European Union

Global CO2 emissions have returned to pre-pandemic levels, threatening to put climate treaty targets for capping global warming out of reach, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday (2 March).

The European Commission's proposed Euro 7 emission rules on cars, vans, trucks and buses would amount to "a ban through the back door" of internal combustion engines as of 2025, if implemented in their current form, industry has said, calling the proposal premature and "completely out of the question".

Already facing a daunting COVID vaccination challenge, French and German authorities are fighting to convince more people that a jab from the pharma giant AstraZeneca is just as effective as others.

Some 300,000 more jobs are expected to be lost in Spain in 2021, mainly affecting small businesses, in a new blow to the already battered economy, warned the Spanish Association of the Self-Employed Workers (Asociación de Trabajadores Autónomos, ATA). EURACTIV's partner EuroEFE reports.

EU foreign relations chief Josep Borrell told MEPs on Monday that his service did not have the resources to counter Chinese and Russian disinformation on the same, huge scale that it is being used against Europe. "We don't have the capacity to produce massively information presenting our views," he said. The foreign service has a small debunking unit, called East Stratcom, but its mandate covers Russian propaganda only.

Financial services firms moved some €1.5 trillion of assets and 7,600 jobs from the City of London to Europe due to Brexit, according to a survey by auditing company EY. "The days of significant swathes of asset and job relocation announcements appear to have passed and will likely be replaced by the slower yet ongoing movement of people and assets to Europe for compliance purposes," EY noted in its report.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) in Amsterdam is certifying a vaccine-making facility in India, the Serum Institute of India (SII), enabling it to make extra doses of British-Swedish firm AstraZeneca's drugs there for export to Europe, Reuters reports, citing anonymous sources. The EMA audit is to be finished in March. AstraZeneca failed to deliver its EU vaccine orders on time. SII said it was prioritising production for India's domestic use.

Some 400 MEPs and national MPs have signed an open letter to EU leaders and foreign ministers saying they should urge the new US administration to stop what they called Israel's "rapidly progressing de facto annexation [of Palestine's Israeli-occupied West Bank], especially through accelerated settlement expansion and demolitions of Palestinian structures." They also said the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip "remains at risk of violent escalation at any moment".

Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš has tightened lockdown measures, saying hospitals were nearing collapse as the number of patients in intensive care jumped to record levels, Reuters reports. The country of 10.7 million has the highest-per-capita infection rate in the world over the past week, according to the Our World in Data website, 11 times higher than Germany.

MEPs are scheduled to vote on Wednesday to change the rules of procedure of the centre-right European People's Party parliamentary group to allow the suspension of a member party.

The debate about the much-delayed Conference on the Future of Europe so far has been locked in endless institutional infighting over who should lead the event - lowering the expectations about what can be achieved in the coming months.

Polish president Andrzej Duda has talked with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, about buying the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine, his aide said, as the country looked for ways to speed up vaccination of its citizens, The Guardian writes. The health minister told a Monday press conference that the UK strain is found in 70 percent of infections in the country's current third wave.

Nearly two-thirds of Russians are not willing to receive the country's Sputnik V vaccine, and about the same number believe the new coronavirus was created artificially as a biological weapon, Reuters reports. Most respondents cited side effects - which can include fever and fatigue - as the main reason for not wanting to get vaccinated. Some 64 percent thought the new coronavirus was created as a biological weapon.

People over the age of 55 in Belgium could be given the Oxford/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, as the government seeks to "reset" its heavily-criticised vaccination programme, The Guardian reports. Belgium decided last month to only giving the vaccine to younger groups. But images of empty vaccination centres has led to an outcry. Just 6.96 percent of the Belgian population has received a jab, compared with 30.14 percent in the UK.

The European Commission is set to unveil a legislative proposal on a "digital green pass" to allow vaccinated people to travel more freely for the summer. But Belgium says the pass risks discrimination against people unable to get the jab.

Slovakia has launched a mass vaccination programme aimed at teachers and childcare workers. Estonia, for its part, has begun inoculating frontline workers including teachers, police officers and members of the armed forces ahead of schedule.

After his unexpected visit to Tbilisi to mediate the deepening political crisis in Georgia, European Council President Charles Michel said progress in talks between the ruling party and the opposition will be assessed in two weeks.

US President Joe Biden's administration is preparing to impose sanctions on Russia for the poisoning and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, CNN reported Monday.

They had no time to lose: A good six months before the German parliamentary elections, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) published its demands to the new government. In the Europe chapter, the focus on climate stands out, EURACTIV Germany reports.

Slovakia is buying 2 million Sputnik V vaccines from Russia and expects half to arrive this month and next as it looks to step up vaccinations amid a surge in COVID-19 infections and deaths, the prime minister said on Monday.