Новости за 16.06.2021

The Chinese mission to the EU denounced a Nato statement that declared Beijing a "security challenge," saying China is actually a force for peace but will defend itself if threatened, AP reports. The Chinese news release said the Nato statement was a "slander on China's peaceful development, a misjudgment of the international situation and (Nato's) own role, and a continuation of the Cold War mentality and organisational political psychology."

The EU and US have ended their oldest trade war in a show of transatlantic unity one day before US president Joe Biden meets his Russian counterpart.

Israel has launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the first since a truce ended 11 days of conflict last month, in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian territory, The Guardian writes. The flare-up in violence, a first test for Israel's new government sworn in three days ago, followed a march in East Jerusalem by Jewish far-right nationalists that had drawn threats of action by Hamas.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić met Kosovo prime minister Albin Kurti in Brussels on Tuesday to resume talks on normalising relations, but the meeting saw little progress, the EU mediator, Miroslav Lajčák, said. "It was not an easy meeting, but it was important that it happened," he said. Kurti "wanted to hear when we will recognise independent Kosovo ... and I said never," Vučić told press afterward, according to AP.

A French court ordered Ikea to pay a fine of €1m after the retailer was found guilty of spying on its staff and storing employee data, Reuters reports. Prosecutors said the French subsidiary hired a security company and private detectives to illegally obtain information on its employees and prospective staff as part of a "spying system" that operated from 2009 to 2012.

The EU was set to raise €20bn from its first issue of 10-year bonds in its €800bn post-pandemic recovery fund, amid soaring demand for the triple-A rated financial product Tuesday, Reuters reports. Demand outstripped supply, with investors keen to buy up to €145bn on the day. The programme will make the EU the world's largest supranational debt issuer when completed. The fund is to help member states up till 2026.

A German MEP from The Left group will file a lawsuit at the country's Federal Constitutional Court on Thursday, challenging the legality of the €8bn European Defence Fund (EDF). "The EDF is clearly not only a breach of the EU treaties but is a fundamental violation of the so-called EU peace project that will only benefit the arms industry," said left-wing MEP Özlem Demirel.

Coffee and chocolate supplies in Europe soon could be disrupted by the climate crisis as droughts hit producer countries, according to a study, The Guardian reports. The research also found a high vulnerability for palm-oil imports, used in many foods and domestic products, and soybeans, which are the main feed for chickens and pigs in the European Union.

The European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday that any national data protection authority can take a company to court in their own country when there are cross-border data processing, even if they are not the leading authority. The ruling ends a case between Facebook against the Belgian data agency, and it is expected to have implications for the cross-border enforcement of the EU data protection rules (GDPR).

Thousands of protestors demonstrated against the proposals in Budapest in front of the parliament this week, denouncing the Orbán government's efforts to conflate homosexuality with paedophilia.

A new report from the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency revealed the difficulties people in vulnerable situations face accessing vaccines - from language barriers, to limitations tied to residence, or legal status.

The gap between EU resources available on the one hand, and the persistence of poverty and homelessness on the other hand, is what makes these figures more than an embarrassment: it raises them to the level of a human-rights crisis.