Euobserver.com

Voicing their concerns, a dozen MEPs warned that EU funds would "disappear in opaque funding structures ... which have the purpose of further destroying academic freedom and institutional autonomy in Hungary".

The EU's Covid-19 travel certificate, the so-called 'Digital Green Certificate', is set to trigger a clash between MEPs and member states on what advantages this document would actually bring for free movement.

Dutch liberal MEP Sophie In't Veld says MEPs should not be required to meet only registered lobbyists. "It is profoundly anti-democratic," she said. But Transparency International EU, an NGO, has described the lobby exemption for MEPs as "scandalous".

While the rationale is allegedly "consumer protection", this amendment to the Farm to Fork strategy clearly has the dairy industry's fingerprints all over it.

The European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of the post-Brexit trade agreement between the UK and the EU, clearing a key hurdle in the ratification process. MEPs approved the deal by 660 votes to five, with 32 abstentions, the parliament said on Wednesday. The agreement will give a framework to relations between the bloc and Britain, which voted to end its 47 years of EU membership five years ago.

Experts from the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam have finished the first phase of their trip to Russia as they prepare to rule on whether its Sputnik V coronavirus-vaccine is safe. "Stage one's over ... we're waiting for reports and are getting prepared for inspections of production facilities," Russian health minister Mikhail Murashko said Tuesday. EMA staff arrived 10 April and their production-site inspections would start 10 May, he added.

France is preparing to punish ex-generals and acting offers who signed a letter warning of a civil war with Islamists.

The EU's law enforcement agency Frontex has been helping member states return unwanted migrants. The European Commission now wants it to take a lead role, while hoping to boost the number of voluntary deportations.

Hungary's parliament passed legislation on Tuesday setting up foundations to take control of universities and cultural bodies. Critics say the move extends the right-wing government's ideological control and robs the state of vast assets. The government argued that restructuring is needed for modernisation. The new foundations' boards will be appointed by the government, which will control real estate assets, firms, benefit from EU funds, and influence the universities' governance.

Brussels will not impose its own curfew, after the national curfew is lifted on 8 May, Rudy Vervoort, minister-president of the Brussels region said. Until now the curfew in the Belgian capital started at 10PM, against midnight in the rest of Belgium. On 8 May cafe terraces will open again in Belgium until 10PM. The curfew will be replaced by a ban on gatherings of more than three people.

ByteDance, the Chinese firm which owns the TikTok social media platform, is to open a 'European Transparency and Accountability Centre' in Ireland next year to address EU politicians' concerns on how it protects children from advertising and harmful content. "We recognise our responsibility to gain the trust of our community and the broader public," it said Tuesday, after consumer groups launched lawsuits against it in 15 EU states in February.

Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti urged Serbia to bring to justice those who ordered genocide in the 1998 to 1999 Kosovo war on National Missing Person's Day (Tuesday 27 April), marking the date when 377 Kosovar boys and men were slaughtered in a refugee convoy. Some 1,639 war victims were still missing, some having been hidden in cemeteries. The war claimed over 10,000 lives, most of them Kosovar Albanians.

Authorities in Burkina Faso have found the bodies of two Spanish journalists, David Beriain and Roberto Fraile, who were killed by jihadists while filming a documentary about poaching near a nature reserve. "The worst news is confirmed," Spanish foreign minister Arancha González Laya said, while praising those "who, like them, carry out courageous and essential journalism from conflict zones". An Irish national was also reportedly killed in the raid.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres urged Turkish and Greek Cypriot parties to "be creative" at the start of informal talks on the island's future after a four-year hiatus, Ekathimerini reports. Guterres has invited officials of the two communities in Cyprus as well as the foreign ministers of Turkey, Greece and the UK to attend the Geneva-based talks this week, in an effort to resume peace negotiations which collapsed in mid-2017.

Belgium has become the latest country to ban travel from Brazil, South Africa, and India due to fears of coronavirus mutations, Belgian TV VRT reports. There are exemptions for transport workers and diplomats if they can prove their trip is essential. Belgian residents are allowed to return home. Last week 20 nursing students that had come to Belgium from India were found to be infected with the Indian variant.

A group of six member states have sent India a shipment of oxygen, medicines, and critical equipment, as the country fights a devastating surge in Covid-19 cases, spurred by the new "double mutant" spreading across the country.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen promised "not to hesitate" to use the "real teeth" of the future relations agreement between the UK and EU, if Britain does not comply with the deal.

The further the vaccination campaign progresses, the more people will ask: what about the rest of the world? The EU should answer the question loud and clear now before it is drowned out by a rising chorus of criticism.

With the prospect of rolling non-lethal pandemics, and border-checks based primarily on vaccination status, the assertion in the EU's 'green certificate' memorandum that the proposal "cannot be interpreted as establishing an obligation or right to be vaccinated" seems disingenuous.

Greek neo-Nazi MEP Ioannis Lagos was arrested and detained by Belgian police on Tuesday, after his immunity was lifted. The European Parliament says Lagos will continue to receive his salary until the Greek state terminates his mandate.