Europe has ‘by far’ warmest winter on record

With the EU voting on new air quality rules, satellite data shows that 98% of people face pollution above limits recommended by the World Health Organization.

Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said Germany remains a "highly attractive location" for investors. But the statistics agency said industrial output fell for a third straight month, and that wasn't the only negative news.

Talking Europe hosts Pascal Lamy, co-ordinator of the Jacques Delors institutes, and a distinguished former head of the World Trade Organization and former EU Trade Commissioner. We discuss great power competition in today's world; the EU’s influence when it comes to global trade and regulation; the critical importance of Africa to Europe; and climate adaptation in the light of Lamy’s role as a member of the Climate Overshoot Commission.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his center-left coalition have been plummeting in opinion polls. But a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation finds the government has fulfilled many of its election promises.

The recent announcement of a US-backed rail and shipping project linking India with the Middle East and Europe is seen as a challenge to Beijing's "Belt and Road Initiative."

Beijing has called a European Commission probe into Chinese electric vehicle subsidies, a "naked protectionist act."

The German Red Cross was scheduled to send a relief flight to Morocco on Thursday, upon Moroccan request. The Moroccan government has restricted aid senders to four the governments, excluding Germany, the US and France.

Enlargement of the European Union was one of the priorities outlined by Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech on September 13th, and it is likely to become an ever more pressing issue over the next few years. After the speech, Talking Europe sat down with the EU Commissioner in charge of neighbourhood and enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi. He is a distinguished Hungarian diplomat and lawyer. He served as Hungary's ambassador to the EU, and has held prominent positions at the Hungarian ministry of justice and ministry of foreign affairs.

A German newspaper group found that North Rhine-Westphalia, the country's most populous state, saw the most violence against first responders. Experts believe the real number of victims is higher.

German police searched the homes of suspected extremists from Hammerskins Deutschland. It is the 20th far-right organization in Germany to have been banned to date.

German aid organizations allegedly demanded that money be spent on sick German children instead of tank deliveries to Ukraine. But the whole story is made up, and the video explaining it is a spoof.

US singer Anastacia says her new album is intended as a treat for her German fans. She covers a series of Germany's modern hits, singing them in English.