Euobserver.com

MEPs visiting Taiwan have voiced EU solidarity with the self-ruled island in the face of Chinese military threats and propaganda attacks.

The opening days climate summit in Glasgow (COP26) has been marked by heavy weather, travel disruption, large crowds, Covid-19-related restrictions, and long queues outside the conference centre – which have triggered criticism of the organisers of the conference.

The French push to include nuclear energy and natural gas in the EU taxonomy on sustainable finance threatens to derail the Green Deal, MEP and rapporteur Bas Eickhout warns.

A French government minister reportedly pressured the Strasbourg-based Council of Europe to remove the video, posted on Twitter, of young women wearing the hijab as part of a wider campaign to combat hate speech against Muslim communities.

The EU Commission still withholds the names of its vaccine negotiators, amid protests from MEPs and civil society. Investigate Europe has been able to find several of them.

Those who knowingly use or produce fake Covid-19 certificates in Ukraine will face fines of up to $2,600 and two to three years in prison under a new law passed Tuesday, Reuters reported. Only 7.5 million Ukrainians are fully vaccinated - fewer than a fifth of the total population. Eastern and Central European countries are registering a surge of infections due to the relatively low vaccination rates in some countries.

With the COP26 climate conference about to get underway in Glasgow, major breakthroughs look elusive. Among the spectres at the feast are raging geopolitical tensions, high energy prices, the ongoing pandemic and a lack of diplomatic vigour from Europe.

Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Hungary did not sign a pact on stopping deforestation at the 'COP26' climate summit in Glasgow, even though all 24 other EU states and the EU Commission, "on behalf of the EU", as well as some 80 other countries, did sign the treaty. Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, speaking at the summit, also denounced what he called the EU's pro-green "ideology".

Britain, France, Germany, the EU, and the US have pledged $8.5bn (€7.3bn) to help South Africa, the world's 12th biggest emitter of CO2, transition away from coal-fired power at the 'COP26' summit. The funds would help in "choking off international finance for coal", British prime minister Boris Johnson said. It was a "watershed moment" for South Africa and an example for other states to follow, its president, Cyril Ramaphosa, noted.

French president Emmanuel Macron knew his submarine deal with Australia was in doubt days before Australia made its decision, according to messages from Macron to Australian prime minister Scott Morrison, leaked Tuesday to Australian media. "Should I expect good or bad news for our joint submarines ambitions?", Macron said on 14 September. France has repeatedly accused Morrison of lying. "Deceit was intentional," France's ambassador to Australia, Jean-Pierre Thebault, said Wednesday.

The Czech Republic will not enter the euro under its next government, Zbyněk Stanjura, the man tipped to be its next finance minister said Tuesday, Reuters reports. "We have to put our public finance in order, so even if someone wanted [the euro], we don't have a shot at entering now," he said. "We should adopt the euro only when it's favourable for the Czech Republic," he added on TV.

Seven MEPs have put themselves in the firing line for Chinese sanctions after visiting Taiwan Tuesday to study Chinese disinformation, Politico reports, citing EU Parliament sources. The MEPs - Petras Auštrevičius, Marco Dreosto, Andrius Kubilius, Georgios Kyrtsos, Markéta Gregorová, Raphaël Glucksmann, and Andreas Schieder - hail from all the major political groups, as well as France and Italy, among other member states, making them harder to blacklist.

Britain, the US, India, China, and the EU were among 40 nations who pledged to increase production of so-called near zero-emissions steel around the world by 2030 at the 'COP26' climate summit. "Near-zero emission steel is the preferred choice in global markets, with efficient use and near-zero emission steel production established and growing in every region by 2030," the UK said in a statement announcing the accord.

The Google News service is likely to return to Spanish internet users after Madrid enacted an EU law on copyright Tuesday. "Conditions look promising for the potential launch of Google News in Spain," the US firm said. The EU law means Spain cannot force Google to pay collective licencing fees to publishers in return for using snippets of their content, which saw Google abandon its service in Spain in 2014.

Despite the responsibility for drafting the EU's artificial intelligence ethics guidelines, few of the expert group members were ethicists. In fact, 26 experts – nearly half of the group's 56 members – represented business interests.

Closed-door negotiations to strengthen the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control appear to be faltering, according to an internal EU document that spells out the so-called trilogue positions of the co-legislators.

Algeria's decision to halt gas exports to Spain via Morocco, due to increasing tensions with Rabat, will force Madrid to import more liquefied natural gas on carrier ships.

Barbados PM Mia Amor Mottley made a concrete proposal to world leaders at COP26 - to give poorer nations easier access to money trough the International Monetary Fund.

No wonder, despite the diplomatic and military initiatives, most countries in the region see China as the new leader. Perhaps it is easier to adjust military strategy towards China, than to tackle the addiction of consumers and companies to China.

EU policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been on a failing trajectory for a decade-and-a-half. Now, in cooperation with the US/UK, it is seeking to camouflage failure with appeasement of separatists in Bosnia - lending a geopolitical win to Russia.