Euobserver.com

Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto wrote on his Facebook page on Monday that Hungary and Slovenia have agreed on reopening their border by 1 June, Reuters reported. "Restarting our economies is not possible without restarting international cooperation," Szijjarto said, adding that "without jeopardising the protection of health, which is a priority, an easing of restrictive measures imposed at the borders is needed".

Chinese president Xi Jinping said on Monday that the coronavirus pandemic is "the most serious global public health emergency since the end of World War Two" in a videoconference during the two-day meeting World Health Assembly. "All along we have acted with openness, transparency and responsibility," he said, supporting calls for an independent investigation of the global response to the coronavirus under the World Health Organization.

Italy said Saturday it would open its borders to foreigners from 3 June and scrap a 14-day quarantine period for new arrivals in a bid to salvage tourist income. "We're facing a calculated risk in the knowledge that the contagion curve may rise again," prime minister Giuseppe Conte said on TV. Greece has also opened borders to tourists. Germany predicts normal cross-border travel in the EU from mid-June.

The total number of confirmed coronavirus cases stands at 4,702,603, while 314,476 people have died from the virus globally, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center. With 1,486,757 cases, the United States had the most infections, while Russia came second with 281,752 people infected. In the UK, 244,995 people are infected. Worldwide, 1,734,578 people recovered from the virus.

The EU has joined more than 60 signatories, including Brazil, India, Japan, and the UK, but not China or the US, who abstained, in a World Health Organisation (WHO) resolution calling for an "impartial, independent, and comprehensive" inquiry into the origins and spread of coronavirus, to be debated at a two-day WHO meeting starting Monday. The virus originated in China in December from natural causes, the current scientific consensus says.

Italy and Spain, two of the previously worst-affected countries, are easing pandemic lockdowns Monday, with Italy reopening bars, restaurants, and barber shops, as well as resuming church services. Spain is letting cafes and restaurants serve food in outdoor areas and allowing groups of 10 people to meet up. Belgium is also reopening hairdressers on Monday and people were allowed to go to the beach this past weekend in Greece.

The coronavirus has highlighted the debate over the ethics and legality of facial-recognition technologies and mass surveillance across Europe.

Painful questions on China have gatecrashed EU foreign affairs talks once again, amid fresh news of espionage in Brussels.

Talks on how to spend Europe's way out of a post-lockdown economic slump and how to restart higher education dominate a short week ahead for EU institutions.

In a resolution adopted on Friday by 505 votes in favour, 119 against and 69 abstentions, MEPs called for a "recovery and transformation fund" of €2 trillion, to be financed by long-dated bonds, and dispersed through both loans and grants. They urge the commission not to use "dubious multipliers to advertise ambitious figures", and not resort to "financial wizardry", as the EU's credibility is at stake.

Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Sweden have taken no steps towards reducing the use of imprisonment and others, like Greece, appear to be waiting for Covid-19 to spread through prisons before acting.

For Asian observers, not wearing face masks represents the lack of social cohesion, failure of effective government prevention strategies and comprehensive solidarity.

Chinese spies were suspected by Belgian intelligence to have installed surveillance equipment in a building in Brussels which now houses Malta's EU embassy and which overlooks the European Commission HQ, Le Monde reports, citing classified Belgian files. A Chinese firm renovated the building and the then head of Belgium's intelligence service, the VSSE, Alain Winants, wrote to Belgium's then foreign minister to warn him, Le Monde said.

The EU and UK accused each other of not being flexible enough and having unrealistic expectations in talks about the future trade relationship. The two sides have not moved on the key hurdles, including fisheries and workers' rights.

People who burn the EU flag, or any other foreign flag in Germany, may now get up to three years in jail following a vote in the Bundestag on Thursday. Justice minister Christine Lambrecht, a member of the centre-left SPD, said "burning flags publicly has nothing to do with peaceful protests". The new law also applies in cases where the flag is shredded or ripped apart in public.

Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orban expects his government to be able to relinquish emergency powers at the end of May, he said, after meeting with Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade. After the end of the highly-criticised extra powers, "we give everyone a chance to apologise to Hungary for the unjust accusations", he was quoted as saying by the MTI news agency.

Food security is one reason why the EU should give 10 percent more money to farmers after the pandemic, Poland has said.

The UK illegally freed City of London traders from VAT obligations, the EU court ruled Thursday, adding Britain would have to pay the European Commission's legal fees in the case, in bitter pills to swallow for Brexiteers. The UK is still bound by EU laws until a transition period ends in 2021. It is currently waiting to restart talks in earnest on future trade relations after the pandemic calms down.

A coronavirus vaccine could be approved at the earliest next year, not in September, as some European politicians had hoped, the head of the EU's medical certification body, the European Medicines Agency in Amsterdam, said Thursday. "For vaccines, since the development has to start from scratch ... we might look from an optimistic side in a year from now, so beginning of 2021," Marco Cavaleri said, Reuters reports.

An EU institution known as the EESC has been given until the autumn to initiate a series of reforms to protect victims of harassment and whistleblowers, including against threats, blackmail and bribery attempts.