Euobserver.com

Huge wildfires in countries including Spain, Portugal, Greece and France have forced national authorities to evacuate thousands of people from their homes, as a heatwave of record-breaking temperatures hits southern Europe. About 16,000 people were evacuated in France on Saturday. Meanwhile, the nearly week-long heatwave has already killed at least 360 people in Spain and 238 people in Portugal, Reuters reported. Britain will also reach record temperatures this week.

Germany is advocating for a stronger geopolitical European Union in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The EU can no longer afford "selfish blockades of European decisions by individual member states," German chancellor Olaf Scholz said, in an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday. He was referring to the need to abolish national vetos in the EU Council and find common ground on divisive issues like migration.

The problem did not pop up just this summer. The consequences of the climate crisis, compounded by the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, have significantly driven up food prices, tipping millions of people into hunger, especially in developing countries.

An IT expert who stirred up anti-EU hatred, an Orientalist, and biological weapons specialists — the profiles of 19 more spies expelled from Belgium in April show what Russia's embassy to the EU was up to.

The European Central Bank is set to increase interest rates in the eurozone at its governing council meeting on Thursday —amid monetary and political turmoil.

High prices of energy, fuels, fertilisers and feed are pushing up agricultural production costs and harming farm profitability in several European markets due to Russia's war on Ukraine, prompting some member states to seek further EU support.

Over 38 million people in Europe cannot afford a week's holiday despite being employed, according to the European Trade Union Confederation. It listed Romania, Greece and Lithuania as the EU states were most workers will not be able to take a week's break. Meanwhile, Italy (8m) , Spain (4.6m) and France (4.1m) have the highest number of workers missing out on a break for financial reasons, it said.

EU agriculture ministers today discuss how to protect animals during transport, in talks pushed for by Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and Sweden.

The European Commission is taking Hungary to court for laws that discriminate over people's sexual orientation and gender identity.

A new investigation by Forensic Architecture/Forensis has mapped over 1,000 cases of illegal at-sea expulsions of asylum seekers in the Aegean Sea, also known as 'drift-backs', whereby people are towed out to sea and abandoned. The cases took place between March 2020 and March 2022 and involved 27,464 people, it said.

Last year 25 million children worldwide missed vaccines that protect against life-threatening diseases, according to data published on Thursday (15 July) by the World Health Organization and UNICEF. It is the largest drop in childhood vaccination rates in about 30 years according to the organisations. "It is the largest sustained decline in childhood vaccinations in approximately 30 years has been recorded," Unicef said in a news release.

The EU court in Luxembourg Thursday ruled against Italian plaintiffs who challenged the bloc's decision to move the prestigious European Medicines Agency (EMA) from London to Amsterdam (instead of Milan) after Brexit. "The decisions of the representatives of the member states" on the EMA "are political acts without any binding legal effects, with the result that they cannot be the subject of an action for annulment," judges said.

The EU ambassador in Myanmar is putting trade unionists' lives at risk by publicly "denigrating" them, they say. Western activists agree. Brussels says: "No".

Cyprus has charged four unnamed individuals with corruption offences linked to a passport-for-sale scheme which it abandoned in 2020 after an investigative report into abuse by Al Jazeera. Cyprus sold 6,779 national (and EU) passports between 2007 and 2020, the vast majority of them Russians, and some of them to people with criminal records.

The European Commission cut its 2022 forecast for eurozone growth largely due to Russia's war in Ukraine. It now predicts growth of 2.6 percent this year for the 19-country currency area. This is slightly less than the 2.7 percent it had forecast in May. Inflation is also revising upwards and is projected to peak at a new record high of 8.4 percent in the third quarter of 2022.

Due to a total capture of the country's institutions and economy by corrupted ethno-nationalist elites, Bosnia & Herzegovina did not advance on key reform areas such as democratisation and improvement of the rule of law — arguably even backsliding.

European commission president Von der Leyen on Thursday reiterated her support for North Macedonia to one day join the European Union."We want you in the EU," she said. "Bilateral issues, such are history issues, are not conditions for accession," she said, in reference to Bulgaria's opposition. She also endorsed a French proposal to help North Macedonia's accession process, despite mass protests in Skopje on Thursday and earlier against the deal.

Transparency campaigners are demanding the European Commission launch a full investigation into Uber lobbyist and former commission vice-president Neelie Kroes.

MEPs in the legal affairs committee backed a provisional deal on the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) on Thursday, endorsing the previous agreement between the EU Parliament and member states reached in June. MEPs will hold the final plenary vote in autumn. The CSRD will oblige businesses to report on environmental, social and working standards, as well as on human rights, anti-corruption and bribery matters.

A cross-party group of MEPs called on the European Commission to tackle illegal short-term rentals with a legislative proposal, connected to the Digital Service Act. EU lawmakers complained that the publication of the initiative was postponed, urging the commission to come forward with a proposal this year. "The availability and affordability of housing, as well as liveability of our cities are at stake," they said on Thursday.