European Union

Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is to serve as a doctor in his country's fight against the ongoing spread of the deadly coronavirus, the leader's office announced on Sunday evening (6 March).

Member states are making use of the new flexibility within EU state rules mainly to guarantee liquidity for all companies heavily affected by the economic fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak. EURACTIV has looked into the different schemes that have been approved so far.

The United States is entering what a senior official warned on Sunday (5 April) would be the “hardest” week of the coronavirus crisis as the death toll mounted, but some saw glimmers of hope from a slight slowing of fatalities in hard-hit New York.

Europe needs debt mutualisation and a common Marshall plan to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

French police said on Sunday they had arrested a third suspect in a terror probe triggered after a man went on a deadly knife rampage on Saturday in the southeastern town of Romans-sur-Isère. Three Sudanese nationals have been detained over the incident. The main suspect, a refugee, who killed two people and injured five, was found by police "on his knees on the pavement praying in Arabic" after the attack.

France's daily death toll from the novel coronavirus fell in the past 24 hours and admissions into intensive care also slowed, the health ministry said on Sunday (5 April).

Greek authorities on Sunday said that a second migrant camp has been placed under lockdown after a 53-year old Afghan migrant tested positive for coronavirus. The Malakasa camp is hosting some 1,800 migrants. Greece last week placed the Ritsona migrant camp under lockdown for at least 14 days. About 40,000 migrants live in squalid conditions on five Greek islands, and rights groups have called for their transfer to mainland centres.

British prime minister Boris Johnson was admitted to a hospital Sunday for tests, because he is still suffering symptoms, 10 days after he was diagnosed with Covid-19, his office said. The admission to an undisclosed London hospital was not an emergency, Johnson's office said. It added that it was a "precautionary step" and Johnson remained in charge of the government.

Finance ministers will hold all-important online meeting to find ways to mitigate the econmic fallout from the pandemic and heal wounds between northern and southern member states.

After visiting European nationals first brought the virus to Africa, the European Union is now worried it could spread throughout the continent and bounce back to Europe.

On Sunday, Mahmoud Jibril died of coronavirus complications. He was in 2011 during the Libyan revolution against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi the leader of the National Transitional Council and interim prime minister. He convinced Westen leaders and the Arab League to intervene in Libya and stop the army of Gaddafi from entering Benghazi and committing a massacre. Jibril was also the leader of the largest Libyan political party.

It would take relatively few seriously ill patients on Greenland, the world's largest island, to outrun the capacity of the nation's health services.

The enormous differences between coronavirus cases reported worldwide raise questions on how countries are tracking their outbreaks - or even deliberately underreporting them.

EU should discuss all ideas free from prejudice, commission vice-president said, after capitals took positions similar to old financial crisis ahead of talks on Tuesday.

Italian officials said Sunday (5 April) they may soon have to consider easing restrictions after seeing the daily coronavirus death toll plunge to its lowest in over two weeks.

Greece has quarantined a second migrant facility on its mainland after a 53-year-old man tested positive for the new coronavirus, the migration ministry said on Sunday (5 April).

Scotland’s Chief Medical Officer Catherine Calderwood resigned on Sunday (5 April) after she broke her own advice to stay at home to help slow the spread of the coronavirus by visiting her second home this weekend and last. Calderwood said...

Confirmed coronavirus cases in Portugal pushed past the 10,000 mark on Saturday (4 April), while government data showed more than half a million Portuguese workers were at risk of being temporarily laid off due to the outbreak.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was admitted to hospital for tests on Sunday (5 April) after suffering persistent coronavirus symptoms 10 days after testing positive for the virus, though Downing Street said he remained in charge of the government.

A conspiracy theory that links 5G mobile telecommunications masts to the spread of the novel coronavirus is dangerous fake news and completely false, Britain said on Saturday (4 April) after masts in several parts of the country were torched.