It earned the nickname “Titanic of the mountains”, but now the monumental and ill-fated train station at Canfranc is to get a new life as a five-star hotel, 51 years after the international rail link across the Pyrenees closed. The story of
The grief-snapped mother is still there, cradling her dead child 84 years on, as is the fallen soldier with his stigmata and the horse with its silent screams. However, the Guernica now on its way to a museum in the Basque country
Pope Francis is alert, breathing without assistance and in a good overall condition after surgery to remove part of his colon, the Vatican has said. The 84-year-old is expected to stay in hospital for seven days barring any complications, following his three-hour operation on
Ryanair’s passenger numbers surged in June, with the rollout of Covid-19 vaccination programmes across Europe boosting confidence in air travel. The no-frills airline, which in June reported the biggest annual loss in its 35-year history, carried 5.3 million passengers on 38,000 flights
If the residents of Apes’ Den are pleased to see a larger than usual number of Britons snapping them, cooing over them or, indeed, edging gingerly away from them, they give little indication of it. It is not much of a stretch to suggest
Venice has missed tourists – but not their bad habits. In an echo of the pre-pandemic era, authorities have been cracking down on uncouth behaviour as visitors flock back to the lagoon city. A French tourist was fined €150 (£128) after paddling
Italy’s public broadcaster Rai has come under fire for broadcasting leaked CCTV footage of a fatal cable car crash that killed 14 people near Stresa, in the north of Italy. Last month, the cable car connecting the Lake Maggiore resort town of Stresa to a nearby mountain
Russian officials have reacted angrily after the head of Ukraine’s football association unveiled a new national team shirt emblazoned with a map of Ukraine that includes Crimea. Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and has sought to integrate the peninsula into Russia permanently, but it is internationally
Two cars have been swallowed by a sinkhole on a street in Rome, one of many to blight the Italian capital in recent years. A Mercedes SUV and a Smart car fell into the six-metre-deep and 20-metre-long chasm on Via Zenodossio in
The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy has gone on trial for the alleged illegal campaign financing of the massive, showman-style political rallies he staged during his failed re-election bid in 2012. Sarkozy, president for one term from 2007 to 2012, was not present for
Hundreds of thousands of European citizens could find themselves in limbo after 30 June and left without documented legal rights to remain in the UK if the Home Office does not clear a backlog of more than 320,000 applications for post-Brexit residency status, campaigners
A German “jab to freedom” bill that would from this weekend lift social-distancing rules, testing requirements and curfews for people who have been fully vaccinated, is drawing criticism for discriminating against young people still months from getting their first dose. The legislation,
For half a century, the police procedural Tatort (“Crime Scene”) has provided a rallying point for Germany’s culturally diverse regions, gathering viewers around their television sets every Sunday night to watch detectives from across the country solve gruesome murders over the course of 90
Represented by MEPs Hannah Neumann and Marc Tarabella, Delegation Arab Peninsula in the European Parliament hosted a virtual debate on Migrant Workers in the Gulf. The meeting was attended by some international organizations, unions, NGOs, and representatives of some Gulf states. William
On Hydra, the Greek isle long famous for an artistic community that once included Leonard Cohen, expatriates are not having a good pandemic. Roger Green, a British writer who has lived on the island since the early 90s, says some are afraid
Greece will take a first step towards reopening its tourism industry by dropping quarantine rules for travellers from more than 30 nations if they’ve been vaccinated or tested negative for Covid-19. From next week, incoming citizens from across the European Union and
Germany’s health minister has said he wants to hold talks with Moscow about obtaining supplies of the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, in an effort to boost the country’s inoculation campaign. Jens Spahn said Germany would have no hesitation in acting independently of
Europe may not be subject to the drastic lockdown measures introduced to combat the first wave of coronavirus a year ago, but many countries still face another Easter of greatly reduced meeting and movement. In France, new restrictions come into effect across the country
In December, two weeks before the European Medicines Agency authorised the first vaccine against Covid-19 for use across the European Union, Berlin unveiled a plan to rocket-fuel its immunisation drive with German precision engineering. Jabs would be mass-administered in purpose-built vaccination centres
Winters in Berlin are notoriously tough but this year has been like no other. “I’m really tired of it,” Ina Eggers, a teacher in the city, says. “Winter is always hard but now [with lockdown] we don’t have anything to do, so
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats face questions over their new leader and the impact of a corruption scandal involving face mask production following historic defeats in German regional elections on Sunday – just six months before a national vote. Merkel’s successor as chancellor is due
Germany suffered its largest economic contraction since 2009 last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, with gross domestic product shrinking by six percent. Industry leaders are now calling on Ms Merkel to publish a strategy allowing pandemic restrictions to lift to help
The French President has come under huge pressure with France lagging behind several other countries in vaccinating its tens of millions of citizens. This situation hasn’t been helped by the chaotic rollout from the European Union, which ignited a row with vaccine
An ally of the Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny has announced plans for a new nationwide protest in support of the jailed politician, telling Russians to gather in residential courtyards on Sunday evening and turn on their mobile phone torches. Tens of thousands of people have
Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief, has accepted a mandate to try to form a new Italian government as the country seeks a way out of the political crisis triggered by the collapse of its most recent coalition. Draghi, nicknamed
Brussels will publish a revised regulation to potentially block vaccine exports out of the EU on Saturday, after an international outcry over its initial plans to erect an export border for doses on the island of Ireland. The European commission’s newly drafted
Hans-Olaf Henkel, who stepped down from the European Parliament in 2019, lamented the narrow defeat in Saturday’s CDU leadership contest of Friedrich Merz, describing him as the only senior German figure who understands what a colossal loss Brexit represents to the EU. Mr Laschet, Prime Minister
European leaders have voiced relief at Joe Biden’s inauguration, hailing a “new dawn” for Europe and the US, but warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump’s presidency and transatlantic ties will be different in future. “This new dawn in
And Dr Joseph Downing suggested the next year to 18 months will be crucial as France and other members of the EU27 keep tabs on the UK’s fortunes outside the bloc. Mr Macron is under pressure with the numbers of people who have had the jab currently
Italy’s largest mafia trial in three decades has begun, with 900 witnesses testifying against more than 350 people, including politicians and officials charged with being members of the powerful ’Ndrangheta. A high-security 1,000-capacity courtroom with cages to hold the defendants has been
And Nicolas Bay, whose National Rally party colleague Marine Le Pen, could well be Mr Macron’s opponent once again next year, also said the European Union was guilty of multiple failures which had slowed down the process across the continent. Mr Macron is under significant
Earlier this week it emerged the German Chancellor encouraged the blocking of a bid by four European health ministers to secure large orders of the coronavirus vaccine last year. Instead, the countries handed over authority to the European Commission to ensure a
The Moscow metro has hired female drivers for the first time in its recent history, following changes in Russian legislation prohibiting women from many professions. The Russian capital’s transport system, which oversees the sprawling metro network, said in a statement that “the first female
At least seven people have been killed and dozens injured after a strong earthquake hit central Croatia, destroying buildings and sending panicked people fleeing into rubble-covered streets in a town south-east of the capital Zagreb. The European Mediterranean Seismological Center said an earthquake
Officials in Gibraltar are making daily patrols of the territory’s Barbary macaque population amid fears that the iconic monkeys could be vulnerable to the coronavirus. The British overseas territory has been relatively spared by the virus, documenting about 1,000 confirmed cases and six deaths. But as
A gunman who killed two people in a rampage after a failed attack on a synagogue in the east German city of Halle last year has been sentenced to life in prison for what the prosecutor called “one of the most repulsive
DIY shops across Europe are selling wood taken illegally from Russia’s far-east taiga region, where corruption is contributing to the rapid destruction of virgin forests, a report has claimed. More than 100,000 tonnes of lumber have entered Germany, France and other EU countries as
A British airline pilot, his Spanish wife and two members of her family have died after their car left the road and fell into a 120 metre deep ravine on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria. Richard Addicott, a captain who flew
The French government’s attempts to calm growing public fury over new legislation deemed a danger to civil liberties was challenged with a new wave of protests across the country on Saturday. A largely peaceful march against the contested global security law and
Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have marched through the Armenian capital to call for the resignation of the country’s prime minister because of his handling of the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. In six weeks of fierce fighting that ended with a
The French government has backtracked over plans that would have banned members of the public from sharing images of police officers after numerous protests over the weekend. More than 130,000 people took to the streets to demonstrate against the draft bill and in favour
More than 180 police officers have raided homes in three German states after the German government banned a far-right group. The homes of 11 members of the Wolfsbrigade 44 group were searched in Hesse, Mecklenburg West-Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia to confiscate the
Demonstrators took to the streets of Paris on Saturday to protest a new proposed law by Emmanuel Macron and his Government. The new security bill would criminalise the dissemination of images of police officers that revealed their identity. Videos surfaced on social media of
Russian lawmakers have pushed forward a bill which will give Vladimir Putin lifetime immunity from prosecution once he leaves office. The controversial proposal to make the president and his family exempt from criminal charges edged closer to becoming a new state law
A row over the historical roots of North Macedonia’s language has led to Bulgaria blocking talks over the newly renamed country’s accession to the EU. During discussions by EU ministers on Tuesday, Bulgaria raised its opposition citing a failure of its neighbour to respect
Public libraries across the Netherlands are removing from the shelves children’s books depicting a black-faced Zwarte Piet, a side-kick to Sinterklaas, in the latest sign that the country is turning the page on a festive figure widely seen as being racist. For at least
The new vessel – a prototype – is called an AUSV, or Armed Unmanned Surface Vehicle. It is due to be placed into the Mediterranean Sea as soon as next month. It comes amid a row between Turkey and Greece over hydrocarbon
Thieves have taken high-end goods worth hundreds of thousands of euros from the Paris home of a Saudi princess, a source close to the case has said. The 47-year-old princess, who had not set foot in the apartment since August, discovered on
If the diplomatic spat between Portugal and the United States is anything to go by, Lisbon will be a..
The man who killed four people in a shooting rampage in Vienna on Monday had sought to join the so-c..