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"No substantial information was received from Israel" on why six Palestinian NGOs should be banned over alleged terrorist links, the foreign ministries of Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden said Tuesday in a joint statement. They pledged to continue funding them. The EU Commission recently also overturned a funding ban on two of the groups — Al-Haq and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Germany will end purchases of Russian coal on 1 August and quit Russian oil on 31 December, German state secretary Jörg Kukies said in Sydney.

As several European countries turn back to coal to secure energy supplies, US special envoy for climate John Kerry said the return to coal should be temporary. "The war doesn't mean climate steps aside all of a sudden, the climate crisis doesn't stop evolving," Kerry told Reuters, arguing that the war in Ukraine reveals the need to move away from fossil fuels faster — that is the "real lesson".

The Dutch Senate approved the free trade agreement between the EU and Canada on Tuesday. Under the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, more than 99 percent of all trade tariffs currently in place between the the bloc and Canada will be abolished. So far 14 of the 27 member states have approved the text, but it is unclear when the agreement will enter into full force.

The euro hit parity with the dollar for the first time since 2002 on Tuesday. The eurozone currency has lost value rapidly since the start of the war in Ukraine, when it was trading at $1.15. Fear the Kremlin will cut off gas to Europe has pushed the euro down. This will drive up the relative price of oil which is traded in dollars, further driving up inflation.

Uber lobbyist and former European Commission vice-president Neelie Kroes still has an active badge that allows her to access commission buildings during working hours, a commission spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday. She does not have access to cabinets floors. Kroes is among the high-profile figures in the Uber Files investigation, recently disclosed by the Guardian newspaper and International Consortium of investigative journalists.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez announced on Tuesday new temporary taxes on energy companies and financial institutions in 2023 and 2024 to ease the effect of inflation. The government expects levies on both financial institutions and power firms to collect €3.5bn per year. "We need to share the burden of this crisis justly, and not like the last one, which fell on top of the most vulnerable," Sanchez said.

Poland said on Tuesday that the war in Ukraine and skyrocketing energy prices call for "special legal measures that allow for a real-time reaction if the situation deteriorates further," Reuters reported. The measures include easing gas-trading rules, extending consumers' tariff protection until 2027, and contingency plans for gas operators. Russia has cut gas supplies to Poland since April but national storage facilities are currently at 98-percent capacity.

The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth €13.8bn since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said on Tuesday. "A very large part [of this money], more than €12bn, comes from five member states so we need to continue to convince others to do the same," he told reporters ahead of a meeting with justice ministers in Prague. He did not specify the countries.

Women working in the health sector earn on average 24 percent less than their male colleagues, a new report by the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization revealed on Wednesday. The report also found the gender pay gap tends to actually be wider in higher-pay categories, over-represented by men, although it points out differences among countries. Women account for 67 percent of healthcare workers worldwide.

Ten years ago, I had the honour of speaking at news conference in Moscow with Russia's human rights defenders. A week later, president Vladimir Putin signed a new bill into law and Russia's human-rights landscape has become almost unrecognisable since.

The EU has listed the top three cross-border health threats that require coordinated action. This includes nuclear, chemical, pathogens and antimicrobial resistance.

In a signing ceremony held in Brussels EU finance ministers formally approved Croatia joining the eurozone on January 1, 2023.

Russia has won the right to challenge EU laws meant to stop dirty tricks in gas markets, at the same time as waging gas wars against Europe.

MEPs in the environment committee have backed a wider scope and stricter rules to reduce global deforestation driven by the European consumption of certain commodities — pushing for more ambition in a key EU climate law.

Russia has shut down its Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline to Germany, the biggest single conduit to Europe, for 10 days of annual maintenance, amid fears it might extend the cut-off to put pressure on Europe to stop helping Ukraine. "[Russian president Vladimir] Putin knows no taboos," Timm Kehler from German industry association Zukunft Gas told Reuters. Germany and the Czechs also signed an agreement to share gas if needed.

Russian president Vladimir Putin and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a phone call where they discussed coordinating efforts on exporting grain and safety of navigation in the Black Sea, the Kremlin said on Monday. It said the talks took place in the run-up to a Russian-Turkish summit scheduled for the near future.

Greek NGOs on Monday hailed last's week judgement from the European Court of Human Rights in an eight-year old case that vindicated people who lost their lives in the 2014 shipwreck off Farmakonisi. The judgement cited right to life violations by Greek authorities. "The case is not closed: the file will reopen in the Greek courts to investigate and attribute criminal responsibility," said University of Macedonia professor Konstantinos Tsitselikis.

A successor to Boris Johnson as Conservative party leader and British prime minister will be announced on 5 September, the Tory party announced on Monday. Nearly a dozen MPs are seeking to be the replacement to Johnson, who announced last week he was stepping down. Conservative MPs vote this week to narrow the field down to two candidates, one of whom will then be voted leader by party members.

In 2016, it was revealed former EU commission vice-president Neelie Kroes failed to disclose her role in an offshore company. Now, she is engulfed in controversy once again over Uber.