Euobserver.com

Amsterdam announced on Thursday that face masks will be obligatory for people aged 13 and older in designated crowded places, such as the red-light district and shopping streets in the city centre. "These are areas where it is tight and busy and where other measures have had an insufficient effect or lead to undesirable economic effects," said the town hall. Rotterdam has followed the same idea.

Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Thursday that he would ask the country's Constitutional Tribunal to look into whether the Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women is aligned with the country's constitution, the Polish press agency reported. "There are very serious doubts (…) that cannot be passed over," Morawieck said. Earlier this week, Poland's labour ministry started the process of withdrawing the country from the treaty.

UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, said on Thursday night that a ban on indoor meetings will be introduced in Greater Manchester, parts of East Lancashire, West Yorkshire and Leicester to stop the spike of new coronavirus cases, mainly caused by people "not abiding to social distancing," The Guardian reported. The new lockdown measures, announced via Twitter on the eve of the Eid celebrations, were criticised by Labour and Conservative MPs.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) warned on Thursday that 26 banks in the EU hold large exposures of increasingly-risky leveraged loans which may default due to the coronavirus crisis. "As the pandemic and the ensuing economic lockdown impair leveraged borrowers' capacities to repay their debts, some banks may suffer losses related to the increase in credit risk and from their mark-to-market positions," EBA said.

Thousands of people demonstrated on Thursday in Belarus in a rally organised by the president's electoral rival Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the BBC reported. About 60,000 supporters gathered in Minsk, a few days before the election on 9 August. Tikhanovskaya decided to run for the presidency after her husband was jailed earlier this year. Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko has faced a wave of protests since the beginning of his election campaign.

Italian senators on Thursday approved stripping far-right leader Matteo Salvini of his parliamentary immunity. The vote was close: 149 senators voted for, 141 against. Salvini now faces trial for allegedly kidnapping 131 rescued migrants last July, when he refused to let a rescue ship disembark on the island of Lampedusa. "I am proud to have defended Italy and I would do it again," Salvini said, referring to the vote.

Six Polish cities that declared themselves as "LGBTI-free zones" have been denied funding under the EU's Town Twinning programme for failing to meet the standards of "equal access and non-discrimination".

It's worth noting that the security of the individual is at the heart of the new EU Security Union, rather than the security of the member states, or even the security of the EU.

The US is to pull thousands of combat soldiers out of Germany back to America in a political blow by president Donald Trump.

Poland is considering reimposing quarantine measures for people returning from some countries where the number of new coronavirus cases is rising, Reuters reported. "We are considering introducing a quarantine for particular countries from the European Union and from outside of the EU," government spokesperson Piotr Muller on Thursday told private broadcaster Polsat News. He referred to Spain and France as countries triggering concerns inside the Polish government.

UK health secretary Matt Hancock said on Thursday that London will do everything to control the spread of a second wave, Reuters reported. "We have significant concerns about the second wave that is coming across Europe, [but] it's not just Spain ... there are other countries too where the number of cases is rising," Hancock said, after the UK reimposed 14-day quarantine on people arriving from Spain at the weekend.

EU ambassadors are expected to exclude Algeria from the 'safe list' of countries from which the bloc allows non-essential travel. The list would be reduced to 11 countries if the provisional decision is confirmed in writing by EU officials. The deadline for submissions is Thursday afternoon. The countries of the list are Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Tunisia and Uruguay.

French European affairs minister Clement Beaune said on Wednesday that his country will continue to defend the interests of fishermen in Brexit talks. He said that France would be "intransigent" on this aspect since EU fisherman should be able to keep the right to fish in British waters after the transition period. "We will not accept a deal at any price," he said in an interview on Wednesday.

Belarus's president Alexander Lukashenko, who is running for the sixth presidential term, said on Wednesday that the country's authorities have detained 32 members of a Russian private military company, according to The Guardian. Those arrested are accused of planning to destabilise Belarus during the election campaign, just a few days before the presidential election on 9 August. Some observers consider the arrests as a campaign stunt by Lukashenko.

The head of Germany's Robert Koch Institute for health, Lothar Wieler, said that young Germans going on holiday and ignoring coronavirus rules are an increasing cause of concern, The Guardian reported. Footages of revellers in Spain's Mallorca and a Bulgarian resort town have been splashed across German media. "It is reckless and careless to take part in wild parties," said Wieler, calling the partygoers "irresponsible".

Government leaders and officials from six Western Balkan countries on Wednesday discussed the negative economic and social impact of the coronavirus pandemic and ways to avoid delays in EU membership talks, AP reported. They agreed to accelerate the recovery by eliminating barriers that hinder economic growth, as well as pursuing an investment plan to attract foreign investment in the region - with a focus on infrastructure and energy.

A penitentiary court in Catalonia on Wednesday suspended the flexible prison scheme granted to five pro-independence leaders jailed last year over their roles in organising an outlawed referendum in 2017, El País reported. The head of the regional government in Catalonia, Quim Torra, criticised the ruling on social media. "No, the law does not include revenge as a response. Is this the dialogue Spain is offering?," he wrote.

The renovation of old buildings will be crucial to the success of the European Green Deal and a clean, robust economic recovery. Unless there is serious commitment from policymakers, we risk the Green Deal turning into a pumpkin.

The European Commission signed this week a €63m contract with the US-based biopharmaceutical company Gilead to secure batches of remdesivir for 30,000 patients with "severe" Covid-19 symptoms - after the US left Europe and most of the world without supplies.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to hire more people from racial minorities after meeting anti-racist MEPs on Tuesday