Wednesday
6th Jul 2022
The European Parliament has adopted two flagship policies aimed at enacting consumer rights and transparency of online platforms — despite concerns from digital advocates, human rights defenders and some MEPs.
Some modest headway in recognising the unrelenting tide of discrimination and violence facing women worldwide was made at last week's largely self-congratulatory and mostly irrelevant G7 talk-fest. But no one mentioned abortion, just days after the Roe vs Wade decision.
The Commission fell hook, line, and sinker for the arguments of big business on the corporate due diligence directive — conflating rules and regulations with so-called 'red tape' and rebranding regulations as 'burdens' on business which should be scrapped.
The main opposition to new rules on child sexual abuse material comes from Netherlands and Germany, despite being among the worst for hosting child sexual abuse content, a report found.
Romania isn't the only country portraying lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people as a threat to children. From Poland and Hungary in EU, to reactionary movements around the world are prohibiting portrayals of LGBT people and families in schools.
On World Bee Day, it is essential to pay homage to a variety of pollinating insects crucial for our food security. A number of EU projects contribute to their sustained survival.
Sooner or later, the European Court of Human Rights will have a final say on whether Grenoble is allowed to permit the 'burkini'. Its judgment, like the one permitting the outlawing of full-face veils, risks influencing policymaking across the continent.
Dr Hans Bruyninckx the executive director of the European Environment Agency, on why — and how — Europe can cut its pollution-caused cancer rates.
Interpreters at the European Parliament are fed up with remote interpretation, citing auditory health issues given the poor quality of the online sessions.
Thousands of Asian workers are picking fruit in slave-like conditions under Italy's agro-mafia "masters", who send the produce all over Europe.
Exposure to air pollution, radon, ultraviolet radiation, asbestos, certain chemicals and other pollutants is linked to over 10 percent of all cancer cases in Europe, a report found.
MEPs in a sometimes agitated hearing on Tuesday with EU transparency commissioner Věra Jourová called on her to reveal Covid-19 vaccine prices.
Despite tough lobbying, the EU commission is set to present this week the first binding EU law mandating farmers to reduce their use of chemicals. Long-term food security must not be sacrificed for short-term gains, says EU commissioner Frans Timmermans.
The World Trade Organization reached a deal on patents for Covid-19 vaccines, after a deadlock of nearly two years — since India and South Africa submitted a joint proposal to waive intellectual property rights of vaccines worldwide.
Just over 900 cases of monkeypox, confirmed or suspected, have so been reported in the EU including Norway and Iceland. Most are found in Germany, Portugal and Spain.
The pushback against abortion is not happening in a vacuum. It is part of a global anti-gender trend, where transnational groups of fundamentalists support and embolden each other's actions. They are funded and active in the EU as well.
The long-running controversy over the herbicide ingredient glyphosate was reignited this week when the EU chemicals agency (ECHA) said classifying it as carcinogenic was "not justified".
Author Rafia Zakaria turned the feminist world upside down with her bestselling book Against White Feminism. She talks with the Brussels-based journalist Shada Islam about the prevalence of white feminist thinking in Europe — particularly France.
Fruits and vegetables produced in the EU are still contaminated with hazardous chemicals, despite years-old promises by EU member states to phase them out.
Prices of cereals, fertilisers, and oilseed have shot up drastically in several European markets due to Russia's war on Ukraine, prompting some member states to seek EU aid.
The full-scale war Russia has launched in Ukraine simply reinforced the Ukrainisation and Europeanisation of Ukrainian society.
MEPs have raised concerns over the level of contamination of some hazardous chemicals in Europe, prompting calls to speed up the restrictions on the so-called "forever chemicals".
A basic lack of transparency around the EU's vaccines procurement negotiations has prevented effective public and parliamentary scrutiny. It has also made it impossible to answer some of the key questions we put forward here.
Online child sex abuse continues to increase with EU-based servers hosting some 60 percent of the global content. But a proposal by the EU commission to stop it has riled privacy advocates.
MEPs have raised questions about the involvement of the EU — through its funding — in the development of the Israeli NSO Pegasus software, directly or indirectly, which has been used to target activists and journalists in Europe.
MEPs called on all EU member states, especially Poland, to guarantee Ukrainian women access to emergency contraception and abortion — after growing reports of rape and sexual violence in Ukraine.
The proliferation of billionaires and that phenomenon's dark side, the working poor, calls for a historic mobilisation on a global scale.
Five European lawmakers from the Greens lodged a lawsuit against the European Commission for not fully disclosing its Covid vaccine contracts with the pharmaceutical industry. The commission says it is in "the business of respecting contracts."
In 2017, Poterie Renault fired its kilns for the final time, having struggled to make ends meet. Its closure is a drop in the ocean — but also illustrates how Europe fails to realise the economic potential of its heritage.
Europe set up a rapid decontamination team to protect Ukraine and EU member countries against chemical, biological or nuclear attacks, and sent three million potassium iodide tablets to Ukraine, amid worries over the safety of the country's nuclear facilities.
This is the first time the EU has raised money collectively – some called it Europe's New Marshall Plan – and if the process is seen to fail, it could shatter the frail trust in the European project.
African leaders, after their two-day summit in Brussels, called an offer by the EU to help Africa build vaccine-manufacturing plants was incomplete without backing a vaccine patent-waiver proposal.
Botswana was the first country able to detect the emergence of the Omicron variant, thanks to its sequencing capacities. Eleven infectious disease experts from Africa and Europe call for developing research networks across the African continent to respond future pandemics.
