Euobserver.com

The European Commission says member states can use EU funds to pay for food, medical supplies, and personnel on vessels hosting migrants offshore - provided that all legal conditions are met.

The EU Commission told Hungary that its move to admit visitors from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia but not from other EU member states is discrimination and was not in line with EU rules.

The budget committee chair said the European Parliament expects tangible improvements to the package in its talks with member states - while the German minister argued that the EU leaders' deal was difficult enough.

If Europe wants to have a chance to bring back some stability and keep some ground against other powers, it must learn to be a better partner. Doing what we are doing is not an option.

Flemish prime minister Jan Jambon appeared before a Belgian parliamentary committee to explain the arrest and death of Slovak citizen Jozef Chovanec in 2018.

As the European Union prepares for the 6th African Union summit, set to take place in Brussels in October, EU leaders should wake up to the tragic reality unfolding beyond the Mediterranean sea.

For many workers, jobs have been decoupled from location. Now, the European Union must recognise that fact and adjust to it by adopting new rules.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ratcheted up rhetoric against EU member states in a dispute over gas in the eastern Mediterranean. "It is funny (for other countries) to use Greece, which cannot fight its way out of a paper bag, as bait against a regional and global power like Turkey," he said. Ankara had also announced its research vessel will carry out seismic surveys in the disputed area.

The UK has blamed the EU for stalled Brexit talks, while rejecting Brussels' proposals to discuss "difficult" areas, such as state aid and fisheries, first in next week's round of Brexit talks. "The EU continues to insist that we must agree on difficult areas", a spokesman for British negotiator David Frost said. "We would instead like to settle the simplest issues first, in order to build momentum," he added.

Right-wing extremists in Germany could use the protest movement against coronavirus measures for their own ends, the head of Germany's domestic security agency BfV, Thomas Haldenwang, said on Tuesday in interview with the German news agency DPA. "Right-wing extremists and 'Reichsbürger' [alt-right Reich Citizens] succeeded in occupying a resonant space, creating powerful images and thus exploiting the heterogeneous protest events," Haldenwang said.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructed his generals, in recent days, to sink a Greek ship, but in such a way so as not to kill any crew, German daily Die Welt reports, citing Turkish military sources. But the generals refused to do so, the paper added. A second suggestion from the president's circle was to shoot down a Greek fighter jet in a non-lethal way, but generals refused again.

Greece has delayed the school year by one week due to a surge in the number of coronavirus infections in the past few weeks, Reuters reported. "We urge all parents to return with the children to their homes in the coming days and to make sure they stay safe […] until lessons resume," said on Tuesday a government spokesperson. Mask will also be mandatory in all indoor spaces of schools.

Spain is the European country that shed most jobs due to coronavirus, El País reported on Tuesday. During the first half of the year, job losses were nearly three times higher in Spain than in other member states. Between April and June, employment in Spain decreased by 7.5 percent, according to Eurostat - in Germany by 1.4 percent, in France by 2.6 percent and in the UK by 0.7 percent.

Marmolada, the largest and most symbolic glacier in the Dolomites, could disappear within 15 years due to global heating, Italian scientists have warned, according to The Guardian. The 3,343m glacier, known as the Queen of the Dolomites, has already lost more than 80 percent of its volume over the last 70 years. Aldino Bondesan, a geophysics professor at the University of Padua said only long-term climate efforts can help.

EU commissioners Didier Reynders and Ylva Johansson have written to Hungarian authorities stressing there can be no discrimination between EU citizens when it comes to travel restrictions, a commission spokesperson said. The letter comes in reaction to the latest restrictions introduced on Tuesday banning all foreigners entering the country, due to a rise in coronavirus infections. On Monday, Hungary made latest-minute exceptions for Czech, Polish and Slovak citizens.

The European Banking Authority (EBA) says it will make additional efforts to prevent people in its senior management from getting jobs in private firms they oversee, following pressure from the administrative watchdog, the EU Ombudsman. The announcement follows the controversial move of the EBA's former executive director Adam Farkas, who was hired by the Brussels-based Association for Financial Markets in Europe.

Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney has indicated he might take up the country's EU commission post following the recent resignation of Phil Hogan for flouting anti-coronavirus restrictions. "I'm not ruling myself out but this is subject to a decision of the Taoiseach [prime minister] and party leaders," Coveney told Irish broadcaster RTE Monday. The 48-year old former MEP is a Brexit specialist hoping to retain Hogan's trade portfolio in Brussels.

Czech senate speaker Miloš Vystrčil "will pay a heavy price" for his "public provocation" of having visited Taiwan Sunday, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said in a statement Monday. "To challenge the One China principle on the Taiwan issue is ... an act of international treachery," Wang added. Wang spoke while on a tour of EU states that ends in Berlin Tuesday in his first overseas trip since the pandemic.

Paris city officials rolled out new testing labs on Monday and said it will soon be possible to get tested for Covid-19 for free in all 20 districts of the French capital, RFI reported. The spots will offer free testing for everyone, including those without social security. The city also launched three permanent laboratories to conduct free tests, and two mobile laboratories, as France faces rising numbers of infections.

A study from the University of Oxford revealed that only one-in-10 of global electric utility firms are investing in renewable energy. The author of the report, Galina Alova, told The Guardian that the research highlighted "a worrying gap between what is needed" to fight the climate crisis and "what actions are being taken by the utility sector". Most of the companies prioritising renewable energy were located in Europe.