Euobserver.com

People from the Western Balkans could create the next EU migration crisis, if Europe lets enlargement promises fail, the EU's enlargement commissioner, Olivér Várhelyi, said Monday. "We must keep our promises to the Western Balkans. For me, this is one of the most important lessons of the Afghan situation," he told Hungarian newspaper Magyar Nemzet. The EU and Turkey also needed "a new kind of partnership," on migration, he said.

People who already had two anti-Covid jabs do not need further booster shots, the European centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), an EU agency in Sweden, said Wednesday. "There is no urgent need for the administration of booster doses of vaccines to fully vaccinated individuals in the general population," it said. But specific individuals with immune-system deficiencies or who reacted badly to their first doses may benefit, it added.

US president Joe Biden has pledged to help Ukraine fight "Russian aggression", including with new arms supplies and potential sanctions against Nord Stream 2.

The World Health Organization is monitoring a new coronavirus variant called "Mu", also known as B.1.621, The Guardian reports. It was added to the WHO's watchlist on 30 August, after it was already detected in 39 countries. It possesses a cluster of mutations that might make it more resistant to vaccines. Presently, there are four variants deemed of concern by the WHO, including Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants.

A group of 15 NGOs announced on Thursday they will no longer accept invitations to media events that are sponsored by fossil-fuel companies in an open letter, addressing the editors of EURACTIV, the Financial Times, and POLITICO Europe. According to Greenpeace, 29 media events in 2020, and 2021 to date, were sponsored by fossil-fuel companies. EUobserver does not accept fossil-fuel or tobacco sponsorships.

Thousands of British modern-language students seeking visas in order to temporarily study or do internships in Spain, but also Germany, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands, have faced bureaucratic and financial obstacles in the wake of Brexit, putting their plans at risk, The Guardian reports. The UK asked Spain to create a fast-track process, but it refused. One English student reported paying €816 for her Spanish visa application.

Russian importers of CO2-intensive products, such as steel, will pay some €1.9bn in fees by 2035 under the terms of a proposed EU carbon border tax, which might enter into force in 2026, but Chinese ones will pay far less - just €484m, according to a study by think-tanks Sandbag and E3G, Reuters reports. Ukrainian firms would be liable to pay €870m and Turkish ones €824m, the study noted.

Support for EU accession has dropped in Western Balkan countries after member states vetoed opening talks with North Macedonia, Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić said at a forum in Slovenia on Wednesday. "Enthusiasm for EU accession, not only in Serbia, isn't what it once was ... North Macedonia changed its name, and for this it had been promised the start of accession talks. Have those talks started? No," he said.

The European Commission said on Wednesday it was concerned about the environmental impact on the Mediterranean of the 20,000-tonnes oil slick that originated from a power plant in the Syrian town of Baniyas. According to AFP, the layer of oil has pulled away from the north of Cyprus thanks to shifting winds. An oil-recovery vessel was made available to Cyprus by the European Maritime Safety Agency.

The European Court of Justice on Wednesday annulled a decision by the EU anti-fraud agency not to grant partial access to its final report in an investigation into street-lighting projects, involving a company called Elios which used EU subsidies. The case, investigated in 2015, is politically highly-sensitive because István Tiborcz, the son-in-law of Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister, was the co-owner of the company at the time of the investigation.

The EU wants to create safe passage routes out of Afghanistan towards Pakistan and other central Asian states in order to evacuate Afghan women's rights activists and others with similar profiles.

Emissions from shipping must be reduced further if Europe wants to achieve climate neutrality by 2050, the European Maritime Safety Agency warned in a new report. Projected increases in shipping emissions are incompatible with the bloc's 2050 net-zero target.

The reports showed that 22 percent of respondents say they still feel free in their everyday life now - compared to 64 percent who say they felt free two years ago, before the pandemic hit.

Biodiversity is fundamental to Earth's life-support systems humans depend on. But governments, financial institutions and policymakers have failed to act accordingly for decades.

For Brussels in particular, one lesson should be painfully clear: do not put all your eggs in one basket. Placing big bets on Biden cannot be a substitute for a strong and common European approach to international security.

A surge in coronavirus infections coupled with a slowing uptake of vaccinations due to "lack of access to vaccines in some countries" and "vaccine scepticism and science denial" in others could see 236,000 more Covid-linked deaths in Europe by the end of the year, the World Health Oragnisation's Europe director, Hans Kluge, has said, in a situation he called "deeply worrying", especially in low-income countries in central and eastern Europe.

Poland has declared a state of emergency in a 3km-zone covering 183 towns along its border with Belarus, giving security forces more powers to keep out migrants being pushed across by Belarusian authorities in retaliation at EU sanctions. "No trips, no happenings, and demonstrations will be able to be organised along this border zone," Polish interior minister Mariusz Kamiński said, referring to previous visits by pro-refugee NGOs to the area.

Germany rebuked Luxembourg for being too soft on Afghan asylum seekers, while Austria and Denmark bluntly told refugees to "stay there".

The minister-president of the Brussels region, Rudy Vervoort, wants to agree with the other Belgian regions to create a Covid Safety Ticket for congresses, fairs, nightclubs and discos, De Standaard reports. Vervoort hopes this will be possible by 1 October. "We don't oblige other regions to do the same, but autonomy means we should be able to do ourselves," Vervoort said, adding it is needed for the economy.

Croatian police robbed and illegally pushed back dozens of refugees fleeing from Afghanistan into neighbouring Bosnia between 6 and 29 August, according to witness testimonies collected by The Guardian newspaper and a report by the Danish Refugee Council (DRC), an NGO. Half of the 60 or so people involved were minors. "We are calling for the EU to ensure dignified reception at the borders," the DRC said.