Euobserver.com

European companies imported 40 percent more coal from South Africa in the first five months of this year than over the whole of 2021, figures obtained by Reuters showed on Wednesday. Russian coal imports will be banned in the EU in August as part of wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow. Companies in the Netherlands, Italy, France, Spain, Denmark, Poland, Germany, and Ukraine have received coal from South Africa this year.

Ukraine wants to increase grain exports via Romania's Black Sea ports and set up storage facilities in EU countries to avert a worsening food crisis.

The EU has a problem with anti-Muslim hatred and its institutions are doing little to help, some 41 civil society groups have said.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has "humiliated himself" by his conduct in the war and the West wanted to see him defeated on the battlefields of Ukraine, America's EU ambassador has said.

Just over 900 cases of monkeypox, confirmed or suspected, have so been reported in the EU including Norway and Iceland. Most are found in Germany, Portugal and Spain.

EU lawmakers on Tuesday urged the government of Boris Johnson not to adopt the proposed bill amending post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland. The proposed law "damages mutual trust and creates uncertainty for people, investors and business in Northern Ireland," a group of MEPs said, after a meeting with commissioner Maroš Šefčovič. The EU is currently considering legal proceedings over the UK government's failure to implement parts of the protocol.

Hungary is set to take home some €600m annually on a tax it has levied on Russian oil, reports The Guardian newspaper. The paper, citing a report by research agency Eurointelligence, said the tax on Russian oil is "at the expense of everyone else in the EU". Hungary was granted an indefinite exemption from the EU ban on Russian oil imports.

The European Commission has extended the EU digital Covid certificate by one year to June 2023, it announced on Tuesday. "It will help us to manage a potential rise of infections after the summer if needed," said a European Commission spokesperson. "This does not mean that member states are now obliged to check the certificate when travelling," he said, noting that most limitations on free movement have been lifted.

Narcotics production is growing in Europe, according to the annual report of the EU's drugs agency, echoing earlier warnings of Europe becoming a global hub for narcotics. "Synthetic drug production continues to increase in Europe," the report warned. Illegal laboratories produce huge amounts of amphetamine, methamphetamine, and other synthetic drugs for local consumption and for export. The EU drugs agency reported record trafficking of cathinone in Europe, a new drug.

Luxembourgish energy minister Claude Turmes welcomed Tuesday's MEPs committee vote rejecting the inclusion of gas and nuclear in the so-called EU Taxonomy. "We need to stop the Russian gas power games and move to renewable, domestic fuels," he tweeted. The final vote will take place during the plenary in Strasbourg in July. If rejected by a majority of MEPs, the file will go back to the commission to be amended.

Britain told the EU on Tuesday there was no reason for taking legal action over London's plan to scrap some post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland. The EU said the British draft bill could break international law as it suspends part of the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK. On Monday, EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič warned the EU executive might launch new infringement procedures against Britain.

Lawmakers from the environment and economy committees voted to reject a European Commission plan to label certain gas and nuclear as sustainable investments until 2030.

Portuguese prime minister Antonio Costa has the told the FT he is against granting Ukraine EU-candidate status at next week's summit. "The great risk is to create false expectations that become bitter disappointment. Less legal debates, more practical solutions [are needed]," he said. "It was "essential to answer the emergency Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are living now", he said.

EU commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said that the draft bill raises "significant concern", and said the commission will look into continuing old and triggering new EU legal probes against the UK.

MEPs from the environment and economy committees will vote on a resolution objecting to European Commission plans to classify gas and nuclear energy projects as sustainable investments until 2030 — with tight results likely.

A handful of EU states have so far pledged to relocate around 7,000 people seeking protection and arriving on European Mediterranean shores. The French EU presidency is hoping for 10,000.

The EU Commission is unfreezing aid funds for Palestine, while deepening relations with Israel despite its occupation regime.

If the geopolitical pivot towards the Indo-Pacific was a race, then the European Union risks lagging behind at the turn.

Eurogas is a considerable fossil fuel lobby power in Brussels, with nine lobbyists that hold passes to the European Parliament, and a body that has secured over 50 meetings with EU Commission officials since 2014.

The EU's border police Frontex says it detected over 86,000 irregular entries of migrants along the EU's external borders between January and May this year, representing an 82 percent increase when compared to the same time last year. The figure includes people who may have been detected multiple times, meaning the same person may have crossed the border more than once.