Figures show more than 420,000 applications were made from 2016-2020
The number of Irish passports issued in Great Britain rocketed in the years following the Brexit referendum, according to figures.
The data emerged as it was revealed that the celebrated British author John le Carré went to his grave as an Irish citizen.
Continue reading...Covid has given Peter Thiel’s secretive US tech company new opportunities to operate in Europe in ways some campaigners find worrying
The 24 March, 2020 will be remembered by some for the news that Prince Charles tested positive for Covid and was isolating in Scotland. In Athens it was memorable as the day the traffic went silent. Twenty-four hours into a hard lockdown, Greeks were acclimatising to a new reality in which they had to send an SMS to the government in order to leave the house. As well as millions of text messages, the Greek government faced extraordinary dilemmas. The European Union’s most vulnerable economy, its oldest population along with Italy, and one of its weakest health systems faced the first wave of a pandemic that overwhelmed richer countries with fewer pensioners and stronger health provision. The carnage in Italy loomed large across the Adriatic.
One Greek who did go into the office that day was Kyriakos Pierrakakis, the minister for digital transformation, whose signature was inked in blue on an agreement with the US technology company, Palantir. The deal, which would not be revealed to the public for another nine months, gave one of the world’s most controversial tech companies access to vast amounts of personal data while offering its software to help Greece weather the Covid storm. The zero-cost agreement was not registered on the public procurement system, neither did the Greek government carry out a data impact assessment – the mandated check to see whether an agreement might violate privacy laws.
Continue reading...Conversations recorded ahead of cases in which rescuers from charities charged with collaboration with people smugglers
Sicilian prosecutors investigating sea rescue NGOs and charities for alleged complicity in people smuggling have wiretapped several Italian journalists covering the central Mediterranean migration crisis and allegedly exposed their sources.
Prosecutors in Trapani this month charged rescuers from charities including Save the Children and Médecins Sans Frontières with collaboration with people smugglers after thousands of people were saved from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Continue reading...Verona restaurant and pizzeria owner Alessandro Bazzoni sanctioned in crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude oil
An Italian restaurant owner accidentally put on a US sanctions blacklist before Donald Trump left the presidency has described the last couple of months as a “nightmare”.
In a case of mistaken identity, Alessandro Bazzoni, who owns a restaurant and pizzeria in the northern Italian city of Verona, had sanctions slapped against his company as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on blacklisted Venezuelan crude oil.
Continue reading...Bruno Le Maire’s forecast follows imposition of third national lockdown by Emmanuel Macron
A fresh lockdown in France will dent economic growth this year but it is too early to say by how much, the finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, has warned.
Amid concerns that increasing infection rates across much of continental Europe will slow the recovery from the pandemic, Le Maire indicated on Friday that a forecast of 6% GDP growth this year may need to be revised downwards.
Continue reading...Philippe Robrecht was living the quiet life with his wife and hens when stardom came calling back
Something odd happened to Philippe Robrecht while hunkered down in lockdown on Inishbofin, a tiny island with just 170 inhabitants off Ireland’s Atlantic coast: he became, again, a pop star.
The 55-year-old musician and singer had not made an album in almost a decade and was all but forgotten in his native Belgium when the Covid-19 pandemic reached Ireland last year.
Continue reading...U-turns, infighting and vaccine blunders cast sense of disarray over Dublin’s pandemic response
When Ireland’s taoiseach, Micheál Martin, gave his latest Covid-19 address earlier this week there was none of the poetry or literary allusions that have peppered previous speeches.
Sensing the nation was fed up and in no mood for high-brow quotes, Martin appealed for patience on what he termed the final stretch of a terrible journey. “A lot has been asked of everyone … it has been, and continues to be, exceptionally difficult.”
Continue reading...From France to Spain, Germany to Greece, tight rules are in place to contain the spread of coronavirus
Europe may not be subject to the drastic lockdown measures introduced to combat the first wave of coronavirus a year ago, but many countries still face another Easter of greatly reduced meeting and movement.
In France, new restrictions come into effect across the country from 7pm on Saturday that limit travel to within 10km (six miles) of home, absent one of the allowed “imperative” reasons. Sworn declarations known as “attestations” will be necessary for anyone travelling outside these rules.
Continue reading...Government commitment to Horizon Europe fund averts immediate threat to science, say universities
The government has stepped in at the 11th hour with an additional £250m in funding to help pay for the UK’s association with Horizon Europe, the European Union’s funding programme for research and innovation.
Universities welcomed the move as “a significant affirmation of the government’s belief in research” which would avert the immediate threat to UK science.
Continue reading...Hans Kluge urges ramping up of manufacturing and asks governments to share excess shots
Europe’s vaccination campaign is “unacceptably slow” while rising infection rates in most countries across the region mean its virus situation is “more worrying than we have seen in several months”, the World Health Organization has said.
The WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said on Thursday that vaccines “present our best way out of this pandemic. Not only do they work, they are highly effective in preventing infection. However, their rollout is unacceptably slow.”
Continue reading...European commission’s latest move in long-running dispute draws defiant response from Warsaw
The European commission has said it is taking Poland to the bloc’s highest court over a legal change it alleges undermines judges’ independence and prevents them applying EU law, drawing an instant and defiant response from Warsaw.
In the latest salvo in a longstanding dispute over respect for the rule of law, Brussels said on Wednesday it was also asking the European court of justice (ECJ) to make an interim order suspending Poland’s 2019 law until its final judgment is delivered.
Continue reading...Ruling that face masks must be worn on beaches comes amid fears of fourth Covid wave
The Spanish tourist industry has reacted with dismay to the government’s decree that face masks must be worn in all outdoor spaces, including beaches and swimming pools, even when it is possible to maintain social distancing.
“We’re going through hell with thousands of jobs and businesses threatened and now they want to turn the beaches into open-air field hospitals,” José Luis Zoreda, vice-president of Exceltur, the umbrella organisation that represents Spain’s tourism industry, told El País newspaper.
Continue reading...Moscow says leaders discussed possibility of shipments and joint production amid shortage of doses inside Europe
Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron discussed Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine and its use in Europe on a conference call on Tuesday, the Kremlin said.
Moscow’s statement said that among other subjects the Russian, German and French leaders discussed prospects for the registration of the vaccine in the EU and the possibility of shipments and joint production in EU nations. It did not say who raised the topic.
Continue reading...Collapse of Archegos has reportedly prompted SEC and FCA inquiries into Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and others
UK and US regulators are looking into whether global investment banks breached rules by holding group discussions shortly before launching a fire sale of nearly $20bn worth of assets belonging to the distressed hedge fund Archegos Capital Management, according to reports.
The Securities Exchange Commission is said to have requested further information from major US banks Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, as well as Japan’s Nomura and Swiss lender Credit Suisse about a meeting with Archegos founder Bill Hwang on Thursday.
Continue reading...UN group of experts deeply disturbed by connections between Wagner Group and violence since election
Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, a private military contractor, have committed human rights abuses in the Central African Republic while fighting alongside government forces, according to a group of independent UN experts.
The UN working group said it was “deeply disturbed” by the connections between Russian mercenaries and a series of violent attacks that have taken place in the CAR since elections in December.
Continue reading...Commission security proposal would restrict UK access to Horizon Europe quantum computing project
Britain will join China in being locked out of research with the EU on cutting-edge quantum technology, such as new breeds of supercomputers, due to security concerns under a European commission proposal opposed by academics and 19 member states.
At a meeting on Friday, commission officials said the EU needed to keep control of intellectual property on key projects and that working with even close allies such as the UK and Switzerland opened up an unacceptable risk.
Continue reading...Several thousand Germans head to Crete and Balearic islands as pandemic third wave spreads across EU
The first foreign tourists may have landed in locked-down Spain and Greece, but as a third wave of the pandemic accelerates across the EU, few Europeans will be enjoying an Easter break abroad – or even away from home.
German holidaymakers began arriving on Crete on Monday, with six half-empty flights landing at Heraklion airport after the tourist minister, Haris Theoharis, said some visitors could be permitted before the country’s planned reopening on 14 May.
Continue reading...Liquidation of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets
Financial regulators across the world are monitoring the collapse of the New York-based billionaire Bill Hwang’s personal hedge fund.
The sudden liquidation of Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management sparked a fire sale of more than $20bn assets that has left some of the world’s biggest investment banks nursing billions of dollars of losses.
Continue reading...EU rules post-Brexit limit UK nationals to maximum 90-day stay per 180 days
Spain has warned British tourists and second-home owners that they are not entitled to spend more than 90 days in the country at a time post-Brexit, but dismissed reports that offenders would be rounded up and deported if they overstay.
Rules applying across the EU – which now apply to Britons – limit visa-free visits to those from outside the bloc to six months with an additional restriction of a maximum 90-day stay per 180-day period.
Continue reading...Ylva Johansson’s visit Lesbos and Samos met with demonstrations from locals, as charities warn camps are ‘recipe for catastrophe’
The EU is to give Greece funding to build five new refuge camps on the Aegean islands.
Ylva Johansson, the EU home affairs commissioner, visited Lesbos and Samos on Monday to announce that the EU would provide €250m of funding (£213m) for five new structures on the islands of Lesbos, Samos, Chios, Kos and Leros.
A large crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the town hall on the waterfront in Mytilene, the capital of Lesbos, to protest against her visit. Some wrapped themselves in Greek flags and others held signs calling for European solidarity. One sign read: “No to European Guantánamos. Shame on you, Europe.” Another said: “No structures on the island, Europe take responsibility.”