Euobserver.com

The European Parliament, on Thursday, said an "EU Covid-19 certificate", proposed by the European Commission must be able to facilitate free movement without discrimination. They said holders of such a certificate must not be subject to "additional travel restrictions, such as quarantine, self-isolation or testing." They also want it to be universal and accessible to everyone, so as to avoid discrimination against those not yet vaccinated.

Preliminary UN talks on Cypriot reunification have broken up with the two sides further apart than before they began.

The European Commission unveiled on Thursday its plans to improve the EU law-making process, including the requirement to assess the UN Sustainable Development Goals in all legislative proposals and to simplify public consultations. Brussels will also introduce the so-called 'one-in, one-out' approach, offsetting new legislative proposals by equivalently reducing existing burdens in the same policy area.

The European Parliament has approved a EU regulation against 'terrorist' content online. It allows one EU state to ask another to remove content hosted in another. But European Digital Rights, Access Now, the Civil Liberties Union for Europe, and other NGOs say the new rules amount to censorship. "Somebody like Viktor Orban could ask for the removal of content uploaded in another country because it criticises his government," said Liberties.

The EU's border agency Frontex is coordinating with the Libyan Coast Guard, according to a joint-investigation between Lighthouse Reports with Der Spiegel, Libération and ARD Monitor. The agency has in the past denied such links but "the investigation reveals back channels between Frontex and the Libyan Coast Guard, including Whatsapp groups where coordinates of refugee boats are shared."

Jonas Grimheden will become Frontex's fundamental rights officer. Grimheden is set to start his new job in June, amid intense scrutiny over the agency's long delay in hiring staff tasked to make sure rights violations are not taking place. 40 such monitors should have been hired by December, but only 20 have so far been hired.

Arlene Foster has been under internal pressure for months because of the party's annoyance at her failure to stop the creation of an economic border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain as part of the Brexit deal.

The European Commission concluded that existing legislation on GMOs is not "fit for purpose" for new genomic techniques, and needs to be adapted - a move seen by some critics as the first step to deregulation.

A new study has shown that Romanians are increasingly more tolerant towards LGBTI rights - with 43 percent saying that they support a legal form of same-sex union in Romania, either as civil unions or marriage.

A second referendum would only be called by the SNP when there is a visible and consistent majority in favour among the Scottish electorate. And such a majority does not exist at the present.

Germany's Constitutional Court ruled on Thursday that the country's 2019 climate protection act is party unconstitutional, and that it fails to establish sufficient provisions to reduce CO2 emissions after 2031, DW reported. The ruling comes after a group of nine people lodged a complaint, arguing that the law violates fundamental rights to a humane future. It gives the government until the end of next year to improve the law.

Arlene Foster has announced she is stepping down as leader of the Democratic Unionist party and Northern Ireland's first minister after a revolt by party hardliners, The Guardian writes. She will step down as first minister by July, bringing fresh tumult to a region hit by protests over the post-Brexit Irish Sea border. Foster urged her successor to focus on unifying people, amid fears a right-wing zealot could take over.

Four explosions and an assassination attempt in Bulgaria were likely perpetrated by Russia, Bulgaria has said, after the Czech Republic, a fellow Nato ally, said Russia killed two people there in 2014.

Poland's constitutional court has delayed a verdict on wether Polish or EU law has primacy from Wednesday to 13 May, but a government spokesman said he expected it to rule on the Polish side, in what could trigger a legal crisis for Poland's EU membership. The top judge is a former eurosceptic MP, Krystyna Pawlowicz, who has called the EU flag a "rag". Its other judges are also government loyalists.

Europe could see a "tsunami" of business failures after governments end pandemic-linked aid programmes, worth €1.5 trillion so far, the European Systemic Risk Board, an EU financial watchdog, warned Wednesday. "In a worst-case scenario, the postponed insolvencies would suddenly materialise and trigger a recessionary dynamic, potentially causing further insolvencies," it said. "The current low rate of insolvencies would then be similar to the sea retreating before a tsunami," it added.

Press freedom in Europe suffered "extraordinary damage" due to the pandemic in 2020, according to a report by NGOs for the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, out Wednesday. Penalties for misreporting the events, denials of freedom-of-information requests, and impunity for violence against journalists were parts of the problem. The fact just one person was sentenced for the assassination, in 2017, of a Maltese journalist was not credible, it said.

"Europe will reach herd immunity in July, latest by August," according to Ugur Sahin, the CEO of German vaccine-maker BioNTech, speaking Wednesday. He was "confident" his firm's jab worked against the Indian Covid-19 variant, he added. Some 68.3 percent of British adults had antibodies in their system due to vaccines as of 11 April, the UK's Office for National Statistics also estimated Wednesday, up from 53.1 percent on 4 April.

The UK is planning to use a National Health Service phone app as its Covid-19 vaccine certificate to facilitate travel internationally this summer, Reuters reported. British transport secretary Grant Shapps said on Wednesday that he is working with partners across the world "to make sure that that system can be internationally recognised". The UK will allow international non-essential travel from 17 May. Meanwhile, the EU is preparing its own system.

The French government submitted on Wednesday a bill to strengthen its counter-terrorism law, allowing security agencies to use algorithms to detect activity on jihadist or extremist websites and watch over high-risk individuals after release from jail, Reuters reported. "Terrorists have changed the methods of communication. We continue to be blind, monitoring phone lines that nobody uses any more," said French interior minister Gerald Darmanin.

Switzerland will hold a referendum on same-sex marriage, after opponents gathered some 61,000 signatures calling to put the matter to a national vote, The Guardian reported on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a petition of the political movement 'Operation Libero' gathered 100,000 signatures in favour of gay marriage this month. The Swiss parliament passed a law recognizing same-sex marriage last December. The Netherlands did so in 2001, leading the way in Europe.