Euobserver.com

Some 100 MEPs have signed a letter demanding the European Commission investigate the shootings that took place along the Greek-Turkey border earlier this year, when migrants and asylum seekers rushed to cross into Greece. The letter cites a reconstruction of the shootings by investigative journalists, strongly suggesting the bullets came from a Greek firearm. One person was shot dead and seven others injured.

Although EU-wide asylum applications dropped by 43 percent in March, an increase in the near future is likely said Easo, the EU's asylum support office. The agency says the risk of Covid-19 taking hold in lower-income countries, as well as leading to more insecurity, could result in increases in asylum applications in the medium term. The resurgence of ISIS, famine, and conflict may also be a factor, it says.

Flights between EU states will still be subject to the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), which forces them to buy CO2-emission permits, after the UN launches a similar, but global scheme, called Corsia, in 2021, the EU's transport commissioner, Adina Valean, said on Monday. The UN had wanted to have just one carbon-offsetting scheme worldwide. But Corsia "will not replace the ETS. It will complement the ETS," Valean said.

EU airlines and travel companies should give people vouchers valid for 12 months for contracts cancelled due to the pandemic, the European Commission is planning to recommend Wednesday, according to a draft paper seen by Reuters. Vouchers should "the same type of services or of equivalent quality as the terminated package" or be changeable for a "full refund," it said. National governments should also guarantee them in case of bankruptcies.

Some 77 percent of Germans thought China was partly to blame for coronavirus and 34 percent thought it was significantly to blame, according to British pollster Redfield & Wilton Strategies. The findings come after US leader Donald Trump and other populists referred to it as "the Chinese virus", despite UN appeals not to. The virus originated from natural causes in Wuhan, China, last December, according to the scientific consensus.

The economic "shock" of the pandemic could aggravate crises on Europe's southern fringe, EU diplomats fear, amid other concerns on Israeli annexation.

While the EU commission has suggested there could be EU probes becasue of the German consitutional court's decision, chancellor Angela Merkel argued to her party that a clash is avoidable.

Authorities have already released or plan to roll out contact-tracing apps across the EU. However, the coronavirus pandemic has brought into focus the risks of these surveillance technologies - and their potential negative impact on human rights.

The European Banking Authority allowed its executive director to take a job at one of the world's largest financial lobbying groups. The move has been slammed by the European Ombusdman, who called it maladministration.

It is crucial for European countries to mobilise all the necessary resources to strengthen public health systems, nationalising healthcare facilities if need be.

Once again, a large corporation seems set to win, with global public health losing out.

Amnesty International has said that the UN Security Council must not cut aid to civilians in Idlib in Syria, as a UN resolution allowing humanitarian assistance to the region draws close to expiration, Anadolu Agency reports. Heba Morayef, Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa director, said: "Even by the standards of Syria's calamitous nine-year crisis, the displacement and humanitarian emergency sparked by the latest onslaught on Idlib has been unprecedented."

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Monday that the "slow, steady lifting of lockdowns" is key, adding that Germany, South Korea and China all had put the necessary measures in place to respond to a possible second wave of infections, Reuters reported. "Lifting lockdowns are both complex and difficult," he added amid global concerns of a resurgence of cases worldwide.

Italy says it now has fewer than 1,000 people in intensive care for the Covid-19 virus, for first time in two months, reported AFP. Italy has been one of the hardest hit in Europe, with some 219,070 confirmed cases and 30,560 deaths caused by the pandemic.

Belgium announced it would take in 18 unaccompanied asylum-seeker minors currently stuck in Greece. The move is part of a European Commission plan to relocate at least 1,600 such minors from Greece to other member states. Some 59 have already been sent to Germany and Luxembourg. Portugal also said it would take 50.

Thomas Kemmerich, the leader of the liberal FDP in Thuringia, an eastern state of Germany, appeared at an anti-lockdown protest over the weekend, also without wearing the protective mask that is mandatory in public, Deutsche Welle reports. Kemmerich was at the center of a major political controversy last year when he was briefly elected state premier with the votes of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Countries who abuse environmental and labour standards should in future face penal trade tariffs from the EU, the French and Dutch trade ministers have said in a letter to their 25 EU peers, Reuters reports. "Trade policy instruments can provide additional leverage to the implementation of international environmental and labour standards," they said. The policy could impact the US, which reneged on climate change promises, and China.

According to the official data, 11,846 people died in Russia's capital in April of this year, roughly a 20 percent increase from the 10-year average for April deaths, which is 9,866, the Moscow Times reports. The numbers suggest that the city's statistics of coronavirus deaths may be higher in reality than official numbers indicate. Russia confirmed 11,012 new coronavirus infections Sunday, bringing the country's official number of cases to 209,688.

The European Commission might open a legal case against Germany in return for a German case against the European Central Bank (ECB), in which German judges recently said the ECB was wrong to buy bonds from pandemic-struck states and firms. "We are now analysing the [German] ruling ... we will look into possible next steps, which may include the option of infringement proceedings," commission president Ursula von der Leyen said.

An untraced coronavirus outbreak in a Chinese city near the Russian border and a spate of new cases in Wuhan has prompted fears of a fresh wave of infections in China, the Guardian writes. Wuhan has recorded its highest number of new infections since 11 March, reporting five new cases for 10 May, among 17 new cases nationwide, the highest in almost two weeks.