Tag Archives: European Union

Reuters reports: U.S. President Joe Biden told fellow NATO leaders on Monday the defense of Europe, Turkey and Canada was a “sacred obligation” for the United States, a marked shift from his predecessor Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from the military alliance. Arriving in Brussels from the weekend’s G7 summit in England, Biden again sought to rally Western allies to …

The Washington Post reports: European leaders on Monday agreed to impose sectoral sanctions on Belarus and to bar E.U. airlines from flying over the country’s airspace, dealing a potentially crushing blow to the economy, a day after Belarusian authorities forced down a civilian jet and pulled off a dissident journalist. The measures, backed by all 27 E.U. leaders, were an …

The Washington Post reports: European leaders on Monday were considering a plan to sever Belarus from the rest of the continent’s airspace, a day after Belarusian authorities forced a commercial airliner to land and arrested a dissident journalist who had been flying from Athens to Lithuania. Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said that AirBaltic, a major airline in the region, …

The Washington Post reports: The European Union on Wednesday agreed to open its borders to vaccinated Americans and others, after more than a year in which travel into the bloc has been severely restricted, a spokesman said Wednesday. The decision represents a formal turning point away from the eerie, economy-sapping status quo of the pandemic, when major cities — from …

The New York Times reports: The European Union is considering whether to follow the Biden administration’s decision to support a waiver of patent rights for Covid-19 vaccines as many poor and middle-income nations struggle to secure lifesaving doses. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, stopped short of outright supporting President Biden in a speech on Thursday morning, but …

The Guardian reports: The EU would reopen to holidaymakers from countries with low Covid infection rates such as the UK, and to anyone who has been fully vaccinated, by the start of June under a European Commission plan. With the rate of vaccination rising “dramatically” in EU member states, commission officials said it was time to relax rules on non-essential …

The New York Times reports: American tourists who have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19 will be able to visit the European Union over the summer, the head of the bloc’s executive body said in an interview with The New York Times on Sunday, more than a year after shutting down nonessential travel from most countries to limit the spread of …

The Associated Press reports: The European Union’s executive body proposed Wednesday issuing certificates that would allow EU residents to travel freely across the 27-nation bloc by the summer as long as they have been vaccinated, tested negative for COVID-19 or recovered from the disease. With summer looming and tourism-reliant countries anxiously waiting for the return of visitors amid the coronavirus …

The Associated Press reports: The European Parliament has overwhelming adopted a resolution declaring the entire 27-member European Union a “freedom zone” for LGBT people, an effort to push back on rising homophobia in Poland and elsewhere. The parliament announced late Thursday that there were 492 ballots in favor of the resolution and 141 against in a vote that came after …

The Associated Press reports: The European Parliament is scheduled to debate a resolution on Wednesday that would declare the entire 27-member European Union a “freedom zone” for LGBT people. The move comes largely in reaction to developments over the past two years in Poland, where many local communities have adopted largely symbolic resolutions declaring themselves free of what conservative authorities …

The Washington Post reports: Ahead of Europe’s summer holiday season, some top destinations such as Greece and Spain are pushing the European Union to introduce digital “vaccine passports” to ease entry for visitors — and their tourism cash. But what some countries see as a path toward reopening has been viewed by others, led by France and Germany, as a …

Politico Europe reports: U.K. border officials have begun asking some EU citizens who live in the country to show evidence they are legal residents, in apparent breach of the law, according to EU diplomats. Following the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31, border officials are entitled to ask questions to check whether a non-British national is entering …

Reuters reports: President Joe Biden will impose a ban on most non-U.S. citizens entering the country who have recently been in South Africa starting Saturday in a bid to contain the spread of a new variant of COVID-19, a senior U.S. public health official told Reuters. Biden on Monday is also reimposing an entry ban on nearly all non-U.S. travelers …

Reuters reports: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cancelled his Europe trip at the last minute on Tuesday after Luxembourg’s foreign minister and top European Union officials declined to meet him, European diplomats and other people familiar with the matter said. The Europeans snubbed Washington’s top envoy days after the storming of the U.S. Capitol by thousands of supporters of …

Reuters reports: The European Union’s top diplomat said on Sunday that last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol exposed the dangers of allowing the degradation of democratic values to go unchecked and disinformation to spread on social media. “What we saw on Wednesday was only the climax of very worrying developments happening globally in recent years. It must be a …

The Independent reports: Greece has appointed its first openly gay minister as part of a cabinet reshuffle. Nicholas Yatromanolakis made history after he was named the new deputy minister of culture on Monday. The 44-year-old was promoted from his role as general secretary of contemporary culture at the same department. The appointment which made him the first openly gay minister …

Sky News reports: A number of British expats hoping to return to their homes in Spain say they have been stopped from boarding their flight at Heathrow Airport. Two airlines have reportedly claimed their proof of residency documents were no longer valid after the end of the Brexit transition period with the EU on 31 December. Spanish and British authorities …

Reuters reports: The father of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Thursday he was in the process of applying for a French passport to maintain his ties with the European Union after Brexit. Stanley Johnson, a former member of the European Parliament who voted Remain in Britain’s 2016 referendum, told RTL radio he wanted to become a French citizen …

Ansa reports: The news was in the air for days, now it’s official. In Spain there will be a register of people who refuse the Covid vaccine. The vaccine will not be mandatory, said Health Minister Salvador Illa, but whoever decides not to do so will be included in a “register” which will then be shared with other European Union …

The New York Times reports: From nursing homes in France to hospitals in Poland, older Europeans and the workers who care for them rolled up their sleeves on Sunday to receive coronavirus vaccine shots in a campaign to inoculate more than 450 million people across the European Union. “Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year,” Ursula von …