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Europe's competition regime is throttling the consolidation its airlines say they need to compete globally, IAG chief executive Luis Gallego has warned, just days before a deadline that could decide the fate of easyJet. Gallego told the Financial Times that European merger rules make a possible bid for the budget carrier very difficult, while leaving the door ajar to a deal. He said the group is open to everything, not only easyJet, arguing that European aviation must consoli

Brussels has closed off any escape route for European companies still tied to Russian liquefied natural gas, ruling that the bloc's looming import ban applies to EU operators wherever in the world the cargoes are headed. In a letter from the office of Energy Commissioner Dan Jorgensen to shipbroker and consultancy Poten & Partners, the European Commission stated that transporting Russian LNG by Union operators, irrespective of the final destination, is prohibited under the ba

Chinese carmakers have roughly doubled their share of the European Union's new car market in the space of a year, intensifying the competitive squeeze on the bloc's established manufacturers as they juggle electrification costs and softening export demand. Industry figures for the opening four months of 2026 showed Chinese brands accounting for around 6 per cent of EU registrations, up from 3.2 per cent in the same period of 2025. Across the wider European market, including B

Europe's drive to double high-speed rail traffic by 2040 is colliding with an uncomfortable arithmetic problem, and the industry is increasingly looking to private finance to close the gap. The European Commission has estimated that completing the trans-European high-speed network by 2040 will cost around €345 billion, a figure that climbs towards €546 billion under more ambitious scenarios involving speeds of 250 km/h or higher. Set against constrained national budgets and c

Ryanair passengers were stranded in Greece after their UK-bound flight left without them as airports grapple with passport control delays. The flight from Athens International Airport to London Luton on Sunday reportedly left without 20 to 50 passengers, some of whom became visibly angry, prompting airport authorities to step in, the BBC has been told. It is the latest incident since the EU's Entry Exit System (EES) was brought in to track when non-EU citizens enter or leave

The European Parliament has voted to improve airline passenger rights for compensation, seating fees and hand luggage, making fares more transparent and maintaining the threshold for financial protection. The provisional agreement was reached on Monday and will be confirmed by both the European Parliament and the Council within the next six to eight weeks. It is the first time airline passenger rights have been updated in Europe since 2004, when Regulation EU261 was written i

Europe's regional carriers are bracing for a wave of consolidation, as tightening regulation and climbing overheads threaten to render the independent operator model unsustainable across much of the continent. Analysis presented by advisory firm IBA this week identified European policy, rather than market demand, as the principal long-term risk to regional business models. The combination of revised EU261 passenger compensation rules, the rising cost of Emissions Trading Syst

The European Union has escalated its campaign against Russia's energy export machine, sanctioning the shipping arms of Gazprom and Lukoil in a move that targets the country's largest oil producers directly rather than the intermediaries that have long shielded them. In a decision published in the bloc's Official Journal on Monday, EU governments added Gazpromneft Shipping and Lukoil-Western Siberia to the sanctions list, accusing both of transporting Russian crude while engag

Renault is pushing deeper into Europe's defence build-up, unveiling a militarised vehicle developed with Thales as the French carmaker seeks fresh revenue streams amid a punishing downturn in its core automotive business. The two companies presented a prototype, named 4 Troop, at the Eurosatory defence and security fair outside Paris this week. Built on the Renault Rafale SUV rather than a purpose-made military chassis, the vehicle is fitted with Thales secure communications

Italy's state railway group is sounding the alarm over a looming gap in its order book, warning that the country's largest rail building programme in decades could stall once European Union recovery funding expires this autumn. Stefano Antonio Donnarumma, chief executive of Ferrovie dello Stato, has cautioned that Italy risks a break in the pipeline of major tenders launched under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, the EU-backed scheme that has channelled post-pandemi

Airbus has moved to salvage Europe's next-generation combat aircraft ambitions, unveiling an eight-strong German industrial alliance dubbed Team Gen 6 just days after Berlin and Paris abandoned the fighter element of the Future Combat Air System, the continent's flagship defence programme. The consortium was launched on 11 June at the ILA Berlin Air Show, where Airbus Defence and Space and seven German firms, among them Diehl Defence, Hensoldt, MTU Aero Engines and Rohde and

British forces boarded and detained a sanctioned Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel on Sunday, in what the Ministry of Defence described as the first operation of its kind led by the UK, marking a significant escalation in European efforts to choke off the Kremlin's sanctions-evading oil trade. Royal Marine commandos and specially trained law enforcement officers from the National Crime Agency boarded the vessel during a six-hour operation, supported by Ch