Euobserver.com

EU leaders on Thursday agreed the bloc's first-ever economic sanctions on Belarus in the 27-year rule of dictator-president Aleksander Lukashenko, with restrictions on bank loans and key exports - oil products, potash, and tobacco. Lukashenko, the same day, held show trials of relatives of opposition leaders-in-exile, in what was dubbed "revenge". Latvia also said Lukashenko was letting greater numbers of Syrian refugees cross the border into neighbouring EU countries.

Bulgarian president Ruman Radev has vowed to keep blocking North Macedonia's EU accession talks until it formally says its language and ethnicity are really Bulgarian. "We will not allow to have our arms twisted via lobbying or media or political pressure ... We cannot say 'Yes' before being convinced that our neighbour won't be building its identity by stealing from Bulgaria's history," he said at an EU summit Thursday.

French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday joined German chancellor, Angela Merkel, to call to coordinate further on the conditions non-EU tourists should fulfil to enter the bloc, The Guardian reported. British tourists travelling to Germany need to go into quarantine, while they can enter Spain without a negative test. The UK said that it is up to individual countries to decide what travel restrictions those travelling from Britain would face.

Research by the advocacy group Avaaz revealed on Thursday that none of the Big Tech platforms are effectively tackling Covid-19 disinformation. Facebook is considered the biggest "emitter" of fake news related to the pandemic. YouTube and Twitter, meanwhile, are seen as the worst of the four platforms when it comes to acting on content, failing to take measures on the vast majority of the fact-checked content analysed.

Some 30 crew members boarded the Ocean Viking rescue ship in the port of Marseille on Wednesday, a full day ahead of an EU summit in Brussels where migration will be discussed over the afternoon and dinner.

An activist carrying a rainbow flag ran on the pitch while Hungary's national anthem was being played at a Euro 2020 game in Munich Wednesday in protest at Hungary's new anti-LGBTI law. A pro-LGBTI group also gave out rainbow stickers and flags to fans, while UEFA, the football body, added a rainbow logo to its Twitter handle, despite having earlier banned a rainbow light-show at the Munich stadium.

"The Royal Navy will always uphold the international law of the sea and will not be impeded on innocent passage," British defence secretary Ben Wallace told The Times Thursday after a confrontation between a UK warship, the HMS Defender, and the Russian navy and air force this week, when it sailed past Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, but which the UN sees as still being Ukrainian territory.

North Macedonia and Albania have voiced dismay after Bulgaria upheld its veto on Western Balkans enlargement earlier this week.

The EU's disease control agency (ECDC) said on Wednesday that the Delta variant will represent 90 percent of all Covid-19 cases in the EU by the end of August. The ECDC is calling to speed up vaccination, since preliminary data shows that those who have received only one dose could be also infected. About one-third of the elderly and 40 percent of individuals older than 60 are not fully-vaccinated.

European commercial banks should put together 10-year plans on how to deal with shocks to their bottom lines arising from climate-change related developments, including natural disasters or sudden depreciation of assets, the European Banking Authority in Paris said Wednesday. Investors also needed more transparency on banks' green credentials, as well as on potential risks arising from social-responsibility or corporate governance-linked problems, the European regulator said, Reuters reports.

French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Angela Merkel have proposed holding an EU summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin for the first time since he invaded Ukraine in 2014, according to diplomats speaking to Reuters. "Merkel has mentioned before that not only the US should talk with Russia on the highest level. Russia is a neighbour," one diplomat said, amid concern the move could anger Baltic states and Poland.

"Flexibility" measures in a new EU policy on shipping emissions means liquid gas and biofuels will remain the cheapest ways to comply with European rules for at least 20 years, according to a leaked draft seen by The Guardian. "There's still time to kick out fossil fuels and stop the European Green Deal turning shipping's transition into an ecological disaster," NGO Transport & Environment said, favouring ammonia and hydrogen instead.

The Japanese government has unveiled its annual economic policy guidelines, which include new recommendations that companies permit their staff to opt to work four days a week instead of the typical five, Deutsche Welle writes. Political leaders hope to convince management that flexible working hours and remote working, which became the 'new normal' during Covid-19 lockdowns, can remain in place after the end of the health crisis.

US secretary of state Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline undermines Ukraine's security, since it would curtail gas exports through the country, depriving Kyiv of lucrative transit fees, Reuters reported. "Our goal remains to ensure that Russia cannot use energy as a coercive tool as a weapon against Ukraine, or anyone else in Europe," Blinken said. Germany, meanwhile, wants to see the pipeline completed.

The European Commission unveiled its plans to build a new task force to respond to an increasing number of cyberattacks on the bloc - coordinating existing operations between EU institutions, agencies and national authorities.

Politicians use clever framing of issues to convince voters to support laws that harm their own interests. Viktor Orban's new hate law vilifies people for who they love. But its opponents may have unwittingly helped by repeating its framing.

Under Benjamin Netanyahu, the EU-Israel Association Council meetings, supposed to be held at regular intervals and set the tone for progress on political and economic issues, have not convened since 2013.

EU Commission vice-president Thierry Breton and justice commissioner Didier Reynders have written to Hungary's justice minister Judit Varga expressing legal concerns before the Hungarian bill - intended to protect children but including anti-LGBTIQ measures - enters into force.

China's forced closure of the independent Apple newspaper in Hong Kong was used to "stifle freedom of the press" and was "counter to Hong Kong's aspirations as an international business hub", an EU spokesperson said Wednesday. However, a "spokesperson" communiqué is the lowest level in EU protocol terms. Hungary has vetoed any China statements in the name of the EU-27 (the highest level) or the EU foreign affairs chief.

Belarus views Western sanctions, imposed in response to Minsk's forced landing of a Ryanair plane last month to arrest a journalist on board, as a declaration of economic war, the foreign ministry said in a statement, Reuters reports. Western powers hit Belarus with a wave of new sanctions on Monday in a coordinated response against officials, lawmakers, and ministers from the administration of president Aleksander Lukashenko.