European Union

Parents of children in schools and kindergartens have opposed the idea of testing their kids for COVID-19 using antigen tests after they were asked by the Bulgarian authorities to fill in a questionnaire checking their attitude towards testing. As this...

North Macedonia has made extraordinary progress in good neighbourly relations, as well as in the reforms needed to start EU accession talks, visiting Slovak Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korčok told his hosts, President Stevo Pendarovski and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev,...

Gergely Gulyás, the minister in charge of the prime minister’s office, dismissed as fake news press reports based on documents seen by Reuters, according to which the European Commission has told Hungary to reform its public procurement laws to curb...

The European Commission’s plan for a tobacco-free Europe by 2040, which envisages a stricter regulation of e-cigarettes and other alternatives, has been criticised by Czech anti-drug policy expert and founder of the Institute for Rational Addiction Policies, Jindřich Vobořil. “The...

Athens and the wider area of Attica, where half of the country’s population lives, will go into a stricter lockdown, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced in a televised address to the nation on Tuesday night. The new rules, based on...

The US Senate voted 56 to 44 Tuesday that the second impeachment process against former US president Donald Trump was constitutional and could proceed, Deutsche Welle reports. The vote meant Trump was officially accused of inciting the Capitol riot on 6 January 6 and will face a fully-fledged trial. But with only six Republicans breaking with their party Tuesday, the Democrats still lack a majority to convict the former leader.

Turkey is close to completing purchase of a gas-drilling ship from Norwegian firm Dolphin Drilling in a move that bodes ill for EU relations. The ship was "legendary" and the "crown jewel" of the Norwegian fleet, Turkish pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah said Tuesday. Turkey is currently in talks to reduce tension with Cyprus and Greece after its three existing drilling vessels violated Cyprus-claimed waters in recent months, prompting EU sanctions.

A Polish court has ordered two eminent historians, Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, to apologise to a Polish woman for "defaming" her late uncle in a book saying he had given up Jews to Nazis. The ruling could chill Holocaust research, academics feared, amid wider EU concern the right-wing Polish government wielded political control of judges. Germany, also Tuesday, charged a 100-year old man for 3,518 murders at concentration camps.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has promised new sanctions on Russia in ongoing fallout from his "humiliating" trip to Moscow.

The UK will require passengers arriving from countries where worrying coronavirus variants are spreading to pay for 10 days of quarantine in hotels, while rule-breakers will face heavy fines or jail terms, under tighter restrictions from next week, Reuters reports. "Anyone who lies on the passenger locator form [...] will face a prison sentence of up to 10 years," UK health secretary Matt Hancock told parliament.

The European commission published on Tuesday the redacted contract signed with the pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-GSK last September. This is the third contract that has been made public, after CureVac's and AstraZeneca's deals. "Transparency, accountability and building trust with institutions and citizens are a key commitment of our work," said EU health commissioner Stella Kyrirakides. Three of the early purchase agreements signed between the EU executive and vaccine-developers remain confidential.

A baby born in Spain to a same-sex couple from Bulgaria and Gibraltar is at risk of statelessness, reports Reuters. Bulgaria has refused to provide the child with a birth certificate and citizenship due to the parents' sexual orientation. The case was heard at the European Court of Justice on Tuesday. "It's caused us a lot of upset. This discrimination feels very personal and has shocked us," said the mother.

In an open letter to EU institutions, Reporters without Borders say they have observed around 400 cases of journalists being arrested for "covering massive, peaceful protests against president Alexander Lukashenko's fraudulent reelection." They add that at least 62 cases of physical violence against journalists have been registered since 9 August and 11 journalists are currently jailed. The letter urges the EU to increase sanctions on Belarus and support independent media.

While all governments are seeking to secure vaccines as fast as they can so they can open up their economies, so far only Hungary's Viktor Orban has chosen to break with the EU's vaccine strategy.

MEPs have condemned the near-total ban on the right to abortion in Poland, following the entry into force of the country's Constitutional Tribunal ruling - which makes 98 percent of all abortions carried out annually in the country illegal.

The World Health Organisation team that visited Wuhan to investigate the origins of the coronavirus has dismissed a theory that the virus leaked from a laboratory, while giving some credence to China's focus on the possibility of transmission via frozen food, The Guardian writes. Peter Ben Embarek, head of the team called this theory, spread by Donald Trump, "extremely unlikely" and not "a hypothesis we suggest implies further study."

Kazakhstan has been lobbying the European Parliament to scupper a vote on human rights, as it attempts to gain international standing. But most political groups will move ahead to pass a resolution naming victims of the regime.

If you want to measure how powerful Europe is, ask its neighbours.

Convening citizens' panels and conducting multi-level debates on various policy topics in the timespan of one year, and under social-distancing restrictions, will be either impossible, or will boil the Conference on the Future of Europe down to a mere window-dressing.

The visit of Josep Borrell to Moscow should not have taken place, say many MEPs, who also criticise the Council for failing to respond to Russia’s aggressive policies.
Committee on Foreign Affairs

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