Euobserver.com

Administrative barriers in at least 10 European countries are blocking access to Covid-19 vaccines for nearly four million undocumented migrants. Countries including Germany, Spain, Norway and Bulgaria require some form of ID, health card or a residency permit.

The right to seek asylum is a fundamental tenet of international law, and yet Iran and Pakistan have fortified their borders, leaving Afghans no escape. The EU should put pressure on Pakistan to allow refugees into the country.

One of the topics for the keynote speech will certainly be the Covid-19 recovery fund - with Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Spain, and Portugal having already received their pre-financing.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said they want to send a "joint European presence" to Kabul in order to help evacuate Europeans and other Afghan nationals to willing member states.

EU energy companies cannot use the controversial Energy Charter Treaty to sue member states and claim compensation for the impact of policy measures, the European Court of Justice ruled, casting doubts over a number of ongoing cases.

The Just Transition Fund was set up to help coal-reliant regions transition to a more sustainable and equitable future. But according to green pressure group WWF, none of the plans are fit for purpose.

The EU and AstraZeneca reached a settlement agreement on vaccine supplies on Friday - ending the pending litigation before the Brussels Court. The deal includes the commitment by the pharmaceutical firm to deliver 135 million doses by the end of this year (60 million by the end of September and 75 million by the end of December) and the 65 million remaining doses by the end of March 2022.

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said "yes" when asked by press Thursday if he would consider forcing people to be vaccinated by law in order to help the country reach its 80-percent immunisation target. Some 63 percent of adult Italians have had two jabs so far. "The obligation in our country already exists for health personnel, so ... it already applies to part of society," health minister Roberto Speranza said.

Bulgaria will head to new national elections this year, after the Socialists became the third political party to refuse to lead a government following July's inconclusive parliamentary election, Reuters reports. President Rumen Radev faces having to dissolve parliament, appoint a new interim administration, and call a snap poll within two months. These are the third elections for parliament this year and will probably be held in November.

Scotland would decommission its nuclear weapons bases if it gained independence via a new referendum, the Scottish National Party's defence spokesman Stewart McDonald said Thursday, The Times reports. "An independent Scotland will not be home to nuclear weapons," he said, adding there was "a clear cross-party majority" against it. British plans had included creating a new overseas territory, or 'nuclear Gibraltar', to house the weapons, if Scotland split away.

Famine in Ethiopia could kill millions because aid was not being allowed into the Tigray conflict zone in its civil war, the UN has warned. "The lives of millions of civilians ... depend on our capacity to reach them with food, nutrition supplies, medicine," UN official Grant Leaity said. Some 5.2m people needed 100 trucks of aid a day to avoid "the world's worst famine situation in decades", he said.

The EU wants a force of some 5,000 troops that won't need the unanimous support of all 27 member states. The ideas were discussed at a defence ministerial and will feed into a bigger strategic plan in November.

The head of Ukraine's gas transit operator, Sergiy Makogon, warned on Thursday that the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline will make Europe completely dependent on Russia. "People just have a short memory - 2009 is the year when Russia's Gazprom made Europe freeze," he told Reuters. Gazprom fully owns Nord Stream 2, which could divert transit gas flows going through Ukraine to Europe once completed.

Google said it is appealing a €500m fine handed to it by the French competition watchdog, over Google's use of news content in its search results. Google says the fine is disproportionate compared to the efforts made by the company to comply with EU copyright rules. The watchdog said Google failed to negotiate "in good faith" with media companies to use extracts of articles, photos and videos in search results.

Polish president Andrzej Duda has ordered a state of emergency in parts of two regions bordering Belarus, his spokesman said, Deutsche Welle writes. The move is unprecedented in Poland's post-communist history. It comes amid heightened tensions between Belarus and its neighbours over a sharp increase in migration. According to the order, gatherings of people will be banned on a 3km-wide strip along the border.

Ireland data privacy watchdog on Thursday fined Facebook-owned messaging app WhatsApp €225m for infringements of EU data protection rules, The Guardian reported. Following a three-year investigation, data protection authorities conclude that the company had violated EU data rules about transparency. WhatsApp said the penalties were "entirely disproportionate" and it would appeal. The breach affected an "extremely high" amount of individuals, according to the Dublin-based watchdog.

The European Medicines Agency said that there is no urgent need to administer booster shots to the general population, pointing out that the priority now should be to vaccinate the one-third of Europeans who are not fully vaccinated.

EU economic commissioner Paolo Gentiloni specified that Poland's challenge to the primacy of EU law over domestic law is partly holding up the approval of the recovery plan.

According to a new study, many actions can be taken to avert the extinction of thousands of trees. Top among them is funding for preservation and tree planting programs of the tree species most at risk.

This summer some 450 undocumented workers and migrants in Brussels refused food during two months. They were protesting Belgian immigration rules that human rights officials and campaigners say arbitrarily obstruct them from legal and stable residency.