Euobserver.com

The European Commission unveiled new guidelines to incentivise public investment in green climate and energy projects, ending subsidies for the most-polluting fossil fuels. But natural gas projects will still be eligible for public funds under certain conditions.

Watch as fervour, passion and anger run high and MEPs stake out their stalls on the 'meaning of Christmas'. There is something for just about everyone.

A lack of transparency and unwillingness to engage stakeholders, with first the EU pandemic recovery plans and now with the cohesion funds, threatens to imperil a bounceback instead of steering the Green Deal.

Russia has continued to talk over Europe's head to America about threats of war, but the EU says it cannot be marginalised.

Belgium's health ministers decided on Monday to start vaccinating children aged five to 11 with the so-called 'children's vaccine' of Pfizer, De Standaard writes. "Before Christmas vaccination centres will send the first invitations. After New Year the vaccinations will start," a spokesperson said. In Belgium, there are around 927,000 children between five and 11-years old. The eldest will receive their invitations first.

Ireland said on Monday the number of people employed by multinational companies there has increased by 10 percent compared to pre-pandemic levels, accounting for some 275,000 employees in 2021, Reuters reported. This means that 10 percent of Ireland workforce is employed by multinationals, especially those in Big Tech and pharmaceuticals. Ireland has agreed to increase its minimum corporate tax rate from 12.5 percent to 15 percent.

Ukrainian authorities have started a formal investigation into former president Petro Poroshenko, according to Reuters, accusing him of links to financing separatist forces in the eastern Donbass region. Officials said the investigation is linked to similar charges against pro-Russia MP Viktor Medvedchuk, who has been under house arrest for about six months. Poroshenko's party in October called those accusations a smokescreen to divert attention from the government's own wrongdoing.

Greek government figures cited 143,472 "preventions of illegal entries" of migrants at the Evros land border with Turkey from April to November 2021, said the Refugee Support Aegean in a tweet on Monday. Some 98,798 such incidents were registered during the same period in 2020. Greece has been accused of numerous illegal pushbacks of migrants, which it continues to deny.

The annual Davos World Economic Forum (WEF), gathering world leaders and business chiefs, planned for January has been delayed until the summer amid mounting concerns over the coronavirus Omicron variant. "Despite the meeting's stringent health protocols, the transmissibility of Omicron and its impact on travel and mobility have made deferral necessary," the WEF said.

The European Commission on Monday approved the use of the vaccine Nuvaxovid, developed by Novavax, after a positive scientific recommendation by the Europan Medicine Agency. This is now the fifth Covid-19 vaccine authorised in the EU. Novavax is expected to deliver up to 100 million doses in the first quarter of 2022, but member states can purchase an additional 100 million doses over the course of next year and 2023. 

The surge of infections and emergence of the more-transmissible variant Omicron has raised concerns about possible lockdown restrictions in the EU, but for the thousands of Europeans who recently tested positive Christmas is already cancelled.

Amnesty International documented numerous beatings by Belarus guards of migrants after being forced back into Belarus from EU states. The NGO spoke to 75 people lured to the borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia from Belarus.

Poland's climate minister threatened to veto the bloc's landmark climate policy Fit for 55, with Portugal accusing others of lies over consumer energy prices.

The draft report on fighting foreign interference in the EU will be voted by the parliament plenary in March. The recommendations to the EU Commission include a mandatory code of conduct for digital platforms, and closing loopholes on party financing.

EU and national policymakers would do well to make a New Year's resolution to encourage a growing interest in donating to good causes far from home - by extending Europe's single market benefits to philanthropy.

Reply by Paolo Borchia, MEP, to the article "Lead energy MEP silent on gas meetings before vote published" by EUobserver on 23 September.

After four years in Brussels, ambassador Zhang Ming, head of Chinese Mission to the EU, comes to the end of his tenure. Here is his farewell letter on his feelings about working in Brussels and his aspiration for China-EU relations.

Poland has risked annoying the US and EU by rushing through a bill banning non-EU firms from being majority owners of media companies. The law will force US-owned independent broadcaster TVN24 to sell off shares. "The United States is deeply troubled by the passage in Poland today of a law that would undermine freedom of expression ... and erode foreign investors' confidence in their property rights," the state department said.

For the third time a few thousand people protested in Brussels against the Covid safe pass, the vaccination of children and the mandatory vaccination in the health sector on Sunday. At the end of the protests, violence broke out when protesters attacked the police. Some 55 people were arrested, while one protester was brought to hospital.

Russian oligarch and football club owner Roman Abramovich has got a Portuguese passport under a law allowing naturalisation of descendants of Sephardic Jews who had been persecuted by the Roman Catholic inquisition in early modern times. Thousands of Israelis have also secured EU nationality since the Portuguese law was passed in 2015. But most wealthy Russians have done it in recent times via buying passports from Cyprus or Malta instead.