EU extends democratic resilience cooperation to enlargement partners

The European Centre for Democratic Resilience is extending its cooperation on democratic resilience to candidate countries and potential candidates, adding enlargement partners to several ongoing joint projects. The European Commission announced the move today, alongside a series of merger clearances and a new report saying job quality in the EU has improved over the past decade.

For the enlargement partners named by the Commission — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine, as well as Kosovo — the cooperation will cover tabletop crisis management exercises, work on methods to detect foreign information manipulation and interference, measures for democratic resilience, and training focused on the protection of journalists, civil society organisations, fact-checkers and politicians. The Centre was officially launched on 24 February 2026 at the General Affairs Council and is already running projects with Member States, including the Train the trainers capacity building programme.

The Commission also said the 2026 European Employment and Social Outlook finds progress in pay, job security and working time, and links better-quality jobs with productivity, motivation, staff retention, skills development and work organisation. The report points to slowing employment growth, weak productivity growth and pressure on household incomes from high energy prices, and says labour shortages are often more pronounced in poorer-quality jobs.

In mergers, Brussels cleared CM Holding A/S and Bunge Global SA to take joint control of Baltic Grain Terminal in Poland, Tenaris S.A. to take sole control of Artrom Steel Tubes S.A. in Romania, Platinum Equity and Nestlé S.A. to take joint control of Nestlé Waters in Luxembourg, OTP Bank Nyrt. to take sole control of Luminor Holding AS in Estonia, Aware Super and Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund to take joint control of SERV Holdings in Australia, and Lone Star Global Acquisitions to take sole control of ContiTech Deutschland GmbH in Germany.

Later this year, the Commission said it will present the Quality Jobs Act after the second-phase consultation of EU social partners. Executive Vice-President Roxana Mînzatu said: “Europe's labour market remains strong. Wages are back to pre-pandemic levels. But employment growth is slowing, poverty reduction is not yet matching our ambition, and high energy prices are weighing especially on lower-income households. We are committed to creating more high-quality jobs across the EU. With the forthcoming Quality Jobs Act, we want to make sure work is available, fair, safe and rewarding for everyone.”