The EU should abolish unanimity in its foreign policymaking and not allow itself to be “held hostage”, Germany’s foreign minister Heiko Maas said on Monday (7 June), after several incidents in recent months derailed the bloc’s joint positions on a series of foreign policy matters.
The EU on Friday (4 June) set out its plan to boost deliveries of COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries, which banks on open supply chains, encouraging production and compulsory licences rather than waiving intellectual property rights.
The European Commission has introduced a legislative proposal for an EU “digital identity wallet” that would allow numerous services like opening a bank account or filing tax returns to be done purely digitally. EURACTIV Germany reports.
The European Commission is calling for stricter actions on tobacco regulations in a bid to have a tobacco-free generation in the EU by 2040. However, the global number of smokers continues to grow.
A Czech prosecutor said Thursday (3 June) that the case of the billionaire prime minister’s conflict of interest as an entrepreneur and politician has been forwarded to the new EU prosecutor’s office.
The European Commission proposed on Monday (31 May) that vaccinated people should be exempt from testing or quarantines when travelling from one EU country to another, and urged a gradual easing of travel measures as COVID-19 inoculations accelerate.
Three years after the original proposal, the EU’s game-changing Health Technology Assessment (HTA) dossier has at last reached interinstitutional negotiations, but a number of challenges remain.
Tough control mechanisms will allow the EU to claw back misspent funds from the bloc’s ambitious Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), EU officials said at an event organised by EURACTIV on Tuesday (25 May).
The national parliaments of Austria and Poland approved Europe’s huge post-virus coronavirus recovery fund on Thursday (27 May), the last of the 27 EU member states, paving the way for ratification.
European Union leaders on Tuesday (25 May) shelved an attempt to direct how the bloc will set new national targets for emissions cuts, weeks before Brussels is due to propose a huge package of tougher climate change policies.
