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Russia will slash gas supplies through its largest pipeline to Germany to just a fifth of capacity from Wednesday in a move that threatens to leave the continent short of critical supplies ahead of the winter. Russia’s state-owned Gazprom said on Monday it would cut existing flows on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in half

Ukraine hopes to start implementing a deal to export millions of tonnes of grain from blockaded Black Sea ports as soon as this week, even after Russian missile strikes hit the key Ukrainian port city of Odesa and threatened to unravel the agreement. Preparations include demining essential areas for maritime traffic and setting up special

German business confidence has fallen to its lowest level for more than two years in the latest sign that Europe’s largest economy is teetering on the brink of recession. Companies across Germany became more gloomy about both their current situation and the outlook for the next six months, according to the Ifo Institute’s closely watched

The Goldman Sachs bankers were in a hole. It was February 2022 and they were trying to sell more than £5bn worth of bonds and loans backing the UK’s biggest leveraged buyout in years: US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice’s £10bn takeover of grocer Morrisons. They were well behind schedule, having put plans

Satellite operator Eutelsat has confirmed it is in discussions to acquire smaller participant OneWeb over an all-share deal that seeks to help the France and UK-based groups better compete with US rivals. Eutelsat’s share price fell by more than 17 per cent to €8.60 in early trading after the statement on Monday as investors balked

Britain’s overseas aid programme has been thrown into confusion after the Treasury blocked “non-essential” new payments for the rest of the summer over concerns that the cost of relief work in Ukraine will breach a spending cap. Last year Boris Johnson’s government cut Britain’s overseas aid budget after the Covid pandemic, “temporarily” ditching a manifesto

Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have clashed over who would take the toughest stance on China in the battle to become Britain’s next prime minister, as the two Tory leadership contenders prepared for a crucial head-to-head television debate on Monday. Sunak, the former chancellor, said China represented “the largest threat to Britain and the world’s

The Conservative leadership contest has another six weeks to run before the UK has its next prime minister, but Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss have already earmarked key allies for potential top roles in government. Both leadership campaigns insist no job offers have been made and that it is premature to discuss who might serve

The UK and French governments will each have a seat on the board of a new satellite operator aiming to take on billionaire space entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos under merger terms being thrashed out on Sunday between Eutelsat and OneWeb. Paris-listed Eutelsat and OneWeb, the space-based internet pioneer rescued from collapse by a

The writer is former chief economist at Goldman Sachs and was a UK Treasury minister It is now over 12 years since the Conservative party regained power. As members ponder their fourth leader during that time, the country urgently needs their choice — and the next prime minister — to have a credible vision of how to

Imagine asking a room of five hundred women: “Raise your hand if you have experienced imposter syndrome.” I did this recently. A sea of hands went up, including my own. Because we’ve been schooled to believe that we are in the grip of this “syndrome” and that whenever we feel self-doubt, insecurity or questioning we

Singapore is lobbying its largest technology companies to relist in the city-state, arguing it is their “national duty” in an escalation of the financial hub’s bid to boost the appeal of its stock market. Over the past year, exchange officials have intensified attempts to persuade Singapore-based companies, including tech conglomerate Sea and superapp Grab, to

China’s new Belt and Road Initiative investments in Russia have fallen to zero for the first time, signalling Beijing’s reluctance to incur sanctions in the wake of the Ukraine war. In contrast with past multibillion-dollar pledges and contracts, Beijing struck no new deals with Russian entities under the Belt and Road programme in the first

China is preparing a system to sort US-listed Chinese companies into groups based on the sensitivity of the data they hold, in a potential concession by Beijing to try to stop American regulators from delisting hundreds of groups. The system is designed to bring some Chinese companies into compliance with US rules that require public

The UK government is set to become a minority shareholder in a listed French business, as France’s Eutelsat nears a deal to acquire OneWeb, the space-based internet company rescued from bankruptcy by Boris Johnson’s government. According to people involved, a deal will be announced as soon as Monday and involve a takeover of OneWeb by

When Volkswagen boss Herbert Diess’s strongest competitor, Elon Musk, parked his electric cars on the German group’s lawn by building a factory just 200km from its historic Wolfsburg headquarters, the Bavarian executive’s response was warmer than many expected. Publicly, Diess told anyone who would listen that Tesla was “paving the way” and “good for the

Ukraine accused Russia of firing missiles at its key grain exporting port of Odesa on Saturday, a day after Moscow signed a deal allowing Kyiv to resume grain exports in a bid to alleviate the growing global food crisis. Two Kalibr cruise missiles hit Odesa’s port and two others were shot down by Ukrainian air

It is human nature to prioritise the near term over the far off, and to care more about what is proximate than remote. For many of those in the west, the consequences of climate change, though known to be serious, have been something that were largely experienced by other people, or would be felt by

This article is an onsite version of our Europe Express newsletter. Sign up here to get the newsletter sent straight to your inbox every weekday and Saturday morning. Welcome back. A record-breaking heatwave, the end of the Mario Draghi era in Italy, the Conservative party leadership race in the UK — it’s been quite a

Your browser does not support playing this file but you can still download the MP3 file to play locally. In this week’s episode, we delve into the positions and policies of the two final candidates in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader and UK prime minister. Who is likely to win the

British holidaymakers should expect more delays at the UK’s port of Dover this weekend after a ferocious Anglo-French row broke out over the management of post-Brexit border controls on the English Channel. The port declared a “critical incident” on Friday after French border police provided what Dover said was a “woefully inadequate” number of passport