The EU and Russia aim to make progress with visa exemption negotiations and sign a new framework agreement at the summit with is being held this Monday and Tuesday in the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the first such summit since the Treaty of Lisbon came into effect.

The newly co-operative Tory approach to the EU was on display today when George Osborne, the chancellor, attended his first meeting of EU finance ministers (Ecofin) in Brussels. Osborne said the government would adopt a "new constructive, engaged approach."

Whatever the fate of the euro, the prevarication and long arguments over how to help it have damaged the EU in at least four ways...a tardy and muddled response to the euro crisis has greatly tarnished the EU’s soft power and global standing.

The EU’s relations with people in need in the rest of the world are based on the principle of solidarity – and rightly so, because this is the very foundation of our Union. It is not easy to show solidarity and compassion for someone else’s grief in a hard moment, all the more so when you have got problems at home. But when you do so, it leaves a lasting positive impression, and creates a very good image of Europe and Europeans around the world.

Oh how quickly the European Union has fallen out of fashion. Only five years ago, international observers gushed over the European superstate. Scholars praised its soft power and economists revered its massive GDP. Pop internationalist texts, such as Why Europe Will Run the 21st Century, bursted with optimism

As the European Union's economic vows continue in the wake of the Greece economic crisis, the effects are being felt across the Middle East. The European Union is struggling with what some argue is the region's worst economic crisis since the Second World War.

The new British government strongly backs efforts to enact UN Security Council sanctions on Iran aimed at the Islamic state’s nuclear activities, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Friday.

Turkey is growing impatient with being cold-shouldered by the European Union, and resistance to its bid for membership is stoking Ankara’s ambition to turn towards the Muslim world. President Gül said that the EU and its leaders stood at an historic crossroads and had to decide whether or not to welcome Turkey in.