European Union

In Hungary, there are 13 registered cases with 69 people in quarantine, as of Wednesday. In response, the government has now ordered a state of emergency, Gergely Gulyás, the head of the prime minister’s office, said. A ban on travellers (non-citizens)...

In Ireland, the first victim of the disease has been recorded after the infection count rose by nine on Wednesday, bringing the total to 43 known infections. An elderly woman in the east of Ireland who already had an underlying...

In the UK, Chancellor Rishi Sunak put a £30 billion (€35 billion) package at the heart of the UK’s first post-Brexit budget on Wednesday in a bid to support the country’s economy and contend with the effects of the coronavirus. The measures...

In Belgium, the number of confirmed cases has reached 314 as of Tuesday, with the first three deaths. “Once again we see an increase in the number of new cases. Our hospitals are also seeing more people with lower respiratory tract infections....

This week’s oil price rout had become inevitable and cutting output has ceased to make sense because it is unclear how deep the impact of the coronavirus on demand will be, Russia’s deputy energy minister said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday (11 March).

More than 50 EU Parliament lawmakers have co-signed a letter calling on the European Commission to take exceptional measures in support of agri-food sectors targeted by punitive US import tariffs.

A major military exercise in Europe has been cancelled over coronavirus concerns as a "precautionary measure" on Wednesday (11 March), while Washington is considering reduced US involvement in another exercise amid the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.

The Romanian government has decided to suspend exports of medicines and other health products for the next six months as 18 new cases were reported on Thursday (13 March) bringing to 47 the total number of persons infected with the new coronavirus.

Kazakhstan is suspending all public events and taking special preventive measures due to the global spread of the coronavirus, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wrote on Twitter on Thursday (12 March).

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent out on Wednesday (11 March) a message of “unity, serenity and stability” to the Spanish people, pointing to the “difficult days and weeks” that Spain faces in order to contain the coronavirus outbreak and get the country back to normal.

The US has blocked entry to people from 26 European states, but not the UK, over the coronavirus pandemic US president Donald Trump said Wednesday. "To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe," he said. The ban is to come into force Friday for 30 days and apply to anybody who had visited Europe's passport-free Schengen zone in the past two weeks.

The EU's new Africa strategy promises relentless support for "a comprehensive continent-to-continent free trade area" - and ignores the risks posed by trade liberalisation where labour, fiscal and social regulation is immensely diverse and sometimes weak.

The Greek government dismissed on Wednesday (11 March) a report in The New York Times that it was holding illegal migrants who cross the border from Turkey at a secret "black site" where they are denied access to lawyers and cannot file asylum claims.

Revelations by the New York Times that Greece is running a black site where asylum seekers are detained, denied legal rights and then deported, will not be probed by the European Commission.

British minister Michael Gove said on Wednesday that face-to-face meetings for the second round of negotiations on the future relationship between the UK and the UE could be hit by the spread of the coronavirus, Reuters reported. "It is a live question (…) We have had indications today from Belgium that there may be specific public health concerns," he said. However, the commission said that the schedule has not changed.

A German court has for the first time rejected a request to extradite a suspect to Poland, over concerns about judicial independence in the fellow EU member state, AFP reported. Judges at the court in Karlsruhe said there was a "high probability" that an extradition "would prove to be illegal, at least for the moment, because of current developments in Poland related to the 'justice reform'."

Police in Slovakia detained a dozen judges on Wednesday as part of an investigation into the murder of a journalist and his partner in 2018, which unleashed years of protests over corruption. The judges could face charges of corruption, abuse of power, and interference in the independence of the courts. Among those detained were the vice president of the Supreme Court, and a former deputy justice minister.

The US is pushing Kosovo and Serbia to make a peace deal, over a year after the last EU-led talks took place.

EU countries have introduced partial travel bans, shut down schools, sports and cultural events, closed cinemas and theatres in an effort to slow down the spread of covonavirus. Fears over the economic turmoil also grow.

EU countries have introduced partial travel bans, shut down schools, sports and cultural events, closed cinemas and theatres in an effort to slow down the spread of covonavirus. Fears over the economic turmoil also grow.