Eurotopics.net

The Belarusian blogger Sergei Tikhanovsky, husband of opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. The 43-year-old was convicted of "preparing and organising mass unrest" in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election. For commentators, this shows once again how far Lukashenka's Belarus has moved away from democratic standards.

France's President Macron has met with Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán in Budapest. Both stressed their willingness to cooperate despite differences, and Macron hinted at a concession on migration policy but said that Hungary was too inflexible on the subject of the rule of law for the EU to disburse money from the Covid recovery fund. Commentators discuss the purpose of the meeting.

Nine months after the Dutch general elections, the four previous coalition parties in The Hague have finally settled on a new coalition agreement. The press comments bitingly on the fact that Prime Minister Mark Rutte is now embarking on his fourth term in office.

The suicide of Spanish actor Verónica Forqué has reignited the debate about mental health in Spain. According to statistics, twelve percent of the population takes tranquillisers, and incidence rates for panic attacks, hypochondria and obsessive-compulsive disorders are rising sharply. Commentators look for causes and bemoan the lack of government action.

The Omicron variant of the coronavirus discovered in November is considerably more contagious than the Delta variant, which already spread faster than earlier strains. Experts expect it to become dominant in Europe soon - and perhaps as early as this week in the UK and Denmark. As the protection offered by double doses of the available vaccines is thought to fade after a few months, many countries are accelerating efforts to have their populations receive booster jabs. Europe's press debates the merits of this approach.