Euobserver.com

Demonstrators are demanding prime minister Boyko Borissov and chief prosecutor Ivan Geshev resign, following a raid on the president's office. President Rumen Radev has been a vocal critic of the government and its record on graft.

EU health policy has three faces: explicit health policy, internal market policy, and fiscal governance. Covid-19 looks like it is transforming all three for the better.

EU leaders have been immersed in "intense discussions" since Friday morning over the bloc's seven-year budget and recovery package, according to an EU diplomat. "It's too soon to say what directions the negotiations are taking," the diplomat added, saying the talks have so far centered around how to control and monitor the disbursement of the recovery aid, the budget's size and the corrections to countries paying more into the budget.

State security services have accused Russian spies of trying to steal Covid-19 vaccine research, targeting Canada, the UK and the US. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre said the hackers "almost certainly" operated as "part of Russian intelligence services". It said a group known as APT29 was behind the attacks. It is unclear if their efforts were successful.

EU member states on Thursday released their latest round-up of travel restrictions on countries to be eased in order to enter the European Union. The list did not include the United States, meaning all non-essential visitors such as tourists won't be allowed into EU territory. The list is reviewed every two weeks and currently includes Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia, and Uruguay.

The Spanish deputy prime minister, Pablo Iglesias, called for a parliamentary investigation into the use of spyware to target pro-independence Catalan politicians. "I believe that a parliamentary commission needs to investigate all the instances of spying that have taken place in our country because it's part of the job of cleansing and democratic regeneration," he told The Guardian on Thursday, adding that espionage is "unacceptable in a democracy".

An EU Court of Justice adviser said on Thursday that YouTube and similar platforms are not liable when their users illegally upload copyrighted content - although rights-holders can seek an injunction against the companies, Reuters reported. EU judges will rule on the issue in the coming months. The European Commission wants to address the platform economy with new rules under the Digital Services Act at the end of the year.

The commissioner for the environment, oceans and fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, announced on Thursday that the European Commission will increase transparency in the negotiating process on the annual fishing opportunities. The commission will make public all documents complementing the proposals on fishing quotas when they are delivered to the EU Council. "With the publication of all elements of our working papers, this dialogue will become more transparent," said Sinkevičius.

Oliver Schmidt, a former senior manager at Volkswagen, will spend the remainder of his seven-year jail sentence in Germany. Schmidt was imprisoned in the United States for his role in the company's emissions scandal. Schmidt had tried to hide a scheme to evade pollution limits on diesel vehicles. He was also accused of destroying evidence and misleading US investigators.

France's new prime minister, Jean Castex, has said he would introduce a law to combat "separatism", to "avoid certain groups becoming closed in around ethnic or religious identities". He vowed to be "intransigent" in defending France's official secularism, promising to fight "radical Islamism in all its forms" as "an absolute priority", as the republic has been shaken by "the coalition of its enemies - terrorists, conspiracy theorists, separatists and communitarians".

In a move to calm the wave of civic unrest in Bulgaria, prime minister Boyko Borissov has forced three cabinet ministers to resign, while insisting he has no intention of quitting himself, Balkan Insight reports. Bulgaria's ruling coalition, comprising the centre-right GERB party and United Patriots, on Thursday said it intended to remain in office until regular elections are due next March, despite growing anti-government protests.

Several diplomats described Michel being "traumatised" and "paralysed" by the failure at the February summit, and some agrue he has learned "not to take for granted what leaders tell him".

EU leaders will face difficult and fundamental issues on Friday-Saturday (17-18 July), when they attempt to agree on the planned seven-year €1.07 trillion budget and €750bn recovery package.

The EU's top court ruled that the EU-US data-transfer pact fails to protect EU citizens' rights to privacy - following a legal challenge from Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems against Facebook. Washington said it was "deeply disappointed" with the ruling.

The Netherlands and Spain are at opposite ends of the debate about the EU's recovery package. But they must realise they are in the same boat.

European culture is in the midst of a crisis. How decision-makers choose to respond now will set the scene for the next decade of cultural and creative life in our union.

The EU Court of Justice on Thursday rejected the EU-US Privacy Shield - an agreement to share personal data for commercial purposes, adopted in 2016. However, the court said that standard contractual clauses, used for the transfer of personal data to processors established in third countries, were valid. In 2015, Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems initiated a legal battle, saying that Facebook's standard clauses lack sufficient data-protection safeguards.

The European Commission says it needs more time to study a ruling before it can fully explain why it lost a landmark case against Apple at the General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg.

Yorgen Fenech, a Maltese tycoon who confessed being a middleman in the killing of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, has failed in his bid to challenge the government's decision denying him a presidential pardon due to a technical formality, the Times of Malta reported. Fenech previously requested a presidential pardon in exchange for information about Keith Schembri, who was the former's prime minister chief-of-staff. The decision is likely to be appealed.

The Catalan regional government on Wednesday introduced new lockdown measures due to a surge in the number of infections in the region, weeks after a nationwide lockdown was lifted, El País reported. The number of weekly infections in the territory has doubled in the last week, jumping to 2,489 between July 6 to 12. The new restrictions affect several municipalities in the area of Segrià, Lleida and L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.