Euobserver.com

The one key question that needs to be asked is – will this proposed new legislation aid the required economic recovery or could it have an actual negative effect?

President of the Portuguese Business Confederation, António Saraiva, is at the heart of an apparent conflict of interests.

Federal health officials said in a statement on Tuesday that results from the recently-published US trial of AstraZeneca's vaccine could have relied on "outdated information" that "may have provided an incomplete view of the efficacy data". AstraZeneca announced on Monday that their vaccine was 79 percent effective against Covid-19 - after concluding a trial involving 32,000 people. The AstraZeneca vaccine has not been approved in the US yet.

Britain has banned people from going on holiday abroad until at least July to avoid Europe's third wave of corona "washing up on our shores", prime minister Boris Johnson said Monday. Violators can be fined £5,000 (€5,900). "The possibility lies that we will have to red-list all of our European neighbours", Lord Bethell of Romford, a health minister also said, raising the prospect of a ban on all EU travel.

Sweden is preparing to tax high-polluting aircraft in what its government has called a European and world's first such move on climate change. "This means that takeoff and landing fees can be more significant when a plane's climate impact is higher and they can be reduced when the climate impact is lower," the Swedish infrastructure ministry said Monday, referring primarily to choice of fuel, including biofuels.

A Polish novelist could face three years in prison for insulting Polish president Andrzej Duda on Facebook. "Andrzej Duda is a moron," Jakub Zulczyk said, commenting on Duda's reaction to the US election back in January. Prosecutors charged him with "offensive" language under laws that protect also the Polish flag and foreign flags. But the Polish ruling party, Law and Justice, has politicised courts in a battle against political opponents.

Western powers have shamed China on Uighur abuses in a show of solidarity, which saw China fire back at MEPs, jeopardising a trade treaty.

Several key virologists in Belgium are pleading for the country to go back into a full lockdown in order to turn the trend of rising infections and hospitalisations. According to top virologist Steven Van Gucht, the situation in Belgium shows "a dangerous cocktail". VUB professor Dirk Devroey said Belgium needs a full lockdown of four weeks, meaning "schools will be closed, workers cannot go to their work ..."

The European Commission on Monday announced the first meeting of its so-called European Contact Group on Search and Rescue for migrants and refugees. Although search-and-rescue is a national prerogative, the commission say it wants the group "to bring clarity" on ways to help. "What we need to improve is our coordination," said EU home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson.

Hungary gave the initial approval to two more Covid-19 vaccines from outside the EU's procurement program, officials said Monday. The medicines regulator gave emergency approval to Convidecia, a vaccine produced by China's CanSino Biologics, and to India's Covishield vaccine, a version of the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine. Hungary was the first in the EU to begin using vaccines from Russia and China, and has the second-highest vaccination rate in the EU.

In a call with Russia's president Vladimir Putin, European Council president Charles Michel "expressed the view that EU-Russia ties are at a low point and confirmed the EU's approach of the five guiding principles, based on the EU's core values," the Council said in a statement, adding "there is currently disagreement in many areas." Disagreements included the situation in Ukraine, human rights, disinformation, and the jailing of Alexei Navalny.

Exports of salmon (down 98 percent), beef (92 percent), and cheese (81 percent) from the UK to the EU plunged in January compared to January 2019, due to post-Brexit red tape, Britain's Food and Drink Federation, an industry lobby group, said Monday. UK food and drink exports overall fell £750m (€873m), a 75.5-percent decline. Ireland, which used to take a fifth of UK exports, now took five percent.

The EU's border agency Frontex has blacked-out entire documents on how it spends EU taxpayer money on itself, including gala dinners and hotels. The agency, whose annual budget has soared to €544m, claims there is "no overriding public" interest.

A group of 12 member states have set out the priorities of the long-awaited Conference on the Future of Europe - but argue that reform of existing legislative processes, and institutional power balances, should be off the table.

"This is not about banning vaccine exports, this is about making sure that companies deliver on their commitments to the member states and the EU that are inscribed in contracts," commission spokesman Eric Mamer said.

A closer look at the events, however, shows that instead of a conspiracy the decision was old-fashioned bureaucratic caution. Isolated quotes by European officials were used to suit ideological agendas

The transatlantic relationship is still our best chance to defend our values and interests, and now that Trump's gone, we have a renewed chance to do so.

The hard-left is often associated with the colours red for revolution, and black for anarcho-syndicalism. But the movement is more and more green these days too.

China has blacklisted five MEPs, three European national MPs, two European scholars, and four entities, including the "Political and Security Committee of the Council of the European Union". The individuals, plus their families, were put under an asset-freeze and visa-ban the same day the EU imposed measures on Chinese officials over Uighur-abuses. China's targets were said to "severely harm China's sovereignty and interests and maliciously spread lies and disinformation".

EU foreign ministers blacklisted four Chinese officials over "serious human rights violations" against the Uighur minority Monday, in their first sanctions on Beijing since the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. They also listed two Russians for crimes, including "torture", against LGBTI people, two Libyan militia chiefs wanted for massacres, two North Korean officials, and one from South Sudan, as well as four entities, including one from Eritrea, over "extra-judicial killings".