European Union

Norway is commemorating the victims of the attack on 22 July 2011 today. The right-wing extremist Anders Breivik killed eight people with a car bomb in the government district of Oslo and then shot 69 people on the island of Utøya, most of them youths at a Norwegian Labour Party Youth summer camp. Breivik was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison followed by preventive detention.

The European Handball Federation (EHF) has fined Norway's women beach handball players for wearing shorts instead of the prescribed close fitting bikini bottoms. Each player was fined 150 euros after the European Championship match for third place. At the behest of the Norwegian federation, the EHF now plans to have the rules changed at the International Federation level. But the outraged reactions continue unabated.

Turkish President Erdoğan has visited Varosha in occupied Northern Cyprus to mark the anniversary of the invasion by Turkish troops in 1974. The coastal district from which the Greek Cypriots fled during the invasion is now a ghost town and a symbol of the division of Cyprus. But despite international criticism, Erdoğan is pressing ahead with plans to reopen it.

The government's MaPrimeRenov' scheme, which helps households make energy efficiency renovation of buildings is a "resounding success", France's ecological transition ministry said on Monday (19 July), hoping many more will apply to the scheme in 2021. EURACTIV France reports.

The Spanish parliament approved on Wednesday a government decree ending the obligation of mask-wearing outdoors when a social distance of 1.5 meters can be observed, Spanish news agency EFE reported. The measure has been criticised, since the country has entered a fifth wave of infections, driven by the more contagious Delta variant, reporting over 30,000 cases per day. Some regional governments are still recommending citizens use face masks.

China has rejected the proposal from the World Health Organization to carry out the second phase of the investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, which would include inspections of laboratories and markets in the city of Wuhan, Reuters reported on Thursday. Theories include a possible laboratory leak, fuelled by the lack of raw data corresponding to the 2019 gene sequence from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that low-income countries could have added €32.2bn to their GDP forecast for 2021 if they had similar vaccination rates as high-income countries. It also warns that the unequal distribution of vaccines globally will have "a lasting and profound impact on socio-economic recovery" in low-income countries. "Vaccine inequity is the world's biggest obstacle to ending this pandemic," said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Germany and the US struck a compromise on Wednesday (21 July) over the construction of the Russian-backed Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. According to the deal, Germany will provide assistance for Ukraine's energy security, with an initial donation of €148.3 million.

A new report on Wednesday by the British branch of NGO WWF and UK supermarket giant Tesco, shows that 1.2bn tonnes (over 15 percent) of food produced globally is lost during harvest or slaughter procedures. The research states that 58 percent of farm-related food waste takes place in middle- and high-income regions. WWF is calling on Brussels to address food waste through EU policies.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban has announced a referendum on his country's controversial new anti-LGBTIQ law - in response to criticism from the European Union which called the new legislation discriminatory.

In today's edition of the capitals, find out more about Orban's announcement of a controversial referendum on the country's LGBTQI+ law provisions, Slovakia facing protests over new COVID-19 restrictions, and so much more.

Democrats in the US Senate are considering a "polluter import fee", similar to the EU’s recently unveiled carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), to help fund President Joe Biden's $3.5 trillion recovery package.

Author and professor Anže Erbežnik has voiced harsh criticism of the justice ministry and of his former boss in a letter released after he resigned as a state secretary, saying it had been impossible to work in a way that...