Новости за 05.03.2021

A cross-European group of 52 former MEPs on Friday urged EU lawmakers to vote against a report that recommends lifting the immunity of current MEPs Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Clara Ponsatí. The vote will take place on 8 March. The Catalan politicians fled to Belgium in late 2017 to avoid charges over the referendum on Catalan independence. They could face up to 25 years in jail, if convicted.

The EU has been accused of "hypocrisy and neocolonialism" by a former Seychelles official, among others, for proposing insufficient measures to tackle overfishing of yellowfin tuna, while being the largest fisher of the prized species in the Indian Ocean, The Guardian writes. Although the Indian Ocean is bordered by Africa, Asia, and Australia, the single biggest harvester of yellowfin in the area is the European Union.

Italy has blocked a shipment of 250,000 doses of Oxford/AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine due to go to Australia, invoking an EU export authorisation scheme. Australia was not "a vulnerable country", Italy said, and its decision was due to a "persistence of the vaccine shortage in the EU and Italy," it added, The Guardian reports. The move was a "carte blanche for imitators" in other EU states, German MEP Bernd Lange said.

The EU will launch legal action against the UK over its decision, on Wednesday, to unilaterally suspend parts of the Brexit agreement dealing with Northern Ireland customs, European Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič has said. "We are currently preparing it and it would be really something coming to our table very soon," he told the Financial Times newspaper on Thursday. The Birth move was a "very negative surprise", he added.

China and Russia are using the pandemic to increase their authority in new ways at home and abroad, Lithuanian intelligence services have warned.

The United States has agreed to a four-month suspension of retaliatory tariffs imposed on British goods such as Scotch whisky over a long-running aircraft subsidy row, with both sides pledging to use the time to resolve the dispute, Reuters reports. Former president Donald Trump imposed tariffs on whisky and other European Union foods, wine, and spirits, in a dispute on subsidies for plane-makers Airbus and Boeing which predated Brexit.

The Kremlin urged France and Germany to use their influence with the Ukrainian government to make sure that events in the part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed rebels did not "cross a dangerous line", Reuters reports. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Moscow was seriously concerned by a rise in violence on the contact line between the rebels and Ukrainian government forces.

Sweden and Germany extended on Thursday their recommendation for the AstraZeneca/Oxford Covid-19 vaccine to cover people aged over 65, The Guardian reported. Berlin previously said available data was insufficient to approve the jab for the elderly, but it changed its position following recent studies. "New data shows the vaccine is even more effective when the first and second jabs are administered 12 weeks apart," said German health minister, Jens Spahn.

The World Health Organization warned of a surge in new coronavirus infections across Europe, pointing out healthcare systems should not be under pressure in some countries. Meanwhile, the European Medical Agency is reviewing Russia's Sputnik vaccine.

In the EU, women earn 14.1 percent less than men across the bloc - even though they have had the right to equal pay since 1957. The gender pension gap is at 30 percent.

MEPs probing the EU's border agency Frontex cross-examined the agency's director. They also spoke to EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson, who made it clear she had little sway over the agency.

Aside from the EPP, Hungary was also protected - at a member states' level - by key bilateral partners; and not only illiberal countries like Poland, Bulgaria or recently Slovenia - but most importantly also by Germany.

The European Parliament is going to vote on its report on corporate due diligence next week, calling on the EU Commission to propose a mandatory code-of-conduct for businesses.