European Union

Starting April 24 France will order a strict 10-day quarantine for all travellers coming from Brazil in a bid to prevent the spread of a coronavirus variant first found in the South American county. Also, only people residing in France or holding a French or European Union passport will be allowed to fly to the country.

The same measures will also gradually be put in place by April 24 for people returning from Argentina, Chile and South Africa, where the presence of other coronavirus variants were detected, the prime minister's office said.

Johnson & Johnson has announced Tuesday it will "proactively delay the rollout of our vaccine in Europe" after six women in the US developed a rare disorder involving blood clots.

"The safety and well-being of the people who use our products is our number one priority. We are aware of an extremely rare disorder involving people with blood clots in combination with low platelets in a small number of individuals who have received our Covid-19 vaccine. The United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are reviewing data involving six reported US cases out of more than 6.8 million doses administered. Out of an abundance of caution, the CDC and FDA have recommended a pause in the use of our vaccine," the company said. "In addition, we have been reviewing these cases with European health authorities. We have made the decision to proactively delay the rollout of our vaccine in Europe. We have been working closely with medical experts and health authorities, and we strongly support the open communication of this information to healthcare professionals and the public."

France has started producing the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Coronavirus vaccines to increase production in the European Union. Drug manufacturer Delpharm is producing the Pfizer/BioNTech in its plant in Saint-Rémy-sur-Avre. CDMO Recipharm is producing the Moderna vaccine in its facility in the Loire Valley.

The European Commission on Tuesday stated the French government is allowed to contribute €4 billion to help keep Air France afloat.

In February, Ryanair lost a legal fight in the EU General Court against state aid being granted to Air France and Sweden's SAS through national schemes. Ryanair is still seeking to contest the German government's bailout of Lufthansa, as well as similar schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

German Health Minister Jens Spahn and the 16 state health ministers on Tuesday decided to suspend the routine use of the AstraZeneca vaccine for people under age 60 at an emergency meeting. The decision came amid fresh concern over unusual blood clots reported in a tiny number of younger people who received the vaccine.

Several European countries briefly suspended the use of the vaccine earlier this month, albeit in that instance for more elderly people rather than the young, but resumed jabs after EU regulators said the shot was safe for use.

As 29 million apparently hoarded AstraZeneca vaccine doses have been traced in Italy, Britain's health minister Matt Hancock has conceded preferential treatment for his country by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company.

"I believe that free trading nations follow contract law," Hancock told the Financial Times. "Our treaty trumps theirs. It's called contract law and it's clear," he said, referring to the dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca over cut supply volumes.

New regulations announced Wednesday will make it easier to halt shipments of Covid-19 vaccines outside of the EU. The new rules were announced as a report emerged about 29 million AstraZeneca doses that were found during an inspection of a bottling plant in Italy.

The European Commission had negotiated vaccine supply contracts on behalf of the 27 EU member states, and Brussels has been frustrated by the slow pace of deliveries. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson took note of the new EU rules without mentioning vaccines but saying they could influence companies' decisions on where to invest.

Italian inspectors found a secret stock of 29 million doses of the AstraZeneca Coronavirus vaccine in a filling plant of the company near Rome. AstraZeneca delivered around 30 million doses to the EU so far, but promised three times as much. The EU Commission is now demanding accountability.

Iceland has opened its borders to travellers who are fully vaccinated or can produce confirmation of a prior infection on March 18, the first European country to do so.

“The world has been through a lot in the past twelve months, and we are all hoping for a slow and safe return to normalcy. This also includes the resumption of the opportunity to travel, which is valuable to culture, trade and enterprise. The decision to apply border exemptions for vaccinated individuals to countries outside the EU/EEA area is a logical extension of our current policy,” says Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Prime Minister of Iceland.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday it was still reviewing safety concerns over the AstraZeneca vaccine. Still, it recommended the continuation of its use based on the current benefit-risk assessment.

The jab suspension and an already sluggish inoculation campaign across the EU pose a threat to plans announced by the European Commission on Wednesday to launch a "green digital certificate" to collate vaccine information.

Jutta Paulus, a licensed pharmacist and a member of the European Parliament for the Green Party, said the "benefits of taking the AstraZeneca vaccine do outweigh the risks."

The World Health Organization's vaccine safety experts were due to meet Tuesday to discuss the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, as more countries stopped vaccinations over blood clot concerns. WHO on Monday appealed to countries to keep vaccination campaigns going, saying there was no evidence the vaccine caused clotting issues.

But much of Europe has gone against that advice in recent days, temporarily halting AstraZeneca shots even as the continent confronts a third wave of the pandemic, spurred by variants of the virus, and faces criticism over sluggish vaccination campaigns.

In a statement on Sunday, the pharmaceutical giant said that of the 17 million people vaccinated in the European Union and the United Kingdom so far, blood clot incidents were "much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population."

The digital payments company Stripe boosted its valuation to $95 billion after a Series H funding round of $600 million.

The company plans to "invest a ton more in Europe this year," using the new capital in 31 European countries of the 42 that it operates worldwide.

In its previous funding round last April, Stripe was early to highlight the Covid-19 outbreak as "pushing the economy online" and said, "several years of offline-to-online migration are being compressed into several weeks."

Germany on Monday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the Health Ministry announced in a statement. Italy, France and Spain follow suit later in the day.

"After new reports of thrombroses of the cerebral veins in connection with the vaccination in Germany and Europe, the PEI considers further investigations to be necessary," the Health Ministry announced.

The European Medicines Agency will decide "whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine"

AstraZeneca has released a statement, saying its Covid-19 vaccine has shown no evidence of an increased risk of blood clots.

"Following a recent concern raised around thrombotic events, AstraZeneca would like to offer its reassurance on the safety of its COVID-19 vaccine based on clear scientific evidence. Safety is of paramount importance and the Company is continually monitoring the safety of its vaccine," the report said. "A careful review of all available safety data of more than 17 million people vaccinated in the European Union (EU) and UK with COVID-19 Vaccine AstraZeneca has shown no evidence of an increased risk of pulmonary embolism, deep vein thrombosis (DVT) or thrombocytopenia, in any defined age group, gender, batch or in any particular country."

Ursula von der Leyen's Deputy Commission Head Frans Timmermans has stated that "It is true that mistakes were made in ordering the vaccines both in Brussels and in the member states,". He added that he is "ready to take stock at the end of the pandemic. Then we can see what we did wrong and what we did right."

In the current situation, however, the first priority is "to ensure that all of Europe receives vaccine," Timmermans continued. He defended the joint procurement, saying that a European approach was "also in the interest of the richer countries" such as Germany.

Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has sharply criticized the distribution of vaccines against the coronavirus in the European Union. The distribution of the medicines among the EU member states is unfair, contrary to the declared objective of fair participation, he said. Since there were striking differences in the progress of vaccination between the member states, he and other heads of government had compared the national supply data. The result was that deliveries were not made according to population keys: Deliveries were not being made according to population keys. "When I shared this information with some heads of state and government yesterday, many could not believe their eyes and ears," Kurz said.

The Swedish-British vaccine manufacturer AstraZeneca has again revised the announced delivery quantity downwards. According to this, the member states of the European Union will probably only receive 30 million doses of Corona vaccine by the end of the month - ten million less than last announced. This was already a reduced quantity: originally, AstraZeneca had contractually promised to deliver 90 million doses.

Poland is taking the new rule of law clause in the EU budget to the European Court of Justice. This was announced by the government in Warsaw on Thursday. The EU's top judges are to examine whether the new mechanism for cutting EU funds in the event of certain rule of law violations is permissible.

Hungary and Poland oppose the new rule of law mechanism in the EU's multi-annual financial framework for 2021 to 2027. They fear that the mechanism is aimed at cutting EU funds to them because of controversial political projects. Both countries receive billions of euros net from the EU budget. At the same time, both countries are subject to legal proceedings under Article 7 of the EU Treaties for alleged disregard of fundamental EU values.

The European Medicines Agency has announced, that their human medicines committee (CHMP) concluded by consensus that the data on the Covid-19 vaccine Janssen were robust and met the criteria for efficacy, safety and quality.

"With this latest positive opinion, authorities across the European Union will have another option to combat the pandemic and protect the lives and health of their citizens," said Emer Cooke, EMA's Executive Director, adding, "this is the first vaccine which can be used as a single dose". These measures will allow regulators to swiftly assess data emerging from a range of different sources and take any necessary regulatory action to protect public health.

Members of European Parliament are set to vote on declaring the European Union a LGBTIQ Freedom Zone in support of the community. The move comes two years after the first Polish county officially discriminated against persons based on sexual preference or identity.