Euobserver.com

Angela Merkel also said that the EU should better take into consideration the different experiences of eastern European countries - which are becoming increasingly confident and do not necessarily want an 'ever-closer union'.

The European Commission unveiled the first-ever legal framework to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in Europe - banning 'social scoring' systems and facial recognition for law enforcement in public spaces, with narrow exceptions.

The European Commission has laid out rules classifying industrial logging and the burning of trees and crops for energy as 'sustainable' investments. Decisions on whether to also list gas and nuclear energy as 'sustainable' investments will be made later.

Romania's problem with waste and illegal imports has come under increased public scrutiny after such incidents picked up significantly over the past 18 months - particularly after China, the world's primary importer of waste, implemented a plastics ban.

Together with several other central and eastern European (CEE) countries, we do not support the introduction of a single EU carbon price for all sectors - because this could significantly increase the overhead costs for CEE households.

The European Parliament and the European Council reached an agreement on the first-ever EU climate law - raising the current 2030 emission-reduction target from 40 percent to around 55 percent (including carbon sinks).

Fighting in Ethiopia is "dire", with ongoing ethnic cleansing and sexual violence, Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto has said after visiting the conflict zone in Tigray.

All six British football clubs who were due to play in a controversial European Super League have withdrawn from the project, following a public and political outcry. "It was never our intention to cause such distress ... We made a mistake, and we apologise," the Arsenal football club said in a statement Tuesday. The remaining three Italian and three Spanish clubs in the league are expected to follow suit Wednesday.

Concern is growing in European foreign ministries that Russia is preparing to recognise the sovereignty of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic in Ukraine, amid a massive military build-up on Ukraine's eastern border. The Russian presidential decree could come before the weekend, an EUobserver source said. Russia invaded east Ukraine in 2014 after a pro-Western revolution in Kiev and has kept the region under occupation ever since.

Following a conversation between Spanish justice minister Juan Carlos Campo and EU commissioner for values and transparency Věra Jourová earlier this week, Spain on Tuesday withdrew its proposed controversial reform of the country's top legal body. Brussels previously said that the reform of the General Council of the Judiciary, which has lasted two-and-a-half years, must ensure that the council is not perceived as "vulnerable to politicisation".

EU commissioner for the internal market Thierry Breton told an Irish parliamentary committee on Tuesday that at least 12 of the 27 member states are confident of being able to vaccinate 70 percent of their adult population by mid-July, Reuters reported. "This number is increasing on a daily basis," he also said. The EU has set a target of vaccinating at least 70 percent of its adult population by September.

Europe's medicines regulator has found a possible link between Johnson & Johnson's coronavirus vaccine and very rare cases of unusual clotting disorders that prompted authorities in Europe and the US to pause the shot's rollout last week, The Guardian writes. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said its safety committee had concluded a warning should be added to the vaccine's product information, but that the shot's benefits outweighed its risks.

The Czech Republic called on its EU and Nato partners to expel Russian diplomats in solidarity, accusing Moscow of orchestrating an "unprecedented terror attack" on Czech territory, AFP reports. Foreign and interior minister Jan Hamacek said he would summon the Russian ambassador Wednesday to disclose further steps. "We are calling for collective action of EU and Nato countries aimed at solidarity expulsions," Hamacek told reporters.

The International Energy Agency (IAE) said on Tuesday that global CO2-emissions from the energy sector will raise by nearly five percent (reaching 33 billion tonnes) this year, Reuters reported. During the pandemic, energy-related emissions fell by 5.8 percent to 31.5 billion tonnes. "This is a dire warning that the economic recovery from the Covid crisis is currently anything but sustainable for our climate," IEA executive director Fatih Birol said.

Russia will soon have more than 120,000 troops on Ukraine's border, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said, calling for new Western economic sanctions to deter Moscow from "further escalation", Reuters reports. "The cost of preventing Russia's further escalation will always be lower than the cost of stopping it and mitigating its consequences," Kuleba said. Western officials say the concentration of forces is now larger than during the annexation.

Norway, Finland, Sweden Denmark lead the world ranking of 180 countries, while - among EU members - Malta, Hungary, and Bulgaria have the lowest placings.

Bogus Covid conspiracy theories are more often debunked in Facebook in the US than those found in Europe - especially when written in Italian and French, a study has found.

The European Union is sending 651,000 BioNTech/Pfizer coronavirus vaccines to the Western Balkan countries - after lagging behind the 'vaccine diplomacy' of Russia, China, and even Serbia, in the region.

Afghans in 2020 constituted the second-largest group of asylum seekers arriving in Europe - outlining the necessity to accelerate the reform of the EU migration regime to avoid another crisis.

In the eyes of the Russian elite, most of Europe is just a bunch of spoiled, decadent, pipeline addicts that takes its illusions for reality, and can be easily played with.