Elena Sánchez Nicolás

Slovakia's prime minister Robert Fico arrived in Moscow on Sunday (22 December) for talks with president Vladimir Putin over Russian gas deliveries.

As the war continues to rage in Ukraine, president Volodymyr Zelensky has described the new 'shadow agreements' for Russian gas deliveries between Slovakia and Moscow as “immoral”.

Protecting taxpayers' money, enforcing the rule of law, increasing transparency, simplifying rules scrutinising recovery funds, and fighting corruption are key priorities for the chair of the budget control committee.

The EU has supported sustainability in fisheries, facing challenges like climate change and market uncertainties from Brexit, Covid, and the Ukraine war. But the fisheries committee chairwoman argues that the recent focus on environmental protection has come at the expense of business support and societal well-being.

With growing calls for changes to EU farming policies, the multi-billion-euro Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) will become one of the main issues the European Parliament’s Agriculture Committee will address over the next five years.

Despite progress in embedding women's rights into law, much work remains for the EU Parliament’s women's rights committee. Top priorities include enforcing existing rules and ensuring non-consensual sex is recognised as rape across the EU.

The Brussels bubble is back in full swing after the Christmas season, with defence and security in the Baltic, Iran and Gaza, high on this week’s agenda.

The initiative to ban so-called 'forever chemicals' (PFAS) has sparked a major lobbying and disinformation campaign designed to weaken the proposal. A cross-border investigation now uncovers the main lobby tactics and how much it would cost to clean up Europe's PFAS contamination.

This week, Trump returns to the White House, while von der Leyen is expected to address the plenary session in Strasbourg and the World Economic Forum in Davos. Polish PM Tusk will present the priorities of his country's EU council presidency to MEPs on Wednesday.

If Trump's second term is anything like his first, transatlantic relations could face trade friction, security challenges, climate concerns, and clashes over global leadership. Will the EU walk the talk in the Trump-Musk era, or will Brussels stay passive?