Life

World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October 2026: theme, WHO data and international commitments for 2030.

In an update dated 21 August 2026, the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) indicated that the strategy “Ageing is living” for 2026-2030 is advancing towards consideration by the Regional Committee for Europe. The 76th session of the Committee takes place in Copenhagen from 27 to 29 October 2026. This contribution summarises the…

The World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Agreement, adopted in May 2025, leaves the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system to a technical annex. That annex is still under negotiation: the seventh session closed on 17 July 2026 and the eighth was convened from 14 to 18 September 2026 in Geneva. The Pandemic Agreement and…

In August 2026 the European Union’s circular economy legislation passed two milestones: Regulation (EU) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste applies from 12 August 2026, and Regulation (EU) 2026/1738 on circularity requirements for vehicle design and on the management of end-of-life vehicles entered into force on 13 August 2026. This contribution gathers the main references,…

European policy for minors online moves along two complementary lines: protection, with obligations for platforms and safeguarding tools, and autonomy, with the development of digital skills and artificial intelligence literacy. This contribution reconstructs both lines on the basis of the official documents of 2025 and 2026. The protection framework The Digital Services Act (DSA) requires…

On 16 June 2026 the European Commission released the results of a European Union-wide survey on the time minors spend online and its effects on their health and well-being. The publication coincided with the final meeting of the special panel on the online safety of minors. This contribution gathers the main figures and the institutional…

On 30 April 2026 the European Environment Agency (EEA) published the report “Air quality status in Europe 2026”, which measures the concentrations of air pollutants recorded in 2024 and 2025 against the European Union standards in force, the values set for 2030 by the Ambient Air Quality Directive and the guideline levels of the World…

The United Nations synthesis report on Goal 6, global data on water and sanitation, the European Union’s position and the December 2026 Conference.

In the summer of 2026 the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region faced prolonged and closely spaced heatwaves. Between late June and early July the WHO Regional Office for Europe (WHO/Europe) issued two official statements and convened an emergency meeting among Member States. This factsheet gathers the data and measures made public on those occasions.…

Air quality, the availability of green areas and the way daily journeys are organised have become fixed items on the European urban policy agenda. International documents, new rules and pilot schemes of recent years point towards a rethinking of the places where most of the population lives. This piece gathers the main reference points, without…