Category Archives: Europe

Ireland to crack down on ‘Dublin dodge’ used to evade UK travel ban

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Travellers from Middle East using Irish capital as a backdoor into Britain to swerve coronavirus rules

The Irish government has promised to crack down on travellers from the Middle East who use the “Dublin dodge” to enter the UK and evade coronavirus restrictions.

The number of people flying to Dublin from Dubai has increased since the UK added the United Arab Emirates to a travel ban list last month, prompting concern that passengers are using Ireland’s capital as a back door to Britain.

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How Sweden is taking back parking spaces to improve urban living

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An experiment with the ‘one-minute city’ gives priority to pedestrians and cyclists

It was a couple of parking spaces a few days ago. But now the area outside Malin Henriksson Talcoth’s gourmet sausage shop in Gothenburg has a bench, a picnic table and racks for cycles and e-scooters. It also has people talking, eating and enjoying themselves, despite subzero temperatures.

The workmen had arrived the previous week and built the wooden unit with benches facing, importantly, towards the pavement. “When the sun was out on Friday and Saturday, it was absolutely full of people, just having a takeaway coffee and a sausage,” Talcoth said.

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Balloon test flight plan under fire over solar geoengineering fears

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Swedish environmental groups warn test flight could be first step towards the adoption of a potentially “dangerous, unpredictable, and unmanageable” technology

A proposed scientific balloon flight in northern Sweden has attracted opposition from environmental groups over fears it could lead to the use of solar geoengineering to cool the Earth and combat the climate crisis by mimicking the effect of a large volcanic eruption.

In June, a team of Harvard scientists is planning to launch a high-altitude balloon from Kiruna in Lapland to test whether it can carry equipment for a future small-scale experiment on radiation-reflecting particles in the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Covering the Russia protest: ‘Police usually let western reporters go’

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Our Moscow correspondent reflects on a new wave of anger against Putin over the treament of dissident Alexei Navalny

Over the last decade, I’ve covered so many protests against Vladimir Putin in Russia that they all start to blur together.

But the past month’s demonstrations against the jailing of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny have seemed to me darker and more serious than ever. There are few fun signs and little chanting; the mood is joyless but determined. I’ve never seen the streets of Moscow locked down like they have been in 2021, patrolled by riot police called “cosmonauts” for their space-like helmets.

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UK importers brace for ‘disaster’ as new Brexit customs checks loom

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Exporters badly hit already but KPMG says ‘biggest headaches’ have yet to come’ for importers

British firms are warning of further Brexit red tape as the government prepares to introduce a long list of new controls on imports from the European Union in April and July.

In the coming months further checks are due to be phased in at the UK border, controlling everything from the import of sausages and live mussels to horses and trees, as well as the locations these checks can take place.

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Elton John: Brexit negotiators ‘screwed up’ deal for British musicians

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Singer calls for return to negotiation as touring artists face red tape and new costs, with Radiohead’s Colin Greenwood adding fresh criticism of UK government

Elton John: I learned by touring Europe in the 60s. Young artists need the same chance

Elton John has said that the UK’s Brexit negotiators “screwed up” a deal for British musicians and the broader music industry, and is calling for the government to re-enter negotiations.

Writing in the Guardian, John said: “Either the Brexit negotiators didn’t care about musicians, or didn’t think about them, or weren’t sufficiently prepared. They screwed up. It’s ultimately down to the British government to sort it out: they need to go back and renegotiate.

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EU ‘acting like absentee landlord’ over Brexit in Northern Ireland

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Expert’s criticism comes as thinktank warns of more friction if UK fails to manage relationship with Brussels

The EU has behaved like an “absentee landlord” in relation to Northern Ireland, an expert on Brexit in the region has said, as a new report by the Institute for Government warned of more conflict across all issues “if the UK fails to manage the relationship” with Brussels.

Under the Brexit trade deal more than 20 committees and bodies are supposed to be set up to cement a working post-Brexit relationship on everything from fishing to energy supplies and aviation deals.

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Freedom and fairness: Covid vaccine passport plans cause global unease

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Schemes are in development from Sweden to China, but there are fears around transmission and social unrest

It is the question being asked with increasing urgency around the world, at least in countries where the vaccine is already available: how much freedom to live life as it was before the pandemic should be granted to those who have been vaccinated against Covid-19?

Its impacts range from the speed at which economies can open, to when grandparents and grandchildren can hug again, but it is causing growing unease among decision-makers who warn there is a danger of dividing societies already under huge strain due to pandemic restraints.

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Outrage over French girl’s rape case sparks demand for law to protect minors

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Campaigners call for the introduction of an age of consent as 20 firefighters face charges

Protests will take place across France on Sunday in support of a woman allegedly raped by 20 firefighters when she was between 13 and 15 years old. Her case is being examined in the country’s highest court this week and campaigners hope it will lead to an age of sexual consent being enshrined in law as it is in the rest of the European Union.

Julie* says she was raped by Parisian firefighters over a period of two years, having been groomed by Pierre, a firefighter who had assisted her during a severe anxiety seizure when she was 13 in early 2008. Three of the accused have admitted they had sex with her but say it was consensual. In a journal written shortly afterwards Julie says she was “terrified and paralysed with fear” at the time.

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Poet, pioneer… can family finally honour legacy of Franco victim?

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DNA tests will confirm if exhumed body is Republican heroine, María Domínguez Remón, who overcame poverty to become the first female mayor

The hair that the clips and comb once held in place, probably in a bun, is long gone, as are the feet that filled the sandals, and the clothes to which the two buttons belong.

All that survives of the middle-aged woman who was murdered in 1936 and exhumed from the cemetery of the small Aragonese town of Fuendejalón last weekend is her skeleton, its split skull punched through by a bullet.

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The growing Brexit threat to Ireland

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Northern Ireland has become a touchstone for Brexit Britain as trade barriers threaten wider disruption. In the port of Larne, the challenges being faced offer useful lessons for the wider UK

The union jack flew proudly on Friday over the Victoria Orange Hall, a community centre in the Northern Irish port of Larne. Ferries arrived and trucks rolled off. In many ways it appeared to be business – and trade – as usual.

But tensions have been high in recent days because of post-Brexit border issues. Across much of Northern Ireland, supermarkets are struggling to fill shelves because exporters from Great Britain were unprepared for new checks – so consignments have not arrived.

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Coronavirus live: ‘We had clear focus on being quick but no blank cheque,’ says UK ex-vaccine chief of rollout success

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Kate Bingham says ‘the UK had a very strategic approach … to secure vaccines quickly. The European approach … was more about making sure you got the best value for money’

Venetians have celebrated a very different carnival this year, without the usual crowds of tourists, Reuters reported.

“It’s totally surreal,” said 47-year-old carnival-goer Chiara Ragazzon, an office worker. “What hits me most is the silence. You’ve always been able to hear music during the carnival, people having fun. But Venice in the fog - it’s still a magical place.”

Ragazzon and her husband had ventured into Venice from their home around 50 kilometres (30 miles) away.

More than 12 million people in the UK have now received a first dose of a coronavirus vaccine, according to government data up to and including 6 February.

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I crossed the world to see my dying dad – then the pandemic took me on a wild Europe odyssey

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When I tried to return from Jersey to Australia, I had no idea the journey would lead me through 16 cities in nine countries, and take nearly five months

On the morning of 1 July last year, while sitting in my apartment in the Sydney suburb of Balmain, I got the phone call I had dreaded since I moved to Australia.

My dad was dying.

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US return to the world stage presents huge opportunity for Britain

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Analysis: From Yemen and the Middle East, to Russia and China, the UK has to step up diplomatically

Joe Biden’s promise that the US is back on the world stage as an advocate of multilateralism holds huge opportunities for the UK so long as it steps up a gear diplomatically, uses its presidency of the G7 well and shifts its stance in the Middle East.

In the short term, Biden’s promise to end support for offensive operations in Yemen has led to calls for the UK to suspend its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, including from the Conservative chair of the defence select committee, Tobias Ellwood, and the shadow foreign secretary, Lisa Nandy.

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Angela Merkel: Russia’s expulsion of diplomats over Navalny protests ‘unjustified’

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German chancellor condemns expulsion of European diplomats as Alexei Navalny appears in court again

Angela Merkel has condemned as “unjustified” Russia’s expulsion of European diplomats for participating in unauthorised demonstrations in support of the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

“We consider these expulsions to be unjustified. We believe it is yet another aspect that can be observed right now of Russia being quite far from the rule of law,” the German chancellor said on Friday at an online press conference with France’s president, Emmanuel Macron.

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Orthodox Church under fire in Romania after baby dies following baptism

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Six-week-old suffered cardiac arrest during ceremony, which involves three immersions in holy water

The Orthodox Church in Romania is facing growing pressure to change baptism rituals after a baby died following a ceremony which involves immersing infants three times in holy water.

The six-week-old suffered a cardiac arrest and was rushed to hospital on Monday but he died a few hours later, the autopsy revealing liquid in his lungs. Prosecutors have opened a manslaughter investigation against the priest in the north-eastern city of Suceava.

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A quarter of people in France, Germany and the US may refuse Covid vaccine

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Survey finds hesitancy related to trust in government, and more acute in younger people

Nearly four in ten people in France, more than 25% of those in the US and 23% in Germany say they definitely or probably will not get vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a survey that underlines the challenge facing governments.

Hesitancy was markedly lower in Italy (12%), the UK (14%) and the Netherlands (17%), according to the seven-country survey, which revealed a close correlation between people’s reluctance to be vaccinated and their trust in central government.

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US supreme court sides with Germany in Nazi art dispute

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Court ruled unanimously that Germany had sovereign immunity in US courts from claims over the Guelph collection

The US supreme court rejected a suit on Wednesday by the heirs of Nazi-era Jewish art dealers for compensation from Germany for a storied collection of medieval art treasures.

Related: Nazi art dispute goes to US supreme court in landmark case

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Enter the Draghi: can ‘Super Mario’ save Italy as he did the euro?

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Called on to lead Italy’s government in crisis, the former central banker will need all the skills he honed saving the European currency

“Whatever it takes.” Three simple words that tamed the financial markets, saved the euro from possible collapse and turned Mario Draghi from an Italian technocrat into the central banker of his generation.

And an obvious choice to head a new coalition government in Rome at a time when the country is facing the triple whammy of Covid-19, economic collapse and political chaos.

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Court convicts French state for failure to address climate crisis

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State found guilty of ‘non-respect of its engagements’ aimed at fighting global warming

A Paris court has convicted the French state of failing to address the climate crisis and not keeping its promises to tackle greenhouse gas emissions.

In what has been hailed as a historic ruling, the court found the state guilty of “non-respect of its engagements” aimed at combating global warming.

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