Euobserver.com

As a membership candidate, Serbia is expected to join foreign policy declarations and restrictive measures of the EU. However, Serbia is unlikely to join the EU measures against Belarus for both international and domestic reasons.

Our investigation reveals war crimes were committed by all parties to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thousands of civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict. None of the key decision-makers are being held to account.

The United States' reputation as the leading global power has suffered in France and Germany because of Washington's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 600,000 Americans, a poll showed, Reuters reports. On the eve of US president Joe Biden's trip to Europe, the survey said he had not won back the standing of the United States as it was before Covid-19 struck. China's reputation had risen slightly.

Finance ministers in London from the G7 group of wealthy nations agreed a landmark deal aimed at making the biggest companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook pay more tax, The Guardian reports. The two "pillars" of the deal would make companies pay a percentage of their profits in markets where they make large sales despite minimal corporate presence, as well as setting an unprecedented global minimum corporation tax.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives' resounding victory in a state election in eastern Germany on Sunday boosts Armin Laschet's hopes to become chancellor in September, Reuters writes. An exit poll from the Saxony-Anhalt election had the Christian Democrats (CDU) on 36 percent, up more than 6 points on five years ago, and far ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who were on 22.5 percent.

The UK's Prince William and his wife Kate are to spend more time in Scotland as a prophylactic against a new independence movement there, British newspaper The Times reports. "They think of it as their [British] Union. It was originally a union of crowns. They think the politicians have been losing Scotland for them," a royal source said. Some 69 percent of Scottish voters approve of William, a poll showed.

It would be "unimaginable" for Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz to stay in office if convicted of perjury, the country's vice chancellor and leader of the Greens, Werner Kogler, said in remarks broadcast on TV, Reuters writes. Kogler's comments suggest the coalition between his party and Kurz's conservatives could collapse if Kurz, whom prosecutors have placed under investigation over his testimony to a parliamentary commission, was charged and then convicted.

Thousands of young Hungarians marched through Budapest on Sunday to protest against the government's plan to build a Chinese university for €1.4bn, financed via loans from a Chinese bank, despite Chinese human rights abuses. "[Hungary ruling party] Fidesz portray themselves as anti-communists, but in reality the communists are their friends," student Szonja Radics told AFP at the march. The price tag is more than Fidesz national education budget for 2019.

China has complained the EU and US consulates in Hong Kong lit scores of candles in their windows this weekend to commemorate the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989. "Any attempt to exploit Hong Kong to carry out infiltration or sabotage activities against the mainland crosses the red line ... is absolutely intolerable," a spokesperson for the Hong Kong office of China's foreign ministry said Saturday.

Ukraine has outraged Russia by unveiling a national football shirt for the Euro 2021 championship with a map showing Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, as part of Ukraine, and adding a slogan "Glory to Ukraine!", linked to its 2014 pro-Western revolution. One Russian MP, Dmitry Svishchev, called it a "political provocation", Reuters reported, while the Russian foreign ministry said the slogan resembled a Nazi Germany-type war cry.

Russia has threatened to cut off Ukraine gas for political reasons, immediately after announcing the completion of a new pipeline to Germany.

EU states have so far confirmed to relocate just 20 people out of the some 1,400 that arrived on the Italian island of Lampedusa in early May.

The Austrian report, finding the Paks site lies on a seismic fault line, adds to existing concerns over safety issues on the expansion of the nuclear plant - a project pushed by the government of prime minister Viktor Orbán.

There will be still a very limited number of people traveling to Strasbourg. Many think it is an early return: those travelling will have to respect the French curfew and will need to quarantine upon their return to Belgium.

As the crisis in Ceuta unfolded, Spain resolutely requested Brussels' support. And it got it.

The EU has submitted to the World Trade Organization a plan aimed at expanding the production of Covid-19 vaccines - seen by Brussels as a quicker and more targeted solution than the intellectual property right-waiver proposal backed by the US.

"Hungary again blocked an EU statement on Hong Kong. Three weeks ago it was on Middle East. Common foreign and security policy cannot work on the basis of a blocking policy," Miguel Berger, the state secretary in the German foreign ministry Tweeted Friday, adding: "We need a serious debate on ... qualified majority voting". Budapest also recently blocked an EU trade and aid deal with African, Pacific, and Caribbean countries.

Belarusian airline Belavia will be banned from all EU states' airspace from midnight Friday, after EU ambassadors in Brussels agreed the move in reaction to a recent state hijacking, Reuters reports. Over half had already done so ahead of the EU-level step. Belavia flew to some 20 airports in Europe including Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki, Milan, Paris, Rome, Vienna, and Warsaw. EU airlines have also been advised to avoid Belarus airspace.

"Today ... the pipe-laying work of the first Nord Stream 2 line was successfully finished. Work on the second line is ongoing," Russian president Vladimir Putin said at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum Friday, Reuters reports. "Gazprom is ready to start filling Nord Stream 2 with gas," he added. The pipeline, to Germany, will be fully completed by 2022, despite Polish and US complaints on its strategic threat.

"For the first time, the offenses against the financial interest of the EU will be investigated in an integrated strategic manner by a prosecutorial body with supranational jurisdiction," EU chief prosecutor Laura Kövesi said.