Euobserver.com

Europe may have to choose between China and the US as its main ally on the world stage amid shifting geopolitics, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said. "Analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century. This is now happening in front of our eyes ... the "pressure to choose sides is growing," he said Monday, The Guardian reports.

Polish ruler Jarosław Kaczyński's lockdown-flouting cemetery trips are symbolic of how un-European Poland has become, a top judge said.

This week the EU's data protection rules (known as the GDPR) are two-years old. While the controversial GDPR was intended to offer greater privacy rights, it has also been abused by some authorities to muzzle a free press.

The European Commission's recovery plan from the coronavirus pandemic gives priority to building renovation, renewables and hydrogen. However, eight member states have insisted that gas plays a crucial role in the transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

With the exception of South Africa and some parts of West Africa, the continent has been relatively untouched, including (quite surprisingly) highly-connected Ethiopia. Namibia, Burundi, Botswana, Seychelles, Zimbabwe only count a dozen of cases, and Lesotho is a virus-free country.

Spain will lift the current two-week compulsory quarantine for overseas arrivals from July, as part of the government's intention to resume tourism, El País reported on Monday. The two-week quarantine, which entered into force in the middle of May, currently apply to all international travellers with certain exceptions for some workers. Tourism represents 12 percent of Spain's GDP and the country receives over 80 million visitors a year.

The German government and airline giant Lufthansa agreed a €9bn rescue package on Monday. The deal is intended to help the airline cope with losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Around 95 percent of Europe's second-largest airline fleet has been grounded. The German government would take a 20-percent stake in Lufthansa, and five percent of bonds plus one share, allowing it to claim a blocking minority shareholding, AFP reported.

Germany's highest civil court ruled on Monday that car-maker Volkswagen must pay compensation to a driver who had bought one of its diesel minivans fitted with emissions-cheating software, in a landmark ruling that sets a precedent for 60,000 other such cases. The plaintiff, Herbert Gilbert, will be partially reimbursed for his vehicle fitted with a device designed to manipulate emissions tests. VW said it would offer one-off payments to drivers.

Over 40 million health professionals from 90 countries on Tuesday urged G20 leaders to make public health the core of future recovery packages. The letter states that recovery plans should focus investment in public health, clean air and water, as well as in reducing emissions. "We want to set Europe on a path for a healthy, sustainable and just recovery," said Génon Jensen from Health and Environment Alliance.

EU Commission vice-president Vera Jourova told MEPs on Monday that linking EU funds to the state of rule-of-law in member states is "today more needed than ever". A "rule-of-law conditionality" has been part of the commission's long-term EU budget proposal but criticised by countries such as Poland and Hungary. "We have to make sure it remains part of an MFF [EU budget] deal," Jourova added.

EU Parliament president David Sassoli said he "does not think it is possible" to have 12 plenary sittings in Strasbourg this year, as set out in the EU treaties. "We won't have so many plenaries in the little time left this year," he told journalists Monday. After talks with the French authorities, the decision will be made in the first half of June when to return to the French city.

Tough negotiations start this week on both the EU's recovery fund and its revised long-term budget, which are likely to determine the entire future of the bloc.

A group of 15 MEPs from the European People's Party, including chairman Manfred Weber, on Monday urged the European Commission to take action to eradicate violence against women - and member states to ratify the Istanbul Convention. "Now is the time for concrete action to ensure that every European is protected, whether from the Covid-19 virus or violence within the home," reads the letter.

Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen has publicly apologised after breaking the country's new curfew rules by staying in a restaurant until after 11PM. "I went out for the first time since the lockdown with two friends and my wife. We then lost track of the time while chatting," he said. The mini-violation comes amid a UK row, which saw a top government aide, Dominic Cummings, flout coronavirus travel rules.

Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi said Sunday that "some political forces in the US are taking China-US relations hostage and pushing our two countries to the brink of a new Cold War," The Guardian reports. Referring to the accusations of president Donald Trump that China might have created the coronavirus in a laboratory, Wang said Washington seemed to have been infected by a "political virus".

Tourists can return to Spain from 1 July, its prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said Saturday. Tourists "do not run a risk or bring a risk of contagion to Spain", he said, amid scattered anti-lockdown protests in Madrid. "The hardest is behind us ... we've overcome the big wave of the pandemic," he added, after almost 30,000 died in Spain. The tourism sector is 12 percent of the country's GDP.

Hungary has backed down in its clash with EU courts on asylum seekers, after letting people out of barbed-wire compounds called "transit zones" on its southern border in line with a court ruling. "I might start running for kilometres. It's so good to feel free," one man, who had been locked up for months, told Reuters. A senior Hungarian official had earlier said Budapest did "not accept" the verdict.

China ought to preserve Hong Kong's "high degree of autonomy, in line with ... international commitments", EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has said on behalf of the EU, after new Chinese security measures that threatened to violate the 1997 China-UK deal on Hong Kong's special status. Borrell hoped for "continued stability and prosperity". But China's move was "the death knell" for Hong Kong democracy, the US said.

Europe must issue "perpetual bonds" to fund pandemic bailouts or risk collapse, billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros said Friday. "If the EU is unable to consider it now, it may not be able to survive," he said. Perpetual bonds never mature, but pay interest for ever. "What would be left of Europe without Italy?", Soros added, noting that Italy was most at risk of crashing out of the EU.

EU pandemic bailouts should be loans, not grants, and there should be no joint debt, Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden said in a joint statement Saturday. "We propose to create an Emergency Recovery Fund based on a 'loans for loans' approach," they said. Arrangements should "not [lead] to any mutualisation of debt", the so-called "frugal four" added, after France and Germany earlier agreed more generous conditions.