European Union

On 17 March Foreign Affairs MEPs will welcome Dritan Abazović, Deputy Prime Minister of Montenegro, several months after the elections, leading to the first transition of power since the introduction of the multi-party system in the country. The debate will offer an opportunity to re-confirm the EP support for Montenegro's EU-related reforms and to discuss government priorities in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, which affected Montenegrin economy particularly hard.
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

On Friday 12 February 2021, AFET will discuss the details of the renewed partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood with Olivér Várhelyi, Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.
The debate follows the publication of the Joint Communication by the Commission and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy on the renewed partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood - A new Agenda for the Mediterranean. The exchange of views will be web-streamed live from 8:30 to 10:00.
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The AFET and INTA committees will hold a meeting under the joint committee procedure on 4 February, with all opinion-giving committees invited to present their positions on the draft EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
This will be followed by another joint AFET-INTA committee meeting on 5 February, where the co-rapporteurs, Ms Kati PIRI (AFET, S&D, NL) and Mr Christophe HANSEN (INTA, EPP, LU), will present their draft recommendation for consent.
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

The Subcommittee on Security and Defence and the Committee on Foreign Affairs will go over ways of strengthening EU-NATO cooperation to better respond to common security and defence challenges in providing security to citizens in the Euro-Atlantic area. The meeting will take place on 15 March, with the participation of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Security challenges potentially stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic and opportunities for closer cooperation on military mobility, the fight against hybrid threats and the use of disruptive and emerging technologies are some of the key issues that are expected to be addressed during the debate. In the current context, the question of enhancing cohesion among the Allies, when unilateral initiatives threaten the security of all partners, are also set to be discussed.
Live streaming
Meeting agenda and documents
Open remarks by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg
EU Fact Sheets: External relations policy
EU Fact Sheets: Security and defence
Source : © European Union, 2021 - EP

UN Secretary-General António Guterres called Monday (15 March) to combat violence against women, at the start of the annual Commission on the Status of Women, which is expected to call for greater action against sexual harassment.

In Belgium, the coronavirus numbers are going up again. More than 500 people are now in intensive care, which is the highest number since 28 December, De Standaard reports. The number of people admitted to hospitals rose this week by 14 percent, while the number of infections went up by 21 percent. The amount of deaths on the other hand went down by 9 percent.

An Austrian official who chaired the EU Commission's vaccination advisory board, Clemens Martin Auer, has resigned after being verbally masked on radio by Austria's health minister Rudolf Anschober. The official had failed to inform his government there were millions of extra doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine available to purchase and tendered his own resignation, the minister said, amid discontent over the government's handling of the inoculation programme.

Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is being held in a prison camp north-east of Moscow known for its strict control of inmates, a message posted on the opposition politician's Instagram account confirmed, The Guardian writes. "I have to admit that the Russian prison system was able to surprise me," Navalny said, adding: "I had no idea that it was possible to arrange a real concentration camp 100km from Moscow."

Ireland's entry into the Schengen Information System (SIS), announced Monday, will "strengthen law enforcement co-operation and enhance security in Europe", Irish justice minister Helen McEntee said. The database enables police and border guards to see who is wanted for crimes, or has been reported missing, in 26 EU countries, as well as Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. It issued some 40,000 alerts on wanted criminals in 2019, Irish police said.

Europe devotes a lot of attention to 'persecuted Christians in the Middle East'. However, Christians aren't persecuted. They are the victims of terror - like anybody else in the region.

Turkey has said it expects to drop all corona-testing restrictions for UK tourists this summer due to the success of Britain's vaccination scheme. "I expect there will be no such requirement from British visitors as the UK government is rapidly, and impressively, rolling out the vaccination program for the whole nation," Turkish health minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said Monday, prompting an immediate surge in British tourist bookings there.

The Vatican has said priests cannot bless same-sex unions and that such blessings are not valid, in a ruling that disappointed gay Catholics who had hoped their Church was becoming more welcoming under Pope Francis, Reuters writes. From the time he was archbishop in his native Argentina, Pope Francis has supported the right of gay couples to have civil legal protections but has always opposed gay marriage.

Data from satellites showed a decline in air pollution in early 2020, when countries introduced nationwide lockdowns to stop the spread of Covid-19. However, one year later, nitrogen dioxide pollution is going back to pre-Covid levels as regular activity resumes. Nitrogen dioxide concentrations in Beijing dropped by around 35 percent between February 2019 and 2020, before returning to similar levels in February 2021, the European Space Agency said on Monday.

The EU's three largest countries have suspended the Oxford/AstraZeneca's Covid vaccine, hours after the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had seen no evidence the shot had caused blood clots in some people who received it. WHO experts are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the crisis, while the the European Medicines Agency is expected to come out with an updated opinion following its emergency talks on Thursday.

The majority of countries in Europe are falling short on tracking coronavirus variants. Only seven member states have increased genome sequencing to the level recommended for detecting and monitoring the emergence and dominance of these strains.

Nearly 230 women and 600 children with EU and UK nationalities remain stuck in dire conditions at camps in north-east Syria. An internal EU document warns of radicalisation if nothing is done to help them.

The EU-UK deal was designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland by applying checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, creating checks on the Irish Sea. London is reluctant to put that into place.

Hamed Ahmadi arrived in Italy to showcase a documentary at the Venice Film Festival. Now he's running a restaurant staffed by refugees, telling their journeys through recipes.

Where there is consensus, it should be welcomed. Critics who lament the Dutch tendency to woolly compromises should be careful what they wish for. Muddling through has served the Netherlands well.

A common vaccination certificate – instead of 27 individual initiatives - can form part of the solution, together with other sanitary measures already in place, to resume travel and tourism and reduce current travel restrictions.