Parliament approved €3.08 billion in EU aid on Friday including more tests, help for doctors and nurses to care for the sick. The EU funds should directly support healthcare systems in EU member states in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic. The initiative should allow the EU to buy urgent medical supplies, such as masks…
European Parliament Leaders issued the following statement this morning. “The pandemic knows no borders. Our defences against the virus are only as strong as those of the weakest countries.” “We, in our capacity as the Chairs of Parliament’s bodies responsible for EU foreign policy and action, fully support all the efforts of the EU institutions…
To prevent shortages or delays in getting key medical devices on the market, Parliament has decided to postpone the application of the Medical Devices Regulation. Parliament adopted the Commission proposal last Friday, by urgent procedure with 693 votes to 1 and 2 abstentions, allowing the application of the MDR to be postponed by one year…
In what the EU calls an unprecedented repatriation effort, the EU has managed to bring home over half a million of its citizens who were affected by coronavirus travel restrictions across the world. At the beginning of the outbreak, around 600,000 EU citizens declared themselves stranded outside the EU. Most of them in the Asia-Pacific…
By Luca Jahier, President of the European Economic and Social CommitteeStrong support to the European Commission and the European Parliament: EUCO cannot fail! Ahead of the Heads of state and government Council meeting next week and in the light of the solid package of measures proposed on 9 April by the Eurogroup to support the…
The following is the full text of the speech of Ursula von der Leyen to the European Parliament last week. There are no words that can do justice to Europe’s pain or to all those suffering across the world. We think and we pray for all of the families in mourning. And we promise to…
The European Commission has published guidelines to support Member States in their waste management in these difficult times of coronavirus. The continuity in providing those services also during the coronavirus crisis is crucial for our health, for the environment, and for the economy. Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius, said: “In this unprecedented crisis, we…
Three inmates lost their lives and two were seriously injured after a fire at the Satu Mare prison in north-western Romania. The fire at Satu Mare prison began when detainees burned their mattresses to protest against the restrictions imposed by the prison authorities amid the Covid-19 outbreak. The deaths and injuries brought renewed attention to…
The Turkic Council Secretary General Baghdad Amreyev has praised the cooperation, resilience and solidarity among the member countries of the Turkic Council in fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Stressing that the international community should exert coordinated and determined efforts in the fight against COVID-19, he emphasized that the global community must undertake united action against this…
This article by Guest Contributor David DeBatto, first appeared in the online journal of the IGTDS, the Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies, and is reproduced here with their permission. For weeks now, official Russian government news outlets have been proudly trumpeting the news that Russia has an astronomically low rate of infections and fatalities…
