European Union

Britain is realigning its foreign and defence policy after Brexit. Prime Minister Johnson presented the new strategy, called Global Britain, in the House of Commons on Tuesday. It places increased emphasis on nuclear weapons in response to new threats and aims to expand the country's influence in the Indo-Pacific region, which it says has become the world's "geopolitical and economic centre of gravity".

After the collapse of the regional government in Murcia following a corruption scandal, centre-right coalitions are now tottering in several other Spanish regions. The Community of Madrid is now holding a snap election in which the conservative incumbent Isabel Díaz Ayuso of the PP is the favourite and if elected may form a coalition with the far-right Vox party. Commentators sound the alarm.

What began as demonstrations for reforms in 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring has ended in disaster: according to activists, at least 388,000 Syrians have died, tens of thousands have been imprisoned or disappeared and millions have fled the country since the start of the civil war. The media point the finger at external players in the conflict.

The government in Slovakia is in danger of collapsing after Prime Minister Igor Matovič purchased Russia's Sputnik vaccine without consulting his coalition partners. Two of the partners are now demanding that he quit - and commentators seem to agree. President Zuzana Čaputová summoned Matovič and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Sulík on Tuesday to resolve the crisis.

Plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMPs), derived from human plasma from healthy donors, are essential for around 300,000 European patients who rely on these therapies to treat a variety of rare, chronic, and potentially life-threatening conditions, which are often genetic in origin....

In February 2021, global warming rose approximately 1.19 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. Experts estimate that the 1.5 degree increase limit set in the 2015 Paris Agreement will be reached in 2034 if warming continues on the past 30-year trajectory. The signatories to the Paris Agreement represent around 79 percent of global emissions.  

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Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

France's competition authority has given the go-ahead for Apple's new privacy protocols to be implemented, stating that the move does not "constitute an abuse of a dominant position," as part of a decision issued on Wednesday (17 March).