Euobserver.com

Following reports that accused EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell of sending diplomats to Venezuela in a "clandestine mission," the European People's Party was "alarmed" such move would weaken the EU position.

A new five-day screening of migrants at Europe's external borders is meant to expedite people into either 'asylum' or 'return' tracks. The time-limit is wishful thinking and one that could leave people stranded in make-shift camps or even ghettos.

The loudest applause from MEPs during Ursula von der Leyen's State of the Union speech came for her call to move to Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in foreign policy - at least on human rights and sanctions implementation.

The EU is expected to soon, perhaps this week, to release its renewed Sahel strategy, which was in dire need of a revamp and which will no doubt reflect some of the words of foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell.

German EU presidency "ready" to move ahead with new EU sanctions against human rights abusers, but internal bickering could delay them into next year.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko's secret inauguration ceremony in Minsk on Tuesday had no meaning because he had "falsified elections". "The so-called 'inauguration' of 23 September 2020 and the new mandate claimed by Aleksandr Lukashenko lack any democratic legitimacy," Borrell said Thursday. The tough rhetoric comes despite the EU's inability to agree sanctions on his regime due to a Cypriot veto.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis, German economy minister Peter Altmaier have gone into quarantine after an Irish delegation member at this week's informal trade ministers' meeting in Berlin tested positive for coronavirus. Irish trade minister Leo Varadkar is also in self-isolation, but several ministers attended by video-link. The EU recently cancelled a summit after Council president Charles Michel's bodyguard also tested positive, as Europe begins to feel a second wave.

Swiss people are voting in a referendum on Sunday on whether to end free movement with the EU, after the far-right Swiss People's party (SVP) called for the move. Polls indicate 63 percent of Swiss people want to maintain the status quo, even though a quarter of Switzerland's 8.6 million population has become foreign. "Migrants change our culture," and make "trains and streets become less safe", the SVP campaign said.

China's pledge to become carbon neutral before 2060 is "good news" for Europe, but it sends a clear message to Washington ahead of the US election - in which climate change has become a significant aspect for voters.

Far-right zealots in Germany are using the pandemic to "build bridges" with mainstream corona-deniers, in a sign of the political damage caused by Covid-19 in Europe.

The EU health commissioner called on member states to communicate better, and enforce social distancing and hygiene rules to halt a new wave of coronavirus. "In some member states, the situation is now even worse than during the peak in March. This is a real cause for concern," Stella Kyriakides said on Thursday, adding that all countries need to enforce measures "at the very first sign of potential new outbreaks."

Bank accounts belonging to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny were frozen just days after the politician was apparently poisoned with Novichok and transported to Germany, said Navalny's spokeswoman Kira Yarmush on Thursday, Deutsche Welle writes. While Navalny was in coma, Russian bailiffs also placed an "arrest order" on Navalny's home, meaning his Moscow flat "cannot be sold, donated, or mortgaged," according to Yarmush.

"France will welcome around 1,000 people, half of whom are minors," said France's European affairs minister Clement Beaune. He had also told French broadcaster RTL that they will take in 500 unaccompanied minors from Moria, the EU hotspot on the Greek island of Lesbos. "France has already made a precise commitment for 350 minors and we are going to make a commitment for 150 more minors," he said.

Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, said Italians "also love freedom, but we also care about seriousness", in a response to British prime minister Boris Johnson's suggestion that the UK's rate of coronavirus infection was worse than both Italy and Germany's because Britons loved their freedom more, the Guardian writes. Johnson's remarks, apparently linking Italy and Germany's current rates of infections with historical experiences of totalitarianism, have been widely reported in Italy.

France's interior minister Gerald Darmanin on Thursday issued a statement in support of the European Commission's new pact on migration and asylum. "Each member state must do its part in a common effort, whether it is relocations or other exceptional measures through other types of mandatory contributions," he said.

Central European countries were quick to point out to the EU Commission president that they do not like her migration proposal. The asylum overhaul hit its first hurdle just 24 hours after it was announced.

Months after Black Lives Matter erupted, for many EU decision-makers the problems of racism in policing and criminal legal systems - the issues that sparked the George Floyd protests - are still 'over there', across the Atlantic.

Belgian Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes has said that wearing face masks will no longer be compulsory from October 1. "Wearing a mask is very important in the management of the epidemic. However, there is no point in imposing it everywhere all the time," she said. The national security council also eased some other measures, despite the increasing number of infections.

China has built nearly 380 internment camps for Muslims in the Xinjiang region, with construction on dozens of the continuing over the last two years, even as Chinese authorities said their "re-education" system was winding down, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute has found, the Guardian reports. The network of camps in China's far west are used to detain Uighurs and people from other Muslim minorities.

Belgium's King Philip appointed two "co-formateurs" to create a government Wednesday, pushing the process into its final phase one year and five months after elections. The two were Alexander De Croo (from the Open Vld party) and Paul Magnette (PS). The so-called Vivaldi coalition (named after the composer's 'Four Seasons' masterpiece) will contain the socialists, liberals and greens from both sides of the language border, and the Flemish christian democrats.