Eurotopics.net

The Biden administration has indicated that it is seeking talks with Tehran over the nuclear deal signed in 2015 and terminated by Trump. Tehran had previously announced that it would refrain from taking voluntary transparency measures in future because the US has not yet lifted sanctions adopted under Trump. Europe's press attempts to interpret the signals from Washington.

A court in Riga has sentenced Aivars Lembergs, an oligarch and one of the most influential men in Latvia, to five years in prison for bribery and money laundering. Lembergs has been mayor of Ventspils, Latvia's busiest export port, since 1988. The trial lasted more than twelve years. Is the verdict a decisive blow against corruption in the Baltic state?

In a measure aimed at speeding up the food service at school cafeterias amid coronavirus restrictions, the Mayor of Lyon and member of the Green party Grégory Doucet has temporarily removed meat from school lunch menus. Some ministers, including Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Agriculture Minister Julien Denormandie, as well as farmers and parents are fiercely protesting the decision.

Almost two months after their launch, the vaccination campaigns in Europe are still making slower progress than many would like. Deliveries of the jointly procured vaccines to EU member states are taking longer than expected, and while certain countries outside the EU, like the UK and Serbia, are forging ahead, others like Ukraine are lagging behind. Europe's press discusses what improvements can be made at the organisational level.

A court in the German city of Koblenz on Wednesday handed down the verdict in the world's first trial on murder and torture by the Syrian state. The defendant, a former Syrian secret service agent, was sentenced to four and a half years in prison for delivering anti-regime demonstrators to a detention centre where he knew they would face torture in 2011. He came to Germany as a refugee, where he was recognised by a torture victim.