Europe Monaco Five teams of Monegasque pastry chefs competed to win the prize for the best Easter egg of the season under a new edition with a new theme: "Monte-Carlo: a Blue, Pink and Red Spring", Blue for the sea, pink for the famous Rose Ball and red for passion
Europe Spain If strict new rules on cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs would go into effect, a heavy impact on tourism is feared; they would be forced to close at 1 a.m. in order limit working hours and impose the 37.5-hour work week
Europe Slovenia The parliamentary groups of the coalition Movement for Freedom and Social Democratsand the opposition Democrats and New Slovenia have filed in parliamentary procedure a motion to hold a referendum on the expansion of nuclear energy
Europe Sweden According to scientists, current logging practices are bringing old-growth forests to the brink of extinction as vast areas of old-growth forests are being cut down and replaced by fir and pine plantations, resulting in a devastating loss of biodiversity
Europe Finland A two-week political strike has brought freight traffic to a halt in Finnish ports and railways, with major disruption in the country's logistics and potentially leading to shortages, including fuel; Finnair has decided to refuel some aircraft overseas
Europe Estonia The EU Council approved the directive on platform work, with the green light from Estonia, which had previously opposed it
Europe Denmark Several hours of waiting time to access TastSelv expected tax payers over the weekend, ahead of the official opening of the tax return website on Monday; 1,4 million visits to the annual tax return website have been recorded since last Friday
Europe Albania According to critics, the government is not doing enough to protect Albanian textile exporters from the rapidly strengthening lek currency; most of the industry's employees are women who risk slipping into poverty
Europe Croatia The Croatian parliament, the Sabor, will be dissolved on 14 March, and parliamentary elections will be held in April or May, as by law they must be held within 30 to 60 days from the date of dissolution of parliament
Europe Hungary Ferenc Krausz, experimental physicist, has been named person of the year 2023 by public media; he is a 2023 Nobel laureate for his experimental methods in producing attosecond pulses of light to study the movement of electrons within atoms
Europe Iceland Asylum applications dropped by 56% in the first two months of 2024 compared to the same period last year, with only 410 applications, compared to 925 in the same months of 2023
Europe Latvia After the attack on the Occupation Museum, plans are being made to speed up the creation of a comprehensive video surveillance network throughout Latvia; the Interior Minister will have a month to identify what is already in place and what can be used
Europe Luxembourg VA BE A petition calling on Luxembourg's parliament to end the "constant exaggerated craze for new petitions" has been opened; it will remain open until April 19 and will require the support of 4.500 people to pass the threshold needed to force a debate