Eurotopics.net

After the killing of African American George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, the City Council has decided to defund and dismantle the city's police department on the grounds that it can no longer be reformed. The city now wants to create a "new model of public security". The decision meets with much interest in Europe's press.

Amid the protests against racism and police brutality taking place across the globe, demonstrators in the English city of Bristol toppled the statue of British slaver Edward Colston and threw it into the River Avon. British Home Secretary Priti Patel condemned the perpetrators, but not all commentators agree with her criticism.

Now that most European countries have significantly eased the measures to contain Covid-19, Europe is starting to relax. But in the countries of the southern hemisphere, most of which were not affected by the pandemic until later, the curve is in many cases still rising, with considerable disparities in the number of infections. What are their specific problems and what can Europe do for them?

On Friday the fourth round of negotiations on future relations between the UK and the EU ended without substantial progress, as the chief negotiators Michel Barnier and David Frost announced afterwards. Time is running out as an agreement must be negotiated by 31 October at the latest. Commentators wonder whether London has any real interest in a deal.

Tens of thousands of people in the United States demonstrated against racism and police brutality for the second weekend in a row after George Floyd's killing. President Trump threatened to send in the army, and referred to the riots as "acts of domestic terror". Commentators discuss how much responsibility he bears for the current tensions.