Greece Seizes Russian Tanker as Part of EU Sanctions

Tuesday, 19 April, 2022

Greece has seized a Russian oil tanker off the island of Evia as part of European Union sanctions imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine, the Greek coast guard said on Tuesday.

Earlier this month the EU banned Russian-flagged vessels from the 27-nation bloc's ports, with some exemptions, as it adopted new sweeping sanctions against Russia.

The Russian-flagged Pegas, with 19 Russian crew members on board, was seized near Karystos on the southern coast of Evia, which lies just off the Greek mainland near the capital Athens.

"It has been seized as part of EU sanctions," a shipping ministry official said.

A coastguard official said the ship's oil cargo had not been confiscated.

The Pegas had earlier reported an engine problem. Rough seas forced it to moor just off Karystos where it was seized, the Athens News Agency reported.

Source: Asharq al-Awsat.

Link: https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/3600091/greece-seizes-russian-tanker-part-eu-sanctions.

Jailed Russian opposition leader Navalny wins top EU prize

October 20, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who narrowly survived a poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin, was awarded the European Union’s top human rights prize Wednesday in a clear slap at President Vladimir Putin.

In awarding the Sakharov Prize to Navalny, the European Parliament praised his “immense personal bravery.” The 45-year-old activist fell ill from a nerve agent poisoning last year and recuperated in Germany, then was promptly arrested upon his return to Moscow and later imprisoned.

“He has campaigned consistently against the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime, and through his social media accounts and political campaigns, Navalny has helped expose abuses and mobilize the support of millions of people across Russia. For this, he was poisoned and thrown in jail,” parliament President David Sassoli in a statement.

Sassoli called for the immediate release of Navalny, who is Putin's biggest domestic foe. There was no immediate reaction to the award from the Kremlin, which denies any involvement in Navalny's poisoning.

Following his imprisonment, authorities unleashed a sweeping crackdown on his groups and associates. In June, a court outlawed Navalny’s Foundation for Fighting Corruption and a network of his regional offices as extremist organizations, a verdict that carries long prison terms for those associated with it. Several top allies have fled Russia, and courts have given suspended sentences and restricted travel to some others who remained.

An Interior Ministry wanted notice said Wednesday it is searching for Lyubov Sobol, a top Navalny associate who received a suspended sentence and faced travel restrictions. Her whereabouts are unknown, but Russian news reports suggested she has left the country.

The EU recognition of Navalny will further sour relations between the 27-nation bloc and Russia. These ties have been on the decline for years, especially following Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and its support for a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.

The impact reverberated beyond the EU as well. Days after Russia suspended its mission at NATO and ordered the closure of the alliance’s office in Moscow in retaliation for NATO’s expulsion of Russian diplomats, the organization’s chief said he embraced the news.

“I welcome the fact that a strong voice ... in Russia has been awarded this prize,” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said, adding that the prize also was a call for “his unconditional release from prison” and to have an international investigation into it.

Stoltenberg recalled that NATO considered the treatment of Navalny as part of a “pattern where we see that Russia has become more oppressive at home and more aggressive abroad.” Russia's treatment of Navalny has only exacerbated matters. The EU has called for his immediate and unconditional release in what it sees as a politically motivated imprisonment and has said it holds Moscow responsible for his health.

The EU imposed sanctions last year on six senior Russian officials for their alleged involvement in the poisoning of Navalny. Amid the standoff between Brussels and Moscow, the move by European lawmakers to award Navalny the prize has returned the issue to the heart of the political debate.

“It is an important signal, also to the Kremlin, that the EU will not give in to pressure and blackmail or be fooled by empty promises,” said Sergey Lagodinsky, a Greens/EFA MEP from Germany. Navalny’s top associate Leonid Volkov said the prize showed that hundreds of lawmakers from different countries and parties agree the fight against corruption is an issue for all of Europe and that Navalny is "political prisoner No. 1 in the world and Putin’s personal captive.”

“Europe understands that we are fighting to make Russia a normal European country, which it will become, and supports it,” he said in a post on Facebook. Ruslan Shaveddinov, another member of Navalny's team, told The Associated Press that “Russian authorities may want this to be forgotten as soon as possible, but we see that European politicians believe that this issue is important and send quite a clear message that no one forgot and that they demand Alexei Navalny’s release.”

He said Navalny's associates will do everything possible to win his freedom, and will continue their anti-corruption investigations, political and public campaigns and protests. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borell tweeted the prize is a recognition of Navalny’s “commitment to defending democracy in Russia, at great personal cost.”

Awarding the prize to Navalny “will keep his name in the news,” which is a priority for his supporters, said Ben Noble, associate professor of Russian politics at University College London. It's unlikely to improve his conditions in prison or help his position “as it currently stands,” added Noble, co-author of “Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future?”

He told AP that one worrying implication is that the award "could have a negative effect — that this adds to Moscow’s narrative of foreign interference, of what they claim is a concerted Western attempt to interfere in the country’s domestic affairs.”

The 50,000-euro ($58,200) prize will be presented at the Dec. 15 session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. Other candidates had included a group of Afghan women, and imprisoned Bolivian politician and former interim President Jeanine Anez. The fate of Afghan women has taken center stage since the Taliban took power in the wake of the U.S. military departure from the country in August. Despite initial promises to protect the rights of women, the Taliban have come under criticism, including from the U.N., for not sticking to those commitments.

The EU award, named for Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, was created in 1988 to honor individuals or groups who defend human rights and fundamental freedoms. Sakharov, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, died in 1989.

It was the second straight year it has gone to those challenging authoritarian leaders. Last year, it went to the Belarus opposition movement and its leader, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, for their challenge to President Alexander Lukashenko’s rule following a widely disputed election in 2020.

Associated Press writers Vladimir Isachenkov and Harriet Morris in Moscow, Thomas Adamson in Paris and Sam Petrequin in Brussels contributed.

This version corrects the euro-dollar conversion rate, with 50,000 euros the equivalent of about $58,200.

EU members bordering Russia reject plan to meet with Putin

June 25, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union countries bordering Russia rejected a Franco-German plan to resume official meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, with one leader likening the move to an attempt to talk a bear out of stealing honey.

In a statement in the early hours of Friday morning, EU leaders said only that they “will explore formats and conditionalities of dialogue with Russia.” There was no mention of any high-level meetings or plans for a summit with Putin.

The European Union is deeply divided in its approach to Moscow. Russia is the EU’s biggest natural gas supplier, and plays a key role in a series of international conflicts and issues linked to Europe's strategic interests, including the Iran nuclear deal, and conflicts in Syria and Libya.

European heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and a number of countries, including France, are reluctant to continue waging a sanctions battle with Russia, including over the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

The EU is concerned that Putin is turning increasingly authoritarian and wants to distance himself from the West. Both the 27-nation trading bloc and the NATO military alliance are struggling to bring Russia to the table. U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with Putin this month was a rare exception.

“We have to deal with Russia, but being very cautious about the real intentions of Putin’s regime,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda told reporters at an EU summit in Brussels. “So far, we don’t see any radical change in the pattern of behavior of Russia.”

“If, without any positive changes in the behavior of Russia, we start to engage, it will send very uncertain and bad signals,” Nauseda said. “It seems to me like we try to engage a bear to keep a pot of honey safe.”

The other two Baltic states, Estonia and Latvia, are also deeply concerned about reaching out to Moscow when the Minsk agreements meant to bring peace to Ukraine, whose Crimean Peninsula Russia annexed in 2014, are still not being respected. Conflict still simmers in eastern Ukraine with Russia-backed separatists.

“Right now, if it pans out the way it’s proposed, Russia annexes Crimea, Russia wages war in Donbass, and Europe shrugs its shoulders and continues to try to speak a dialogue. The Kremlin does not understand this kind of politics,” said Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins.

His Estonian counterpart, Kaja Kallas, said that “what our intelligence (service) tells us is that sanctions work and the European Union has to be more patient.” But French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe cannot simply tackle its problems with Russia on a case-by-case basis, by continually imposing sanctions or other measures.

“We cannot continue without dialogue. We have to talk, including about our disagreements. It’s the only way to resolve them,” Macron said. “It’s a dialogue that’s necessary for the stability of the European continent, but demanding because we will not give up our interests and values.”

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told lawmakers that “the events of recent months — not just in Germany — have clearly shown that it’s not enough if we react to the multitude of Russian provocations in an uncoordinated way.”

“Instead, we have to create mechanisms to respond in a common and unified way to provocations” to what she described as “hybrid attacks by Russia.” That includes outreach to countries such as Ukraine, Belarus and the western Balkans, but also engaging Russia and Putin directly.

The plan was welcomed in Moscow. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin supports the idea to restore “the mechanism of direct contacts between Brussels and Moscow.” “Putin has spoken about it many times,” Peskov said. “Both Brussels and Moscow really need this dialogue.”

Ukraine, in contrast, was not so keen about the EU outreach. “Initiatives to resume EU summits with Russia without seeing any progress from the Russian side will be a dangerous deviation from EU sanctions policy,” Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in Brussels.

In the end, the leaders agreed to underline “the need for a firm and coordinated response by the EU and its member states to any further malign, illegal and disruptive activity by Russia, making full use of all instruments at the EU’s disposal.”

Despite the Franco-German push for talks, they invited the EU's executive branch and top diplomat “to present options for additional restrictive measures, including economic sanctions.”

Sylvain Plazy in Brussels, Sylvie Corbet in Paris, Frank Jordans in Berlin and Daria Litvinova in Moscow contributed to this report.

EU to hit more Russian officials with sanctions over Navalny

February 22, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign ministers agreed Monday to impose new sanctions against Russian officials linked to the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and expressed concern that the government in Moscow appears to see the 27-nation bloc as an adversary.

“We reached a political agreement to impose restrictive measures against those responsible for (Navalny's) arrest and sentencing and persecution,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said after chairing their meeting in Brussels. He gave no details about the sanctions, but said that he hoped they would be finalized in about a week.

Borrell suggested that those targeted wouldn't include oligarchs close to President Vladimir Putin, as Navalny's supporters have requested. Navalny, 44, an anti-corruption investigator and Putin’s most prominent critic, was arrested in Moscow last month upon returning from Germany, where he spent five months recovering from a nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.

Earlier this month, a court sentenced Navalny to two years and eight months in prison for violating the terms of his probation while recuperating in Germany. The sentence stems from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that Navalny has rejected as fabricated.

The European Court of Human Rights has also ruled that it’s unlawful. Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment have fueled a huge wave of protests across Russia. Authorities responded with a sweeping crackdown, detaining about 11,000 people, many of whom were fined or given jail terms ranging from seven to 15 days.

“There is a shared assessment in the Council that Russia is drifting towards an authoritarian state and driving away from Europe," Borrell told reporters. Given Moscow's apparent path of “confrontation and disengagement,” Borrell said the bloc will work on three tracks: pushing back when Russia infringes international law, containing it when it pressures the EU, and engaging on issues that are in Europe's interests.

So far, EU countries have been deeply divided over their approach to Moscow. Russia is the EU’s biggest natural gas supplier, and plays a key role in a series of international conflicts and key issues, including the Iran nuclear deal, and conflicts in Syria and Libya.

European heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and a number of countries, including France, are also reluctant to wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

“We need Russia to resolve many international conflicts, and so that will also be a question we must deal with: How is it possible to maintain a constructive dialogue with Russia, even though relations between the EU and Russia have certainly reached a low point?” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said.

The meeting came two weeks after Borrell was publicly humiliated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a trip to the country. Russia expelled diplomats from Germany, Poland and Sweden, accusing them of attending a rally in support of Navalny.

Borrell found out about the move by social media. The three retaliated by each declaring a Russian diplomat “persona non grata.” Criticism of Borrell initially mounted, but Lavrov’s behavior now seems to have united the Europeans, at least publicly, in their opposition to Moscow’s attempts to further divide them.

“We confirmed our unity as our greatest asset,” Borrell said. “At the same time, we must define a modus vivendi to avoid permanent confrontation with a neighbor who unfortunately seems to have decided to act as an adversary."

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken joined the ministers via videoconference for part of their meeting, with talks focusing on Russia but also China. Borrell said the exchange was “very, very encouraging," and showed Washington's willingness to not only renew ties but to join in global leadership on the coronavirus, economic recovery, climate change and protecting democratic values.

Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Top EU diplomat to propose new sanctions against Russia

February 09, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday that the 27-nation bloc must take a firm stance in its future relations with Russia including through the use of new sanctions, in the wake of the jailing of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Borrell said that he will submit proposals for such action when he chairs the next meeting of the bloc’s foreign ministers on Feb. 22. EU countries are divided in their approach to Russia, and no member state has yet made a demand for such measures.

“It will be for the member states to decide the next step, but yes, this could include sanctions. And I will put forward concrete proposals, using the right of initiative the high representative has,” Borrell told EU lawmakers.

“Containment efforts should include combining robust actions against disinformation, cyberattacks and other possible hybrid challenges,” he said. Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe, was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow after spending months in Germany recovering from a poisoning in Russia with what experts say was the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok.

The EU has imposed sanctions on those responsible for his poisoning, but Navalny has urged the Europeans to slap travel bans and asset freezes on several Russian oligarchs close to Putin. Borrell didn't elaborate on the details of his proposal.

Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three EU countries, accusing them of attending a rally in support of Navalny.

Moscow’s decision on Friday was as an extra slap in the face for the Europeans because it came as Borrell — the EU’s top diplomat — was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Borrell said he learned about the expulsions on social media.

Several lawmakers on Tuesday criticized the former Spanish foreign minister for the timing of his visit, and for not doing enough to rebut Lavrov at a media conference that some described as an “ambush.”

“The behavior of Foreign Minister Lavrov was unfriendly, uncooperative and unacceptable,” German conservative parliamentarian Michael Gahler said. “But was it not to be expected that Lavrov would produce an attack on the EU?”

The trip wasn't just about Navalny. Russia is a major trading partner and the EU depends on the country for natural gas. It’s also a key player in talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has a central role in conflicts that impact on European interests, like those in Syria and Ukraine.

But EU countries are deeply divided over their approach to Moscow. European heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and a number of countries are reluctant to wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

Borrell said one aim of his visit was “to test if the Russian authorities are interested in a serious attempt to reverse the deterioration of our relations.” But, he said, “the answer has been clear. No, they are not. They are not if we continue to put the political situation and human rights issues in the package.”

“Russia has been trying to divide us. They seek to divide us,” he warned. “This seemed to be a clear objective during my visit. We should not fall into these traps.” EU leaders plan to debate in what direction to take Europe’s troubled ties with Russia during a March 25-26 summit. The chairman of that meeting, European Council President Charles Michel, agreed Tuesday that Moscow does not appear to want to improve relations.

“The aggressive Russian stance during the visit of the high representative shows that Russia is not interested in dialogue even in those areas where cooperation could be of mutual - or global - interest,” Michel’s spokesman, Barend Leyts, said Tuesday. “The EU will not be intimidated.”

Michel intends to travel to Ukraine and Georgia next month to show EU support for the territorial integrity of the two former Soviet republics, which had parts of their territories either annexed by Russia or seized by pro-Russian separatists.

EU countries expel Russian diplomats in Navalny dispute

February 08, 2021

BERLIN (AP) — Germany, Poland and Sweden on Monday each declared a Russian diplomat in their country “persona non grata,” retaliating in kind to last week’s decision by Moscow to expel diplomats from the three European Union countries over the case of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

Russia had accused diplomats from Sweden, Poland and Germany of attending a demonstration in support of Navalny, President Vladimir Putin’s most high-profile political foe. “We have informed the Russian Ambassador that a person from the Russian embassy is asked to leave Sweden,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Ann Linde wrote on Twitter. “This is a clear response to the unacceptable decision to expel a Swedish diplomat who was only preforming his duties.”

Germany’s foreign ministry said Russia’s decision to expel the European diplomats “was not justified in any way,” insisting that the German Embassy staffer had been acting within his rights under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to "inform himself about developments on site."

The ministry added that the decision was taken in close coordination with Poland, Sweden and the EU's diplomatic service. Poland's foreign ministry tweeted that “in accordance with the principle of reciprocity" it considers "the diplomat working at the Consulate General in Poznan as a persona non grata.”

In a statement, EU lawmakers also appealed to “all EU Member States to show maximum solidarity with Germany, Poland and Sweden and take all appropriate steps to show the cohesiveness and strength of our Union.”

The parliamentarians called for “a new strategy for the EU’s relations with Russia, centered around support for civil society, which promotes democratic values, the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and human rights.”

The tit-for-tat expulsions come as EU officials ponder the future of the 27-nation bloc's troubled relations with Moscow amid deep concern that their large eastern neighbor sees democracy as a threat and wants to distance itself further from the EU.

Moscow's decision Friday was as an extra slap in the face for the Europeans because it came as the bloc’s top diplomat — foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — was meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Borrell said he learned about the expulsions on social media.

“The messages sent by Russian authorities during this visit confirmed that Europe and Russia are drifting apart,” Borrell wrote in a blog on his return to Brussels. “It seems that Russia is progressively disconnecting itself from Europe and looking at democratic values as an existential threat.”

He said the trip left him “with deep concerns over the perspectives of development of Russian society and Russia’s geostrategic choices,” and the expulsions, which he requested be dropped, “indicate that the Russian authorities did not want to seize this opportunity to have a more constructive dialogue.”

Some EU lawmakers criticized Borrell for going, or for not insisting on visiting Navalny, who was arrested in January when he returned to Moscow after spending months in Germany recovering from a poisoning in Russia with what experts say was the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok. On Feb. 2, a Moscow court ordered Navalny to prison for more than 2 1/2 years for violating the terms of his probation while in Germany.

Borrell tried to arrange a prison meeting through Lavrov but was told to take it up with the courts. “If you are familiar with the court procedures in Russia, you will know that it would take much more time than the duration of the visit,” Borrell’s spokesman, Peter Stano, said Monday.

Ultimately, the trip was never uniquely about Navalny. Russia is a major trading partner and the EU depends on it for natural gas. It’s also a key player in talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions and has a central role in conflicts that impact on European interests, like those in Syria and Ukraine.

Borrell’s aim was to “deliver firm messages” on the broad state of EU-Russia ties as much as on the imprisonment of Navalny, Stano said. EU foreign ministers will debate the issue Feb. 22 in preparation for the bloc’s leaders to weigh Europe’s Russia strategy at a summit on March 25-26.

But the real challenge is overcoming the vast divisions between countries on how to approach Russia. EU heavyweight Germany has strong economic interests there, notably the NordStream 2 undersea pipeline project, and German and other ambassadors are reluctant to rapidly wade into any sanctions battle over Navalny.

Despite calls for such punitive measures, particularly among some of Russia’s close but small EU neighbors like Lithuania, Borrell said Friday that no country has officially raised any proposals on who or what organizations to hit with sanctions.

Cook reported from Brussels. Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark, contributed.

Chinese vaccine arrives in Hungary, a first in the EU

February 16, 2021

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A shipment of COVID-19 vaccines produced in China arrived in Hungary on Tuesday, making it the first of the European Union's 27 nations to receive a Chinese vaccine. A jet carrying 550,000 vaccine doses developed by the Chinese state-owned company Sinopharm landed at Budapest’s international airport after flying in from Beijing. The shipment is enough to treat 275,000 people with the two-dose jab, Dr. Agnes Galgoczy of the National Public Health Center told a press conference.

“With this vaccine, five different types are now available in Hungary so that we may get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible,” Galgoczy said, adding that vaccine shots won't begin until the shipment is evaluated by the National Public Health Center.

Hungarian health authorities were the first in the EU to approve the Sinopharm jab for emergency use on Jan. 29. That came after a government decree streamlined Hungary’s vaccine approval process by allowing any vaccine administered to at least 1 million people worldwide to be used without undergoing review by the country’s medicines regulator.

The country expects to receive 5 million total doses of the Sinopharm vaccine over the next four months, enough to treat 2.5 million people in the country of nearly 10 million. Hungarian officials, including Prime Minister Viktor Orban, have been critical of the EU's common vaccine procurement program, claiming the bloc's slow rollout of shots is costing lives.

“If vaccines aren’t coming from Brussels, we must obtain them from elsewhere ... One cannot allow Hungarians to die simply because Brussels is too slow in procuring vaccines,” Orban said last month. Hungary has also agreed to purchase 2 million doses of Russia’s Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, which hospitals began administering in Budapest last week.

On Friday, Orban claimed these additional vaccines from Russia and China will enable Hungary to vaccinate millions more people by the end of May than other European countries with similar populations.

“As things stand now, (we can vaccinate) 6.8 million people by the end of May or beginning of June,” Orban said in a radio interview. “I think this is huge.” Orban earlier said he would personally choose to be inoculated with the Sinopharm vaccine since he trusts it the most.

“I think the Chinese have known this virus for the longest and they probably know it the best,” he said last month. The Sinopharm vaccine, which the developer says is nearly 80% effective, is already in use in Hungary’s non-EU neighbor Serbia, where around half a million people, including ethnic Hungarians, have already received the jab. The company has not yet released data on the results of the vaccine's Stage 3 trials.

The new vaccines shipment represents around 40% of all COVID-19 vaccine doses that Hungary has received so far, and makes Sinopharm nearly equally prevalent in Hungary as the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. But recent polling shows that some Hungarians are reluctant to receive the Sinopharm jab. A survey of 1,000 people in the capital of Budapest by pollster Median and the 21 Research Center showed that among those willing to receive a vaccine, only 27% would take a Chinese vaccine, compared to 43% a Russian vaccine and 84% a jab developed in Western countries. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

Dutch begin COVID-19 vaccinations; last EU nation to do so

January 06, 2021

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Nearly two weeks after most other European Union nations, the Netherlands on Wednesday began its COVID-19 vaccination program, with nursing home staff and front-line workers in hospitals first in line for the shot.

Sanna Elkadiri, a nurse at a nursing home for people with dementia, was the first to receive a shot of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at a mass vaccination center in Veghel, 120 kilometers (75 miles) southeast of the capital, Amsterdam.

“This is a very important moment for me as a person who works in the care sector. You want to provide the care knowing that your clients are safe,” Elkadiri said. ”Without the vaccine that is not possible, but from now on I can do it."

The Dutch government has come under fierce criticism for its late start to vaccinations. Prime Minister Mark Rutte told lawmakers in a debate Tuesday that authorities had focused preparations on the easy-to-handle vaccine made by Oxford University and AstraZeneca, which hasn't yet been cleared for use in the EU, and not the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Dutch Health Minister Hugo de Jonge didn't comment on the criticism as he spoke before Elkadiri rolled up the left sleeve of her purple nurse's uniform to receive the first shot. Instead, he looked forward to a future with the virus under control.

“Finally, after 10 months of crisis, today we are starting to end this crisis," De Jonge said. But he warned that, "it will take a while before we have all the misery behind us. ” The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which requires ultra-cold storage before it's used, is the only shot that has been approved so far by the European Medicines Agency. On Wednesday, the agency was considering approving another coronavirus vaccine, one made by Moderna.

“I’m very disappointed that we are two weeks behind other countries,” Rutte said in the Dutch parliament. The country's public health institute said that about 300,000 carers and hospital staff are first in line for shots. Two more large-scale vaccination centers are due to open Friday and by the end of next week, 25 should be open across the country, the institute said.

Health authorities plan to be able to vaccinate a maximum of 66,000 care workers per week from Jan. 18. In a tweet thanking staff involved in the rollout, Dutch King Willem-Alexander called the start of vaccinations “a turning point that provides hope of a way out of this crisis.”

The Netherlands is in the midst of a five-week tough lockdown imposed when infection rates were spiking across the country. In recent days, infection rates have been edging lower, but the country's public health institute said Tuesday that the lockdown hasn't yet produced a clear effect on infection rates.

Nearly 12,000 people are confirmed to have died of COVID-19 in the Netherlands since the pandemic started, though the true number is higher because not all people who died with symptoms were tested. Andre Rouvoet, chairman of the umbrella organization of local health authorities, welcomed the first vaccinations, which were aired live on Dutch television.

“It is symbolic of the hundreds of thousands — millions — of vaccinations that will be administered in the Netherlands in coming months,” he said.

Hungary gives 1st vaccine shots a day before EU's rollout

December 26, 2020

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Hungarian doctors and health care workers began getting vaccinated Saturday with one of the continent's first shipments of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, upsetting the European Union's plans for a coordinated rollout of the first shots across the 27-nation bloc on Sunday.

The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas. It was not immediately clear why Hungarian authorities began their vaccinations a day early. Authorities in Slovakia also announced that they planned to begin administering their first doses on Saturday evening.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout, calling it “a touching moment of unity.” “Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU," she said.

The rollout marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world's earliest and worst-hit virus hot spots — Italy and Spain — and others like the Czech Republic, which were spared early on only to see their health care systems near their breaking point in the fall.

Altogether, the EU's 27 nations have seen at least 16 million coronavirus infections and more than 336,000 deaths. The vaccine rollout will help the bloc project a sense of unity in a complex lifesaving mission after it faced a year of difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain. It also brings a sigh of relief for EU politicians who were frustrated after Britain, Canada and the United States began their vaccination programs earlier this month.

“It’s here, the good news at Christmas," German Health Minister Jens Spahn said at a news conference Saturday. "This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic.” “It is the key to getting our lives back,” Spahn said.

The first shipments, however, are limited just under 10,000 doses in most countries, with the mass vaccination programs expected to begin only in January. Each country is deciding on its own who will get the first shots — but they are all putting the most vulnerable first.

In Hungary, the first shipment of 9,750 doses — enough to vaccinate 4,875 people, since two doses are needed per person — arrived by truck early Saturday and were taken to the South Pest Central Hospital in Budapest. The government said four other hospitals, two in Budapest and two others in the eastern cities of Debrecen and Nyíregyháza, would also receive vaccines from the initial shipment.

French authorities said they will prioritize the elderly, based on the virus's deadly impact on older people in previous virus surges in France. The French medical safety agency will monitor for any potential problems.

Germany, where the pandemic has cost more than 30,000 lives, will begin with those over 80 and people who take care of vulnerable groups. Spanish authorities said the first batch of the vaccine to reach the country had arrived in the central city of Guadalajara — where the first shots will be administered on Sunday morning at a nursing home.

In Italy, which has Europe's worst virus death toll at over 71,000 people, a nurse in Rome at Spallanzani Hospital, the main infectious diseases facility in the capital, will be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, followed by other health personnel.

In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated on Sunday will be a nurse and a doctor at the Interior Ministry hospital in Warsaw, the main coronavirus hospital in the capital, followed by medical personnel in dozens of other hospitals.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called it the patriotic duty of Poles to get vaccinated — a message directed at a society where there is a high degree of vaccine hesitancy born from a general distrust of authorities.

In Bulgaria, where vaccine hesitancy also runs high, the first person to get the shot will be Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, who has promised an aggressive campaign to promote the benefits of the shots.

In Croatia, where the first batch of 9,750 vaccines arrived early on Saturday, a care home resident in Zagreb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine on Sunday morning, according to state HRT TV. Authorities also planned to involve celebrities and other public figures in a pro-vaccination campaign.

“We have been waiting for this for a year now,” Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu said on Saturday after the first batch of the vaccine arrived at a military-run storage facility there. The vaccinations begin as the first cases of a new variant of the virus that has been spreading in the U.K. have now been detected in France and Spain. The new variant, which British authorities said is much more easily transmitted, has caused European countries, the United States and China to put new restrictions on travel for people from Britain.

A French man living in England arrived in France on Dec. 19 and tested positive for the new variant Friday, the French public health agency said. He has no symptoms and is isolating in his home in the central city of Tours.

Meanwhile, health authorities in the Madrid region said they had confirmed the U.K. variant in four people, all of whom are in good health. Regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said the new strain had arrived when an infected person flew into Madrid’s airport.

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the new U.K. variant, but further studies are needed to be completely certain.

Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, Angela Charlton in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, Frances D'Emilio in Rome, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report.

Bulgaria, EU's least vaccinated nation, faces deadly surge

September 08, 2021

VELIKO TARNOVO, Bulgaria (AP) — Standing outside the rundown public hospital in Bulgaria's northern town of Veliko Tarnovo, the vaccination unit's chief nurse voices a sad reality about her fellow citizens: “They don’t believe in vaccines.”

Bulgaria has one of the highest coronavirus death rates in the 27-nation European Union and is facing a new, rapid surge of infections due to the more infectious delta variant. Despite that, people in this Balkan nation are the most hesitant in the bloc to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Only 20% of adults in Bulgaria, which has a population of 7 million, have so far been fully vaccinated. That puts it last in the EU, which has an average of 69% fully vaccinated. “We are open every day,” Yordanka Minekova, the chief vaccination nurse who has worked at the hospital for 35 years, told The Associated Press. “But people who want to be vaccinated are very few.”

Krasimira Nikolova, a 52-year-old restaurant worker, has chosen not to get vaccinated, saying she has doubts over the vaccines' effectiveness, even though the shots have been shown to be highly effective in preventing serious illness and deaths.

“I don’t believe vaccines work,” she told the AP. “I already had the virus. I don’t believe it’s so dangerous.” But Sibila Marinova, manager of Veliko Tarnovo’s intensive care unit, says the full COVID-19 ICU ward in her hospital shows that's simply not true.

“100% of the ICU patients are unvaccinated,” she told the AP, adding that staff shortages are only piling on more pressure. And she said she's angry that so many Bulgarians are refusing to get jabbed.

Bulgaria has access to all four of the vaccines approved by the EU — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Johnson & Johnson. But since the start of the pandemic, more than 19,000 people in Bulgaria have died of COVID-19, the EU’s third-highest death rate, behind only the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the last week, an average of 41 people have died each day.

In response, the government imposed tighter restrictions Tuesday. Restaurants and cafes must close at 11 p.m. and their tables are limited to six people. Nightclubs have been shuttered and cinemas and theaters are limited to half capacity. Outdoors sports arenas are limited to 30% capacity.

“The low vaccination rate forces us to impose these measures,” Health Minister Stoycho Katsarov said. Despite being in a vulnerable age group, 71-year-old retiree Zhelyazko Marinov doesn't want to get vaccinated.

“I think I’m healthy enough and have a good natural immunity,” he said, adding that he could be persuaded to get vaccinated if he couldn't travel without a vaccine certificate. Mariya Sharkova, a public health law specialist, believes that Bulgaria's worryingly low vaccine uptake is the result of residents' low trust in official institutions, along with fake news about the shots, political instability and a weak national vaccination campaign.

“In Bulgaria, we don’t have good health literacy,” she told the AP. “Many people choose to believe conspiracy theories and fake news.” Only vaccines that are mandatory in Bulgaria — such as measles, mumps and rubella — have a high uptake. Sharkova said some blame has to lie with the government's vaccination program.

“They didn’t build any strategy on how to fight vaccine hesitancy,” she said. “We didn’t have any real information campaign for the vaccines. The ministry of health relies mainly on announcements on the ministry’s website, and I don’t think anyone actually goes on and reads it.”

“The best policy for such hesitant countries and populations as ours are mandatory vaccines,” said Sharkova, who is dismayed that national TV channels often invite vaccine-skeptic doctors to be on their programs.

But making COVID-19 vaccines mandatory could risk further polarizing the issue, she said. Hriska Zhelyazkova, a 67-year-old military officer from the coastal city of Burgas, says she distrusts vaccines because "they were created so quickly” -- apparently unaware that years of research laid the groundwork for the vaccine shots, which now have been used in hundreds of millions of people with exceedingly rare serious side effects.

Still, she said she may get vaccinated if authorities slap tougher restrictions on unvaccinated people. Back at the Veliko Tarnovo hospital, pro-vaccination drawings colored by children hang on the walls. “You are our superheroes,” one caption read.

But Minekova, the vaccination nurse, isn't optimistic about the future. “Somehow, I think it’s too late,” she said. “The right moment has been missed. I don’t see a way right now to solve this.”

Valentina Petrova contributed to this report from Burgas.

EU launches legal action against vaccine-maker AstraZeneca

April 26, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union's executive branch said Monday that it has launched legal action against coronavirus vaccine-maker AstraZeneca for failing to respect the terms of its contract with the 27-nation bloc.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has been central to Europe’s immunization campaign, and a linchpin in the global strategy to get vaccines to poorer countries. But the slow pace of deliveries has frustrated the Europeans and they have held the company responsible for partly delaying their vaccine rollout.

European Commission spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said that Brussels launched the legal action against AstraZeneca last Friday “on the basis of breaches of the advance purchase agreement.” He said the reason for the legal action was that “some terms of the contract have not been respected” and that “the company has not been in a position to come up with a reliable strategy to ensure a timely delivery of doses.”

AstraZeneca’s contract with the EU, which was signed by the Commission on behalf of the member countries last August, foresaw an initial 300 million doses for distribution among member countries, with an option for a further 100 million.

The British-Swedish drugmaker had hoped to deliver 80 million doses of that in the first quarter of 2021, but only 30 million were sent. According to the Commission, the company is now set to provide 70 million doses in the second quarter, rather than the 180 million it had promised.

AstraZeneca said in a statement that it “regrets” the Commission’s decision to take legal action and that it will “strongly defend” itself in court. “We believe any litigation is without merit and we welcome this opportunity to resolve this dispute as soon as possible,” AstraZeneca said. It said deliveries are improving “following an unprecedented year of scientific discovery, very complex negotiations, and manufacturing challenges.”

“We are making progress addressing the technical challenges and our output is improving, but the production cycle of a vaccine is very long which means these improvements take time to result in increased finished vaccine doses,” it said.

The company said it wants to continue “working constructively with the EU Commission to vaccinate as many people as possible. Many thousands of our employees working around the clock have been driven by a passion to help the world at no profit.”

The AstraZeneca vaccine is cheaper and easier to use than rival shots from Pfizer and Moderna and has been endorsed for use in over 50 countries, including by the 27-nation EU and the World Health Organization. U.S. authorities are still evaluating the vaccine.

The Commission has publicly criticized the company on several occasions, and last month it launched a dispute resolution mechanism aimed at amicably addressing their differences. Brussels said that its focus is to ensure timely deliveries of vaccines.

It since said that its option for extra AstraZeneca doses will not be taken up. Last week, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that a new vaccine contract is set to be concluded with BioNTech-Pfizer for 1.8 billion doses for the 2021-23 period. She said the deal will ensure doses for booster shots, vaccines adapted to new variants, and, potentially, vaccines for children and teenagers.

Von der Leyen said that the EU, home to around 450 million people, has “already passed 123 million vaccinations" and is on track to have vaccinated 70% of all adults by July. Previously the target had been September.

Pan Pylas in London contributed to this report.

EU regulator reviews AstraZeneca shot and blood clot links

March 18, 2021

LONDON (AP) — The world awaited the results Thursday of an initial European investigation into whether there is any evidence that the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine is linked to blood clots reported in small numbers of recipients of the shot.

Concerns over the clotting led more than a dozen European countries to suspend use of the vaccine over the past week, even though the company and international health agencies said there was no indication the vaccine caused the clotting and recommended continuing inoculations.

The European Union drug regulator's expert committee was expected to report its analysis Thursday, including whether any new precautions should be taken regarding the vaccine. While many countries have continued to use the vaccine, there are concerns the debate could seriously undermine confidence in the shot, which is key to efforts to vaccinate the world's population, especially in poorer countries. Even in Europe, where countries have a choice of vaccines, it has complicated an already slow rollout at a time when infections are rising again in many countries.

The head of the European Medicines Agency said this week that the drug regulator's priority is confirming the product is safe and that it would consider a range of actions, including the addition of extra warnings to the vaccine.

“We are worried that there may be an effect on the trust of the vaccines," Executive Director Emer Cooke said. "But our job is to make sure that the products that we authorize are safe and we can be trusted by the European citizens.”

Blood clots have been reported in 37 people among the 17 million who have received at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine in Europe. Both the EMA and the World Health Organization have said that there is no evidence to suggest the vaccine was responsible and that the benefits of immunization far outweighed the potentially small risk. The drugmaker said that after a careful review of its COVID-19 immunization data, it found no evidence of any increased risk of blood clots in any age group or sex in any country.

The pause in vaccinations using the shot comes as tens of thousands of new daily cases have prompted new lockdown measures in Italy, caused hospitalizations in France to spike and led German officials to announce a third surge of COVID-19 has begun.

In Britain, which has raced ahead in vaccinating its most vulnerable, officials said Wednesday that the number of people getting their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine would be “significantly constrained” from April because of a reduction in the vaccine supply to the country.

A letter to regional health leaders said they should expect a “significant reduction in weekly supply available from manufacturers” beginning from the week of March 29. The reduction will continue for four weeks, it said.

Figures from the European Centers for Disease Prevention and Control this week show there are about 7 million unused AstraZeneca vaccines across the 27-nation EU. The German government defended its decision to suspend use of the vaccine, saying it was based on expert advice.

Government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer said Wednesday that the move could “strengthen trust" in the vaccines. “Concerns are taken seriously and examined. And as soon as these concerns are cleared up, a vaccine can be used again without hesitation," she said.

But some experts have expressed concern that the opposite might happen: that the very public and dramatic suspensions could feed already high skepticism of vaccines that were developed in record time.

Germany will rely on the EMA decision for how to proceed, Health Ministry spokesman Hanno Kautz said. Other countries including France have also indicated they will follow the advice issued Thursday. Any time vaccines are rolled out widely, scientists expect some serious health problems and deaths to be reported, simply because tens of millions of people are receiving the shots. Determining whether or not the vaccine is to blame can be difficult, especially since the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns are focusing for now on vulnerable people who may have other health problems.

But because there is no long-term data on any of the COVID-19 vaccines, any potential signal of trouble must be thoroughly investigated. Because clinical trials are only done in tens of thousands of people, extremely rare side effects often aren't detected until vaccines are used in many millions of people, long after they have been licensed.

For example, it took nearly a year after vaccination campaigns began against the 2009 swine flu pandemic for European officials to notice an increase in narcolepsy in children and teenagers who got the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine.

“It’s right to investigate any potential signals of problems, but you can do that while you continue immunization,” said Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton. “If we pause the vaccine rollout every time there’s a possible signal, it won’t be much of a rollout.”

Head cautioned that there are costs to going slowly: The longer the coronavirus is allowed to circulate widely, the more chance it has to mutate into a deadlier version. “People may well be more hesitant to take an AstraZeneca vaccine when immunization resumes," he said. "And this is at a time when we need to stop the virus circulating to the reduce the chances of further variants emerging.”

Jordans reported from Berlin.

EU lawmakers OK $815 billion recovery program

February 10, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union lawmakers on Wednesday approved a 672.5 billion euro ($815 billion) recovery package of loans and grants to help member nations recover more quickly from the coronavirus pandemic, but countries will not receive the money for several months.

The European Parliament voted 582-40, with 69 abstentions, in favor of the regulation for the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the central pillar of the the bloc’s 750 billion euro ($910 billion) recovery plan. The leaders of the EU's 27 nations adopted the RRF last year.

To receive their share of the money, which is linked to respecting the rule of law, EU members must submit their plans for the funds by the end of April. Each plan has to have at least 37% of its budget dedicated to fighting climate change and at least 20% to improving digital transformation and other actions.

“In the long-term, this money is going to bring about change and progress to meet our digital and climate goals,” Eider Gardiazabal Rubial, a lawmaker closely involved in the negotiations, said. “We will ensure that the measures will alleviate poverty and unemployment, and will take into account the gender dimension of this crisis. Our health systems will also become more resilient.”

So far, 18 nations have submitted their draft plans to the European Commission, which is in charge of assessing them. Once evaluated by the EU's executive arm, plans are to be approved on a case by case basis by the European Council, which represents the governments of the 27 individual member countries.

The funding will be available for three years and EU countries can request up to 13% pre-financing for their recovery and resilience plans. Subsequent disbursements will depend on whether targets set out in the plans are achieved.

Once a proposal allowing the European Commission to borrow on financial markets is ratified by all member nations, the commission expects the first recovery fund payments could be made from mid-2021.

Vaccine factory inspected amid EU dispute with AstraZeneca

January 28, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian health authorities said Thursday they have inspected a pharmaceutical factory to determine whether expected delays in the deliveries of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine are actually due to production issues amid a heated public dispute between the European Union and the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker.

The European Commission asked the Belgian government to inspect the factory in Belgium due to dissatisfaction with AstraZeneca’s explanations for its inability to deliver all the EU's expected doses on time. EU officials are under tremendous political pressures because the vaccine rollout in the 27-nation bloc has gone much more slowly than the ones in Israel and the U.K..

Chemical manufacturer Novasep's factory in the town of Seneffe is part of the European production chain for the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine. AstraZeneca said last week that it planned to cut initial deliveries in the EU from the scheduled 80 million doses scheduled to to 31 million doses because of reduced yields from its manufacturing plants in Europe. The EU said it would receive even fewer, just one-quarter of the doses that its member nations were supposed to get during January, February and March.

However, the bloc's executive commission said it remains confident that the AstraZeneca delay will not affect its plans to ensure that at least 80% of EU citizens over age 80 are vaccinated by March. Stefan de Keersmaecker, the Commission’s health policy spokesman, said that target is based on the availability of doses manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

“It is an ambitious target, but we believe it is a realistic one," he said. The EU, which has 450 million people, has signed deals for six different vaccines, but so far regulators have only authorized the use of two - one made by Pfizer and another by Moderna. The European Medicines Agency is scheduled to consider the AstraZeneca vaccine on Friday.

In total, the EU has ordered up to 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and sealed deals with other companies for more than 2 billion shots. A third round of talks between AstraZeneca and EU officials did not produce immediate results on Wednesday, but the commission still hopes the dispute can be resolved.

“What we have been discussing with AstraZeneca is how they can deliver to us as quickly as possible the doses which we believe are required in order to vaccinate the population," European Commission spokesperson Eric Mamer said. “We believe it is in the interest of European citizens."

More than 400,000 EU residents with COVID-19 have died since the beginning of the pandemic. According to the EU, the Belgian factory is one of four AstraZeneca sites included in the contract sealed by the commission and the company to produce vaccines for the EU market.

France Dammel, a spokesperson for Belgium's health minister, said experts from the federal medicine agency inspected the Novasep site. They will now work with Dutch, Italian and Spanish experts before delivering a report in the coming days.

“Manufacturing the COVID-19 vaccine is a pioneering process in terms of scale, complexity and quantity,” Novasep said in a statement to The Associated Press. “We have worked closely with AstraZeneca and conducted regular and coordinated reviews of the production processes to ensure the active drug substance was delivered on time and met the highest standards for quality and stability.”

Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for health and food safety, said AstraZeneca should provide vaccines from its U.K. facilities if it it is unable to meet commitments from factories in the EU. She also made clear the EU would find out if some of the doses manufactured in the EU were diverted elsewhere.

“No company should be under any illusion that we don't have the means to understand what is happening," Kyriakides said. “We do have a knowledge of the production of the doses, where they were produced, and if they have bee sent anywhere, where this is."

Sylvain Plazy contributed to this story.

UN agencies press EU over rising migrant pushback cases

February 10, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — U.N. agencies are pressing the European Union to end the growing practices of denying migrants their right to apply for asylum, collectively expulsing them and using violence against people trying to enter the bloc without authorization.

Border pushbacks and collective expulsions are illegal under international refugee treaties, which allow people fearing for their safety to apply for protection. Greece and even the EU’s border and coast guard agency Frontex are among those accused of pushbacks or complicity in them. They deny using such methods.

The International Organization for Migration said Wednesday that it continues to receive documented reports of human rights violations against migrants and refugees, including children, involving countries that are part of the 27-nation bloc.

“The use of excessive force and violence against civilians is unjustifiable,” IOM Chief of Staff Eugenio Ambrosi said. He said the sovereignty of EU countries “including their competence to maintain the integrity of their borders must be aligned with their obligations under international law and respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all.”

The IOM, which receives EU funds for its work in countries around the Mediterranean and North Africa, said it welcomed a series of investigations launched to get to the bottom of the pushback cases. Late last month, the U.N. refugee agency also warned that the right to asylum is “under attack” at Europe’s borders and it called on countries to investigate and stop illegal pushbacks and expulsions.

The UNHCR said new migrant arrivals to the EU continue to decline each year, with 95,000 arrivals by sea and land last year -- a decrease of 23% compared to 2019 and by one-third compared to 2018, when more than 141,000 people arrived.

Last month, Frontex announced it was ceasing work in Hungary until the nationalist government there brings its laws into line with a ruling by the EU’s top court that the country is denying people entering without authorization the right to apply for asylum and unlawfully detaining them in “transit zones.”

The rising number of pushback allegations comes at an embarrassing time, as the European Commission struggles to win unanimous support among EU nations for its new Pact on Migration and Asylum, which is meant to revamp the bloc’s dysfunctional asylum laws.

EU sighs with relief as Biden readies to enter White House

January 20, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top officials breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday that Joe Biden will be taking over as president of the United States, but they warned that the world has changed after four years of Donald Trump and that trans-Atlantic ties will be different in the future.

“This new dawn in America is the moment we’ve been awaiting for so long,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, hailing Biden’s arrival as “resounding proof that, once again after four long years, Europe has a friend in the White House.”

“The United States are back, and Europe stands ready to reconnect with an old and trusted partner to breathe new life into our cherished alliance,” she told EU lawmakers, hours before Biden was to be sworn in at his inauguration ceremony in Washington.

European Council President Charles Michel, who chairs summits between the EU’s 27 heads of state and government, said that trans-Atlantic relations have “greatly suffered in the last four years. In these years, the world has grown more complex, less stable and less predictable.”

“We have our differences and they will not magically disappear. America seems to have changed, and how it’s perceived in Europe and the rest of the world has also changed,” said Michel, whose open criticism of the Trump era contrasted starkly with the silence that mostly reigned in Europe while the Republican leader was in the White House.

This change, Michel said, means “that we Europeans (must) take our fate firmly into our own hands, to defend our interests and promote our values,” and he underlined that “the EU chooses its course and does not wait for permission to take its own decisions.”

The Europeans have invited Biden to a summit, quite probably in Brussels, in parallel with a top-level NATO meeting as soon as he’s ready. Michel said the EU’s priority is to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, rebuild the global economy and boost security ties with America.

Stunned EU leaders yearn for Biden presidency -- ASAP

January 07, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — For European Union nations, Joe Biden's Jan. 20 inauguration as the next U.S. president cannot come fast enough. Following the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump, most national governments have shed any inhibition at aiming withering criticism at a sitting U.S. president. Several already embrace his rival as a beacon of hope to rebuild trans-Atlantic ties that have crumbled over the past four years.

“President Trump is already a thing of the past," Prime Minister Antonio Costa of Portugal, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, said Thursday. “I don’t dabble much in provocation, but for me this page is turned,” EU Council President Charles Michel said.

All eyes are now on the future and Biden. “Above all, I am looking forward to the new American President," said EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. The sentiment was shared in much of the 27-nation bloc.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte said Italy “can’t wait to work together with President Biden." But right now it is unclear to what extent U.S. foreign policy has already fundamentally changed in a way that Biden could not — or might not want to — fully rectify. And as Wednesday's historic riots at the nation's legislature showed, he might have to center an overwhelming amount of his energy at home.

Two relatively simple moves from Washington though would please the EU no end — rejoining the Paris climate accord, the five-year-old global deal that commits participating nations to curb the worst of pollution and warming excesses, and the World Health Organization, which is focusing on the coronavirus pandemic.

President Obama joined the Paris climate pact but Trump unilaterally pulled out, much to the Europeans' dismay. The same goes for the WHO, which Biden has also promised to rejoin. “One of Biden’s first gestures will be to include the United States in the Paris agreement, and this will allow us to face up to the reality of climate change," said Costa.

The Portuguese prime minister also said he hoped the incoming president will reinvigorate U.S. standing in multilateral bodies like the United Nations. “This will mean that there is hope,” he said. President Trump often criticized European allies for cowering under the U.S. defense and security umbrella while seeking economic advantage through subsidies and other trade tactics. This did little to endear him to them.

“The truth is that contacts at the highest level between Trump and the EU were very limited, and not only the past few weeks," Michel, the EU Council President, told RTBF network. “Cooperation on many issues was extremely difficult."

Nevertheless, the forthcoming change of administration doesn't mean Washington will give the EU an easy time on issues like subsidies for European aircraft builder Airbus and other commercial matters. It has been a thorn in the side of good relations for many years.

“There are the US interests and EU interests that must both be defended, each on their side," Costa said. “However, we must remain on friendly terms, the allies, and we hope that we will be able to overcome the difficulties."

To smooth the way, the EU has already invited President-elect Biden to visit Brussels at the earliest opportunity, which Costa hopes might be during Portugal's six-month presidency that ends in June.

“After four very barren years that we have lived through, we are now looking forward to four fruitful years," said von der Leyen.

Nicole Winfield contributed from Rome.

Finnish PM leaves EU summit as 'precautionary' measure

October 16, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — Another day at the European Union summit, another leader gone away. Finland's Prime Minister Sanna Marin said Friday that she had left the summit of heads of states and governments in Belgium on its final day “as a precautionary measure" after learning that a Finnish lawmaker she recently attended a meeting with tested positive for the coronavirus.

The move came one day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen left the summit venue in Brussels shortly after talks began because one of her close staffers tested positive for COVID-19.

Two other EU top officials, the bloc's top diplomat Josep Borrell and the commissioner for humanitarian aid Janez Lenarcic, went into isolation this week after coming into contact with people who tested positive for the virus during a trip to Ethiopia.

“I left the European Council meeting as a precautionary measure and asked the Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven to represent the Finnish end of the meeting time,” Marin wrote, adding that she was flying back home to undergo a coronavirus test.

She had attended a meeting Wednesday at the Finnish parliament together with lawmaker Tom Packalen who later had tested positive for the coronavirus and had mild flu symptoms. Since the pandemic first surfaced in Europe in February, EU leaders have held several summits via videoconference. Many have complained about the lack of privacy attached to video calls and welcomed restarting in-person meeting in July, when leaders agreed on the next long-term budget for the bloc during a marathon summit.

But they held their last summit just two weeks ago, and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen questioned the need to meet again in person this week. “This summit should be held as a video conference," she told reporters on arrival in Brussels. “There are some discussions where one needs to be brought a little closer to each other. And then there are other meetings where you can do it as a video conference.”

Last month, a summit was postponed for a week after EU Council president Charles Michel went into coronavirus quarantine, also as a precaution after one of his security officers tested positive for COVID-19.

In light of the worsening virus situation across the continent, this week’s meeting could well be the last one in person for a while. On Thursday, the European Parliament said its upcoming plenary session scheduled next week would be held remotely.

Jan M. Olsen contributed to this story.

EU chief self-isolates as virus makes its mark at a summit

October 15, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — As a fresh wave of the coronavirus sweeps across much of Europe, the reality of the disease struck a summit of European Union leaders on Thursday when one of the 27-nation bloc's top officials abandoned the meeting to go into self-imposed quarantine.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen left the summit venue in Brussels shortly after the meeting began because one of her close staffers tested positive for COVID-19. “I myself have tested negative,” von der Leyen, a doctor by training, tweeted. “However, as a precaution I am immediately leaving the European Council to go into self-isolation.”

In its latest update on Thursday, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said that more than 4.4 million cases of the virus have been reported in the 27 EU nations, plus Britain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland since the pandemic began. More than 198,000 people have died. Several nations are tightening preventive measures.

Images from inside the venue, which is off limits to reporters, showed von der Leyen mingling with several other heads of government and officials, including the prime ministers of the Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Portugal and the Netherlands, and the president of the European Parliament.

Like the others, she mostly wore a mask except when sitting, and appeared to be observing adequate social distancing. The sprawling summit round table was generously spaced, and a few leaders could be seen washing their hands with gel as they entered. The usual hugs and kisses so common last year were replaced by elbow bumps.

French President Emmanuel Macron notably engaged in a close-contact talk with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, who is also representing Poland because its premier, Mateusz Morawiecki is under quarantine after coming into contact with a coronavirus-infected bodyguard. A first test showed Morawiecki was not infected. He was to take another test later Thursday.

Tackling the virus — which was due to be debated on Friday — tense post-Brexit trade talks with Britain, climate change and EU-Africa relations were the main items on the agenda. “The debate on Brexit today required a physical presence and a number of leaders were in favor of a physical presence," European Council President Charles Michel, who is chairing the two-day summit, told reporters. “We have to adapt in the case of COVID-19.”

“As far as the future goes, we will systematically assess and take into account the different elements and consult the delegations about what the best way of working is," Michel said. Since the pandemic first surfaced in Europe in February, EU leaders have held several summits via videoconference. But they held their last meeting in person just two weeks ago. Officials say it's often the only way to get really sensitive business done. However, not everyone was happy about traveling back to Brussels so soon.

“This summit should be held as a video conference. I have on several occasions proposed holding video conferences instead of meeting in person,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told reporters on arrival in Brussels. “There are some discussions where one needs to be brought a little closer to each other. And then there are other meetings where you can do it as a video conference.”

The question remains whether this might be the last in-person meeting for a while if the coronavirus continues to spread at rates not seen for months. The next official summit in Brussels is scheduled for Dec. 10-11. On Thursday, the European Parliament said its next plenary session scheduled next week in the French city of Strasbourg would be held remotely.

Parliament President David Sassoli said the virus has already infected a number of EU lawmakers, staffers and their associates. “Traveling is very dangerous. The situation in Strasbourg is critical and in Brussels it’s very serious,” he said.

Samuel Petrequin in Brussels, Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.

EU top official self-isolating after contact with virus case

October 05, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen says she has placed herself in isolation after being in contact with a person infected with the coronavirus. In a message posted on Twitter Monday, the head of the EU's executive arm said she took part in a meeting last Tuesday that was attended by “a person who yesterday tested positive.” Von der Leyen was on a two-day trip to Portugal last Monday and Tuesday.

She said she tested negative for the virus on Thursday and that she will undergo another test later Monday. Von der Leyen, who attended a two-day summit of EU leaders in Brussels late last week, said she will be in quarantine until Tuesday morning. Her isolation will keep her close to work, however: She has a small living quarters next to her office in the EU headquarters in Brussels.

Two weeks ago, EU Council President Charles Michel was forced to postpone a summit of EU leaders because he was quarantining. Von der Leyen took part last Tuesday in a special meeting of Portugal's state council in the coastal town of Cascais, on the outskirts of Lisbon. State councilor António Lobo Xavier tested positive for the virus on Sunday.

The meeting was attended physically by 15 of the 19 members of the president’s advisory body. Portugal's president, prime minister and the parliamentary president and five state councilors were tested on Sunday and were negative, media reported. More tests are taking place on Monday.