Euobserver.com

It took eight rounds of voting to elect Sergio Mattarella — but the government led by Mario Draghi has been strengthened, along with the centre-left Democratic Party.

A Warsaw court ruled that the Polish government acted unlawfully by fast-tracking an environmental permit to extend the life of a large lignite mine in Turów

The renewed calls for action on Pegasus surveillance in Poland and Hungary came after Hungary's data protection authority, headed by an appointee of prime minister Viktor Orbán, said victims were legitimate targets.

A 182-page report by Amnesty International documents decades of abuse by the Israelis against Palestinians in what the NGO says is apartheid.

The US and Russian envoys exchanged heated comments at a UN Security Council debate on Monday, which did little to de-escalate tensions.

Mali's junta has expelled France's ambassador to Bamako, Joël Meyer, on grounds he made "hostile and outrageous" remarks against the military rulers, foreign minister Abdoulaye Diop said on TV Monday. France, in exchange, sent Mali's envoy home, while EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell voiced "solidarity" with France and Denmark, after Mali recently also expelled Danish forces in a counter-terrorist mission, while hosting " several hundreds" of Russian mercenaries instead.

Denmark has practically lifted all pandemic restrictions as of Tuesday, despite Denmark's incidence of Covid-19 remaining high, DPA reported. The obligation of wearing face masks, presenting Covid-19 health passes are now gone, large events are once again allowed. Travellers entering the country, however, must still provide proof of vaccination. Denmark made a similar move in September, but measures were gradually reintroduced when case numbers began to rise sharply soon after.

EU and German certification of Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was suspended and the EU Commission was looking into Russian firm Gazprom's alleged manipulation of gas shipments to Europe, vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said Monday. "There's certain action from the Russian side that triggered the European Commission's investigation whether Gazprom is in this situation acting in line with market principles ... weaponisation of gas flows is not new," Dombrovskis said.

Corporate lawyer and party veteran Friedrich Merz was officially elected to head Germany's Christian Democrats (CDU) on Monday, DPA reported. The 66-year old from the party's right wing will lead former chancellor Angela Merkel's bloc as it recovers from its worst-ever election result suffered last September. He defeated his two challengers back in December, but the postal vote was required legally to confirm the online ballot results.

The Dutch coastguard rescued 18 crew members from a Maltese-registered cargo ship which collided with an oil and chemicals tanker in the North Sea on Monday during a storm off the coast of the Netherlands. It is now rudderless, floating through a windmill park towards a production platform near Scheveningen. The oil tanker is stable, according to a Reuters report.

Coal-producing Poland is telling consumers that high electricity bills are due to the European Union's climate policies, reports Bloomberg news. Invoices sent to households are informing people that the spike is due to rising prices on carbon. "This is manipulation," WWF Poland, an environmental NGO, was cited as saying by Bloomberg. "It threatens shifting the public opinion in Poland against the EU and its climate policies," it said.

UK senior civil servant Sue Gray found that some of the gatherings at prime minister Boris Johnson's office were a "serious failure" of the rules expected to be observed by government officials and the whole population, Reuters reported on Monday. In her report, she looked into 16 allegations of rule-breaking parties at 10 Downing Street or other government venues, revealing that 12 are now subject to police investigations.

The German government failed to reach its goal of vaccinating more than 80 percent of its population by the end of January. As of Monday, only 74 percent of Germans were fully-vaccinated — a figure slightly lower than those in neighbouring countries like Italy, France and Spain. The news comes amid an intense debate over a mandatory vaccination bill, which German MPs are expected to vote on this month.

"If he only goes there to talk about Russian investments in Hungary, that is a proof of non-European behaviour," an EU official said ahead of the Hungarian prime minister's visit to Moscow.

EU auditors found 15 EU member states gave more subsidies to fossil fuels than to renewable energies in 2020, despite their climate commitments. Their report warns phasing these subsidies out by 2025 will be "a challenging social and economic transition".

A person diagnosed with pancreatic cancer can expect to live for one more year at most. This disease has a lower survival rate than any other cancer in Europe, with more than 95 percent of patients dying because of it.

Portugal's centre-left prime minister Antonio Costa won an outright majority in snap elections on Sunday night with some 118 seats out of 230 in parliament. "An absolute majority doesn't mean absolute power. It doesn't mean to govern alone. It's an increased responsibility and it means to govern with and for all Portuguese," he said, Reuters reports. The far-right Chega party jumped from one seat to 11, becoming third largest.

Italy's 80-year old president, Sergio Mattarella, has agreed to serve a second term after six inconclusive rounds of voting for his successor. "Duty to the nation must prevail over my own personal choices", he said, the BBC reports. "I am grateful to the president for his decision to go along with the extremely strong will of parliament to re-elect him for a second term," Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said.

The EU foreign service has complained after Russia, on Friday, expanded its blacklist of EU and members states' personnel on a no-fly list who Russia said "were personally involved in promoting anti-Russian policy". "The European Union deplores the decision ... this decision lacks any legal justification and transparency and will meet an appropriate response. With it, Russia continues to fuel a climate of tensions in Europe," an EU spokesman said.

Russia has agreed to relocate a naval live fire drill outside Ireland's maritime economic zone following an outcry by Irish fishermen and a request by the Irish foreign ministry. The decision was made as a "gesture of goodwill", the Russian ambassador to Ireland, Yuri Filatov, said Saturday. Russia did not want to "hinder fishing activities by the Irish vessels in the traditional fishing areas", he added, the BBC reports.