Euobserver.com

Senegal president Macky Sall, who is also president of the African Union, said on Thursday that Africa is not responsible for climate change and, therefore, will need a "transition period" to adapt and be able to provide electricity to more than 600 million people across the continent. "We demand more climate justice," he said ahead of the first day of the AU-EU summit.

The EU's privacy watchdog has issued a warning about rules intended to empower the European police agency.

The situation in Ukraine could have devastating consequences for the Caucasus, including a new conflict. Despite friendship Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russia has been increasingly annoyed by Turkey on the Crimea and for providing armed drones to Ukraine.

MEPs asked the European Commission on Thursday to deliver a strategy for southern EU member states suffering from severe droughts, exacerbated by climate change. Portuguese centre-right MEP Álvaro Amaro called for financial aid beyond the Common Agriculture Policy to support farmers who have lost their harvests in recent months. "The consequences of climate change are asymmetric… we need additional support," agreed liberal Spanish MEP Maria Soraya Rodríguez Ramos.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola on Thursday launched a sanctions procedure against Bulgarian MEP Angel Dzhambazki, who gave a Nazi salute while leaving the plenary on Wednesday evening. Metsola said such symbols are "unacceptable" anywhere in the 21st century, adding these gestures are part of the "darkest chapters of our history". Sanctions would be announced in the plenary once concluded by the president and communicated to Dzhambazki.

South Africa's president Cyril Ramaphosa said on Thursday that a new partnership between Africa and Europe means "in many ways, for former colonisers to give back to the continent". This renewed relationship should trigger investment in African economies and infrastructures, he said ahead of the meeting with leaders of the EU and the African Union.

South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, as he arrived at the EU-AU summit on Thursday, called for the EU to support African Union's demands to lift patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines. "They [Europe] have been giving vaccines but now we need to move to the TRIPS dispensation so we can produce our own vaccines. For us, that's very important," he said before the summit itself started.

The pullout from Mali raises fresh doubts about European military resolve. But Macron said troops would return to fight jihadists in the region from bases in Niger and Nigeria.

Two African asylum-seekers died after being pushed back from the Greek islands, according to a media probe coordinated by LightHouse Reports. The pair had made it to the Greek island of Samos, before being found dead days later, washed up off the Turkish coastline, in what the investigation, which includes the Guardian and Der Spiegel, says is further evidence of illegal pushbacks of migrants by Greek authorities.

Nato chief Stoltenberg says open-source images from commercial satellites and Nato intelligence show continued Russian threat.

The EU's border and coast guard agency Frontex reported a spike in the number of irregular migrants trying to cross into the EU last month. Some 13,160 attempts were made in January, a 78-percent increase compared to the same period last year, Frontex said. Over the course of 2021, the total number of illegal border-crossings was just short of 200,000, the highest number since 2017, it said.

Botswana was the first country able to detect the emergence of the Omicron variant, thanks to its sequencing capacities. Eleven infectious disease experts from Africa and Europe call for developing research networks across the African continent to respond future pandemics.

Large majority of MEPs back ECB's dovish stance on loose monetary policy, despite increasing pressure on the bank to increase interest rates.

The European prosecutor has asked Polish authorities for support in 23 anti-fraud investigations involving Poland.

Lawmakers vented frustration that the EU Commission might delay action against the nationalist leaderships in Poland and Hungary despite a court victory. Experts on EU affairs sounded a more cautious note.

There are EU-rules for approving pesticides. What's missing are pro-active rules to protect European agriculture workers' health.

Could Françafrique — the French sphere of influence that outlived the end of French colonialism — still be revived on a European scale, as Eurafrique?

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the judgement but sought to row back against pressure to use the new procedure immediately.

The OSCE request to send a full election-observation mission to monitor Hungary's election is an important step towards guaranteeing its integrity. Now OSCE member states must step up and send observers in appropriate numbers, otherwise it's a missed opportunity.

Whilst the world's eyes are firmly fixed on Ukraine, EU peacekeeping troops in Bosnia are "at high readiness" in another test of Europe's geopolitical standing.