Euobserver.com

The EU's anti-fraud agency has so far identified more than 1000 of these suspicious companies, many of which are based outside the EU.

It would require between 40 to 75 additional staff to oversee how MEPs spend their monthly €4,500 lump sum on office supplies, according to the European Parliament. An EUobserver Freedom of Information request reveals those calculations are flawed.

The EU is committed to reduce "the risk and use of pesticides by 50 percent" by 2030. However, given the level of controversy and public distrust surrounding EU pesticides regulation over the last decade, which reforms could garner public support?

"A visit of high-level EU officials will be considered" to Hong Kong to deter Chinese authorities from electoral law reform, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Wednesday, in a move that comes amid high tension, after Europe and China launched sanctions against each other over China's human-rights abuses. The EU will also step up support for free media and NGOs there and observer trials of pro-democracy activists, Borrell said.

Russia will face "robust" consequences for "harmful activities," US president Joe Biden said after landing at an air-force base in the UK Thursday to start an eight-day European tour, which will climax in a summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin in Geneva. Biden's officials also told UK press he would push London and Brussels to preserve stability in Northern Ireland amid an ugly, post-Brexit row on customs and borders.

Use of party drug MDMA fell in Europe during last year's lockdown, while use of psychedelics, such as LSD, and anti-anxiety drugs, such as Valium and Xanax, increased according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, an EU agency in Lisbon. Cannabis, cocaine, and heroin use remained "stable" and at "high levels", amid "increasingly high purity or potency" of drugs being easily available to European consumers.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić is to meet Kosovar prime minister Albin Kurti in Brussels on 15 June to resume talks on normalising relations, the EU foreign service said Wednesday. The meeting, chaired by EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell, is the first since Kurti entered office and since the dialogue stalled last autumn. The EU-brokered talks have been going on for 10 years and are a pre-condition to enlargement.

One of the two suspects arrested for slapping French president Emmanuel Macron was reportedly in the possession of Mein Kampf and weapons. Investigators found the possessions in the home of the suspect who filmed the slap. Both men are aged 28 and were arrested in south-east France. Their homes were also searched.

The European Parliament on Wednesday approved the EU's Covid travel pass, set for a 1 July launch, as the holiday season gears up. The vote passed with 546 in favour, 93 against and 51 abstentions. "The EU digital Covid certificate will function from 1 July, and will ensure safe and coordinated travel this summer," said Spanish socialist MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar. The Council will now have to endorse it.

Talks have broken down between the EU and the UK on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland. Dubbed the 'sausage war', the spat deals with the movement of chilled meats from Britain to Northern Ireland. European Commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič said "patience was wearing very, very thin". David Frost, the Brexit minister, said there had been "no breakthroughs".

European commissioner for home affairs Ylva Johansson described Greece's use of sound cannons to deter migrant entries as strange. "This is an odd way to protect your borders. This is nothing that has been funded by the European Commission. And I do hope that this is in line with fundamental rights — but that of course has to be clarified," she said, alongside Greece's minister for migration Notis Mitarachi.

Budget commissioner Johannes Hahn promised MEPs that the commission will put forward draft guidelines on how to use the rule-of-law mechanism in the next "few days".

The European Commission on Wednesday (9 June) launched legal action against Berlin, after determining that last year's landmark decision on bond-buying by Germany's Constitutional Court "constitutes a serious precedent" that puts at risk the EU's legal order.

MEPs have urged the EU Commission to put forward a biodiversity law next year, similar to the new climate law - with binding targets for the protection of ecosystems.

This is bad news for all countries in the area, but especially Italy, which has the largest fleet in the EU by number of vessels. Many coastal towns and the welfare of hundreds of thousands of Italians depend on fishing.

A coalition of some 45 groups and NGOs, including front-Lex, Sea-Watch, Open Arms and others, have launched a campaign to end the EU's border agency Frontex. The activists plan 'actions' in Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Spain and Morocco. "Following the launch on 9 June, the campaign plans to mount a series of actions in cities across Europe," they said, in a press statement.

The EU is to extend sanctions on Russia-occupied Crimea, amid a history of patchy implementation.

Greece has declared Turkey a safe country for asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Syria and Somalia. But the European Commission appears to have shed doubt on the claim, saying individual cases still need to be assessed.

A man slapped Emmanuel Macron on the face on Tuesday, when the French president was greeting a small crowd of people. The culprit slapped Macron on the left cheek, shouting "Down with Macronia!" Macron's security officers tackled the man. Two people were arrested. The incident was described by prime minister Jean Castex as an affront to democracy, and far-right leader Marine Le Pen also condemned the attack.

Upcoming EU rules on which investment projects were "green", opening access to public and EU funding, should not set binding standards, a Czech-led group-of-seven fossil-fuel intensive EU states has said in an informal paper, Reuters reports. "The taxonomy should be applied only as a transparency tool. However, the taxonomy is progressively becoming a new standard for the EU policies," the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia said.