The EU commission's newest pact on migration and asylum seeks to deter people from claiming asylum by speeding up procedures and sending most of them back home.

The special committee, only created in June, will start its hearings on Thursday with experts from the EU's foreign service on hybrid threats and disinformation.

Recent weeks have seen a sudden flare-up in anti-mask protests and coronavirus-denial - posing questions on how to regulate social media.

A new report details how the Covid-19 pandemic triggered bans on protests and demonstrations, censorship of free speech, and the weakening of democratic oversight on policy making.

The protests in Bulgaria clearly open the debate on whether the rule of law remains the central shared value for all Europeans.

Divisions among EU governments remain between those who want to suspend EU funds if rule of law is not respected, and those who want to narrow down conditionality.