, according to figures from the EU border control authority Frontex.

The Warsaw-based EU agency said on Thursday it had registered just under 178,000 crossing attempts last year, the lowest number since 2021.

Frontex described the decline as a significant development, but also warned that the situation at the EU’s external borders remains uncertain. “The trend is moving in the right direction, but risks do not disappear,” said Frontex Director Hans Leijtens.

He said that Frontex’s close cooperation with governments and partners in countries outside the EU has yielded good results.

According to Frontex, last year there were significantly fewer irregular attempts to enter the EU on the West African route (down 63 percent), on the Western Balkans route (down 42 percent) and on the EU’s land border with Belarus (down 37 percent).

Frontex attributed the decline on the Western Balkans route to improved security measures and cooperation with EU candidate country Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Many migrants from Egypt, Bangladesh and Afghanistan

Most of those registered by Frontex trying to make irregular border crossings have Bangladeshi, Egyptian or Afghan nationality. The most frequently used migration route into the EU therefore remains across the Mediterranean, which accounted for almost a third of all irregular border crossings in 2025, with the Libya-Italy route being the most common.

There was hardly any change on the Mediterranean route overall compared to the same period last year: Frontex recorded 66,328 attempts to enter the EU over the sea in 2025 – 1 percent fewer than in the previous year.

Looking only at the eastern Mediterranean, the number of irregular border crossings fell by 27 percent. However, Frontex recorded three times as many attempts to enter the EU from eastern Libya to the Greek island of Crete compared to 2024.

From Algeria to Spain, the numbers increased by 14 percent in 2025.

In contrast, there was a slight decrease in crossings to the United Kingdom. The number of attempts to cross the English Channel fell by 3 percent compared to the previous year. (15 January)

Brussels (dpa) – European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen unveiled on Wednesday details on how the European Union is to support Ukraine with 90 billion Euro over the next two years, including 60 billion Euro to bolster the military.

“We all want peace for Ukraine and for that Ukraine must be in a position of strength,” von der Leyen said in Brussels, weeks before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The loan package is to provide “stable and predictable funding” and “reaffirms Europe’s unwavering commitment to the security, the defence and the future prosperity of Ukraine,” von der Leyen said.

Two-thirds of the funds are earmarked for military support.

Ukraine is required to spend the money on Ukrainian and European-built equipment but can acquire weaponry from abroad if the needed equipment is not available in Europe, von der Leyen said.

“With the military assistance, Ukraine can stand strong against Russia and, at the same time, it can integrate more closely into Europe’s defence industrial base,” she said.

The remaining 30 billion Euro is meant to support Kyiv’s budgetary needs but are tied to further reforms in the areas of democracy, rule of law and anti-corruption measures.

The conditions are “to make sure that Ukraine moves forward on its path of accession to the European Union” and are “non-negotiable for any financial support,” the Commission president said.

Von der Leyen said she hopes the first disbursement to Kyiv can be done as early as April, once the European Parliament and capitals have scrutinised the proposal. (14 January)