European Union

EU ambassadors have added Japan to a list of safe countries, with Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, for which member states are recommended to gradually lift pandemic travel restrictions, Reuters reports. Wednesday's decision, ahead of Japan's Olympic Games, left out UK tourists until at least mid-June, due to concerns over the Indian variant there. Britain also advises against travel to all EU states, except Portugal.

Citizens from most EU states might have to pay £55 (€64) more for UK work visas, as well as a £199 foreign worker "sponsorship" fee, if the UK goes ahead with plans to withdraw from the European Social Charter, a 1961 accord of 27 European states, granting discounts to healthcare, charity, and seasonal workers, such as fruit pickers, The Times reports, saying home secretary Priti Patel has "considered" the move.

The leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Norbert Hofer, has stepped down - but pointedly did not back his high-profile deputy and rival Herbert Kickl to succeed him, Reuters writes. Hofer, widely seen as the most presentable face of the anti-Islam and anti-immigration party which crashed out of government amid scandal two years ago, came close to winning Austria's presidential election in 2016 only to lose a re-run.

Spanish police have found hundreds of kilos of cocaine smuggled into Europe by disguising it as charcoal and ridding the drug of its telltale scent to render it undetectable to sniffer dogs, The Guardian reports. "The modus operandi involved using a complex chemical process to camouflage the drugs as charcoal ... carried out by the Mexican and Colombian cartels," the Spanish force said in a statement.

The European Commission and Bill Gates announced on Wednesday a partnership that aims to mobilise up to €820m between 2022 and 2023 to invest in clean technologies, such as green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, direct air capture and long-duration energy storage. The partnership will target technologies with "a recognised potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" which are currently too expensive to get to scale, the commission said in a statement.

Iran's largest naval ship was on fire for 20 hours before it finally went down in the Gulf of Oman, Deutsche Welle writes. The cause of the fire, which according to a navy broke out in "one of the systems" of the vessel, was not immediately known. Photos of the fire on social media showed Iranian sailors evacuating on speedboats as smoke was seen coming from the vessel.

Unable to convince EU states to lift internal border controls, the European Commission announced a new strategy - leaning heavily on security.

"The overall message is that we should continue to support the economy, so fiscal policy should be supportive both this year and next, and we should avoid premature withdrawal of the fiscal support," EU Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said.

Violent far-right extremists share the same profile as foreign fighters in Syria. They dreamed of becoming important, but they failed. What they are looking for is a shortcut from zero to hero.

It's not uncommon to hear accusations of Catalan financial greed as a motivation for independence. But in reality, the economic relationship between Spain and Catalonia is a nuanced one, which many Catalans believe is historically, and now, based on domination.

Parliament’s latest public opinion survey shows support for EU remains high, despite the pandemic, but COVID-19 impact on personal finances felt or expected by more than half of Europeans.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

On Wednesday, Parliament and Council negotiators reached an agreement on the instrument governing the 2021-2027 funding for countries on the path to EU membership.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

On Wednesday, Parliament and Council negotiators reached an agreement on the instrument governing the 2021-2027 funding for countries on the path to EU membership.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

Puigdemont i Casamajó and Others v Parliament
Le vice-président du Tribunal de l’Union européenne suspend provisoirement la levée de l’immunité parlementaire de MM. Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó et Antoni Comín i Oliveres ainsi que de Mme Clara Ponsatí i Obiols

Strategic Sovereignty (or Autonomy) for the European Union appears to be its ability to decide and act according to its own rules, principles and values. The latter include the promotion of multilateralism, respect for the rule of law, democracy and human rights, openness in trade relations. Given rapidly shifting global geopolitical and technology trends, and the seeming fragmentation of the multilateral order, the EU is being forced to strengthen its own position in the international arena.
The EU needs to secure its values and interests in new (and more determined) ways. If the EU wants to "do it its way" to quote HRVP Borrell's "Sinatra doctrine", several questions needs to be answered.

With the assistance of the EU Institute for Security Studies, and of top-level experts, this AFET workshop/webinar will tackle three important questions: 1- How can the EU deal more strategically with interdependencies in a less cooperative world? 2- How should the EU adapt existing and develop new strategic partnerships? 3- How can EU efforts to strengthen multilateralism both reinforce EU autonomy and global cooperation?
Draft Programme
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

"In the context of the exponential growth of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the President of the European Parliament has announced a number of measures to contain the spread of epidemic and to safeguard Parliament's core activities.

The current precautionary measures adopted by the European Parliament to contain the spread of COVID-19 do not affect work on legislative priorities. Core activities are reduced, but maintained to ensure that the institution's legislative, budgetary, scrutiny functions are maintained.

The meetings will be with remote participation for Members (being able to view and listen to proceedings, ask for the floor and intervene in the meeting). Other participants are invited to follow the meeting through webstreaming.

Following these decisions, the next ordinary AFET Committee meetings will take place on 14 and 15 June (via videoconference).

EP Calendar 2021
AFET-SEDE-DROI meetings
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

AMENDMENTS 79 - 80 - Draft opinion Measures for a high common level of cybersecurity across the Union, repealing Directive (EU) 2016/1148
Committee on Foreign Affairs
Markéta Gregorová

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

AMENDMENTS 1 - 121 - Draft motion for a resolution EU Global Human Rights Sanctions regime (EU Magnitsky Act)
Committee on Foreign Affairs
David McAllister

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

MEPs want the European Commission to prove it’s up to the task of defending the EU budget from member states violating the rule of law principle.

Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

EU states should first donate vaccines to poor countries with vulnerable people, instead of vaccinating their teenagers, who were less at risk of getting sick from Covid-19, the European Centre for Disease prevention and Control, an EU agency in Stockholm, recommended on Tuesday. "The wider context of a global vaccine supply shortage should be taken into account," it said. Africa had had just 1% of total world vaccinations by mid-May.