Category Archives: European commission

Greta Thunberg accuses MEPs of ‘surrender on climate and environment’

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European parliament votes to continue payments to farmers with no green conditions attached

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish school strike pioneer and environmental activist, has accused MEPs of surrendering on the climate and environment by voting in favour of a watered-down reform of the EU’s common agricultural policy.

The European parliament voted late on Wednesday in favour of proposals put forward by the main political groups that will continue 60% of the current direct payments to farmers with weak or non-existent green conditions attached.

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Johnson and Macron hold talks on coronavirus and Brexit

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UK and French leaders spoke as British and EU negotiating teams engage in eleventh-hour trade deal meetings

Boris Johnson has held Brexit telephone talks with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the clock ticks down to the deadline for a deal.

The two leaders spoke on Saturday with seemingly just days remaining for an agreement on a future trade deal to be reached, after UK and EU negotiating teams met on Friday for what sources said was a positive meeting.

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Covid-19 tests that give results in minutes to be rolled out across world

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Global initiative will supply 120m rapid antigen tests to low- and middle-income countries

Tests for Covid-19 that show on-the-spot results in 15 to 30 minutes are about to be rolled out across the world, potentially saving many thousands of lives and slowing the pandemic in both poor and rich countries.

In a triumph for a global initiative to get vital drugs and vaccines to fight the virus, 120m rapid antigen tests from two companies will be supplied to low- and middle-income countries for $5 (£3.90) each or even less.

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Ursula von der Leyen says Poland’s ‘LGBT-free zones’ have no place in EU

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In her first ‘state of union’ speech, European commission president delivers criticism of Polish ruling party

The head of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said Poland’s “LGBT free zones” are “humanity-free zones” that have no place in the European Union in her strongest criticism yet of Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party.

In a wide-ranging 77-minute speech spanning from coronavirus to the climate emergency, Von der Leyen pledged to build “a union of equality” and criticised European member states that watered down EU foreign policy messages on human rights.

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EU official says asylum policy impasse ‘part of the problem’ at Moria

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Ylva Johansson says EU working to reduce number of refugees and migrants on Greek islands

A senior EU official has said Europe’s failure to agree a common migration and asylum policy was partly responsible for the “unacceptable” conditions at the Moria camp on Lesbos that burned to the ground this week, leaving more than 12,000 people without shelter.

Ylva Johansson, the European commissioner for home affairs, said that when she took office in December 2019, the situation for 40,000 refugees and migrants living on Greek islands was “unsustainable and unacceptable”.

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Bereaved urge EU chief to supervise Italian coronavirus inquiry

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Relatives say there appear to be ‘signs of crimes against humanity’ in Lombardy region

Relatives of coronavirus victims in Italy have urged the European commission president to supervise an investigation into the deaths, as 100 new cases were submitted to prosecutors on Monday.

In a letter to Ursula von der Leyen, the legal commission of Noi Denunceremo (We Will Denounce), the group driving the investigation, said there appeared to be “signs of unspeakable crimes against humanity” in Lombardy, the region worst hit by the virus in Italy.

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EU says China behind ‘huge wave’ of Covid-19 disinformation

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Brussels shifts position by accusing Beijing for first time of running false campaigns

China has been accused by Brussels of running disinformation campaigns inside the European Union, as the bloc set out a plan to tackle a “huge wave” of false facts about the coronavirus pandemic. 

The European commission said Russia and China were running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighbourhood, and globally”. While the charge against Russia has been levelled on many occasions, this is the first time the EU executive has publicly named China as a source of disinformation. 

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June Brexit summit on cards as talks head for deadlock

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PM and commission president likely to meet with progress unlikely in talks next week

Brexit talks are heading towards deadlock as senior advisers in Brussels and London concede a breakthrough in the final round of talks next week is unlikely.

It means a high-level political summit between Boris Johnson and the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, in the middle of June is now almost certain as talks among officials on a trade deal and the future relationship hit the buffers.

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EU green recovery package sets a marker for the world

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The bloc is showing the way in rebuilding coronavirus-ravaged economies to fight the climate emergency

The European Commission has put down a marker for the world with its green recovery package. It sets a high standard for other nations, using the rebuilding of coronavirus-ravaged economies to tackle the even greater threat of the climate emergency, in principle at least.

With the world fast approaching the point when climate chaos becomes inevitable, how the trillions of recovery dollars – or euros – are spent is a use-it-or-lose-it moment, so what the EU does really matters. Climate change is a global crisis, meaning all nations must act and some must lead the way.

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Franco-German plan for European recovery will face compromises

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Macron-Merkel plan to borrow on behalf of EU to help worst-hit countries is already being challenged by ‘frugal four’

When France and Germany announced a plan to raise €500bn (£448bn) on financial markets to fund a European coronavirus recovery plan, leaders sought to underscore the magnitude of the moment.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, hailed “a real change of philosophy”, with the plan for the European commission to borrow money on behalf of the entire EU and issue grants to the most stricken industries and regions. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, declared: “The nation state has no future standing alone,” and the German finance minister, Olaf Scholz, evoked the legacy of the US founding father Alexander Hamilton, who helped to transform the US into a true political unit with his scheme for the national government to take on debts accrued by individual states.

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Exclusive: big pharma rejected EU plan to fast-track vaccines in 2017

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World’s top drug firms turned down proposals for work on pathogens like coronavirus

The world’s largest pharmaceutical companies rejected an EU proposal three years ago to work on fast-tracking vaccines for pathogens like coronavirus to allow them to be developed before an outbreak, the Guardian can reveal.

The plan to speed up the development and approval of vaccines was put forward by European commission representatives sitting on the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) – a public-private partnership whose function is to back cutting-edge research in Europe – but it was rejected by industry partners on the body.

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We lived the European dream. Will any politician stand up for open borders?

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Millions of us built our lives on the promise of free movement. Under cover of coronavirus, that dream is disappearing

They said he was German, others Italian, but then again he might have been French. We may never know the true nationality of “patient zero” in Europe. And it doesn’t much matter, because the true patient zero in our continent is Europe itself.

From the first detection of the virus on European territory, Europe has been in a coma.

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Young climate activists call for EU to radically reform farming sector

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Fridays for Future to publish letter urging reform of common agricultural policy ahead of European commission meeting

The EU’s farming sector needs radical reform, and the common agricultural policy (CAP) must be rewritten if the climate crisis is to be tackled, a group of young climate activists will urge.

Fridays for Future, founded by teenagers in the wake of Greta Thunberg’s school strikes, will confront the European commission’s vice-president, Frans Timmermans, online to call for new plans to cut greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, and replace subsidies based on the amount of land farmed with payments for farmers supplying public goods, such as clean water, clean air and lower carbon emissions.

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Carmakers press for EU and UK subsidies after slump in demand

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Green campaigners say giving subsidies to all cars would be missed opportunity

Carmakers are negotiating with the EU and UK for subsidies to help boost demand for new vehicles, but campaigners are concerned that the stimulus could end up paying for pollution unless emissions restrictions are imposed.

The carmakers argue that subsidies would help kickstart demand as lockdown measures ease and factories reopen, preventing tens of thousands of job losses amid a global slump in car orders.

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Merkel intervenes in damaging row between Germany and Brussels

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European commission has warned of possible legal action over constitutional court ruling

Angela Merkel has stepped in to try to find a way out of a damaging clash between Germany and Brussels after the EU threatened to bring infringement proceedings over a ruling by the country’s constitutional court.

The German chancellor stressed that the dispute was solvable, after the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, issued an unusual statement on Sunday warning of possible legal action against Berlin.

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Czech PM must resign if conflict of interest is confirmed, say MEPs

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Leaked report from stormy visit to Prague tells Andrej Babiš to stamp out ‘oligarchies’

The Czech government needs to stamp out “oligarchic structures” in the spending of European funds, a leaked EU report into an alleged conflict of interest centred on the country’s billionaire prime minister, Andrej Babiš, has concluded.

The report, by the European parliament’s budgetary control committee, calls on Babiš to stand down as prime minister or sell his business, if a conflict of interest is confirmed. Babiš should also renounce his seat at the table in upcoming negotiations on the European Union’s next seven-year budget “until his potential conflict of interests is fully resolved”, the MEPs say.

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Europe had hottest year on record in 2019, report shows

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Findings confirm 11 of the 12 warmest years in Europe occurred in past two decades

Europe had its hottest year on record last year, new data has confirmed, with periods of exceptional heat last February, June and July, and one of the wettest Novembers on record.

Previous records were broken by only a small margin, but the findings confirmed that 11 out of the 12 warmest years in Europe have occurred in the past two decades, according to the European State of the Climate 2019 report, published on Wednesday.

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Sanctions should not impede coronavirus fight, EU diplomat says

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Josep Borrell backs UN call for global ceasefire to allow the world to focus on pandemic

Sanctions should not stop the delivery of medical equipment and supplies to countries trying to contain outbreaks of coronavirus, the EU’s top diplomat has said.

Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, made his comments in a declaration on Friday in which he backed the UN’s call for an immediate global ceasefire to allow the world to focus on the pandemic.

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Hungary’s emergency law ‘incompatible with being in EU’, say MEPs group

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Measures voted on Monday will allow Viktor Orbán to rule by decree without time limits

Hungary’s emergency law that enables the prime minister, Viktor Orbán, to rule by decree without time limits is incompatible with being in the EU, the European parliament’s liberal group said on Tuesday.

Passing measures ostensibly to tackle coronavirus, the Hungarian parliament on Monday voted to give Orbán the power to rule by decree with no clear end-date. The law also introduces jail terms for spreading disinformation about the virus, raising fears it could be used to neuter critics of the government’s approach.

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UK-EU talks on post-Brexit relations ‘in deep freeze’

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Brussels laments London’s failure to table comprehensive legal text to work on

Planned negotiating rounds on the UK’s future relationship with the EU have been abandoned as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, with Boris Johnson’s government still to table a comprehensive legal text for both sides to work on.

During a European commission briefing on Thursday, envoys for the EU capitals were told that holding negotiations via video-conferencing had so far proved impossible.

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