Euobserver.com

Ursula von der Leyen promised the Conference on the Future of Europe, the European Council supported it, the European Parliament was enthusiastic to go ahead....and then, nothing.

On Tuesday (12th January), the EU-India Human Rights dialogue will take place. Will EU leaders take a leap and stop keeping quiet about the deteriorating human rights situation in India?

EUobserver was tipped off about the investigation by an anonymous source, who said Olaf had raided the offices of Frontex director Fabrice Leggeri and his chef de cabinet in early December given alleged misconduct.

Health workers distributing the Covid-19 vaccine have been forced to take extra precautions after Spain was paralysed by Storm Filomena, which brought a snowfall in Madrid of proportions unseen in half a century, Deutsche Welle writes. Spain was to send special convoys carrying the Covid-19 vaccine to areas cut off by the blizzard, the interior minister said.

France has unveiled a plan to transform the Champs-Élysées boulevard in Paris in a €250m project due to be implemented in 2024, when it hosts the Olympic Games. It aims to cut space forcers by half, and create green pedestrian areas with trees, turning the 1.9km area into an "extraordinary garden". "The legendary avenue has lost its splendour during the last 30 years," the project leaders said ina statement.

Britain has authorised the use of thiamethoxam, a pesticide banned by the EU in 2018 for doing harm to bees, following lobbying by the National Farmers' Union and British Sugar advocacy groups, British newspaper The Guardian reports. The decision was "environmentally regressive" for conservationist group Buglife. Some 11 states have now approved "emergency" use of the product, including Belgium, Denmark and Spain, despite the EU decision, UK authorities said.

Italy's former far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, appeared before a judge in Palermo, Sicily on Saturday, in connection with his order to block migrants from disembarking in August 2019. The judge is to decide in March if he is to face charges on abuse of power. "I am totally at ease and proud of what I did," Salvini told media after the closed-door hearing, British newspaper The Guardian reports.

"The UK government must ... provide an urgent multibillion package of compensation to Scotland to mitigate the lasting Brexit harm done to Scottish businesses, industries and communities," Ian Blackford, a leading MP from the Scottish National party said Sunday, British newspaper The Guardian reports. Scottish fishermen, for instance, have suspended exports to the EU due to excessive paperwork after the UK's Brexit transition-period ended on 1 January, among other disruptions.

British citizenship and international awards are not enough to make Belarus dissident Natalia Kaliada feel safe after a high-profile death threat.

The European Parliament's environment committee will hear from the person who negotiated the vaccine contracts, commission director-general of health and food safety, Sandra Gallina.

The European Court of Justice last month ruled Hungary had breached EU asylum laws. Budapest was told to stop pushing asylum seekers back into Serbia - yet nearly 2,500 people have been forced across the border since that judgement.

The three pillars of Italy's G20 presidency - "people", "planet" and "prosperity" aimed at building a more sustainable future, as well as digital innovation - are shared by Joe Biden, which raises hopes of a positive EU-US dialogue.

Given China's size and interconnectedness with Europe, a strategic policy of non-engagement hardly deserves the label "strategic".

The European Commission refused to comment on whether a bilateral deal between Germany and BioNTech for 30 million additional vaccines is a breach of EU collective purchase agreements - which forbid member states from negotiating separate deals.

Data released on Friday by the EU's earth observation programme, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, showed 2020 as the warmest year ever recorded - at the end of the warmest decade on record. Last year, Europe saw an increase of 0.4 degrees Celsius in comparison with 2019, the previous warmest year. "[This] is yet another reminder of the urgency of ambitious emissions reductions," Carlo Buontempo, Copernicus service director, said.

The European Commission secured an additional 200 million doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine, with the option of an extra 100 million. In total, 600 million doses of this vaccine will be available for member states. The additional doses will be delivered in the second quarter of 2021.  BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the only jabs authorised in the EU. The EU sealed deals for up to 2.3 billion vaccine doses.

Over the course of a few days in late December, the State Duma passed new laws introducing sweeping new restrictions on political protests, legalising censorship of social media and cementing broad new guidelines under which the government can designate individuals as "foreign agents," The Moscow Times reports. The new laws have already been signed into life by president Vladimir Putin.

Turkey and France were working to normalise ties and talks were going well, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said Thursday, adding Ankara was ready to improve ties with its Nato ally if Paris showed the same willingness, Ekathimerini writes. Turkey and France have disagreed over conflicts in Syria, Libya, the eastern Mediterranean and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, as well as over the publication of cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in France.

Leave.EU, a pro-Brexit campaign group, has shifted its registration from the UK to EU member state Ireland, in an ironic move designed to let it keep its domain name, The Guardian reports. It is now registered in the name of Sean Power, the CEO of Irish professional services firm BSG, records show. But when The Guardian contacted Power, he voiced surprise and said he had no links to the group.

The Portuguese EU presidency has said it was confident the European Commission would approve its state-rescue of national airline TAP by the end of March, Reuters reports. "The main concern of the plan is that to make the firm sustainable," Portuguese finance minister Joao Leao said. The airline needed €2bn in extra funds to survive. It also needed 2,000 job cuts and pay cuts of 25 percent, Portugal easier said.