Euobserver.com

The EU has vaccinated more people against Covid-19 with a first dose than the US, internal market EU commissioner Thierry Breton announced over the weekend. "We will be [the] world's most-vaccinated continent and world's first exporter," he said. As of Monday, 55.7 percent of Europeans have received the first jab - compared to 55.5 percent of Americans.

UK prime minister Boris Johnson and finance minister Rishi Sunak will self-isolate after being in contact with health minister Sajid Javid, who has tested positive for coronavirus, the BBC reported. The news comes as England lifted all remaining restrictions on Monday despite the surge of infections - a move that has triggered intense scrutiny over the government response. The UK is currently reporting about 50,000 cases a day.

Almost 500 undocumented migrants in Brussels have been demanding a legal pathway for residency in Belgium. Most have been on hunger strike since 23 May, with some now refusing water. MEPs are demanding the Belgium government offer them a solution.

European Commission vice-president Margaritis Schinas and Slovenian prime minister Janez Janša proposed on Sunday that the Slovenian team enters the official opening ceremony of the Olympic Games bearing the Slovenian flag alongside the flag of the European Union as a "symbol of peaceful coexistence, tolerance and solidarity". "The EU and the International Olympic Committee are uniquely positioned to promote peace and understanding," they said in a joint letter.

Investigative journalists, independent media owners and lawyers in Hungary have been potential targets for the use of the Pegasus spyware, sold by the Israeli company NSO, according to leaked records revealed on Sunday by the Pegasus project, a collaborative project of French NGO Forbidden Stories and several media outlets. The Pegasus spyware infects mobile phones to read messages, extract photos and emails, track the location, or access secretly the microphone.

Turkey on Sunday criticised the ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), stating that EU companies can forbid workers from wearing a headscarf under certain conditions, as a violation of religious freedoms, Reuters reported. "The decision, at a time when the Islamophobia, racism and hatred that have taken Europe hostage are rising, disregards religious freedom and creates a basis and legal cover for discrimination," the foreign ministry said.

German chancellor Angela Merkel described the floodings that have devastated parts of Germany and neighbouring countries as "terrifying" on Sunday, after visiting affected areas in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Reuters reported. "The German language can barely describe the devastation that's taken place," she said, pledging swift financial aid and increasing efforts in the fight against climate change. The government is expected to provide over €300m in immediate aid.

The US was "vigorously investigating" over 20 cases of a mysterious health condition known as 'Havana Syndrome' among diplomats and officials at its embassy in Vienna, the US state department said Saturday. Austria was "working with the US authorities on jointly getting to the bottom of this", it told Reuters. The condition, first found in Cuba in 2016, is believed by US scientists to be caused by directed microwave radiation.

Belgium has repatriated six women and 10 children from a Kurdish-run detention camp in Roj, north-east Syria, for former members of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. It aims to charge the mothers with terrorism offences and put the children in care. The repatriation was the biggest of its type since IS fell in 2019. Some 400 Belgians had gone to fight for IS in Syria over the years.

EU legislation to clean up supply chains and corporate governance has been delayed after fierce industry lobbying. Voluntary commitments have repeatedly failed, now it is time for decisive regulatory action.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will continue to travel to member states to "personally hand over the assessment" of the EU executive on national Covid-19 recovery plans.

The EU forest strategy aims to plant at least three billion additional trees in the EU over the next decade to increase natural greenhouse gas removals - while boosting bioenergy "within sustainable boundaries".

The EU is firming up plans for a military mission to Libya in order to compete with foreign powers there, according to a leaked paper seen by EUobserver.

Floods in Germany have killed 58 people, but the toll is likely to grow, as 1,300 others remain missing or cut off, in what German chancellor Angela Merkel called a "catastrophe" while on a visit to the US on Thursday. "My heart goes out to all of those who ... lost their loved ones,' she said. Flooding has also wreaked havoc in parts of Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands.

"We stand together and will continue to stand together to defend our eastern flank allies at Nato against Russian aggression," US president Joe Biden told press while meeting German chancellor Angela Merkel in Washington on Thursday, in their first bilateral summit. "Good friends can disagree," Biden added, when asked about US opposition to a Russian-German gas pipeline. The US and Germany would also defend human rights in China, he said.

Two German firms did not break EU law when they banned Muslim women from wearing headscarves, the EU court has said, in a ruling which alarmed rights groups.

The European Commission has said it might withhold money from Poland's Covid recovery plan due to concerns on the lack of rule of law. "We are analysing the [Polish] decision also in that light," an EU spokesman said Thursday, referring to Poland's decision to ignore an EU court ruling, which said it must suspend a politicised judicial disciplinary chamber. The commission also "wouldn't hesitate" to launch legal action, it added.

The European Medicines Agency has warned some fraudsters were using its logo to spread disinformation about vaccines. "Unfortunately, people can be very creative in misappropriating logos, styles of documents, websites," the agency's Fergus Sweeney said Thursday. The EMA advised people to get information from official sites only. It also advised them to seek vaccination "as soon possible" due to the rapid spread of the Delta variant of coronavirus in Europe.

Dutch journalist Peter R. de Vries died on Thursday, after being shot in Amsterdam last week. The 64-year old was apparently an criminal hit list due to his work covering drug dealers. Police have detained two suspects. The killing follows a string of journalist murders in recent years, including Georgia's Aleksandre Lashkarava, Greece's Giorgos Karaivaz, Ireland's Lyra McKee, Slovakia's Jan Kuciak, Sweden's Kim Wall, and Malta's Daphne Caruana Galizia.

The EU Ombudsman said on Thursday the European Defense Agency should have forbidden its former chief executive, Jorge Domecq, from becoming a strategic advisor at the company Airbus Defence. The ombudsman found that the conditions attached to approving his new position were "insufficient" against the risks of lobbying. This inquiry is part of a wider investigation on how ethical obligations apply when EU staff move to the private sector.