Euobserver.com

Germany must do "everything possible not to allow Nord Stream 2 to be an instrument in the arsenal of [Russian] president [Vladimir] Putin," Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki told German press agency DPA Sunday, referring to a Russian-German gas pipeline and Russia's aggressive posturing on Ukraine. Germany and the US were working on a joint deceleration on the pipeline, Germany's foreign ministry told Reuters, but Germany opposed new US sanctions.

EU borders agency Frontex will fly a surveillance plane "day and night" over the English Channel to help spot migrant boats, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the EU Commission agreed in talks in Calais Sunday, French interior minister Gerald Darmanin said. France had earlier uninvited the UK from the Calais meeting in a diplomatic spat between London and Paris, but "this meeting was not anti-English, it was pro-European," Darmanin said.

"We [Europe and Taiwan] must safeguard our shared values to ensure our free and democratic way of life," Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen told visiting MEPs from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in Taipei on Monday, Reuters reports. China recently downgraded relations with Lithuania for opening a Taiwan mission in Vilnius. It also voiced anger when a group of MEPs visited Taipei to study resilience to Chinese disinformation earlier this month.

EU officials who went to monitor regional elections in Venezuela were "a delegation of spies - they weren't observers", president Nicolás Maduro said Sunday, Reuters reports. "They looked to stain the electoral process [in their report] and they couldn't," he said. The monitors said the vote was better than previous ones, but complained of "extended use of state resources in the campaign" and delays in opening of polling stations.

Swiss people have voted to keep coronavirus vaccine-passes and other restrictions after some 60 percent of them said Yes in a referendum on Sunday. Just under two-thirds of Swiss nationals have been vaccinated, while infections are growing by some 50 percent a day. The referendum came amid a wave of recent anti-vax protests in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the UK, as Europe imposed its latest wave of lockdowns.

Greece has opened two new EU-funded "Closed Controlled Structures" for migrants, with barbed wire-fences and CCTV, on the islands of Kos and Leros. "We have finally put behind us a migration crisis that started in 2015," Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi said Saturday. Meanwhile, Italy rescued 244 migrants, including 41 minors, of which one was a baby, from a boat drifting in bad weather near its southern coastline on Sunday.

The European Commission spent €542.4m between 2016 and 2020 for studies written by external private contractors. The findings are part of a larger probe into how large consultancies are increasingly landing lucrative contracts, amid questions on possible conflicts of interest.

Russian mercenaries have taken command of at least one EU-trained battalion to help "predate" the Central African Republic, a leaked report said.

An EUobserver article about VIP-jet security for EU officials can stay online after a Belgian court decision.

As the fourth wave hits the EU, an increasing number of member states are taking measures to curb the number of infections, and hospitalisations.

EU authorisation of glyphosate is set to be renewed next year. It has now received an initial positive safety review - which researchers say is based on a faulty industry-led study.

The EU proposal is a big step forward for transparency online but it still falls short in two areas: a missed chance at mandating ad libraries and a failure to ban some types of data being used for targeting.

Nordic countries launched several initiatives at the COP26 climate conference which will have a real impact on the ground. Nordic and UK pension funds are to invest billions in clean energy and climate initiatives. Greenland has joined the Paris Agreement.

Belgium is taking new emergency Covid measures, curbing concerts and private parties. Bars and restaurants now need to close their doors at 11PM.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen tweeted on Friday that the EU will block travel from southern Africa, due to a new variant of Covid-19 there. "The EU Commission will propose, in close coordination with member states, to activate the emergency brake to stop air travel from the southern African region due to the variant of concern B.1.1.529," she tweeted.

France has urged cooperation with Belgium, the Netherlands, and the EU Commission to help stop Channel migrant-smugglers after 27 people drowned earlier this week, causing shock in the UK. "We need to seriously strengthen cooperation," he said Thursday, adding that French soldiers, reservists, and drones were monitoring the coast. British prime minister Boris Johnson also called for British coast guard patrols to join French ones in a letter to Macron.

MEPs have urged the EU to blacklist Kremlin "proxy" mercenaries from the Wagner Group, while listing its crimes in multiple conflict zones.

Swedish Social Democratic party leader Magdalena Andersson will get a second shot at becoming the country's first woman prime minister next Monday, after her first attempt lasted just seven hours, AFP writes. Andersson is expected to form a minority government made up solely of her Social Democrats, less than a year ahead of September general election. Her first attempt failed after her expected coalition failed to support her in parliament.

The combined federal and regional governments of Belgium will on Friday decide on new measures to reduce the current spread of Covid cases, Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo said in parliament. From 16 to 21 November there were 16,100 new daily cases, then 22 November saw 23,600 new infections. Government sources say that a new lockdown is not on the agenda.

The UK has barred flights from South Africa and five other countries in the region, citing the threat of a highly infectious and vaccine-resistant Covid variant called B.1.1.529. "You have to be reasonably paranoid," Ewan Birney, a UK health advisor, told The Guardian. Separately, EU health agencies EMA and ECDC Thursday urged more people to get vaccinated, saying: "Vaccines are essential if we want to get out of this pandemic".