Euobserver.com

A report published by the European Court of Auditors on Tuesday revealed the EU is still far from reaching its Green Deal target of having one million charging points for electric vehicles by 2025. EU auditors recommend the European Commission to set out a strategic roadmap to meet charging infrastructure targets since 150,000 new charging points would be needed each year (almost 3,000 a week) to close the gap.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday said Moscow expected the Iranian nuclear deal to be saved and condemned EU sanctions against Iran, saying they could undermine ongoing nuclear talks, Deutsche Welle reports. "We expect that it will be possible to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)," Lavrov said, referring to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran.

France suspended all flights from Brazil on Tuesday amid mounting fears over the particularly contagious Covid-19 variant. "We note that the situation is getting worse and so we have decided to suspend all flights between Brazil and France until further notice," prime minister Jean Castex told parliament. The P.1 variant is causing havoc in Latin America's largest nation and increasingly raising alarm bells in Europe.

Johnson & Johnson said it has decided to delay the roll-out of its Covid-19 vaccine in Europe, after a recommendation by US health authorities for a "pause" in administering the one-shot vaccine after reports of very rare cases where recipients developed blood clots. The firm said it was reviewing the data with US authorities, DPA reported. The company had started the vaccine roll-out on Monday in the EU.

Germany's federal government on Tuesday agreed on controversial changes to national law, after several states failed to control the third wave of the pandemic, the AFP reported. The law would allow chancellor Angela Merkel's government to introduce nationwide curfews from 9 pm to 5 am, limit private gatherings, and close schools and enterprises in regions with high infection rates. The bill still needs to be approved by parliament.

Denmark is stripping Syrians of residency rights - the first country in the EU to do so - amid threats to deport them back home. The EU did not comment directly, but warned that Syria is not safe.

While most MEPs have been vocal in support of the proposal by the European Commission for EU-wide vaccine certificates, key questions remain - ranging from fundamental rights, to its scientific validity.

Of the €30bn allocated to Romania under the EU recovery fund, just four percent is slated to go to renewable energy and energy-efficiency. Despite the pressing need to decarbonise Romania's heat and power sectors, this is not an investment priority.

Happy Ramadan? The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief warned the Human Rights Council last month that institutional suspicion of Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim has escalated to "epidemic proportions" worldwide.

We often talk about the need to establish a relationship between equals in our partnership with Africa. This paradigm needs to be more than a declaration of good intentions

US health regulators on Tuesday recommended pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson's single-dose Covid-19 vaccine, after six people developed blood clots, Reuters reported. Health authorities will hold a meeting on Wednesday to review the cases. As of Tuesday, some 6.8 million doses of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines have been administered in the US. This week, the company has started delivering doses to EU member states.

Ukraine has accused the Kremlin of ignoring its request for talks between the two countries' presidents over a build-up of Russian troops near its border, but Moscow said its soldiers were on its own territory, unlike US forces in the region, Reuters writes. Kiev and Moscow have traded blame over the worsening situation in the eastern Donbas region, where Ukrainian troops have battled Russian-proxy forces in a conflict since 2014.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg is to manage €5bn of the €32bn that Greece is set to get in grants and loans from the EU's pandemic recovery fund, with a focus on green and digital-sector investments, Reuters reports. "It's in fact the first EIB cooperation to implement investments by the recovery and resilience facility anywhere in Europe," the bank's vice president Christian Kettel Thomsen said on Monday.

The recession set to hit Europe after the pandemic will help organised crime penetrate legitimate business and recruit out-of-work specialists, the EU's joint police agency, Europol, has warned.

The pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson on Monday started delivering its single-dose Covid-19 vaccine to EU countries, a European Commission spokesperson said. Under existing contracts, the American company has committed to delivering 55 million doses to the EU by the end of June and further 120 million in the third quarter, from July to September. In 2021, the company will supply 200 million doses to the EU, Norway and Iceland.

The EU has imposed sanctions on eight Iranian militia commanders and police chiefs, including the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards, over a deadly crackdown in November 2019, Reuters reports. "[Revolutionary Guard commander] Hossein Salami took part in the sessions that resulted in the orders to use lethal force to suppress the November 2019 protests. Salami therefore bears responsibility for serious human rights violations in Iran," the EU said.

The UK government opened an independent investigation after former prime minister minister David Cameron's activities on behalf of finance firm Greensill Capital raised questions, Reuters reported. The Financial Times first reported that Cameron contacted ministers directly to lobby on behalf of Greensill Capital, including sending texts and setting up private drinks. Cameron said he had not broken any rules, but admitted communications with the government should be completely formal.

EU-UK talks on how to resolve post-Brexit trade rules on Northern Ireland have been constructive, but "significant differences" still remain, according to a UK spokesman. British negotiator David Frost talked with EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič on Friday on the issue. Northern Ireland has seen over a week of violence, partly due to unionist disapproval of new trade barriers between the province and mainland Great Britain.

Concern over the low efficiency of Chinese-made vaccines has been mounting since China's top official said existing vaccines offer low protection against Covid-19 - raising questions for those nations relying heavily on the Chinese jabs. That includes Hungary and Serbia.

While Markus Söder, leader of CDU's Bavarian sister party, the CSU, also threw his hat into the race to replace chancellor Angela Merkel, the CDU's choice is likely to be decisive.