Europe

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Poland and Hungary should ask the European Union’s top court to assess the link between access to EU money and observing the rule of law, instead of blocking the EU’s 2021-2027 budget and recovery plan, the head of the European Commission said.

The suggestion is one of the possible ways EU officials have been informally discussing to end the vetoes of Warsaw and Budapest holding up 1.8 trillion euros ($2.14 trillion) of EU funds to lift the economy of the 27-nation bloc.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Judges hearing the case against four defendants in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on Wednesday rejected a request by defence attorneys for more time to investigate alternative scenarios about what caused the crash.

An international investigation led by the Netherlands, from where roughly two-thirds of the 298 victims originated, concluded that the plane was shot down with a Russian missile.

The Dutch government holds Moscow responsible. Russia denies any responsibility for the disaster.

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway must maintain its most recent coronavirus restrictions for now and needs at least another three weeks to assess whether they can be lifted, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said on Wednesday.

European governments are grappling with the spread of the disease while people want to celebrate Christmas and New Year.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will borrow almost 400 billion pounds in the current financial year to pay for the massive coronavirus hit to its economy, finance minister Rishi Sunak said on Wednesday, taking the budget deficit to its highest since World War Two.

The world’s sixth-biggest economy is set to shrink by 11.3% in 2020, its biggest contraction since the early 1700s, before growing by 5.5% in 2021, Sunak said as he announced a one-year spending plan.

ROME, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Italy on Tuesday officially launched a project backed by the European Union (EU) to help its tourism businesses become more eco-friendly and make better use of the post-pandemic opportunities, the country's National Tourism Agency (ENIT) said.

The "EU Eco-Tandem Program" also aims to promote sustainable tourism by helping small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) become more innovative.

BRUSSELS (AP) — A top European Union official said Wednesday that the first citizens in the 27 nation bloc could be vaccinated against the coronavirus by Christmas, but she warned that member countries must urgently prepare their logistical chains for the rollout of hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccines.

Claiming that “there’s finally light at the end of the tunnel,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told EU lawmakers that “the first European citizens might already be vaccinated before the end of December.”

BERLIN (AP) — A car crashed into the front gate of the building housing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s offices on Wednesday morning, but the incident appeared to have caused little damage, Berlin police said.

Officers were on the scene investigating the crash at the German chancellery. Police tweeted that the 54-year-old driver was arrested, but didn’t give any further details on the man.

Rescue crews on the scene confirmed the man driving the car was being treated in an ambulance that remained in front of the chancellery.

LONDON (AP) — With major COVID-19 vaccines showing high levels of protection, British officials are cautiously — and they stress cautiously — optimistic that life may start returning to normal by early April.

Even before regulators have approved a single vaccine, the U.K. and countries across Europe are moving quickly to organize the distribution and delivery systems needed to inoculate millions of citizens.

25 Nov 2020; MEMO: Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, yesterday said their countries were committed "to ensuring the prompt return of all participants to fully observing obligations laid out in the 2015 Iran nuclear deal."

In a phone conversation, the officials also discussed trade and political relations, as well as Syria and Nagorno-Karabakh, according to Reuters.

25 Nov 2020; MEMO: Two human rights groups called on Britain to stop selling weapons to Saudi Arabia and the UAE in light of their ongoing involvement in the war in Yemen.