Belgium

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union’s Brexit negotiator said on Monday that big differences persisted in trade talks with Britain but that both sides were pushing hard for a deal.

“Time is short. Fundamental divergences still remain, but we are continuing to work hard for a deal,” said the EU negotiator, Michel Barnier.

Trade negotiators resumed talks on the shape of the new EU-UK relationship after a post-Brexit standstill agreement expires on Dec. 31.

21 Nov 2020; MEMO: High Representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell has pledged to use all possible means to continue improving human rights in Bahrain, The New Khalij news website reported on Friday.

Borrell's remarks came in a statement in which he replied to a letter sent by MEPs regarding the "dire condition" of human rights in Bahrain.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union and Britain have made better progress towards a trade deal in the last few days but there is still a lot of work to do for an agreement to be in place by the end-year deadline, the bloc’s chief executive said on Friday.

Diplomats briefed earlier by the EU’s executive, which is negotiating with Britain on behalf of the 27 member states, said Brussels and London remained at odds over fishing rights, fair competition guarantees and ways to solve future disputes.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union could pay more than $10 billion to secure hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine candidates being developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac, an EU official involved in the talks told Reuters.

The bloc has agreed to pay 15.50 euros ($18.34) per dose for the COVID-19 vaccine candidate being developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, according to the official.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 18 (Xinhua) -- The European Commission is working to avoid the risk of a double-dip recession in Europe, Paolo Gentiloni, the European Commissioner for Economy, said on Wednesday.

Explaining the priorities of the commission's guidance for the member states of the European Union (EU) in its autumn semester package, Gentiloni underlined that "emergency response and transformation should go hand in hand."

BRUSSELS, Nov 17 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A top EU diplomat warned it was getting dangerously late to secure a post-Brexit trade deal as a week of crucial talks began in Brussels.

The clock is ticking down to Dec 31 when a post-Brexit transition phase ends and the UK and Europe will need a trade deal to govern ties — or face economic chaos.

The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier and his UK counterpart David Frost met again in Brussels in hopes of reaching an agreement after eight months of mostly fruitless talks.

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Tuesday that the military organization could pay a heavy price for leaving Afghanistan too early, after a U.S. official said President Donald Trump is expected to withdraw a significant number of American troops from the conflict-ravaged country in coming weeks.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Commission said on Monday that positive results announced by U.S. biotech firm Moderna for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate were encouraging and said the bloc was working to sign more supply deals with vaccine makers.

Moderna said its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial, becoming the second developer to report results that far exceeded expectations, after Pfizer and BioNTech said last week their vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain “has choices to make” if it wants a new trade deal with the European Union, three EU diplomatic sources said on Monday, adding that Brexit negotiators had yet to come up with mutually acceptable solutions for the three most contentious issues.

Ireland, the EU member state most exposed to Brexit, said Britain and the bloc had up to 10 days to unlock talks to avoid tariffs and quotas kicking in from Jan. 1, 2021, slashing an estimated trillion dollars worth of annual commerce.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union called on Beijing on Thursday to immediately reverse new rules to disqualify elected legislators, saying the decision was a “severe blow” to the former British colony’s autonomy.

“This latest arbitrary decision from Beijing further significantly undermines Hong Kong’s autonomy under the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle,” the EU’s 27 governments said in a statement.

“These latest steps constitute a further severe blow to political pluralism and freedom of opinion in Hong Kong,” the bloc said.