Euobserver.com

Nordic and Baltic states need alternatives to their current security architecture, as events in Belarus and beyond show fragility of Nato structures.

Not only must the issue of missing persons be understood as a moral and social catastrophe - which it certainly is - but as a threat to global security.

Greece ratified an accord on maritime boundaries with Egypt on Thursday, Reuters reported. In the meantime, Turkey extended the operation of a seismic survey vessel in the eastern Mediterranean and said it will hold firing exercises in the region next month. Nato allies Greece and Turkey have locked horns over the rights to potential hydrocarbon resources in the area based on conflicting claims over their maritime zones.

Russian prosecutors said on Thursday there was no need for a criminal investigation into the sudden illness of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who his supporters suspect was poisoned, Reuters reported. The prosecutors said they had found no sign that any crime had been committed. German foreign minister Heiko Maas said, however, that the EU expects Russia to join in efforts in an investigation. Navalny is currently being treated in Germany.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday the Kremlin had set up a police unit to support Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko at his request. Mass demonstrations have taken place in Belarus since a 9 August election that the opposition says was rigged. Putin said he agreed with Lukashenko the police force would not be used unless the situation "got out of control". The opposition said Moscow's plan violated international law.

Belarusian police detained about 20 journalists planning to cover a protest in central Minsk on Thursday and confiscated their telephones and documents, Reuters reported. The interior ministry said the journalists had been driven to a police station for officers to check if they had valid accreditation. It added that all those with official accreditation would be released. Journalists had been preparing to cover an evening anti-government protest.

EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said that he was looking into the possibility of legal action against Cyprus over the country's citizenship-through-investment scheme, Al Jazeera reported. Talking to the broadcaster, Reynders also called for changes in citizenship-through-investment schemes in Europe and said he preferred to completely phase them out. Al Jazeera recently leaked documents showing that Cyprus sold passports to criminals, fugitives, and people involved in corruption.

British street artist Banksy has financed a boat to rescue refugees attempting to reach Europe from north Africa through the Mediterranean, the Guardian reported. On Thursday it rescued 89 people, including 14 women and four children and is now looking for a safe port to disembark. The vessel, named Louise Michel after a French feminist anarchist, set off on 18 August from Spain with a crew of European activists.

In a letter sent to German chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, leaders of the largest European parliament groups, including the centre-right EPP, leftwing S&D, liberal Renew, and Greens, called for tougher rule-of-law conditions in the EU budget. Without an agreement on this with member states, the parliament cannot pass the long-term EU budget agreed by the EU-27 leaders, the letter said.

EU-UK talks will not be discussed at a meeting of EU ambassadors next week because of the lack of progress in negotiations about the future relationship, the Guardian reported. EU officials think the British government is prepared to risk a no-deal exit when the transition period ends at the end of the year. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier last week said he was surprised by the UK "wasting valuable time".

Belarusian authorities have questioned Nobel prize-winning author Svetlana Alexievich as part of an investigation into an opposition council created to facilitate the political transition in the country. Alexievich is part of the council's leadership. After being released on Wednesday, she said she had refused to answer questions. Belarusians have been protesting for free elections after Alexander Lukashenko won re-election in a 9 August poll that the EU says was rigged.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is not giving up on Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean, he said in a fiery speech.

Kosovo will do its part, but it needs help from Germany to realise its potential as a member of the Euro-Atlantic community.

Spain detected more than 7,000 new corona-infections Tuesday, mostly in Madrid, but also in the Balearic islands, surpassing the US in per-capita cases. France reported over 5,400 new ones, with neighbouring Belgium declaring Paris a "red-zone", forbidding travel. One third of Spaniards told a survey by the Carlos III Health Institute they would refuse to take a vaccine if there was one and 42 percent voiced pessimism on the pandemic.

The EU has frozen the work of its 600-man strong military and police training missions in Mali following a recent putsch there, while admitting it had trained some of those responsible. "Some of the leading figures of the coup d'etat have ... enjoyed training in Germany and France," German defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said in Berlin. "We don't train armies to be putschists," EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said.

The city of Berlin has banned demonstrations planned for the weekend opposing measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic, amid increasing infections in Germany. At a recent rally, marchers deliberately did not wear masks and did not kept their distance. About 20,000 people, including libertarians, far-right supporters, and anti-vaccination activists marched in Berlin earlier this month. Several thousand police will patrol Berlin streets at the weekend.

French president Emmanuel Macron has proposed a roadmap for Lebanon, describing the political and economic reforms needed to avoid a "power vacuum" in France's former colony, Reuters reports. The measures include an audit of the central bank, appointment of an interim government capable of carrying out rapid reforms, and legislative elections within a year. "The priority must go to the rapid formation of a government," the leaked French paper reads.

European pharmaceuticals firms are lobbying to protect Covid-19 vaccine makers against legal risks from side-effects, the Financial Times reported. Vaccines Europe, a division of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, has called for a "comprehensive system of no-fault and non-adversarial compensation, and exemption from civil liability". However, EU liability rules consider vaccine makers and other manufactures responsible for the products they put into the market.

EU trade commissioner resigned after Irish government accused him of undermining "the whole approach to public health in Ireland" by flouting anti-coronavirus rules.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that German accusations that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned "cannot be true and are rather an empty noise". German doctors said earlier this week Navalny was "probably" poisoned, but Peskov said the diagnosis was still inconclusive. Navalny is in a stable condition in intensive care in a German hospital under police guard after being flown out of Russia last weekend.