EU lawmakers will likely vote on Thursday on a motion proposing the break-up of Google and other internet technology companies, increasing political pressure on the bloc’s anti-trust regulators to take a stronger line on the group.

THIS WEEK’S Remembrance Day acknowledged the fallen of the First World War nearly a century ago but you only have to turn on the news to find out that war is still going on.

The eurozone has to keep improving competitiveness if it wants to kickstart economic growth, according to the German EU Commissioner Günther Oettinger.

Russia will be the main focus of an extraordinary summit of EU leaders in Brussels today and is likely to play a role in who gets the Union’s top jobs for the coming five years.

THERE are some things you can say for sure about Enda Kenny. He is a survivor, as tough as nails and not nearly as happy-go-lucky as he wants you to think. Part-actor, part-chameleon, part-huckster and dealer, and if we are lucky part-prodigy as well.

Italy’s chance of stable government after elections this weekend may rely on forcing two awkward partners into coalition: former European Commissioner Mario Monti and an openly gay leftist he has vowed not to work with.

Former premier Silvio Berlusconi, who has been convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison, has condemned the convictions as "unreal".

Ford is to close one of its main European factories in Belgium with the loss of more than 9,000 jobs.

I will never forget the sunny evening of June 14, 2006. I sat in a café on Berlin’s Kurfuerstendamm watching Germany play Poland in a World Cup match in Dortmund: an intense, low-quality game. In injury time, Germany broke down the right and Oliver Neuville stabbed in the winning goal at the near post.

Voters in Germany’s most populous state strengthened a centre-left regional government which chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives sought to portray as irresponsibly spendthrift, and inflicted an embarrassingly heavy defeat on the German leader’s party, projections showed.

It is Enda Kenny’s lifestyle choice and we shouldn’t judge him for it.

Belgium was hit by nationwide strikes in protest at austerity measures today as leaders met for the European Union summit in Brussels.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will “actively support” French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a fellow conservative, in his spring campaign to win re-election, said her Christian Democrat (CDU) party in Berlin.

The future of Europe is in the hands of one painfully private leader. What does the Geman chancellor really think? Roger Boyes reports

GAY MITCHELL fears an anti-government backlash may prevent him becoming the first Fine Gael president — despite winning the party’s nomination against the odds.

THEY are calling it the Italian Spring.

THOUGH replacing one profoundly conservative, middle of the road, Christian democrat, pro-business political party with another, as we will this week, may represent a shift of the tectonic plates in terms of domestic politics it hardly even registers as change when compared with the great upheavals around the world.

THERE is a sense of the EU holding its breath until the Irish elections are over.

THE ten million-strong Dutch electorate are expected to put the right-wing People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) into government as their concern shifts from immigration to the economy.

THE idiosyncrasies of this hybrid democracy that is the EU are once again on display in the lead up toappointing people to the new positions of president and foreign minister.

10 March 2009

DURING the extended interregnum between Bertie Ahern’s resignation and the election of the new Taoiseach, one question went largely unanswered: what does Brian Cowen believe?

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern began a three-day trip to EU member countries yesterday, which is generally seen as the start of his campaign to become the president of the European Union next year.

FOR years now Belgians have been compromising with one another in an effort to keep the country together. They have five parliaments and a power sharing arrangement that would baffle the best mathematician.

WHAT Enda Kenny unveiled yesterday was entirely new, entirely surprising, entirely different from what we expected, a radical change from the last Dáil.

Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned last night after his centre-left government embarrassingly lost a Senate vote on foreign policy, including the country’s military mission in Afghanistan.

German Christian Democrat Hans-Gert Poettering, a veteran European politician, was elected president of the European Parliament today until 2009, an official said.

Italy’s Parliament today resumed business for the first time since Romano Prodi’s coalition narrowly won elections earlier this month, with legislative sessions that will test his partners’ ability to stay united.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right government strengthened its grip on German politics with victories for the two ruling parties in three state elections and bad results for what remains of the opposition.

A top official from the UK's Conservative Party today said his party would cut links with the largest centre-right political group in the European Parliament and seek to form a new euro-sceptic political party in the European Union assembly.

GERMANY’S biggest political parties reached a deal last night to form a coalition government, sealing an accord that would make Angela Merkel the nation’s first woman chancellor.

Germany’s main parties have come one step closer to building a coalition, agreeing on several points including raising the retirement age and a policy on Turkey, but they still must overcome the hurdle of plugging a huge budget shortfall.

Germany’s Social Democrats pressed for a new tax on high-income earners today as negotiators opened a decisive week in their efforts to form a new government - talks that will focus on plugging a huge budget shortfall.

A senior conservative’s participation in Germany’s proposed new left-right government was in doubt today as politicians struggled to digest the implications of a sudden leadership crisis in the centre-left Social Democrats.

Germany faces a €35bn budget shortfall, its two main political parties said yesterday, signalling tough spending cuts or tax hikes under a planned coalition even as its economy struggles.

Germany’s top political leaders were to meet today at a summit aimed at resolving their two-and-a-half-week stand-off over who will lead the country, with Angela Merkel’s conservatives hopeful Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will let go of the top job.

A leader of Germany’s Greens today knocked down conservatives’ hopes the party would help opposition leader Angela Merkel become chancellor in a coalition government, citing major differences with her Christian Democrats and their pro-business ally.

NORWAY’S prime minister, who presided over four years of unprecedented prosperity fuelled by high oil prices, yesterday said he will resign after a left-wing opposition bloc won parliamentary elections.

Norway was poised for a power shift after the left-leaning opposition won a majority of seats in Parliament with pledges to spend more of the nation’s vast oil wealth on welfare, official election results showed early today.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was squaring off today with his challengers in their last debate before Germany’s election as a new poll showed his Social Democrats continuing to edge forward.

Italian voters today faced an intensely debated decision on assisted fertility in the second day of a referendum on proposals that would end a ban on embryo research and on donation of eggs and sperm.

The Slovak parliament ratified the European Union’s constitution in a vote today, a year after the country joined the bloc.

An influential European Parliament committee recommended on today that the EU open membership talks with Turkey, but only if the country follows through on democratic reforms.