Euobserver.com

The loss of population is down to several factors - both negative demographic growth, plus Moldovans leaving for work abroad, or even taking up Romanian citizenships in order to move freely within the European Union.

The Maltese state bears responsibility for the assassination of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in October 2017, an independent report by a panel of judges finds.

The Greek government has sent police to holidays hotspots such as Mykonos and Ios as concerns mounted over tourists flouting health measures amid the tourism season, especially among the young, The Guardian reported. The cluster of 13 Greek south Aegean islands was marked 'dark red' on the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control map on Thursday, meaning all but essential travel to and from the region is discouraged.

EU commissioner for the internal market, Thierry Breton, said on Thursday that online platforms need to assume "their responsibility to beat vaccine hesitancy spurred by disinformation". The statement comes after the commission published the reports by Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Microsoft and Google on measures taken in June to tackle coronavirus disinformation. Brussels has welcomed TikTok's campaign supporting vaccination and the display of vaccination locations in Google Search and Maps.

A group of countries have complained they only received partial supplies of the Russian Sputnik vaccine they paid for, the BBC reported on Thursday. Earlier this year, Russian officials said their country had the "capacity to provide the vaccine to 700 million people outside Russia". Iran, Mexico, Argentina, Guatemala, Angola, Bolivia, Honduras and Ghana are among those with a significant number of pending doses to be delivered.

French Europe minister Clement Beaune said on Thursday the UK's decision to maintain quarantine requirement for travellers from France was discriminatory, since other fully-vaccinated EU tourists can enter the UK without any restrictions. "It's excessive, and frankly incomprehensible on health grounds ... It's not based on science and discriminatory towards the French," Beaune said, according to Reuters. The UK is concerned about the spread of the Beta variant in France.

Italy's coalition government reached a deal on Thursday over a controversial judicial system reform, according to Reuters. The country's justice system has three degrees of judgement, allowing defendants two appeals. The reform, which aims at speeding up legal proceedings, setting a two-year limit on first appeals, had triggered considerable tension within the government. The 5-Star Movement, the largest ruling party, is backing the revision.

The European Commission on Thursday adopted guidelines to assess climate considerations for future investment and development of long-term infrastructure - such as railways, bridges or power stations. The checklist aims to make EU spending greener, helping member states to cope with the impact of climate change, such as flooding or heat waves. Such assessment is a precondition to receive certain EU funds.

Greece has always been Europe's outlier. It faces an implacably hostile neighbour in Turkey under its assertive authoritarian president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Until Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007, Greece had no European Union member state as a neighbour.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken affirmed his country's support to conduct additional investigations into the origins of the Covid-19 after meeting with the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Wednesday, Reuters reported. "He stressed the need for the next phase to be timely, evidence-based, transparent, expert-led, and free from interference," a US state department spokesperson said in a statement.

The European Commission announced on Wednesday that it had signed a contract with the pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline for the supply of 220,000 treatments of investigational monoclonal antibody therapy. A total of 16 EU member states are participating in the purchase of this treatment, which can be used for coronavirus patients with mild symptoms who do not require supplemental oxygen. Its use could reduce hospitalisation or admission to intensive care units.

Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia are seeking to create a 'min-Schengen', reports the Financial Times newspaper. The proposal comes on the back of mounting frustration over the slow pace of EU enlargement. "We need to see what we can do for ourselves [instead], what we can do for our people, how we can expand our markets," Serbia's president Alexander Vucic told the paper, in an interview.

Lithuania said it detained 171 migrants trying to enter from Belarus on Tuesday, the highest number in a single day so far this year. The border service says the migrants come from Iraq and will be placed in a detention centre. The total number of migrant crossings from Belarus so far this year is 3,027.

The US remains closed to tourists from the EU and the UK - a situation that has prompted frustration and urgent calls for the reopening of international travel to vaccinated individuals by industry and countries.

Thousands of Polish judges, prosecutors and lawyers have rallied to support the primacy of EU law, amid demands for Poland to suspend a politically-charged disciplinary chamber for judges.

In a worst-case scenario, the EU's climate policies would exclude developing nations from international trade, forcing them to trade with each other, forming economic and environmental 'ghettos' while the wealthy West enjoys the benefits of free trade and clean energy.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson has said his government is in talks with its US counterparts to ensure that American citizens can enter the UK "freely" and "in the way they normally do," Reuters reported on Wednesday. The Financial Times reported earlier this week that the UK was expected to announced the reopening of England for fully-vaccinated travellers from the EU and US this week.

The European Commission on Tuesday launched infringement procedures against 12 member states for failing to transpose EU rules banning unfair trading practices in the agri-food sector. These include late payments and last-minute order cancellations, unilateral changes in contracts, forcing suppliers to pay for wasted products or refusing written contracts. The deadline for enacting EU rules was 1 May 2021. EU countries have now two months to explain the delay.

Italy's National Health Institute said on Tuesday that nearly 99 percent of people who have died because of a Covid-19 infection since February were not fully-vaccinated, according to Reuters. The study also revealed that the few fully-vaccinated people who died of coronavirus were significantly older and had underlying health problems than those who died without receiving both doses in case of two-shot jabs.

Google launched legal proceedings on Tuesday over Germany's updated hate-speech law that recently entered into force, arguing that its provisions violate its users' privacy rights, Reuters reported. Google has requested a judicial review of the provision that allows user-data to be sent to law enforcement before it is proven any crime has been committed - without the knowledge of the individual. "This undermines fundamental rights," a Google spokesperson said.