Belgium

Citing apartheid 116 academics call on EU to stop funding Israeli universities

27 July 2021; MEMO: Calls for the academic boycott of Israel have been given a massive boost by 160 academics representing 21 countries who have signed an open letter calling on the European Commission to ban Israeli universities that support the country's apartheid policies and human rights violations from receiving funds from an European Union (EU) programme worth over $100 billion.

Belgium: 70 pct of EU adults get at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose: von der Leyen

BRUSSELS, July 27 (Xinhua) -- Seventy percent of adults in the European Union (EU) have received at least one vaccine dose against COVID-19, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said on Tuesday.

Von der Leyen said in a statement that "the EU has kept its word and delivered. Our target was to protect 70 percent of adults in the EU with at least one vaccination in July. Today we have achieved this target."

EU plans to send military mission to Libya: Leaked paper

20 July 2021; MEMO: The European Union is set to send a military mission to Libya to bolster the bloc's influence as a foreign superpower, according to a leaked paper, reports Anadolu Agency.

Libya's peace process requires large-scale disarmament, demobilisation, and the reintegration of combatants as well as fundamental security sector reform, according to an internal paper from the EU foreign service dated July 1 seen by Brussels-based news outlet EUobserver.

EU border agency chief must quit over refugee abuse

19 July 2021; MEMO: The EU border agency Frontex has failed to protect the human rights of asylum seekers, according to a European Parliament report, according to the Guardian.

The report's author, Tineke Strik told the Guardian that Frontex "did not fulfil its human rights obligations and therefore did not prevent future violations."

Strik, a Dutch Green MEP, wants the agency's Director Fabrice Leggeri to resign or be fired.

Covid-19: EU says vaccine rate now higher than in US

BRUSSELS, July 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — European Union leaders celebrated their coronavirus vaccination programme reaching a higher proportion of its people than in the US, which had outpaced the bloc for months.

“We promised it and it’s done. The EU this week overtook the US as the continent with the most first doses in the world,” Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote on Twitter.

Citing statistics website Our World in Data, France’s Europe minister Clement Beaune wrote that the EU had now given 55.5 percent of people a first dose, compared with 55.4 across the Atlantic.

Experts: Europe floods shows need to curb emissions, adapt

BRUSSELS (AP) — Just as the European Union was announcing plans to spend billions of euros to contain climate change, massive clouds gathered over Germany and nearby nations to unleash an unprecedented storm that left death and destruction in its wake.

Despite ample warnings, politicians and weather forecasters were shocked at the ferocity of the precipitation that caused flash flooding that claimed more than 150 lives this week in the lush rolling hills of Western Europe.

Belgium: EU to revise decades-old energy taxation rates to fight climate change

BRUSSELS, July 15 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is planning to overhaul its current energy taxation system in a bid to synchronize it with the bloc's green ambition, European Commissioner for Economy Paolo Gentiloni said on Thursday.

He noted that it was high time that the EU updated its Energy Taxation Directive which was almost two decades old and with minimum rates unchanged since 2003.

EU court rules Polish system for disciplining judges violates bloc's laws

BRUSSELS, July 15 (Reuters) - The European Union's top court ruled on Thursday that Poland's system for disciplining judges undercuts the bloc's laws, part of an escalating battle over democratic rules that risks Warsaw losing some of its key development funding.

Poland's ruling nationalists set up a disciplinary chamber at the Supreme Court in a sweeping overhaul of the judiciary already condemned by the Brussels-based EU executive, which acts as the guardian of laws across the bloc's 27 member states.

Belgium: EU unveils 'Fit for 55' climate package

BRUSSELS, July 14 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission on Wednesday unveiled a comprehensive roadmap for realizing the European Union's (EU) ambitious target of reducing its net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 percent from 1990 levels by 2030 and to become climate-neutral by 2050.

The massive package of legislative updates, dubbed "Fit for 55," was presented by the EU's climate policy chief Frans Timmermans, who said that the EU aimed to "give humanity a fighting chance."

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