Belgium

08 Mar 2021; MEMO: The EU is ready to provide "whatever assistance" it can to Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders and the UN, and it also needs to become involved in the UN-led talks on Cyprus, as the Cyprus issue is an "EU problem," said the bloc's foreign policy chief on Monday, Anadolu Agency reported.

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian police launched an operation of unprecedented scale against organized crime on Tuesday, according to the country’s federal prosecutor’s office.

About 200 searches mobilizing more than 1,200 police officers were carried out simultaneously throughout the country of 11.5 million people, the office told The Associated Press.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Parliament on Tuesday voted to lift the immunity of the former president of Spain’s Catalonia region, Carles Puigdemont, and two of his associates, a move that could pave the way for their extradition and reopen the scars of separatism in Spain.

The Spanish government immediately welcome the decision by the European Union’s legislature as a victory for the rule of law and against those who sought to break the rich northeastern region away from the rest of Spain.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union and the United States have concluded negotiations to adjust the EU’s World Trade Organization agricultural quotas following Britain’s exit from the bloc, the European Commission said on Monday.

The agreement, covering billions of euros of trade, including beef, poultry, rice, dairy produce, fruit, vegetables and wine, was the result of two years of negotiations. The idea is to keep the previous import quota volumes unchanged and to share them between the European Union and Britain.

BRUSSELS, March 5 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) and the United States have agreed to suspend the tariffs imposed over the Airbus-Boeing disputes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday after a phone call with U.S. President Joe Biden.

The two leaders agreed to suspend the tariffs, both on aircraft and non-aircraft products, for an initial period of four months, von der Leyen said in a statement.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission on Thursday announced goals for the 27-nation bloc to reduce poverty, inequality and boost training and jobs by 2030 as part of a post-pandemic economic overhaul financed by jointly borrowed funds.

The EU executive arm said the European Union should boost employment to 78% in 2030 from 73% in 2019, halve the gap between the number of employed women and men and cut the number of young people neither working nor studying to 9% from 12.6%

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union said Wednesday that Britain’s “unilateral action” on trade rules will breach international law and is threatening legal action as post-Brexit tensions continue to escalate between the two sides.

Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič said in a statement that UK’s decision to unilaterally extend a grace period on checks for goods moving between Britain and Northern Ireland amounts to “a violation” of the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union’s joint vaccine procurement has not unravelled, a spokesman for the European Commission said on Tuesday when asked about individual countries getting jabs from Russia or China that do not have the bloc’s authorisation.

“It’s not that the strategy unravelled,” Commission spokesman Stefan de Keersmaecker said, adding that EU countries have the right to seal their contracts of their own with producers beyond those the Commission agrees on for the bloc.

02 Mar 2021; MEMO: Some 442 European lawmakers have signed a letter calling on European governments and leaders, as well as US President Joe Biden, to take action against "de facto" Israeli annexation of the occupied West Bank.

BRUSSELS, March 1. /TASS/: Ambassadors of 27 European Union nations have agreed further anti-Russian sanctions over the situation around Russian blogger Alexey Navalny, a source in one of the delegations told TASS on Monday.

"Permanent representatives imposed sanctions as part of the human rights sanctions regime against individuals responsible for the verdict to Alexey Navalny," the source said, adding that this decision will soon be endorsed by the European Council and will come into force after being published in the Official Journal.