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EU leaders have elected António Costa as President of the European Council, proposed Ursula von der Leyen as candidate for President of the European Commission and chosen Kaja Kallas as candidate for high representative. They also adopted the EU’s strategic priorities for the next five years.

Some 14 university alliances are to join the European University Alliances and will receive up to €14.4 million each over a 4-year period under the European Universities initiative. There are now 64 European Universities alliances encompassing more than 560 higher education institutions in Europe.

The talks for Ukraine to join the EU have officially started. Work is now underway to prepare negotiations in specific areas. The EU will continue to support the people of Ukraine against Russia’s ongoing war for as long as it takes.

The EU has held its first intergovernmental conference to open accession negotiations with the Republic of Moldova. Preparations for talks on specific topics are ongoing. The EU stands by Moldova to address the challenges relating to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The winners of the Large AI Grand Challenge, a competition to foster European innovation and excellence in large-scale AI models, have been announced. Four innovative AI start-ups will share a prize of €1 million and 8 million computational hours, which will go towards developing their models.

The new economic sanctions target the energy, finance and trade sectors and make sanctions circumvention more difficult. In addition, political parties and foundations, and NGOs will no longer be allowed to accept funding from Russia, and 116 individuals and entities have been sanctioned.

The EU has adopted updated EU Guidelines on Children and Armed Conflict to strengthen the EU’s contribution to the respect, protection, and fulfilment of children’s rights in armed conflict. The guidelines take new developments into account, such as greater threats from the use of new technologies.

The Commission has launched the European Solar Academy, the first in a series of EU academies to be set up under the Net-Zero Industry Act. The Solar Academy will train 100,000 workers in the solar photovoltaic value chain over the next 3 years to address the labour and skills gap in the sector.

The European Investment Bank has approved €12.8 billion of new financing to upgrade sustainable transport, increase renewable energy use, build new student housing, improve earthquake and flood protection, and help business to expand in Europe.

The Commission has proposed an annual EU budget of almost €200 billion for 2025, reinforced by €72 billion raised under the post-COVID recovery plan, NextGenerationEU. It is meant to finance EU priorities and help tackle current and future challenges.

The EU has approved a law on nature restoration that will help put measures in place to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. The new law will reduce the impact of climate change and the effects of natural disasters.

Out of 288 applications, three citizen science initiatives won for their achievements in: agricultural biodiversity and seed preservation; the use of digital technologies to develop personalised approaches for mental health problems; and for transformative knowledge that addresses marine pollution.

A new EU law will help build a reliable, seamless, and high-quality transport network in Europe. Improvements will be made gradually until 2050. For example, Porto and Vigo will get a new high-speed connection, while the travel time by train between Copenhagen and Hamburg will be cut by almost half.

The Commission has presented a plan and is now leading the work to implement the rules agreed in the Pact on Migration and Asylum. EU countries will have to design national implementation plans and ensure the new rules will be put into practice by June 2026.

At the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Berlin, the EU signed agreements worth €1.4 billion with partner banks to attract investments in Ukraine from the private sector. It also agreed to further support measures for Ukraine to ensure the country can defend itself against Russia.

EU citizens cast their vote in the European elections on 6-9 June 2024. The European Parliament has published a projection for the composition of the new Parliament, based on final and provisional results in 26 countries and pre-electoral data for one.

Even though the EU has among the highest standards of food safety in the world, there is still much work to be done. The importance of ensuring that food stays safe at every stage of the food chain cannot be understated. That is why every year we commemorate World Food Safety Day on this day.

On 5 June, we celebrate World Environment Day. The EU has placed the environment at the forefront of its agenda with EU policies designed to protect the environment and biodiversity, safeguard human health, and promote the transition to a circular economy. Find out more.

The public opinion polling service for the EU, Eurobarometer, is celebrating its 50th birthday. Set up in 1974 by the European Commission, Eurobarometer has been polling Europeans on EU matters as well as attitudes on political and social issues for 50 years.