European Union

In the second quarter of 2020, 1.07 million people lost their jobs in Spain in the worst-ever slump on the Spanish labour market. On top of that there is a vast number of employees on short-time work and freelancers without commissions. Spanish media call for the EU recovery funds to be used to make the country's labour market less vulnerable.

The French parliament is debating the planned revision of the bioethics law at second reading this week. The draft from autumn 2019 provides for all women - and not just heterosexual spouses - to be granted the right to artificial insemination. Now the possibility of enshrining pre-implantation diagnostics in the law is also under discussion. Here too, opinions clash.

With a hundred days to go before the US presidential elections, the Democratic candidate and former vice president Joe Biden is around 10 percentage points ahead of Republican incumbent Donald Trump in the polls. Commentators discuss potential developments before and after 3 November.

Have leading politicians in the grand coalition up to the Chancellor been involved in a fraudulent scheme? The Bundestag's finance committee is looking into it.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to hire more people from racial minorities after meeting anti-racist MEPs on Tuesday

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has pledged to hire more people from racial minorities after meeting anti-racist MEPs on Tuesday

Maltese health authorities said 65 migrants from a group of 94 brought to Malta this week have tested positive for coronavirus and been placed in isolation, the Times of Malta reported on Tuesday. This cluster represents the biggest outbreak in Malta since the beginning of the pandemic.

Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko, who is running for a sixth presidential term, told military officials on Tuesday that he recovered from Covid-19, Reuters reported. "Today you are meeting a man who managed to survive the coronavirus on his feet. Doctors came to such a conclusion yesterday: asymptomatic," he said. Lukashenko avoided strict lockdowns and, instead, suggested remedies such as drinking vodka. Belarus has registered 67,366 coronavirus cases and 543 deaths.

The European Court of Auditors on Tuesday launched a probe to assess whether the European Commission improved cooperation with priority third countries after 2015 - when an action plan on returns was in place. EU auditors found less than 40 percent of irregular migrants ordered to leave the EU return to their home country, or a third country.

The head of the Robert Koch Institute for health, Lothar Wieler, said on Tuesday that he was "very concerned" by the surge of new coronavirus infections in Germany, the BBC reported. "We don't know yet if this is the beginning of a second wave, but of course it could be," Wieler said. Last week, Germany recorded 3,611 new infections.

EU states have agreed to curb exports of "sensitive equipment and technologies for end-use in Hong Kong" repression, including for "interception of internal communications or cyber-surveillance" in reaction to China's security crackdown in the semi-autonomous former British colony. They also agreed, on Tuesday, to help Hong Kong citizens resettle and study in Europe and to increase support for pro-democracy NGOs trying to oppose the new measures, risking China's wrath.

British businesses are to be hit by the "simultaneous impact" of anti-coronavirus lockdowns and Brexit in autumn, according to a new study by the London School of Economics out Wednesday. The net downturn in business due to coronavirus in April and June ranged from -124 percent for the rubber and plastics sector to -41 percent for retail. But Brexit would subtract a further 15 percent from the chemicals sector.