France has resumed transport links with the UK, on condition travellers get a negative test result, as the EU tries to contain a new type of Covid-19.

Jose Manuel Barroso was European Commission president before and after the Lisbon Treaty entered into force in December 2009. He discusses how it impacted his work and the broader implications for an expanding European Union.

"Both referenda weren't about the constitution," Guy Verhofstadt says. "In France, it became a referendum on Jacques Chirac. In the Netherlands, it was about whether they paid too much - something some Dutch politicians have been repeating for 10 years."

It might have made sense economically, but the infamous Bolkestein Directive directly foreshadowed later tensions over migrant workers and highlighted social anxieties that became more dominant after the 2009 economic crisis.

Unfortunately, enforced disappearances are continuing to occur around the world and there is an additional risk of states using the pandemic and associated states of emergency as cover for enforced disappearances.

Member states can start vaccination programmes in the next few days, after EU approved the use of Pfizer and BioTech's Covid-19 drug.