Eurotopics.net

Donald Tusk, the leader of the conservative European People's Party (EPP) and former EU Council President, has called for the presidential election in Poland to be boycotted, arguing that the vote is unconstitutional. The government in Warsaw has been under fire for weeks for going ahead with plans to hold the election on 10 May - albeit entirely by postal vote - despite the pandemic.

After the statute of limitations expired, the Swiss Federal Criminal Court has ended its Fifa fraud trial without passing sentence. Former German Football Association presidents Theo Zwanziger and Wolfgang Niersbach and two other former Fifa officials were on trial over huge payments they received before the 2006 World Cup was awarded to Germany. The official reason is that the restrictions imposed in the wake of the corona crisis made it impossible to carry out the trial. However questions have also been raised regarding the work of the criminal investigators.

The head of the Turkish state-funded religious authority Diyanet, Ali Erbaş, claimed in a sermon that homosexuality was partly responsible for the coronavirus outbreak. LGBTI organisations, bar associations and opposition politicians protested but President Erdoğan and other leading AKP politicians defended Erbaş. The topic has sparked a fierce debate in Turkey.

Schools across Europe have been closed for weeks due to the coronavirus pandemic. Teachers are trying to supply pupils with schoolwork and materials via the Internet, but conditions for learning at home vary greatly from household to household. An intense debate about how soon children should return to school and how health protection measures and education can be reconciled is unfolding in the media.

Sweden is still refraining from adopting tougher measures to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Its borders and primary schools have remained open and there are no restrictions on leaving home, although visits to retirement homes have been banned. The press is divided about what the rest of Europe can learn from this model.