Euobserver.com

Hungarian MPs passed a law on Tuesday saying only married couples can normally adopt children, while single people can do so only with special permission from the country's 'family affairs' minister. Hungary does not allow same-sex marriages. Its crackdown on LGBTIQ rights comes despite a recent scandal in Brussels, which saw a senior Hungarian ruling-party MEP arrested at a gay sex-party for flouting corona-rules.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), an EU agency in Paris, should, in future, regulate the way private companies assigned environmental-friendliness ratings to businesses to help guide investors, the Dutch and French market regulators have said in a joint appeal, Reuters reports. "The proposed framework is aimed at preventing misallocation of investments, greenwashing, and ensuring investor protection," they said, adding that "providers of sustainability-related services remain largely unregulated".

EU values commissioner Věra Jourová has told the Financial Times newspaper she will use the recently-agreed powers on rule-of-law conditionality to make sure the bloc's budget is not spent on "the wrong things, the wrong people, the wrong systems' - I mean political systems". She will not be an "activist" on the topic, however, she added. "It will be a stress test also for us [the commission]," she said.

The European Commission, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Gavi signed a €500m agreement "to secure fair and equitable access" to Covid-19 vaccines for 92 low and middle-income countries, it said in a statement. The deal is part of the Covax Facility aiming to make one billion doses of vaccines available for millions of people. The EU has allocated allocated more than €850m to Covax.

According to IPI's figures, 79 journalists remain behind bars in Turkey. While this is down from a high of over 160 in 2018, the figure still makes Turkey one of the world's leading jailers of journalists.

The European Medicines Agency will assess the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on December 21, earlier than the originally planned date of 29 December. The decision follows public pressure from Germany's health minister Jens Spahn and others. "Our goal is an approval before Christmas," Spahn told reporters earlier Tuesday in Berlin.

The EU's anti-fraud office Olaf says some 140,000 litres of hand-sanitiser from Turkey, tainted with dangerously high levels of methanol, have so far been seized across the EU. Methanol can cause headaches, blurred vision, nausea and vomiting, loss of coordination, and a decreased level of consciousness. It also has direct toxic effect on the optic nerve, and ingestion can lead to blindness.

The efforts by the two nationalist-conservative governments, which have both attacked LGBTIQ-rights and women' rights at home, is causing angst among several member states, who see it as a possible roll-back on gender rights.

The European Commission unveiled on Tuesday a package of proposals that set out legal obligations for digital platforms aimed at tackling illegal content and unfair practices in today's digital environment.

In a messy, pandemic-racked and rudderless world, Europe's normative power certainly matters. But it would matter more if EU leaders practiced at home what they preach to others.

There are profound questions about whether the windfall of cash from the EU coronavirus recovery fund will truly help Italy recover or whether it will cause more problems than it solves, for Rome and the rest of the eurozone.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said Monday it was right to take it time on corona-vaccine approval following public German pressure, this weekend, to speed things up. It was "working around the clock" its director Emer Cooke told the APP news agency. "European citizens ... want a thorough evaluation of the benefits and the risks of the vaccine, so that they can be confident it is safe, effective", he added.

French president Emmanuel Macron has called a referendum, due next year, too amend the French constitution by adding pledges on climate and environment protection to the text. "The [French] Republic guarantees the preservation of biodiversity and the environment and fights against climate change," the amendment is to add. The date remains to be set after French MPs and senators first pass the legislation, Macron added.

The political clout of the German EU presidency failed to mend the most contentious aspects of migration, as EU states remain divided on hosting asylum seekers.

The Netherlands and the Czech Republic are to impose strict Christmas lockdowns to fight surges in corona infections. "The Netherlands will close for five weeks ... we're going to have to swallow the bitter pill," Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said Monday. "This year's Christmas will be totally different," Czech health minister Jan Blatný also said. The moves follow similar measures ing Germany, amid expectations that Italy will also follow.

The US has blacklisted İsmail Demir, the president of Turkey's Defence Industries Directorate, a body dealing with defence project development, and three other of its employees, in protest Turkey bought a Russian air-defence system. It earlier excluded Turkey from its F-35 warplane development programme. The EU, last week, also agreed to blacklist Turkish officials linked to unwanted gas-drilling in Cypriot waters in a rift between Nato allies.

The EU has appealed for Iran to halt a second high-profile hanging, but said nuclear arms talks will go on regardless of human rights abuses or related sanctions.

A EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) report on Monday warned about the risks of artificial intelligence in predictive policing or targeted advertising,as the bloc prepares new rules. "AI is not infallible, it is made by people - and humans can make mistakes. That is why people need to be aware when AI is used, how it works and how to challenge automated decisions," FRA director Michael O'Flaherty said.

Portugal, which takes over the EU presidency next month, will play a key role in making sure the €750bn coronavirus recovery fund - which was unblocked by EU leaders last week - takes off.

The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said a post-Brexit trade deal could be sealed this week after Boris Johnson made a key concession over the weekend, The Guardian reports. In a meeting with ambassadors and MEPs in Brussels, Barnier said the prime minister's acceptance of the need for a treaty-level mechanism to ensure fair competition as regulatory standards diverge over time had unlocked the talks, despite difficult issues remaining.