Euobserver.com

Depression levels have soared in Poland's LGBTI community after years of nationalist-conservative rule by Jarosław Kaczyński's PiS party, according to a study by the University of Warsaw's Centre for Research on Prejudice. Some 44 percent of LGBTI people reported serious symptoms of depression in 2019-2020, compared to 28 percent in 2017, it said. Parents had also become less tolerant of children who came out in the same period, it noted.

EU leaders and eastern neighbours aim to raise alarm on "destabilisation" and "use of migrants for political purposes" at a summit next week.

The Bundestag elected Olaf Scholz as the new German chancellor on Wednesday, in succession to Angela Merkel who held the office for 16 years, Deutsche Welle reports. Members of the parliament voted by 395 from a total of 707 votes cast for Scholz to become Germany's new head of government. Merkel wished Scholz the best of luck, saying it is "the best job there is."

A group of 47 civil society organisations on Wednesday raised concerns over a fresh delay to the publication of the Sustainable Corporate Governance initiative – a proposal that would introduce mandatory due diligence for companies regarding sustainability and human rights. NGOs called on the European Commission to show leadership, arguing that is "unacceptable" that an initiative, announced in 2020, is delayed three times. Its publication is expected in early 2022.

BioNTech and Pfizer said on Wednesday a three-shot course of their Covid-19 vaccine was effective against the new Omicron variant in a laboratory test, France24 writes. Both companies said that two vaccine-doses resulted in significantly lower neutralising antibodies but a third dose of their vaccine increased the neutralising antibodies by a factor of 25, adding they could deliver an Omicron-based vaccine in March 2022 if needed.

The European Chemical Agency revealed on Wednesday that 80 percent of nearly 6,000 products sold online and then inspected were non-compliant with the EU chemicals laws (aka REACH). The products included both professional and consumer products, like children toys, clothes and jewellery. As a result, national authorities launched over 5,000 enforcement procedures, asking companies to remove the products from their websites or adjust their online advertisement to better inform consumers.

The Saudi man arrested on Tuesday at a Paris airport over suspected links to the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi was released after officials concluded it was a case of mistaken identity, France24 reports. The man had the same name as a suspect reportedly involved in the murder. The Saudi Embassy in Paris had earlier said the arrested person "has nothing to do with the case in question."

Although only a recommendation, the latest proposal on police cooperation would allow them to arrest - or shoot, if necessary - suspects in other EU states. The EU Commission also seeks to automate sharing of facial-recognition images by police.

The family of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia urged EU institutions to deny funding to the major gas pipeline project linked to a power station co-owned by a businessman who is on trial for her murder.

EU banks back a Chinese company that is building a dam that will subsume large tracts of protected forest in Congo, in a national park confirmed by the EU as "a site of biological priority."

The EU Commission proposed a new tool to counter measures by non-EU countries pressurising member states via economic reprisals. But some member states, notably Sweden, are worried about protectionism.

"Work is already underway for ... disconnection of Russia from the Swift banking system, sanctions on the Russian gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 [to Germany]," if it invades Ukraine, Latvian foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said in The Guardian Tuesday. "If [Russian president] Vladimir Putin wants to see gas flow through that pipeline, he may not want to take the risk of invading Ukraine," US national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told Reuters.

The majority of Europe's population living in urban areas is exposed to dangerous levels of air pollution, said the European Environment Agency on Tuesday. Over 90 percent of urban population is exposed to high levels of fine particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide and ozone above those recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). The European Commission has launched a revision of EU air quality standards to align them to WHO recommendations.

The UK suffered a record rise in the number of deaths caused by alcohol misuse in 2020, Reuters reports. Public health officials said the rise was linked to the wider social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2020, some 8,974 people died of alcohol-specific causes, 18.6 percent more than in 2019 and the largest increase since records began in 2001, the Office for National Statistics said.

The European Medicines Agency and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control said on Tuesday that evidence suggest that different vaccines against Covid-19 can be mixed and matched for both initial courses and boosters. "[This approach] may offer flexibility in terms of vaccination options, particularly to reduce the impact on the vaccine rollout should a vaccine not be available for any reason," the EU agencies said in a statement.

Slovak MEP Michal Wiezik from the Progresívne Slovensko party has joined the liberal Renew Europe group in the European Parliament, leaving the centre-right European People's Party, Renew announced on Tuesday. Wiezik has been an MEP since 2019 and worked on environmental issues. With his addition Renew Europe, which is the third-largest faction in the parliament, grows to 101 MEPs from 23 member states.

A suspected member of the team that murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, Khalid Alotaibi, was arrested at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on Tuesday, sources told Reuters. France acted on a warrant issued by Turkey. French radio RTL said the person arrested was a former Royal Guard of Saudi Arabia who is believed to have been involved in the Kashoggi killing at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The European Commission is set to propose new legislation requiring companies to detect, report and remove child sexual abuse content. The rules come amid other moves by the EU's police agency Europol to develop AI targeting encryption.

Mandatory vaccination has become a hot topic in the EU, but the European branch of the World Health Organization has warned that it should be "an absolute last resort". Children, meanwhile, account for the highest infection-rates across the continent.

EU ministers failed to agree on a revised set of a new Code of Conduct for tax rules.