Euobserver.com

British foreign secretary Liz Truss said the UK has "no choice but to act" on the Northern Ireland protocol governing post-Brexit trade during a call with EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič — who warned unilateral action was "simply not acceptable".

In a tense vote in the European Parliament's environmental committee on Wednesday, lawmakers upheld a proposed ban on the sale of polluting vehicles from 2035, but rejected a proposal championed by Renew MEP Jan Huitema to increase the emissions target for cars in 2030 from 55 to 70 percent. The centre-right EPP group rejected the stricter targets and tried to water down the ban on polluting cars in 2035.

A basic lack of transparency around the EU's vaccines procurement negotiations has prevented effective public and parliamentary scrutiny. It has also made it impossible to answer some of the key questions we put forward here.

A study out on Thursday by London-based Statewatch, a civil liberties organisation, says the EU has since 2007 spent €341m on research into artificial intelligence technologies for asylum, immigration and border control. The 46-page report says an EU proposal for the artificial intelligence act, currently under talks, fails to safeguard against potential abuse by such technology.

Finnish public support for joining Nato has risen to record figures since Russia's aggression against Ukraine. Finland's historic move puts pressure on Sweden to also move towards joining the military alliance.

There are still over 100 million Europeans who remain unvaccinated or are partially-vaccinated, EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides told MEPs on Thursday. "It is not the time to relax, it is the time to be prepared," she said while inviting EU member states to increase the uptake of vaccines and have surveillance systems in place in case there is a new variant or a new wave of Covid-19 cases.

The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency on Thursday told MEPs that a large percentage of people who are victims of homophobic, racist, and antisemitic crimes do not report it to the police. "They believe police wouldn't do anything or they even fear to be further victimised by police," said Gerald Rosskogler of the agency. "The same is also true for women being victims of physical or sexual violence," he said.

Finland must apply for Nato membership without delay, president Sauli Niinistö and prime minister Sanna Marin announced on Thursday. Russia should "look in the mirror" if it wants to know what caused pro-Nato sentiment to grow in Finland, Niinistö said. Sweden is considering a similar move. During a visit on Wednesday, British PM Boris Johnson signed joint security declarations with the two Nordic countries.

Ukraine foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba will be in Brussels next week to participate as a special guest in the meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers taking place on Monday (16 May). The sixth package of sanctions against Russia, including the oil embargo, granting Ukraine EU candidate status, and cooperation on war crimes investigations, will be discussed. Kuleba will also meet commission officials to discuss the rebuilding of Ukraine.

Speaking alongside Austria's chancellor and foreign minister in Vienna, UN secretary-general António Guterres said he was "deeply concerned" about worldwide food shortages as the Russian invasion of Ukraine sent global prices for grains, cooking oils, fuel and fertiliser soaring, worsening a food crisis in African countries. He also warned disruption to shipping in the Black Sea risked spreading hunger also becoming "widespread in different parts of the world."

The new draft European Parliament report is an update to the 2018 report which triggered the Article 7 procedure against Hungary, a sanctions probe aiming to rein in member states that break EU rules and values.

The EU aims to diversify supplies and increase imports of renewable hydrogen as part of its efforts to wean the continent off Russian gas — amid a dramatically changed geo-political reality.

The UK Home Office refused to rule out the possibility of deporting Ukrainian refugees to Rwanda, reports the Independent newspaper . When pressed on whether Ukrainians entering from Northern Ireland could end up in Rwanda, where the UK has an agreement to offshore asylum, an official said it depends on individual circumstances. Ukrainian refugees have not been excluded from its policy of who gets sent to Rwanda.

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde signalled an interest rate increase possibly as early as July, but some experts warn for a repeat of the 2011-2012 debt crisis.

Online child sex abuse continues to increase with EU-based servers hosting some 60 percent of the global content. But a proposal by the EU commission to stop it has riled privacy advocates.

French authorities launched an investigation into Interpol's president Ahmed Nasser al-Raisif, following accusations he was complicit in the arbitrary detention and torture of two Britons in the United Arab Emirates. The alleged victims say al-Raisif was a United Arab Emirates senior interior ministry security official at the time when the allegations took place, reports AFP. Interpol's headquarters are based in Lyon.

The UK rejected proposals by the EU to tweak the protocol governing trade in Northern Ireland, and has threatened to suspend the rules as loyalists lost their majority in the Northern Ireland elections.

MEPs have raised questions about the involvement of the EU — through its funding — in the development of the Israeli NSO Pegasus software, directly or indirectly, which has been used to target activists and journalists in Europe.

Russia was not invited to an international donor conference on Syria in Brussels given its war in Ukraine. Moscow had also recently threatened to veto a humanitarian corridor from Turkey to Syria.

The number of civilians killed in Ukraine since the beginning of the war is "thousands higher" than numbers currently given, Matilda Bogner, head of the UN's human rights monitoring mission in the country, said in a press conference on Tuesday. The official civilian death toll stands at 3,381 but thousands more would be added once the UN gains access to "black holes" like Mariupol, she said.