Euobserver.com

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has made light of French concern about a nuclear-submarine deal with Australia and the US, saying in Washington on Wednesday: "It's time for some of our dearest friends around the world to prenez un grip about this and donnez-moi un break". The deal was "fundamentally a great step forward for global security" and "not trying to shoulder anybody out", he said.

Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky has vowed a "tough response" after a gun attack on the car of his top advisor, Serhiy Shefir, telling press in New York: "Saying 'hello' to me by shooting out of the forest at my friend's car is weak". Russia, which is at war in east Ukraine, denied involvement, with a Kremlin spokesman saying any accusations were "signs of an excessively excited emotional state".

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal has, again, delayed its ruling on whether EU or Polish law has primacy in the country. "Due to the emergence of new circumstances and new allegations and to be able to ask insightful questions ... the Constitutional Tribunal adjourns until 30 September," the tribunals' head, Julia Przylebska, said after a brief hearing Wednesday. The case is just one of many recent Polish judicial clashes with the EU.

The EU Commission was "working on the preparation of proposals for flexible options to be able to tackle this situation at European level," Spanish energy minister Teresa Ribera said on Wednesday in Brussels, after talks on the 250-percent natural gas price-surge this year. Some 15 percent of the EU's working poor, about 2.7 million people, cannot afford to heat their homes, the European Trade Union Confederation said.

EU countries have delayed a decision on "sustainable finance taxonomy" - a list of which kinds of technology in the transport and heavy-industry sectors can be labelled as 'green', in order to stamp out 'greenwashing' by big corporations, Reuters reports. The EU Commission will, before December, also propose taxonomy rules for the gas and nuclear sectors, amid division on nuclear, which France and Hungary support, but Austria mistrusts.

Last week, a majority in the European Parliament voted in favour of creating a new EU ethics body, covering MEPs and the European Commission. German Green MEP Daniel Freund, who spearheaded the report, says negotiations are likely to start soon.

NGO watchdogs have slammed the MEP leading the energy committee's work on the controversial revision of EU rules for funding major energy projects for refusing to disclose his meetings with gas lobbyists, ahead of a crucial vote next week.

In a new study, the World Health Organization found air pollution is even more damaging to human health than previously thought.

In September 2020, the EU Commission's top vaccine negotiator made a pledge - doses would cost between €5 and €15, Sandra Gallina assured MEPs. Little did she know that her fixed cap would crumble under pressure from jabmakers.

Europe is no longer an Indo-Pacific power. It will not become an Indo-Pacific power. And if it keeps overreaching its geopolitical ambitions, Europe might lose its credibility as a power - entirely.

The EU plans to propose laws harmonising mobile-phone, tablet, and headphone chargers and ports on Thursday in a bid to make life easier for consumers, Reuters reports. But Apple, whose iPhones use a special 'Lightning cable' has said the move will lead to piles of waste and deter innovation. Rival Android-based devices use so-called 'USB-C' connectors, but 'USB micro-B' and Lightning connectors account for about a third each of market-share.

Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Sweden scrambled fighter jets to the Baltic Sea region Tuesday to escort two Russian Tu-160 strategic bomber planes as they flew over neutral waters, according to Russia's Interfax news agency. The bombers were likewise escorted by Russian fighter planes. Nato has also posted Russia-deterrent ground forces in the Baltic states and Poland in recent years, while complaining about Russia's lack of transparency on military manoeuvres.

France's EU commissioner, single-market chief Thierry Breton, said in the US on Tuesday that "there is a growing feeling in Europe - and I say this with regret - that something is broken in our transatlantic relations ... It is probably time to pause and reset our EU-US relationship". He spoke after France felt betrayed over an US-UK-Australia defence pact which led to Australia cancelling a multi-billion French defence contract.

Lithuania's defence ministry has warned people that phones made by Chinese firm Xiaomi Corp have built-in censorship software. The phones can be remotely activated to block internet searches for phrases such as "free Tibet", "long live Taiwan independence", or "democracy movement". "Our recommendation is to not buy new Chinese phones, and to get rid of those already purchased as fast as reasonably possible," deputy minister of defence Margiris Abukevicius said.

At least five MEPs and several minor politicians from EU states, many of them French, have spent the past few days in Russia peddling propaganda that its elections were free and fair.

The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights said on Wednesday the pandemic has exacerbated the day-to-day challenges that civil society faces, as many organisations saw their work conditions deteriorate. About 40 percent of the 400 human rights civil society organisations consulted say they have received threats online, while 10 percent experienced legal harassment. Additionally, over half (60 percent) said they have faced difficulties in finding funding for their work.

Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) saw their lead over chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives narrow in a poll just five days before the federal election, Reuters reports. The SPD, with candidate for chancellor Olaf Scholz, remained stable at 25 percent, according to the Forsa poll, while support for the conservative CDU/CSU alliance, whose chancellor candidate is Armin Laschet, edged up one point to 22 percent.

Oceanic warming and melting glaciers are raising sea levels by 2.5mm a year in the Mediterranean and up to 3.1mm a year globally, a report revealed on Wednesday. Researchers found the Arctic has lost between 1979 and 2020 a sea-ice area about six times the size of Germany. They warned climate change and pollution continue to put marine ecosystems under pressure.

The European Court of Human Rights found that Russia was responsible for the assassination of ex-KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko, who died an agonising death in 2006 after being poisoned in London with a rare radioactive substance. Litvinenko, a defector who had become a vocal critic of the Kremlin, died three weeks after drinking green tea laced with polonium-210 at a plush London hotel. The Kremlin dismissed the ECHR's conclusion.

The report also showed that Europeans consider EU institutions to be more likely, than their own governments, to be in a Cold War with China and Russia, alongside Washington.