The following is the text of a speech by Chales Michel, President of the European Council. Seventy-five years of the Charter of the United Nations. But rather than looking back, I want to look forward 75 years, to 2095. My youngest daughter, Lucie, will be 76 years old. And like any parent in the world,…
Month: September 2020
EESC Civil Solidarity Prize
The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) invites civil society organisations, private companies and individuals from the European Union and the United Kingdom to submit their projects for its unique Civil Solidarity Prize, launched in July as a special, one-off replacement for its flagship annual Civil Society Prize. The EESC aims to reward as many as 29…
Libyan sanctions
The Council today (21 September) decided to impose targeted restrictive measures on two persons responsible for human rights abuses in Libya and three entities involved in violating the UN arms embargo in place for Libya. They will be added to the EU’s list of persons and entities subject to restrictive measures related to the Libyan conflict. The sanctions imposed comprise a travel ban and…
Prince Charles Speaks Out
HRH Prince Charles, “Climate change is now rapidly becoming a comprehensive catastrophe that will dwarf the impact of the coronavirus pandemic” The following are highlights of his address today. The borderless Climate bio-diversity and heath crisis are all symptoms of a planet that has been pushed beyond its boundaries, without swift and immediate action at a unprecedented case…
More Transparency Needed for Vaccine Trials
AstraZeneca issued a press release announcing that clinical trials for their coronavirus vaccine, AZD1222, under development resumed last week in the UK. The vaccine AZD1222 was co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-off company, Vaccitech. It uses a replication-deficient chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus)…
Banks Caught Laundering Dirty Money
Some of the world’s biggest banks reportedly let criminals and fraudsters move dirty money around the world, according to leaked banking documents seen by BBC Panorama. More than 2,000 sensitive banking papers detailing more than two trillion US dollars’ worth of transactions were analysed after being leaked to BuzzFeed News and shared with the International…
Prohibit Nuclear Weapons
Fifty-six former presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and defence ministers from 20 NATO member states, as well as Japan and South Korea, have issued an open letter calling on current leaders to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and two former NATO secretaries-general are among the co-signers. …
Harmonised Methodology Needed to Deal with the Pandemic
Common definitions, health criteria and methodologies are key to effectively fighting the ongoing pandemic and its economic consequences in the EU, MEPs say. Worried by the recent increase in positive COVID-19 cases across Europe, MEPs deplore that member states have not learned the lessons from the beginning of the crisis and have yet again taken…
Greens Call for Climate Protection
The Greens/EFA group are calling for support for refugees, climate protection and a permanent binding mechanism to uphold the rule of law in Europe. Ska Keller MEP, President of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament, commented: “The current state of this Union is defined by our own failures; by the fact that EU governments let…
Hungary Criticises Soros Funded NGOs
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó criticised what he called “the blackmail of the NGOs”, which Europe needed to put an end to. Speaking after meeting his Maltese counterpart, Szijjártó said it was time to “speak clearly about the role of the Soros-backed NGOs within the Mediterranean region”, in reference to international financier and philanthropist George…










