Shoppers tell of shock at unexpected bills for VAT or customs declarations as some retailers stop shipping to continent

A church bell that dates back to 1555 will be returned to its home in Poland, 77 years after it was plundered by the Nazis in World War Two. Parishioners at Slawiecice in southern Poland began searching for the church's old bell two years ago. They were in luck because, as the Münster diocese in Germany explained, the Nazis melted down some 80,000 bells to make weapons or ammunition.

The European Union has banned all non-recyclable plastic waste being shipped to developing nations from 1 January. The large quantity of plastic sent to the Global South is often not being properly treated. A lot of this waste ends up either in landfill, the ocean, or being incinerated because these countries often don’t have the capacity to sustainably treat the waste.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny duped a Russian FSB state agent into revealing details of an attack on him with the nerve agent Novichok, the investigative group Bellingcat reports. Mr Navalny reportedly impersonated a security official to call the agent. The agent, Konstantin Kudryavtsev, told him the Novichok had been placed in a pair of Mr Navalny's underpants.

Sleeper trains in Europe are making a comeback after a decade of budget and route cuts. But post-Covid-19 and with travelers prioritizing the environment, the romance of the night train is back on track.

European Union leaders reached a hard-fought deal Friday to cut the bloc’s net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by the end of the decade compared with 1990 levels, avoiding a hugely embarrassing deadlock ahead of a U.N. climate meeting this weekend.

Consumer advocacy group Euroconsumer on Wednesday lodged lawsuits in Belgium and Spain over an iOS update that throttled iPhone CPU performance in the name of system stability, with two identical suits planned for Italy and Portugal.

The EU has just taken a big step toward establishing stronger “right to repair” rules, with the the European Parliament voting overwhelmingly in support of a resolution on a “sustainable single market,” according to iFixit.

Frédéric Chopin’s archivists and biographers have for centuries turned a deliberate blind eye to the composer’s homoerotic letters in order to make the Polish national icon conform to conservative norms, it has been alleged. Chopin’s Men, a two-hour radio programme that aired on Swiss public broadcaster SRF’s arts channel, argues that the composer’s letters have been at times deliberately mistranslated, rumours of affairs with women exaggerated...

The two Eastern European countries are in a long-running dispute with the European Union over their consolidation of state power and restrictions on free speech and an independent judiciary.

The European Union has charged Amazon with damaging retail competition, accusing the U.S. company of using its size, power and data to give it an unfair advantage over smaller merchants that sell on its online platform.

Renewed lockdown measures in Europe aimed at containing a rise in COVID-19 cases appear set to push the outlook for global oil demand toward the downside, an official with the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

Human rights groups are calling on Poland to drop charges against three women who face jail for sharing posters of the Virgin Mary with a rainbow-coloured halo. The three women, identified only as Elżbieta, Anna and Joanna, are on trial for “offending religious beliefs” and could face jail sentences of two years each if found guilty for their peaceful activism.

A strike is under way in Poland by women opposed to a court ruling that introduced a near-total ban on abortion in the mainly Catholic country. Crowds have protested in several cities for the seventh-day running against the decision that outlawed terminations on the grounds of severe health defects. An opinion poll conducted for Gazeta Wyborcza suggested that 59% of those surveyed disagreed with the change.

The meat and dairy industry continues to fight against plant-based companies using terms such as burgers, milk, or sausage on product labels in both the U.S. and U.K. Now, the U.K. members of the European Union Parliament have rejected an amendment that would ban terms such as “burgers” and “sausages” on products that don't contain meat.

It was argued banning the words would make the products more obscure for consumers and undermine health and environmental goals.

The murderer who helped disrupt the London Bridge terror attack by confronting Usman Khan with a narwhal tusk while on day release will see his sentence reduced. Steven Gallant, who was praised for risking his life to stop the attack, has been granted the royal prerogative of mercy, an extremely rare case of absolution for a convicted murderer.

The man aced the German naturalization test, but refused to shake hands with the female official handing over his citizenship. Despite claims he will not shake hands with men either, his citizenship has been rejected.

Some 20,000 chicks were discovered abandoned at Madrid airport by police three days after being left without food or water. A video released by Spanish police shows the birds shut in small cardboard boxes which were placed on pallets as their high pitch chirp rings out. One officer can be heard saying “my god” as the discovery is made.

Europe’s economy was just catching its breath from what had been the sharpest recession in modern history. A resurgence in coronavirus cases this month is a bitter blow that will likely turn what was meant to be a period of healing for the economy into a lean winter of job losses and bankruptcies.