European Union

An outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium linked to Brazil nuts imported from Bolivia has been reported in several EU countries, prompting the European Commission to trigger its rapid alert system. 

The EU's institutional data protection watchdog has called for caution in the continuing employment of body temperature checks across EU buildings, saying that some operations involved in this process "may constitute an interference into individuals’ rights to private life."

In Montenegro's parliamentary elections on the weekend President Milo Đukanović's ruling DPS party scored its worst result since 1991 but remains the strongest party in the country with around 35 percent of the vote. Opposition leader Zdravko Krivokapić of the pro-Serbian group For the Future of Montenegro (32.5 percent) is claiming victory. Commentators ask what repercussions a change of government could have - also in terms of geopolitics.

The threatening gestures are intensifying in the row between Greece and Turkey over gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean. Ankara accused Athens on Monday of sending troops to the island of Kastellorizo, where a Turkish research vessel has been surveying the waters off the coast. Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has voiced concern about the growing presence of warships in the region. Who is to blame for the escalation, and is there any way out?

Five years after the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the trial of fourteen alleged helpers begins on Wednesday. The attackers were shot dead by the police after they killed twelve members of the editorial staff, a police office and four hostages at a kosher supermarket. The press comments on the significance of the trial.

Hungary issued a ban preventing most foreigners from entering the country on Tuesday, citing rising Covid-19 infection rates. After fierce protests, travellers from the three other Visegrád states, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, were exempted from the ban. Not only the EU but also commentators criticise the border closure.