Euobserver.com

In a heated discussion among EU affairs ministers, Hungary defended its vision of traditional family, while other EU countries worried about the new law's discriminatory aspects.

The EU is preparing to resume budgetary aid to Burundi, despite NGOs' reports of ongoing human rights abuses by the government there.

Lithuania has donated 20,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Taiwan, with its foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis saying "freedom-loving people should look out for each other", in an allusion to human rights abuses in China, which does not recognise Taiwan's independence. "This friendship from the Baltic Sea is precious," Taiwan said. Lithuania also angered China last month by ditching its membership in China's so-called '17+1' diplomatic club of central European states.

A man who was stopped at Brussels airport with a falsified PCR-test has been sentenced by a Brussels court to a year in prison, De Standaard writes. It is the first such sentence since the Belgian authorities announced in April that they will prosecute such crimes. Between 19 April and 11 June, 576 people have been caught with falsified PCR-test at Brussels airport.

The EU should update its migration pact with Turkey, EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said ahead of an EU summit set to discuss renewing the deal, Reuters reports. "It is important that we continue to support Turkey, with 3.7 million Syrian refugees living there, some of whom have been in Turkey for 10 years," she said, adding that "the people need to have a perspective."

A senior MEP has piled pressure on football body UEFA to move the Euro 2020 final from the UK. "The spread of the 'Delta variant' [of Covid-19] makes it impossible for 40,000 spectators to view the final match in London's stadium", Peter Liese, a centre-right MEP from Germany's ruling CDU party, who is a doctor and health rapporteur, said on Tuesday, echoing Italian prime minister Mario Draghi's comments on Monday.

Italy should block a bill criminalising homophobic and misogynistic hate speech and violence because it harmed "freedom of thought" among Roman Catholics, the Vatican said in a confidential "note verbale" to Italy's embassy in the Holy See, according to Italian daily Corriere della Sera. The unprecedented intervention comes as the law, tabled by a gay centre-left MP, is to be ratified by the senate after having passed the lower house.

The main political parties in the Netherlands decided on Tuesday to postpone talks to form a coalition government until mid-August, Reuters reported. Centre-right caretaker prime minister Mark Rutte and Sigrid Kaag, the leader of the centre-left D-66, are expected to put forward a plan for the country's recovery and climate policies, which could help them to gain support from at least ten other parties to reach a majority in parliament.

The European Commission decided on Tuesday to amend its second contract with the pharmaceutical company Moderna to purchase, on behalf of all member states, 150 million additional doses in 2022. EU countries can resell or donate doses to other countries outside the EU or through the COVAX vaccine-sharing scheme led by the World Health Organization. The EU has secured a total of 460 million doses of Moderna.

A new report reveals how extremists attempted to exploit the Covid-19 pandemic to spread their radical messages and propaganda across the EU. In 2020, a total of 57 completed, failed or foiled terrorist attacks took place in the EU.

Greece reaffirmed its position that refugees should be allowed onward travel, despite objections of abuse by six EU member states. The comments come as Amnesty International releases a new report on illegal pushbacks in Greece.

Germany is one of the few countries where a political YouTuber or blogger may receive a letter from the independent media authorities asking him or her to respect journalistic standards.

There is an eagerness to move towards what Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, has called the "sustainable stabilisation" of Libya. And yet the essential elements needed for such stability are not on the agenda of Wednesday's conference in Berlin.

The European football federation, UEFA, has rejected a request to illuminate Munich's stadium in rainbow colours for Wednesday's Germany vs Hungary Euro2020 match because it says the move has a political context. Munich mayor Dieter Reiter made the request as a response to a legislation adopted in Hungary last week banning LGBTIQ people appearing sexual education or programmes for under 18s. UEFA said it "is a politically- and religiously-neutral organisation".

Belarusian opposition leaders have broadly welcomed the EU's latest round of sanctions on regime henchmen, but some said they ought to have gone further.

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi said that the Euro 2020 final should be moved from Wembley Stadium in London to Rome, Deutsche Welle reports. The UK has seen a rise in coronavirus cases due to the spread of the 'delta variant', first identified in India. "I advocate that the final should not take place in a country in which the risk of infection is very big," Draghi told reporters.

The UN rights chief has called for action to recover from the worst global deterioration of rights she had seen, highlighting the situation in China, Russia, and Ethiopia among others, The Guardian reports. "To recover from the most wide-reaching and severe cascade of human rights setbacks in our lifetimes, we need a life-changing vision, and concerted action," Michelle Bachelet told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's 47th session.

The EU has trained and equipped the Libyan Coast Guard. Those intercepted are then returned. Now Turkey has taken the lead, raising the stakes of possible leverage over the European Union as Ankara takes control of the route.

Belgium's justice minister, Vincent Van Quickenborne, has appealed to the public to ignore conspiracy theories around the death of Jürgen Conings, the heavily-armed soldier whose body has been discovered a month after he went missing after threatening to kill a high-profile virologist, The Guardian writes. Conings' aunt told local media she believed security forces had killed her nephew. "He wouldn't commit suicide," she said. "He was killed."

Sweden's parliament passed a vote of no confidence in prime minister Stefan Lofven on Monday, the BBC reports. A total of 181 of the 349 MPs voted in favour, with 51 abstentions. It is the first time in Swedish history that a prime minister has been ousted in such a vote. The social democrat leader has a week to resign or call a snap election.