Swiss say terms unacceptable despite Brussels’ claims they are better than those offered to UK
Switzerland has walked out of talks on a closer trading relationship with the European Union despite being offered better terms than the UK in key areas, EU officials have claimed.
On Wednesday the country’s foreign minister, Ignazio Cassis, pulled the plug on long-running discussions with the EU, saying that Berne’s conditions were “not met”.
Continue reading...EU citizens stopped by Border Force officers tell of being fingerprinted, detained and treated ‘like criminals’
EU tourists coming to the UK have told of being fingerprinted, detained and treated like liars by border officials before trying to travel through the Channel tunnel or by ferry at Calais.
Sergio D’Alberti, a 51-year-old Italian hotel manager currently out of work due to the Covid pandemic, told the Guardian he was held for seven hours at the French port after UK Border Force officials concluded he would be a potential drain on the benefits system.
Continue reading...Commission demands €10 per dose for each day of delay as compensation
The European Commission has demanded an urgent court order requiring AstraZeneca to deliver millions more vaccines to the bloc or face a hefty fine, in a case that may reflect its anger more than its need for doses.
“AstraZeneca did not even try to respect the contract,” the EU’s lawyer, Rafaël Jafferali, told a court in Brussels on Wednesday, saying the EU wanted €10 per dose for each day of delay as compensation for the company’s alleged non-compliance.
Continue reading...Belarusian authorities have released a video of Sofia Sapega, the girlfriend of the detained journalist Raman Pratasevich. The video appears to show Sapega confessing to being the editor of an anti-government channel on the social media site Telegram.
Family members have said her and Pratasevich's confessions were clearly coerced. An earlier video showed Pratasevich saying police were treating him well and confessing to organising anti-government protests in Minsk
Continue reading...European Commission proposes more factchecking and algorithm changes to tackle disinformation
A “massive anti-vaccination campaign” has been cited by the European Commission as a reason for social media platforms to intensify their factchecking and revise the internal algorithms that can amplify disinformation.
Under a revised code of practice proposed by Brussels, companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter would need to show why particular material is disseminated and prove that false information is being blocked.
Continue reading...Parents of Raman Pratasevich fear for his life, as mother of girlfriend Sofia Sapega says she was not involved in politics
The parents of Raman Pratasevich have pleaded for international help to free the Belarusian journalist as US president Joe Biden said sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime were “in play”, without revealing further details.
From their new home in Poland, Natalia Pratasevich, the blogger’s mother, told Agence France-Presse: “I’m asking, I’m begging, I’m calling on the whole international community to save him.
Continue reading...Shutting Turów lignite mine would cause thousands of job losses, says development minister
Poland’s government has defied an injunction by the top European Union court that ordered the immediate closure of a major brown coalmine, with officials saying it would shake the nation’s energy system and lead to the loss of thousands of jobs.
The country’s development minister, Jarosław Gowin, said Poland would not shut the lignite mine in Turów, on the border with Germany and the Czech Republic, but instead was engaged in “very intensive diplomatic and law-related efforts” to secure undisturbed operation of the mine and connected power plant that generates 7% of Poland‘s energy.
Continue reading...EU commission president says it is Brexit, not protocol, that is disrupting trade across the Irish sea
Ursula von der Leyen has blamed Brexit for the disruption to trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland but has reiterated her offer to find “practical solutions” to issues destabilising politics in the region.
After a summit of the 27 heads of state and government in Brussels, the European Commission president defended the arrangements in the withdrawal agreement designed to avoid a border on the island of Ireland.
Continue reading...European Union leaders have agreed to impose economic sanctions on Belarus. They have also called on their airlines to avoid the former Soviet republic's airspace, while authorising work to ban Belarusian airlines from European skies and airports. 'Belarus used its control over its airspace in order to perpetrate a state hijacking, therefore the safety and security of flights through Belarus airspace can no longer be trusted,' said the head of the bloc's executive, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
EU’s 27 heads of state call for the immediate release of opposition blogger Roman Protasevich
EU leaders triggered new economic sanctions against Belarus and punitive measures against its national airline as a dissident taken from a “hijacked” Ryanair flight was paraded on the country’s television news apparently confessing to crimes against the state.
In a summit communique swiftly agreed in Brussels on Monday night, the EU’s 27 heads of state and government condemned the forced landing of flight FR4978 in Minsk and called for the immediate release of opposition blogger Roman Protasevich and his Russian girlfriend, Sofia Sapega.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Myanmar to Peru
Continue reading...Rising number of British B.1.617.2 cases to push back Brussels decision by two weeks
A decision in Brussels to add the UK to an EU “white list” of countries from where tourists will be welcome this summer is to be delayed, it is understood, due to concerns over the Covid variant first identified in India.
EU diplomats were expected to use a revised threshold of infection cases to extend the list of countries at a meeting on Friday but sources said that the decision will be put back by two weeks.
Continue reading...Confused over regulations, Home Office border staff meet legitimate visitors and workers with suspicion
EU citizens living and working in the UK have revealed how they are being met with suspicion and threats that they will be refused entry at the UK border for the first time in their lives, fuelling fresh fears that Border Force officials have not been trained in the new Brexit rules.
Wolfgang, a German national who runs an IT business, was detained at Heathrow airport despite having proof of settled status, indefinite leave to remain and a British passport on the way.
Continue reading...Tit-for-tat sanctions over Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs puts halt on investment agreement
The European parliament has voted overwhelmingly to “freeze” any consideration of a massive investment deal with China, following recent tit-for-tat sanctions over Beijing’s treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang province.
According to the resolution, the parliament, which must ratify the deal, “demands that China lift the sanctions before parliament can deal with the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI)”. Some MEPs warned that the lifting of the sanctions would not in itself ensure the deal’s ratification.
Continue reading...Arrival of thousands of migrants in Spanish enclave is just latest example of issue that affects whole of ‘Fortress Europe’
On the outskirts of the Spanish city of Ceuta, a warehouse has been hastily transformed into a makeshift shelter for young people, their actions watched over by hired security. Days after joining an unprecedented influx of 8,000 migrants into Spain, the fate of these minors who arrived alone has become a thorny issue, stretching far beyond the north African enclave.
“It’s important to understand that we’re seeing children that are much younger than the usual – children of seven, eight, nine years old,” Spain’s minister for social rights, Ione Belarra told broadcaster RTVE on Wednesday. “Many of them didn’t understand the consequences of crossing the border and we’re finding that many of them want to return home.”
Continue reading...Bulgaria focused on protecting the economy over saving older people from Covid. Ultimately, it will achieve neither
April will forever be in my memory as a month of painful unfairness: it is when I had my first Covid-19 vaccine in the UK and my unvaccinated father died of the virus in Bulgaria. I’m a middle-aged, healthy woman. My father was a vulnerable 85-year-old with underlying health conditions.
I have a pile of letters from the NHS that arrived for my father since January, inviting him to get a vaccination in London, the city he left for his native Bulgaria six months before. With sadness and disquiet, I wonder why Bulgaria did not protect my father in his old age while the UK’s NHS has made every endeavour to do so. Why have I been protected in my middle age while about 90% of Bulgarians over 80 have not?
Continue reading...Boris Johnson likes to pretend that free-trade deals are easy and have no downside. Talks with Australia are proving him wrong
There is agreement across the Conservative party that free trade is a good thing, in theory. Unity is harder to sustain over practical detail, as has become clear through negotiations on a deal with Australia.
The agreement has immense symbolic value. It would be the first substantial post-Brexit deal that was not a rollover of terms that were available under EU membership. The prime minister sees it as the enactment of his “global Britain” rhetoric. The government is determined to have such a trophy ready in time for next month’s G7 summit.
Continue reading...UK could also face travel block due to India variant and own incoming rules if altered EU policy stands
Fully vaccinated Britons could still be told to quarantine at their EU holiday destination due to concerns over the Covid variant first detected in India and a failure to allow Europeans to visit Britain freely, according to a policy agreed in Brussels.
Representatives of the 27 member states on Wednesday provisionally approved a change of the policy under which anyone from a non-EU country could travel if they were able to prove they had been fully vaccinated.
Continue reading...Increased flexibility of vaccine expected to have ‘significant impact’ on rollout in EU member states
The Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine can be stored at fridge temperature for much longer than previously recommended, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The previous advice was the vaccine needed to be kept at an ultra-low temperature, between -70C and -80C, until a few days before use when it could be transferred to a standard medical fridge.
Continue reading...Analysis: internal tensions and differences with the US have left the bloc unable to take a clear position on Israel-Palestine
If the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, wanted to symbolise the Joe Biden administration’s determination not to become embroiled in the Israel-Palestine issue, he could not have timed better his current trip to Copenhagen, Reykjavik and Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Important discussions on the Arctic and the climate crisis may be on the agenda, but the chilly north is a distance from the tunnels, rocket fire and screams of those suffering in the latest war in the Middle East.
It may well be that in his numerous calls to key regional actors on the plane to Denmark Blinken made more progress in inching Israel, and Hamas, towards a ceasefire the US had been reluctant to demand in public.
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