Eurotopics.net

Churchgoers in Romania were to be able to pick up blessed bread outside churches for Orthodox Easter, despite the coronavirus. Now Interior Minister Vela has backpedalled in the wake of harsh criticism. Instead the bread and "holy fire" are to be brought to people's homes on request. For the press this is the only sensible decision, despite the importance attached to Easter in Romania.

Austria has taken the initiative and began easing its lockdown measures for containing the coronavirus on Tuesday. Plans for an exit strategy from the restrictions are also being made in other European countries. Journalists discuss when such steps can be taken and what dilemmas societies face.

The International Monetary Fund has predicted that the coronavirus pandemic will spark the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s. GDPs are set to shrink by 7.5 percent in the Eurozone and around three percent globally. Europe's press voices concern and discusses the consequences.

As the focus of global debate slowly shifts from curbing the coronavirus to how to end the social and economic restrictions, previously dominant "green" issues such as climate protection seem to have disappeared from the political and social agenda. Europe's press stresses in unison that these issues are no less urgent than they were before - on the contrary.

Today, Wednesday, the Polish parliament is debating a law that would ban abortion and make sex education at schools a punishable offence. Human rights organisations are fiercely criticising the government and accusing it of taking advantage of the fact that public protest is not possible in the current lockdown. People are instead using posters, car windshields and windows to express their opposition to the legislation. Polish media join in the protest.