Euobserver.com

Europe's vaccination campaign is "unacceptably slow" while rising infection rates in most countries across the region mean its virus situation is "more worrying than we have seen in several months", the World Health Organization (WHO) said, The Guardian reports. WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, said that vaccines "present our best way out of this pandemic. Not only do they work, they are highly effective in preventing infection.

A British court has convicted a serving officer in the Metropolitan Police Service on terrorism charges in a first such verdict. Benjamin Hannam, 22, was found guilty of belonging to banned neo-Nazi group National Action and having illicit material on a USB stick on how to kill with knives and home-made bombs. Far-right terrorism was a bigger threat than jihadism in Europe today, its joint police agency, Europol, recently warned.

Hong Kong District Court found seven activists, including 82-year-old barrister Martin Lee and media tycoon Jimmy Lai, guilty of organising and taking part in an unauthorised assembly, Deutsche Welle writes. "We will continue the struggle," said Lee Cheuk-yan. The activists were convicted for their involvement in a massive protest held on August 18, 2019 against a proposed bill that would allow for criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China.

A study from the London School of Economics found both political and economic nativism divides far-right MEPs across Europe, casting doubt on a possible future alliance - as proposed by Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán.

Nine members of the expert group advising the European Commission on sustainable finance rules say criteria for gas, forestry and bioenergy are "a clear contradiction to climate science" - threatening to step down if lobbying and politics prevail over science.

Bulgaria's burgeoning information technology sector is becoming a voice of change – and parties are starting to take notice, as the country votes for a new parliament on Sunday.

At any one time, there are over 100,000 people in prison waiting for a trial - one-in-five of the total EU prison population. These numbers have consistently grown over the past few years and are fuelling Europe's prison overcrowding crisis.

Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia was trying to crease "an atmosphere of threat" around ceasefire talks, Reuters reported. "Playing with muscles in the form of military exercises and possible provocations along the border is a traditional Russian affair," Zelenskiy said. The Kremlin said on Thursday that the military movements of Russian troops near the border with Ukraine were aimed at ensuring national security.

British society is a "model for other white-majority countries", according to a report by 'the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities', a government body, ordered in the wake of last year's 'Black Lives Matter' protests. "We no longer see a Britain where the system is deliberately rigged against ethnic minorities," the commission said. But the report was "another total [government] whitewash", the opposition Labour Party said.

President Emmanuel Macron ordered France into its third national lockdown and said schools would close for three weeks as he sought to push back a third wave of Covid-19 infections that threatens to overwhelm hospitals, Reuters writes. With the death toll nearing 100,000, and intensive-care units in the hardest-hit regions at breaking point, Macron was forced to abandon his goal of keeping the country open to protect the economy.

The leaders of France, Germany, and Russia have held a conference call on rolling out purchases, supplies, and production of Russia's 'Sputnik V' vaccine in the EU, according to the Kremlin. The conversation, on Tuesday, came after The Lancet, a leading medical journal, said the Russian jab was safe and effective. But the EU regulator, the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam, is still carrying out tests prior to approval.

The EU is set to sanction eight Iranian leaders of the Basij militia and the police and three entities for human rights abuses, the first such measures since 2013, Reuters writes. The EU will impose travel bans and asset freezes, diplomats said, and their names will be published next week, when the sanctions take effect. "Those responsible for serious rights violations must know there are consequences," an EU diplomat said.

Austria is likely to order a million doses of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine next week, Reuters reported. "We are in the final metres and a Sputnik order can probably be placed next week," Kurz said in a statement published on Wednesday, after his meeting with Russia's ambassador to Austria. The agreement would involve 300,000 doses to be delivered in April, 500,000 in May and 200,000 in early June.

A French air strike in January killed 19 civilians and three armed men at a wedding in the remote desert of central Mali, United Nations investigators said - contradicting France's account that only Islamist militants were hit, Reuters reports. France immediately rejected the findings. France has more than 5,000 troops in Mali and neighbouring countries to battle groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State.

An Italian captain of a frigate, plus a Russian who was accredited at their embassy, have been accused of "serious crimes tied to spying and state security", according to Reuters. Ansa news agency said Nato documents were among the files that the Italian had handed over, raising potential security worries for other members of the Western military alliance. The Italian captain was arrested, while two Russian diplomats were expelled.

The European Medicine Agency insisted on Wednesday that the AstraZeneca vaccine's benefits outweigh the risks, but acknowledged that people should be aware of the "remote possibility" of rare blood clots occurring, Reuters reported. "A causal link with the vaccine is not proven, but is possible and further analysis is continuing," the EU drug agency said. The statement comes after several countries limited the jab use for certain vulnerable groups.

EU institutions have put forward a first-ever, controversial entry into the Eurovision Song Contest to be held in the Netherlands in May.

The Slovenian prime minister recently lashed out against both journalists and MEPs. His country will soon take over the presidency. In Brussels, there is concern - but also faith that Janez Janša cannot have much impact on the EU machinery.

The European Parliament's plans to replace the current paper-based MEPs attendance control system with a digital register, based on a fingerprint scanner, raises "critical concerns", the EU data protection watchdog has warned.

The EU needs to invest €300bn in 5G telecoms infrastructure if it wants super-fast internet across the bloc in line with efforts to revive its economy after the pandemic, a study by consulting firm 'BCG' for telecoms lobby 'ETNO' has said. One way to speed things up would be "pursuing new ownership models involving voluntary infrastructure sharing, which can allow faster roll-out," the study said.