Euobserver.com

Facebook PR chief Nick Clegg tried to make us believe that it is comparable to a phone company. Nothing could be further from the truth. His company decides which messages users see. It literally "ranks" content.

Although slightly elaborate, the Citizens' Initiative is an important instrument to boost popular participation in the EU legislative process, as well as to engage citizens in the policy making process of the Union.

The Guardian and El País revealed on Tuesday that the president of the Catalan parliament, Roger Torrent, was targeted in a "possible case of domestic political espionage". The spyware could have taken advantage of a previous vulnerability in WhatsApp software that gives access to everything on the target's phone. Torrent, who was warned about the targeting by researchers working for WhatsApp, accused the "Spanish state" of the alleged attack.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday that the European Union is preparing a "coordinated" package of EU-wide and national measures in response to China's new security law on Hong Kong.

The chief administrators of the Council, representing member states, have issued draft guidelines on corporate sponsorships of EU presidencies. The guidelines do not ban sponsorships - despite the risks they pose to the EU's reputation as a whole.

The 27 EU foreign affairs ministers clashed with Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu at a meeting on Monday over "illegal Turkish drilling activities in the exclusive economic zone of Cyprus", over Turkey's role in the Libyan conflict and over the decision to turn the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, a common statement of the EU-27 said. Josep Borrell was tasked to explore ways to lower the tensions.

An analysis on Tuesday by the consultancy Climate & Company and think tank Agora Energiewende found that the EU's long-term budget and recovery fund risks falling short on "green" investment, Reuters reported. Researchers warned that the lack of enforcement measures created a "huge political risk" for investing in stranded assets - despite the commitment of spending 25 percent of EU expenditure on climate objectives.

There have now been more than 13 million confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide, with 573,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University. As the pandemic gets worse, with cases rising notably in the Americas, the head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Monday "there will be no return to normal for the foreseeable future", adding that "too many countries" were heading "in the wrong direction".

In a speech on Monday, French president Emmanuel Macron said he wants a stronger EU in the Mediterranean in order to resist other powers like Turkey and Russia, Le Monde reports. "The Mediterranean zone will be the challenge of the coming years," he said, adding "many crisis factors are coming together there: maritime disputes, destabilisation of Libya, migration, trafficking of arms and people, access to resources."

When airlines ignore refund claims, reject them or are only willing to offer vouchers or rebooking, they act against EU regulations. "In each of these cases airlines use their customers as lenders," warns one legal expert.

Following the first round of negotiations for the Energy Charter Treaty reform, green groups renew their call to the EU and member states to jointly withdraw from the agreement - claiming it is cannot be aligned with the Green Deal.

As the EU struggles to stop breaches of rule-of-law, and democratic backsliding, in some member states, the European Parliament plans to propose one single overarching tool to effectively monitor rogue capitals.

Little wonder the leaders of Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden are unwilling to sign off: they're not going to give money so the Italians can fund a tax cut in the middle of an economic crisis.

The presidential vote split the country into two, with incumbent president Andrzej Duda emerging victorious after a campaign laced with homophobic and anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused Cyprus, Egypt, France and Greece of trying to marginalise his country in the eastern Mediterranean and seize its rights over hydrocarbon reserves, Ekathimerini reported. "We do not want tension in the Mediterranean, the cradle of different civilisations through history. We believe that hydrocarbon resources in the region can offer opportunities to the entire region," Erdogan said in an interview with Turkish magazine Kriter.

Nearly 61 percent of Germans would be willing to be vaccinated against Covid-19, according to a new survey. This represents a decline in comparison to April, when 74 percent of the participants in Germany, the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, France and Portugal said they would get vaccinated. The survey polled 7,000 people in several member states in April and June, German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported on Sunday.

The German government has said the EU should impose sanctions on Russian hackers responsible for the cyberattack on the Bundestag in 2015, dpa reported Sunday. If agreed, this could be the first use of the EU cyber sanctions scheme adopted in 2017. Some 16 gigabytes of data, documents, and emails were stolen from the Bundestag's network, including thousands of emails from Angela Merkel's office.

UK cabinet office minister Michael Gove announced on Sunday a €788m investment for new border posts, improved technology and extra staff to guarantee the well-functioning of checks and controls at the British border from January. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Gove said that the funding will make British borders "the world's most effective border by 2025" and ready for "full independence" when the Brexit transition period concludes on 1 January.

Bulgaria's socialist president, Roumen Radev, has called on the country's conservative prime minister, Boïko Borissov, to resign amidst continuing anti-corruption protests, Le Monde writes. Since 7 July angry protesters have gathered on a beach in the bay of Burgas, at the Black Sea, to denounce the alleged corruption of Ahmed Dogan, the wealthy former leader of the Turkish minority party, which supports the government of Borissov.

Croatia is defying the EU travel ban on US residents and has opened its borders to American tourists as well as to business travellers, Forbes reports. The US embassy in Croatia announced the new measure stating that on top of EU citizens "all other foreign nationals, including US citizens, may enter Croatia for business, tourism, or other pressing personal reasons, if they provide relevant proof."