Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair announced on Friday it was closing its base at Berlin’s international airport, withdrawing its seven passenger jets stationed in the German capital and halving its flight schedule over alleged plans to raise charges.

The Berlin base will be closed on Oct. 24 this year, the airline said. Flights to the city will continue, but with aircraft based outside Germany.

Ryanair’s passenger numbers at Berlin-Brandenburg Airport (BER) are set to fall by around half in 2027, from 4.5 million to 2.2 million.

Eddie Wilson, head of Ryanair in Germany, said the decision was in response to a looming increase in Berlin airport fees, and also took aim at Germany’s “stupid aviation tax regime.”

The airline cited the airport’s plans to increase charges again between 2027 and 2029 by 10%, adding that fees have already risen by 50% since the coronavirus pandemic.

The airport’s operator rejected the claim and said it was surprised by the announcement, with both sides currently in negotiations. “No such increase in airport charges is planned,” a spokesman emphasized.

“German aviation is broken,” Wilson said.

“There is no strategy to cut aviation taxes or high airport fees – despite Ryanair warning that Germany would lose traffic, connectivity, jobs and trade,” Wilson argued.

The Ryanair aircraft will be moved to other European Union countries “that have abolished aviation taxes like Sweden, Slovakia, Albania and Italy”, the company said.

Flight crew have been informed of the decision to close the Berlin base and “can secure alternative positions elsewhere in the Ryanair network across Europe,” the low-cost carrier added.

Wilson said Ryanair had cut all service to three other German airports since 2019 – Dresden, Leipzig and Dortmund – and had already relocated aircraft previously based in Frankfurt, Duesseldorf and Stuttgart.

Ryanair and other airlines have lobbied Germany to slash taxes on the aviation industry.

Despite being Germany’s largest city, Berlin lags well behind several other airports in the country for total passenger traffic, and the city has struggled to attract carriers.

A brand-new Berlin Brandenburg Airport Willy Brandt (BER), which opened in 2020 after years of embarrassing delays and cost overruns, became a laughing stock during its 14-year construction and was seen by many as a symbol of the city’s dysfunction.

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Shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery approved on Thursday an $81 billion mega merger with Paramount, propelling a deal that could vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape closer to the finish line.

Per a preliminary vote count, the overwhelming majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted in support of selling the entire business to Paramount for $31 a share, the company said. Including debt, the deal is valued at nearly $111 billion.

Skydance-owned Paramount wants to buy all of Warner. That means HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like “Harry Potter” and even CNN could soon find themselves under the same roof with CBS, “Top Gun” and the Paramount streaming service. A greenlight from company shareholders increases the likelihood of that becoming a reality.

David Zaslav, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement that stockholder approval marks “another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction.” Paramount added that it looks forward to closing in the coming months, and “realizing the creation of a next-generation media and entertainment company.”

It’s not a done deal quite yet. The acquisition still faces ongoing regulatory reviews. Many critics have sounded the alarm on further consolidation in an industry already controlled by just a few major players, and are calling for the merger to get blocked – if not from the Trump administration, which seems unlikely, perhaps at the state level in the U.S. or through other court fights.

Meanwhile, Warner shareholders rejected a separate measure Thursday that outlined post-merger payments for company executives.

Paramount’s quest for Warner has been far from smooth sailing. And Warner leadership wasn’t always eager to enter this particular marriage.

Late last year, Warner rebuffed Paramount’s overtures to instead strike a $72 billion studio and streaming deal with Netflix. Paramount, meanwhile, went directly to shareholders with a hostile bid to take over the whole company, including the cable business that Netflix did not want. All three companies spent months fighting publicly over who had the better offer on the table. Warner’s board repeatedly backed Netflix’s bid. But eventually, Paramount offered more money and Netflix abruptly bowed out of the race rather than prolonging the fight.

That corporate drama may now be over, but the implications remain. Thousands of actors, directors, writers and other industry professionals have voiced “unequivocal opposition” to the deal, in a letter arguing that further consolidation will lead to job losses and fewer choices for filmmakers and moviegoers.

Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment called Warner shareholders’ vote to advance the merger a “serious setback” on Thursday – but maintained the fight wasn’t over. “A handful of powerful decision-makers should not be allowed to quietly reshape American media, culture, and creative life without accountability,” the advocacy group said in a statement, while pointing to other efforts to challenge consolidation.

Some have called on states, rather than the federal government, to fight the deal. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has been particularly vocal about the transaction and said his state is investigating it.

“State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight,” Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote on social media Thursday.

The merger would bring together two of Hollywood’s remaining five legacy studios. It would also join two major streaming platforms – Paramount and HBO Max – and two big names in America’s TV news landscape –CBS and CNN – as well as a heap of other brands and entertainment networks.

Company executives argue this will be good news for consumers, who they say will have access to bigger content libraries, particularly if HBO Max and Paramount become one streaming service. And Paramount CEO David Ellison has tried to assure filmmakers with a 45-day theatrical window guarantee and goal to release 30 movies a year between Paramount and Warner, which he’s said will remain stand-alone operations under a combined company.

“I love cinema and I love film,” Ellison said at CinemaCon last week. “You can count on our complete commitment.”

But the new owner will also be looking to cut costs. Regulatory filings have already indicated that would include layoffs and downsizing some overlapping operations. And critics are skeptical about consumer benefits – warning of higher prices that could arise when it comes to streaming, and potentially less diversity in content down the road.

Then there’s the news. Since coming under Skydance ownership less than a year ago, Paramount-owned CBS has already seen significant editorial shifts, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief. If the Warner takeover goes through, many are expecting similar changes at CNN, which has long attracted ire from President Donald Trump.

Other questions of political influence have piled up. The Justice Department and company leadership have maintained that politics will not play a role in the regulatory process – but Trump himself has publicly waded into Warner’s future at times, despite backpedaling on what he once suggested his personal role would be. Trump also has a close relationship with the Ellison family, particularly billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison, who is putting billions of dollars on the table to back the bid for his son’s company.

Support for Paramount’s proposed buyout has fallen largely along party lines in Washington. Democratic senators held a “spotlight” hearing on the merger last week and have been more outspoken about antitrust concerns spanning from a Paramount-Warner combo. In contrast, lawmakers from both sides questioned Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Warner’s chief revenue and strategy officer Bruce Campbell in February, calling on regulators to heavily scrutinize that deal.

Meanwhile, Paramount has secured money from several sovereign investment funds – including Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, as well as funds from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, per regulatory filings. But such investors will not have voting rights in a future Paramount-Warner combo, the filings noted. Paramount has not publicly specified how much they’re contributing.

Other countries, including European regulators, are looking at the deal – and again, states could try to challenge it, too.

Shares of Paramount fell nearly 6% after Thursday’s vote, and Warner Bros. slipped as well.

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Electrolux announced on Thursday that it would cut 3,000 jobs over the next two years, part of the Swedish home appliance maker’s efforts to streamline operations as it faces stiff competition, particularly in North America.

The group also said it had raised 9 billion kroner ($970 million) in funds from shareholders to pursue its growth strategy, including a new partnership with China’s Midea to produce for North American markets.

“The highly complementary, strategic partnership with Midea Group, our efforts to optimize the global manufacturing footprint and a more agile organization, together with a stronger balance sheet, will be instrumental to the Group’s long-term profitable growth,” CEO Yannick Fierling said in a statement.

The company said it now expected demand in North America, which generates around a third of its revenues, to be “negative” this year.

Electrolux returned to profit last year following years of losses after the COVID-19 pandemic, but it warned in January that North America would continue to be a challenging market.

The company currently employs around 39,000 people worldwide.

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One of the world’s largest consultancies and accounting majors, PwC is paying HK$1.3 billion ($166 million) in fines and compensation in Hong Kong over its audit work for the failed Chinese property developer Evergrande, which was said to have overstated revenues.

Hong Kong’s accounting regulator on Thursday also announced a six-month ban on PwC from working for new clients and said it had issued a public reprimand to two of its former partners for misconduct, fining each of them a separate HK$5 million.

China Evergrande, one of China’s biggest property developers and once deemed “too big to fail,” defaulted in 2021 and became the world’s most indebted developer with roughly $300 billion in liabilities.

Its rapid downfall was the most prominent case of failure in China’s property sector, which was embroiled in a liquidity crisis after authorities cracked down on excessive borrowing in the industry as many other developers had also defaulted or underwent restructuring.

The property sector slump in China has still not yet fully recovered, which has weighed on home prices across the country and impacted consumption and investment sentiment, dragging on China’s broader economic growth.

In 2024, PwC was fined by mainland Chinese authorities 441 million yuan ($62 million) over its Evergrande audit. Chinese authorities also imposed a six-month ban on the accounting firm over “false” conclusions in its audit reports for Evergrande and “serious defects” in its auditing procedures.

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission said Thursday it had investigated PwC’s work relating to Evergrande’s financial statements for 2019 and 2020 and found that its annual revenue and profits were “substantially overstated.”

It said Evergrande had manipulated annual revenue and profits by “prematurely recognizing revenue from property sales before the completion and delivery of properties to buyers.”

Revenues were overstated by roughly 564 billion yuan ($83 billion) over the two years, it said, after Chinese authorities reached a similar conclusion in September 2024 when it imposed its fine and ban on PwC.

The Hong Kong commission also said there were “serious breaches” of professional duties by PwC. It said it had reached an agreement with PwC, without an admission of liability by the firm, under which PwC would be setting aside HK$1 billion for compensating minority shareholders of Evergrande.

Hong Kong’s accounting regulator, the Accounting and Financial Reporting Council, said in a separate statement that PwC’s audit deficiencies for Evergrande were “particularly egregious” and that the accounting firm had “knowingly permitting” unsupported or unjustified adjustments in the financial statements.

“We acknowledge that the work on the Evergrande audits fell well below our high expectations and the expectations of our stakeholders,” PwC Hong Kong said in a statement on Thursday.

“Resolving these regulatory matters is an important step for the firm.”

PwC had lost dozens of clients and many of its staff following Evergrande’s downfall and in the months after China Evergrande was ordered by a Hong Kong court to be liquidated in 2024. Liquidators of China Evergrande were also pursuing legal action against PwC separately in Hong Kong in an attempt to recover what it could for creditors.

Evergrande founder Hui Ka Yan, once one of Asia’s richest persons, this month pleaded guilty to charges including fraud and bribery in a mainland Chinese court after being detained in China.

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Mark Carney said Thursday that Canada is not yielding to U.S. pressure in ongoing trade talks, stressing that Ottawa is negotiating as an equal partner while seeking areas of mutual benefit.

“There’s two parties in a negotiation. We’re not sitting here taking notes, and taking instructions from the United States,” Carney told reporters in Ottawa. Canada is “understanding their position” while identifying areas of shared benefit.

“We understand where it’s in Canada’s interest, in our joint interests, to be stronger together,” he said. “This is a government that can do many things at one time.”

Carney drew a sharp distinction between manageable trade friction and what he called outright violations. He said that a “50% tariff on steel, 50% tariff on aluminum, 25% tariff on automobiles, all the tariffs on forest products – those are more than irritants. Those are violations.”

Emphasizing that the U.S. is Canada’s “biggest trading partner by far,” he also said Canada is the “second-biggest trading partner” for the U.S.

“There is a symbiosis between the two,” he added.

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The chair of the Türkiye-Europe Business Councils of Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) criticized remarks by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, linking Türkiye with Russia and China, saying the country should be seen not as a threat but as a strategic European partner and future EU member.

In a written statement on Wednesday, Mehmet Ali Yalçındağ, the coordinating chairperson of the Türkiye-Europe Business Councils, which represents dozens of business councils engaging with European nations, said that the founding spirit of the European Union was based on the courage to view differences not as threats but as a source of collective wisdom and shared prosperity.

“Its role within the NATO alliance, deep integration through the customs union, and strong interdependence in energy, migration, and security make Türkiye not a ‘threat,’ but a strategic European partner and a future member,” he said.

He said the core idea behind the EU’s creation was to establish lasting peace through economic integration, build bridges and become a global actor through cooperation.

“In this context, placing Türkiye, an EU candidate country, a NATO ally, and a European nation, within the stated geopolitical category reflects an approach that is detached from reality,” he said.

Yalçındağ underlined that Türkiye is “an integral part of Europe’s economic, security and societal fabric.”

His remarks came after the EU chief’s remarks at an event earlier this week. Von der Leyen mentioned her support for EU enlargement but said: “We must succeed in completing the European continent so that it is not influenced by Russia, Türkiye or China.”

This drew criticism from Turkish officials who said the characterization did not reflect the country’s status as a key partner and NATO ally.

Türkiye, a long-time candidate for EU membership, has strong trade ties with the bloc, with the bilateral trade volume exceeding $200 billion a year. Türkiye and the EU base their commercial ties largely on a 30-year-old customs union trade agreement, whose overhaul has long been stalled but which Ankara earlier argued would be a win-win for both sides.

Turkish officials and businesses have long argued that the current agreement is outdated and no longer reflects global trade realities or the depth of today’s economic relationship.

Moreover, Yalçındağ added that the language used and the categorical classifications made in this regard appear to be driven more by tactical considerations than by geopolitical realities, warning that such an approach could weaken Europe’s strategic capacity in the long-term.

He said that said the DEIK, within the framework of its private-sector initiative supporting Türkiye’s EU membership, has emphasized that the EU must become a stronger and more autonomous actor in energy, supply chains and security, and that this objective can be achieved together with Türkiye.

He also said debates in Europe over decision-making mechanisms, especially the constraints created by unanimity, highlight the need for a more agile and responsive union.

According to Yalçındağ, a transition to qualified majority voting and differentiated integration models is a natural outcome of this search, but their implementation still requires unanimity, making the reservations of some member states decisive.

“In this context, it would be beneficial to assess Türkiye not through the lens of domestic European politics, but from the perspective of Europe’s global interests in the 21st century,” he said.

He added that addressing EU-Türkiye relations through the broader framework of the future of Western democracies, economic integration, rapid transformations in the age of artificial intelligence, security cooperation and global competition would offer a more rational and forward-looking approach.

Türkiye one of EU’s largest trading partners

Yalçındağ also pointed to what he described as more balanced and realistic views within the EU regarding Türkiye’s position.

He recalled that European Parliament rapporteur on Türkiye Nacho Sanchez Amor described von der Leyen’s remarks as “a geopolitically flawed analysis,” highlighting what he called a contradiction with recent messages calling for stronger cooperation with Türkiye in security and defense.

He also referred to remarks by European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos, who told the European Parliament that Europe needs Türkiye in light of shifting geopolitical dynamics.

According to Yalçındağ, Kos emphasized that Türkiye is not only a candidate country but also a strategic partner, citing its role as one of the EU’s largest trading partners, its key position on trade routes between Europe and Asia, and its importance for Black Sea security and in the context of Ukraine.

He further said discussions during this year’s Munich Security Conference underlined Türkiye’s role on NATO’s southern flank, its capacity to manage regional crises and its strategic importance for Europe’s security architecture.

“This year’s conference marked one of the clearest articulations yet of the idea that Europe cannot move forward without Türkiye,” he said.

Yalçındağ also noted that Türkiye will host COP31 in November, describing it as a major international conference on the global climate crisis.

He said there are significant opportunities for cooperation between Türkiye and the EU on alignment targets, climate policies and the development of joint solutions to global challenges.

“Rather than defining Türkiye through limiting geopolitical categories, positioning it as a strategic partner that will help shape Europe’s common future represents a more realistic and constructive approach,” he said.

He added that by refraining from labeling an EU candidate country, a NATO ally and a European nation as a “threat,” the European Commission could better advance its goal of building a stronger and more sovereign Europe in the global order.

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