Euobserver.com

Russia already dominates global oil – letting them dominate global food during a pandemic would spell disaster for the EU. It would effectively mean the EU, not just depending on Russian energy, but increasingly also on Russian food supply.

French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday an €8bn rescue plan for the car industry - with a big boost for electric vehicles, Associated Press reported. "Our country wouldn't be the same without its great brands - Renault, Peugeot, Citroen," Macron said, while aiming to make France more competitive on "clean" cars. Over 400,000 people are employed in this industry. Auto sales fell by about 90 percent in April.

The EU Council, representing member states, on Tuesday adopted agreements allowing the EU's border agency Frontex to launch operations in Serbia and Montenegro. The agreements will allow Frontex to carry out joint operations and deploy teams in the region. Montenegro has notified its conclusion of the agreement, which will enter into force on 1 July while Serbia is set to follow.

Russia has sent fighter jets to Libya to support Russian mercenaries, the US military command for Africa said on Tuesday, according to AFP. Libya's UN-recognised government said earlier this week that hundreds of Russian mercenaries were backing rival Khalifa Haftar. Moscow has denied involvement in the conflict. "Russia is clearly trying to tip the scales in its favour in Libya," said US army general Stephen Townsend.

Germany wants to lift its travel prohibition on 31 European countries by June 15 if the development of pandemic figures allow for it, according to an official government proposal. Those countries include 26 nations in the European Union, along with four Schengen-zone countries that are not members of the EU — Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Deutsche Welle reports. The government issued a global travel warning on March 17.

The Spanish government has declared 10 days of mourning, starting on Wednesday, for the nearly 27,000 people who have died from coronavirus in Spain, the longest official mourning period in the country's four-decade-old democracy, the Guardian writes. Flags will be flown at half-mast at more than 14,000 public buildings across the country. Spain's King Felipe VI will preside over a memorial ceremony once the country emerges from the lockdown.

Hungary did not violate the European Convention on Human Rights when in 2012 it transferred to Azerbaijan a military officer who killed an Armenian soldier in Budapest because of his ethnicity during Nato training, the European Court of Human Rights said in its first ruling on the case on Tuesday. The officer was jailed in Hungary, but arriving in Baku he was pardoned and released, breaching the convention.

The Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday ruled that Hungary breached freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights, over a case where the parliament's speaker suspended six journalists' accreditation to the assembly in 2016 for quizzing MPs outside designated areas in the assembly. The two sides have three months to request the case to be referred to the Grand Chamber for a final ruling.

England's outdoor markets and car showrooms will be able to reopen from 1 June, as soon as they are able to meet the coronavirus guidelines to protect shoppers and workers, prime minister Boris Johnson said on Monday, Bloomberg reports. All other non-essential retail outlets including shops selling clothes, shoes, toys, furniture, books, and electronics, plus tailors, auction houses, photography studios, will be able to reopen from 15 June.

Differences over Fidesz - Edina Tóth's, MEP for Fidesz, responds to the EUobserver op-ed from Katalin Cseh, and MEP from Hungary's Momentum ('Dear EPP, please, please expel Orban), last week.

By refusing to respond to questions on human rights, the European Commission has given the far-right a carte blanche on asylum and migration.

European Parliament president David Sassoli announced the EP's medical service states that the health risks are considered to be significantly higher if parliament's plenary session next week takes place in Strasbourg. "On the basis of this evaluation, due to force majeure, I decided that the necessary security conditions are not in place for the usual transfer of the European Parliament to Strasbourg for the plenary session next week", he said.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Russian president Vladimir Putin agreed to restart a ceasefire in Idlib, the last rebel-held province in Syria, at their meeting in Moscow on Thursday.

Poland, backed by seven other EU states, proposed ending carbon breaks for airlines at an EU environment ministers' meeting on Thursday, Reuters reports. Airlines benefit from €800m a year of special credits under the European Emissions Trading (ETS) scheme in which polluters pay to offset harm done. But the airline credits undermined the purpose of the ETS, Poland, which is not usually known for its climate-friendliness, said.

The British multinational security company G4S lost its contract with the European Parliament in 2011 in a backlash from MEPs over alleged abuses in Israel. Today, they guard the parliament's main entrance and have become the EU's top security provider.

International Women's Day falls on Sunday (8 March). Too few of Europe's 47 nations have a legal definition of rape based on lack of consent. It is time for that to change.

ExxonMobil lobbyists pushed the EU commission to weaken climate regulation for the transport sector with a two-pronged strategy: supporting the Paris Agreement, while dwelling on long-term technical solutions and promoting oil and gas usage in the green transition.

The role of the EU's top court, fisheries, the framework of the agreement, and level playing field are the key hurdles after the opening salvo of Brexit trade negotiations.

The EU exectuive plans binding measures on pay transparency, and also wants lagging countries to ratify the Istanbul convention preventing violence agaisnt women.

The European Commission is preparing a new post-2020 EU policy on Roma inclusion as part of "A Strong Social Europe for Transition". This new EU Roma inclusion policy is scheduled to take effect in the final quarter of 2020.