Euobserver.com

Investigative journalism in Europe needed "legal" protection from the growing problem of malicious law suits, the European Commission and MEPs have said.

Greece has drawn criticism and scrutiny for alleged widespread pushbacks of migrants in the Aegean Sea, along with the reported complicity of the EU's border agency Frontex. Critics say the agency should pull out of Greece.

Greek authorities have begun rolling out vaccinations to asylum seekers in migrant camps, Ekathimerini writes. The government, which began vaccinating the general public in January, had been criticised by rights groups for being slow to include asylum-seekers, at risk in overcrowded camps where sanitary conditions are poor and social-distancing impossible. Of the 12,100 asylum-seekers in Greece, about 9,400 live in official camps, according to the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR.

Germany persistently violated EU limits on air pollution, the European Court of Justice said, in a ruling that could see the country face financial penalties if it fails to improve air quality in several big cities, Reuters reports. Air pollution in Europe has eased in the last decade, but remains the continent's biggest environmental health risk. Prolonged exposure to dirty air can cause diabetes, lung disease and cancer.

A study from the European Commission on Thursday revealed an increase of antisemitic online content during the pandemic. Comparing the first two months of 2020 and 2021, the study show a seven-fold increase in antisemitic content on Twitter, Facebook and Telegram in French, and over a thirteen-fold increase in German. On Twitter, for example, one such content in French received over three million retweets and likes.

An Irish subsidiary of Microsoft made a profit of €260bn last year but paid no corporation tax, as it is "resident" for tax purposes in Bermuda, The Guardian reports. The company, Microsoft Round Island One, posted profits last year equal to nearly 75 percent of Ireland's entire GDP – despite having no employees.

The European Commission unveiled its plans for an EU 'digital identity wallet' - an app that will allow citizens to store their national digital identification or driver licence on their phones to access public and private services across the EU.

Hungary has lost a legal challenge against a European Parliament vote that opened the way for the Article 7 sanctions probe into the erosion of democratic standards under prime minister Viktor Orbán's rule in the country. Budapest queried the abstentions.

Europeans' support in their national governments has plummeted since the pandemic began, while the image of the EU and trust in the 27-nations bloc remains strong and steadily increasing, according to two new surveys.

Denmark has passed legislation outsourcing asylum claims to countries outside Europe. The European Commission says it is illegal under EU - but notes Denmark also has a special opt-out on justice and home affairs issues.

The Covid-19 crisis has revealed that the current European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has neither the funding, the staff or – perhaps most importantly – the authority to lead an effective response to a pandemic in Europe.

Far-right Israeli politician Naftali Bennett is set to replace Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's prime minister after an eight-faction coalition deal reached on Wednesday, Israeli daily Haaretz reports. The deal, ending Netanyahu's 12-years in office, could see him jailed for corruption after losing immunity. The new coalition focused on ejecting Netanyahu instead of other policy, and includes an Arab Israeli party as well as pro-settler right-wingers like Bennett.

EU ambassadors have failed to reach an agreement over whether cross-border natural gas projects should continue to receive EU funding, under the TEN-E regulation, which is currently under revision.

At least seven of Belarus' "political prisoners" were minors who needed special EU attention, 22 European ministers have said in a personal appeal.

It will take low-income countries 57 years to have their populations fully-protected, if vaccination continues at the current rate (63,000 people a day), a new calculation from campaigners of the People's Vaccine Alliance revealed on Thursday. Of the 1.7 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccines given globally, just 0.3 percent of COVID jabs have been delivered in low-income countries. G7 nations are vaccinating at a rate of 4,630,533 people per day.

EU ambassadors have added Japan to a list of safe countries, with Australia, Israel, New Zealand, Rwanda, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand, for which member states are recommended to gradually lift pandemic travel restrictions, Reuters reports. Wednesday's decision, ahead of Japan's Olympic Games, left out UK tourists until at least mid-June, due to concerns over the Indian variant there. Britain also advises against travel to all EU states, except Portugal.

Citizens from most EU states might have to pay £55 (€64) more for UK work visas, as well as a £199 foreign worker "sponsorship" fee, if the UK goes ahead with plans to withdraw from the European Social Charter, a 1961 accord of 27 European states, granting discounts to healthcare, charity, and seasonal workers, such as fruit pickers, The Times reports, saying home secretary Priti Patel has "considered" the move.

The leader of Austria's far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Norbert Hofer, has stepped down - but pointedly did not back his high-profile deputy and rival Herbert Kickl to succeed him, Reuters writes. Hofer, widely seen as the most presentable face of the anti-Islam and anti-immigration party which crashed out of government amid scandal two years ago, came close to winning Austria's presidential election in 2016 only to lose a re-run.

Spanish police have found hundreds of kilos of cocaine smuggled into Europe by disguising it as charcoal and ridding the drug of its telltale scent to render it undetectable to sniffer dogs, The Guardian reports. "The modus operandi involved using a complex chemical process to camouflage the drugs as charcoal ... carried out by the Mexican and Colombian cartels," the Spanish force said in a statement.

The European Commission and Bill Gates announced on Wednesday a partnership that aims to mobilise up to €820m between 2022 and 2023 to invest in clean technologies, such as green hydrogen, sustainable aviation fuels, direct air capture and long-duration energy storage. The partnership will target technologies with "a recognised potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" which are currently too expensive to get to scale, the commission said in a statement.