European Union

At the end of May, the Comirnaty vaccine from Biontech/Pfizer became the first Covid vaccine to be approved for use in children aged twelve and over. Now Moderna has also already applied for EU approval of its vaccine for the youngest age group. The prospect of widespread vaccination of children against Covid has sparked a new debate.

After the European border management agency Frontex has come under fire several times in recent months for its involvement in illegal pushbacks, a report by the European Court of Auditors has once again cast the institution in a very unfavourable light. The report concludes that the agency is performing its tasks so inadequately that one should examine whether it should continue to exist at all. Commentators are divided.

For months, bags of rubbish have been piling up in the centre of Bucharest because Clotilde Armand, mayor of the city's Sector 1, is in a clinch with the sanitary services company Romprest. She says that the costs for rubbish disposal - fixed before her term in office - are five times higher than in other cities and taking up a third of the sector's budget. She wants a new contract and has temporarily suspended payments to the company.

Slovakia has become the second EU country after Hungary to start vaccinating with the Russian vaccine Sputnik V, which has not yet been approved in the EU. At the end of February, Igor Matovič, then prime minister, ordered 200,000 doses in Moscow - a move that ultimately cost him his job. Slovaks between the ages of 18 and 60, however, are proving much less willing to be vaccinated with Sputnik than expected.

This year, the European Development Days (EDD) are fully digital. But once again, the five major international networks of local and regional governments active in development cooperation (AIMF, CLGF, PLATFORMA/CEMR, UCLG and UCLG-Africa) are showcasing how cities and regions lead...

Global airlines have criticised the European Union's recently agreed position on air traffic management reform, arguing it hampers much-needed improvements to Europe’s sclerotic air transport system.