For years, the EU's "united in diversity" motto has allowed policymakers to claim that conversations on race, religion, colour and ethnicity are foreign to European culture. But a colour-blind Europe is a fairy tale.

Listening to European citizens should be a permanent and continuous process - not merely limited to one event which starts on 9 May 2021 and is to finish before the presidential elections in France in the spring of 2022.

Where there is consensus, it should be welcomed. Critics who lament the Dutch tendency to woolly compromises should be careful what they wish for. Muddling through has served the Netherlands well.

A common vaccination certificate – instead of 27 individual initiatives - can form part of the solution, together with other sanitary measures already in place, to resume travel and tourism and reduce current travel restrictions.

It is in Europe's interest to vaccinate undocumented people - the race towards herd immunity cannot afford the luxury of another EU standstill.

It's not just that Ireland is the EU's tax haven. Irish statistics have little in common with the actual picture of the economy – artificial transactions account for 20 percent of GDP.

China and Russia aren't just selling vaccines—they're peddling a value set that undermines international norms.

The charlatan is "like a doctor who brings relief from suffering and pain". The word charlatan comes from the Italian 'ciarlatano': someone selling herbal brews and rejuvenating waters at street markets, often also pulling teeth and doing magic tricks.

I know first-hand how difficult it is to take a firm stance against Turkey. As Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, I engaged in tough discussions with Ankara, wrote highly-critical reports, and tried to rally member states.

The US has enough doses to fully-vaccinate the region twice while other countries have ordered enough doses to vaccinate their populations four or five times over, which many have condemned as "vaccine hoarding", writes the speaker of the Tunisian parliament.

Nicknamed the "European bazooka", the €672.5bn coronavirus recovery fund gives EU states €312.5bn in grants and €350bn in loans - but some countries have already said they won't use these long-term loans, at very low-interest rates. Why not?

Aside from the EPP, Hungary was also protected - at a member states' level - by key bilateral partners; and not only illiberal countries like Poland, Bulgaria or recently Slovenia - but most importantly also by Germany.

The European Parliament is going to vote on its report on corporate due diligence next week, calling on the EU Commission to propose a mandatory code-of-conduct for businesses.

In its quest for a quick deliverable in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the European Union is trying to broker a deal that risks entrenching the power of Croat nationalists who are resisting moves to make the country more functional.