Euobserver.com

Foreign ministers should tell US secretary of state on Monday that Israeli annexation means EU sanctions on Israel and a rift with the US, Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian diplomat, said.

The chief of staff of EU Council president Charles Michel, Francois Roux, has resigned, he confirmed to the Belgian L'Echo over the weekend. In a tweet published on Friday, Barend Leyts, spokesman for Michel, announces that Roux will be replaced by Frederic Bernard, who had already worked as a "sherpa" for the council president. Michel is currently trying to find an EU budget compromise among the 27 leaders.

On Saturday, 36 new local coronavirus infection cases were recorded in China's capital, Beijing, all related to Xinfadi market - which has been described by state media outlet CGTN as the biggest wholesale market in all of Asia, the BBC reports. The market was quickly placed under lockdown and restrictions were imposed in 21 nearby neighbourhoods. The city had previously seen no new cases in more than 50 days.

In a televised address, French president Emmanuel Macron said France had won its "first victory", but warned the virus could return, the BBC reports. From Monday, cafes and restaurants can open across France and people can travel to other European countries. People will also be able to visit family members in retirement homes, which had been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 outbreak.

Some 54 percent of British people said Britain ought to extend the Brexit transition period which ends 31 December, in a survey by UK charity the Health Foundation. The figure rose to 65 percent, in the hypothetical event that a no-deal Brexit caused disruptions to medical supply lines. Young people (18-24) were the most keen (84 percent) to protect good EU relations. The UK government has ruled out an extension.

Irregular border crossings to the EU increased by 4,300 in May compared to April according to EU border control agency Frontex, Germany's Funke Media Group reported Sunday. Numbers almost tripled on the central Mediterranean route to Malt and Italy and went up 50 percent in the Western Balkans. The main route was still via Turkey to Greece. The spike came after falling numbers earlier this year, due to the pandemic.

Polish president Andrzej Duda, from the nationalist Law and Justice party, told a campaign rally Sunday that pro-LGBTI values, which are espoused by EU charters, are worse than communism. "They [previous Polish generations] didn't fight for this [Poland] so that a new ideology would appear that is even more destructive" he said, ahead of elections on 28 June. The vote was previously postponed due to coronavirus.

The public health crisis caused by the coronavirus in member states has pushed the European Commission to play a more active in the field of health, especially funding the development of an effective Covid-19 vaccine.

Refugee and asylum seeker hopefuls are showing up with horrific injuries, including broken bones and collapsed lungs, after entering Croatia. NGOs blame a militarised Croatian police force for the abuse. The Commission now wants to monitor the border.

This week will see the start of key talks on how to kickstart the EU's economy, while British PM Boris Johnson and top EU officials will discuss how to move forward, plus eastern partners and Pampeo will also be online.

As western European countries gear up to restart the economy, they look towards Romania and its farm workers and care home workers for a helping hand.

At the height of the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests last fall, for example, hashtags relating to the protests appeared abundantly on platforms like Twitter. On TikTok, however, the same hashtags yielded scant results and almost no signs of unrest.

The international human rights NGO Amnesty International (AI) on Thursday accused Croatia of "a horrifying escalation of police human rights violations" towards a group of migrants and refugees found crossing the Croatian border with Bosnia. "The European Union can no longer remain silent and wilfully ignore the violence and abuses by Croatian police on its external borders," said Massimo Moratti, deputy director of the AI Europe Office.

The European Commission estimates some 22,800 people in total died last year in road deaths in member states, a drop of around 7,000 compared to 2010. The commission wants no deaths and serious injuries on European roads by 2050. "This is our goal," said EU commissioner for transport Adina Vălean, in a statement.

EU health ministers will discuss on Friday plans to have the Commission negotiate with pharmaceutical companies on behalf of EU countries, make advaced payments and secure enough vaccines for Europeans.

The Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported the European Commission will press anti-trust charges against US e-commerce giant Amazon for abusing its market dominance. The commission had launched its probe in 2018 and is expected to release a statement sometime next week. Amazon is said to be using data collected from third-party merchants to boost its own product offering.

The Flemish minister of mobility, Lydia Peeters, took a plane from Brussels to Antwerp, two Belgian cities lying less than 50km apart. She flew in order to promote the reopening of Belgian local airports. Greenpeace responded by asking if the minister had missed out on climate change, adding "regional airports are not essential at all and are the source of perfectly avoidable CO2 emissions."

While nine-out-of-10 future jobs will require digital skills, a new report revealed that a large part of EU citizens were unable to perform basic tasks such as connect to the wi-fi network or use websites.

The European Commission's data-mining tool, known as a Arachne - used to weed out fraud and conflicts of interests of EU funds - may become compulsory for member states.

The EU Commission Directorate General for Justice has refused to accept European Jews for a Just Peace into the Commission's Working Group on Antisemitism.