Eurotopics.net

France and the UK are locked in a major dispute over post-Brexit fishing licences in the English Channel. French fishing boats threatened to blockade the harbour of the Channel island of Jersey. Both countries have deployed naval vessels to the area. Commentators discuss what can be done to prevent such confrontations.

According to a media report, Czech Deputy Prime Minister Jan Hamáček offered to conceal the involvement of Russia's intelligence services in an attack on an ammunition depot in the Czech Republic in exchange for Moscow supplying the country with a million doses of Sputnik V. Hamáček denies the accusation but has not been able to disprove it. Commentators are nonplussed by this latest development in Czech-Russian relations.

The ambulance service in the Estonian capital of Tallinn has given its employees an ultimatum: those who haven't been vaccinated by the middle of May will have their contracts terminated. A member of staff contacted the media to report the new policy. Estonia's press discusses whether mandatory vaccination is justified.

Eight people died in a fire in an unregistered hostel in the centre of Riga at the end of April. The subsequent police investigation brought to light serious problems in this and other illegal hostels in the Latvian capital. The media criticise what appears to be a systemic lack of state supervision.

A popular initiative aimed at introducing an "opt-out" system for organ donation has been launched in Switzerland. If a corresponding law were passed, the organs of all deceased persons would be available for transplant unless that person had stipulated otherwise. Swiss media are at odds over the moral and practical consequences of the system, which is already used in several countries.