The European Commission has asked Poland not to question the primacy of EU over national law, eliciting furious rebukes from the Polish government.

MEPs have backed a motion demanding the temporality lifting of intellectual properties rights of Covid-19 vaccines - a symbolic move that puts pressure on the European Commission to change its position on the issue of global access to vaccines.

The EU's anti-fraud agency has so far identified more than 1,000 of these suspicious companies, many of which are based outside the EU.

It would require between 40 to 75 additional staff to oversee how MEPs spend their monthly €4,500 lump sum on office supplies, according to the European Parliament. An EUobserver Freedom of Information request reveals those calculations are flawed.

The EU is committed to reduce "the risk and use of pesticides by 50 percent" by 2030. However, given the level of controversy and public distrust surrounding EU pesticides regulation over the last decade, which reforms could garner public support?

Budget commissioner Johannes Hahn promised MEPs that the commission will put forward draft guidelines on how to use the rule-of-law mechanism in the next "few days".