Новости за 03.05.2021

The EU foreign service summoned Russia's ambassador to the bloc, Vladimir Chizhov, to voice its formal complaint on Monday, after Russia blacklisted the EU Parliament president and an EU commissioner on Friday. The move is the first time Chizhov, who has held his post in Brussels for 15 years, was reprimanded in this way. There were "no legal grounds" for Russia's sanctions, which were "purely political", an EU spokesman said.

Bulgaria will head to the polls in July after the Socialists became the third political party to refuse to lead a government following last month's parliamentary election, Reuters reports. The Socialists said it would be impossible to build a working majority in a fragmented parliament and would return the mandate immediately after the president hands it to them on 5 May.

Police fired water cannon and tear gas in the Brussels' Bois de la Cambre park to break up an anti-lockdown party of many hundreds of people this weekend, designed to defy coronavirus social-distancing rules, Reuters reports. It took place a month after police cleared 2,000 people who gathered in the same park for la Boum (the party), an event that had begun as an April Fool's joke.

New Zealand's customs agency has fired nine border workers who declined to get the Covid-19 vaccine, The Guardian writes, amid confusion in the EU on how to handle refuseniks. All New Zealand frontline border workers to be vaccinated by the end of April. In February, the government said it would not make vaccination compulsory for frontline staff, and that those who declined the vaccine would be moved into backroom roles.

The EU should relax its debt rules to allow national economies to recover from the pandemic, EU budgets commissioner Johannes Hahn told German newspaper Die Welt on Saturday. "The fiscal policy goals for these countries must be realistic," he said of Greece and Italy, who debt-to-GDP rations were more than double the prescribed EU limit of 60 percent. France is also on 199 percent, while Germany is on 54 percent.

US microchip maker Intel wants €8 billion in state aid to make it "competitive" to build a new factory in Europe instead of Asia, its CEO, Pat Gelsinger, has told Politico. "We think of Germany as a good candidate," he added, in German newspaper Handelsblatt, after visiting Brussels and Berlin last weekend. "Europe will drastically increase [chip] production capacity," EU single-market commissioner Thierry Breton tweeted, after meeting Gelsinger Friday.

The EU aims to reduce dependence on foreign suppliers, especially China, in six areas - raw materials, pharmaceutical ingredients, semiconductors, batteries, hydrogen, and cloud technologies - according to an industrial strategy paper due out Wednesday, seen by Reuters. The EU should rely on "different trading partners whenever possible, but also stockpiling and acting autonomously," it said, adding EU states should also pool funds for "Important Projects of Common European Interest".

Russia has said it was "optimistic" of a new deal on Iran nuclear non-proliferation after a meeting of senior officials from China, France, Germany, Iran, Russia, the UK, the US, and the EU in Vienna on Saturday. "We have reasons for cautious and growing optimism," Russia's delegate Mikhail Ulyanov tweeted. "Participants aim at successful completion of the talks in approximately three weeks," he added. The other delegates kept silent.

British foreign minister Dominic Raab has indicated the UK will give the EU's ambassador in London full diplomatic status ahead of a 'G7' foreign ministers' meeting this week. The EU was "not quite a normal state", but London wanted to be "pragmatic" and to "turn the page", he said. "We will treat our EU partners with all of the respect that they rightly deserve," Raab said on Sunday.

Statements, literary quotes, and jokes, but no action - that is how the EU handled Russia's decision to blacklist its highest official.

A study revealed that air-pollutant emissions from the power plant and the Turów mine caused an estimated 120 premature deaths in 2017, and 51,000 days of sick leave from work.

EU leaders will focus on a social summit in Porto this weekend, where they will hold a video conference with Indian PM Narendra Modi.

The truth is brutally simple: the G7 is a relic of the past. It deserves an emotional and respectful adieu but should be taken off life support.