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Germany and 10 other EU states are pushing for the EU to end funding for cross-border natural gas projects over climate change. "TEN-E must not facilitate investments in fossil fuel infrastructure nor blending of hydrogen with fossil fuels," the group, also including Austria, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, said in an informal paper seen by Reuters, referring to 'TEN-E' rules on cross-border funding.

Western allies reiterated plans to punish Belarus for a recent air hijack after Nato foreign ministers held video-talks on Tuesday

The World Health Organization (WHO) approved on Tuesday China's Sinovac Covid-19 vaccine, Reuters reported. This is the second Chinese-developed shot to get its approval, after the endorsement of Sinopharm. The WHO's expert group previously said vaccine efficacy in the last phase of clinical trials in multiple countries ranged from 51 percent to 84 percent. Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, and Turkey, among others, are using Sinovac in their vaccination campaigns.

Opposition mayors in Budapest have renamed streets after the Dalai Lama, "Free Hong Kong", "Uyghur Martyrs" and a Chinese bishop around a site where prime minister Viktor Orbán's government plans to build a campus for China's Fudan University, local media reported. The snub came as the controversial project - which is opposed by the mayors - has added to deepening concerns over Hungary's close ties to Beijing.

The Financial Times newspaper reports the European Commission on Wednesday is set to unveil a proposal for a 'digital wallet'. The aim is to allow EU citizens to access public and private services online with a single online ID. It will also store payment details and passwords, says the paper. The wallet should be ready in about a year.

Poland will start offering Covid-19 vaccines to children from next week, Reuters reported. "Due to the decisions of the European Medicines Agency and the recommendation of the [Polish] Medical Council, we have made a decision that from June 7, vaccinations of children aged 12 to 15 will begin. This is 2.5 million students," Michał Dworczyk, the minister responsible for the country's vaccination campaign, told a news conference on Tuesday.

The European Environment Agency (EEA) has ranked Cyprus with the cleanest bathing water in the EU, receiving a perfect 100 percent score at over 100 swimming spots on the island. Austria, Greece and Malta followed close behind. "The quality of European bathing waters remains high after four decades of action," said the head of EEA, Hans Bruyninckx. An interactive map of EU state quality can be found here.

A new study suggests the EU could collect some €170bn in corporate taxes annually, pending such an international agreement. "We find that such a 25 percent minimum tax would increase corporate income tax revenues in the European Union by about €170bn in 2021," notes the report, published Tuesday (1 June) by the Brussels-based EU Tax Observatory. The tax rate is currently being discussed by the OECD.

With 22 participating EU countries, the EU chief prosecutor's office begins its operations by keeping a close eye on the €800bn recovery fund - considered to be a "high risk" in terms of corruption and fraud.

The European Investment Bank identified an annual investment shortfall of up to €10bn in artificial intelligence and blockchain in the EU - a gap that may hinder the bloc's attempts to catch China and the United States in these sectors.

We must recognise that subversive acts like the Ryanair hijack are acts of war, just like poisonings or the spread of fake news.

"Can you send a female moderator, because all our speakers are men?" As collective of conference moderators focussed on 'the Brussels bubble', we get this request a lot.

Russia will defend Belarus and help it if the European Union imposes economic sanctions on Minsk over the grounding of a plane and arrest of a dissident blogger, the RIA news agency cited a Russian foreign ministry official as saying, Reuters reports. Many European nations have imposed flight bans on Belarusian aviation over the forced landing of a Ryanair flight on May 23. The EU is weighing further sanctions.

The EU will launch its pandemic-recovery fund this year with an initial €10bn offer of joint European bonds, French EU affairs minister Clement Beaune told Les Echos Monday. "The market appetite should be very major and the interest rates very favourable," he said. The full €750bn recovery package, once created, would be an embryonic EU treasury, he added. France was also pushing for a minimum EU-wide corporate tax, Beaune said.

Relations improved between Greece and Turkey at a high-level meeting in Athens on Monday, but the EU remains wary of Ankara.

Czech police have recommended charging prime minister Andrej Babiš with fraud, after an investigation into whether he misused EU funds. Prosecutors now have to decide whether to file charges. The police recommended indictment two years ago, but then the prosecutor dropped the case. Babiš denies wrongdoing. The EU Commission recently published a report saying Babiš has conflicts of interest over EU subsidies involving his former business conglomerate.

The World Health Organization (WHO) faces reforms aimed at preventing potential future pandemics, Reuters reported. Health ministers from the WHO's 194 member states will meet in November to decide whether to launch negotiations on an international treaty aimed at improving preparedness against any future outbreak. The proposal, put forward by the EU, is supported by a majority of WHO members, an EU official said.

Like-minded "illiberals" in the European Parliament's far-right Independence & Democracy (ID), anti-federalist European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), and centre-right European People's Party (EPP) groups should form a new alliance, Italy's populist former interior minister Matteo Salvini said Sunday. But Italian politician Antonio Tajani, a former EU parliament president from the EPP, immediately poured cold water on Salvini's idea, saying: "For the EPP, it's impossible to make an agreement with ID".

The far-right Israeli politician Naftali Bennett will be the country's next prime minister under a proposed power-sharing deal intended to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the opposition, Yair Lapid has confirmed, The Guardian writes. In his speech and for the first time, Lapid referred to Bennett, a far-right religious nationalist and strong advocate for the settler movement in the Palestinian territories, as the "intended prime minister".

US-origin conspiracy theories about the pandemic are spreading on social media and pose a security risk in Europe, according to an AFP investigation. Some 30,000 people in France follow the 'DeQodeurs' conspiracy group on Telegram, another 100,000 follow German demagogues Attila Hildmann and Xavier Naidoo, and 150,000 follow UK conspiracist Charlie Ward. "People are organising in clandestine cells. Obviously it is a threat," French national intelligence coordinator Laurent Nunez said.