Free Republic

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the European Union was developing a plan to boost confidence in vaccines that included combatting "myths," identifying opposition and even creating a "common vaccination card-passport" for all EU citizens. The card, according to a "Roadmap on Vaccination" by the European Commission, is to be the subject of a proposal in as little as 20 to 24 months, reports the website OffGuardian. The scope and power of various vaccination schemes has been under review since as early as 2018, and "the endpoint of the roadmap is, among many other things, to introduce a 'common vaccination card/passport'...

You might say that the English Channel created England.The English Channel enabled England to maintain its independence from Europe and develop a somewhat different culture. For example, the English legal system (which we Americans inherited) is different from the European civil law system. Militarily, the English Channel served as a natural moat that protected England from more than one invasion. Napoleon himself declared, “Let us be masters of the Channel for six hours, and we are masters of the world.” But he was unable to do that. And yet, if the current inhabitants of England (and the rest of the...

BERLIN -- The European Union’s top diplomat has called for the bloc to have a “more robust strategy” toward China amid signs that Asia is replacing the United States as the center of global power. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell told a gathering of German ambassadors on Monday that “analysts have long talked about the end of an American-led system and the arrival of an Asian century.” “This is now happening in front of our eyes,” he said. Borrell said the pandemic could be seen as a turning point in the power shift from West to East, and that...

Billionaire financier George Soros said the European Union could be forced to directly tax its citizens as the bloc faces collapse due to the coronavirus pandemic. Covid-19 has wreaked havoc across the continent and stalled swathes of the global economy with governments forced to ramp up borrowing to levels not seen in peacetime history. Mr Soros, 89, believes perpetual bonds - bonds that cannot be redeemed but provide continuous interest payments to investors - could keep the EU afloat. But to fund these bonds, the EU may need to directly tax the citizens of its member states. In a transcript...

Besides Australia's call for an independent inquiry into the Wuhan virus outbreak, another issue at the center of this week's WHO meeting is Taiwan's membership. The World Health Organization’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, holds its annual meeting May 18-19. The meeting comes as coronavirus has infected more than 4.8 million people and killed more than 315,000 worldwide. The WHO faces two key decisions this week that are closely related not only to everyone’s health, but also to its survival.The first is a draft resolution, proposed by Australia, demanding WHO’s Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus initiate an “impartial, independent and comprehensive...

The French government issued a strongly-worded statement Tuesday urging Israel not to apply sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. The statement calls on Prime Minister Netanyahu and alternate Prime Minister Gantz not to "annex", as the move "will have significant implications for Israel's relations with the EU." The French foreign ministry is aligning with the European foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, who is regarded as the most senior official in Europe who actively opposes the move. "We support the announcement by EU Foreign Minister Borrrell that annexation would be in violation of international law, and would not proceed without implications for...

Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron have proposed that the EU borrows on the financial markets in order to disperse some €500bn (£448bn) through grants to European economies hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic. Under the Franco-German proposal the member states receiving the funds would not need to repay the cash. Liability for the debt would instead be added to the EU budget, to which member states contributions vary according to the size and prosperity of their economies. Should the proposal receive the endorsement of the 25 other member states, it would amount to a significant move towards a level of...

Britain’s chief European trade deal negotiator has warned the Cabinet that Brussels talks are heading for collapse and has put Ministers on notice to prepare for No Deal. David Frost, who heads the Prime Minister’s ‘Taskforce Europe’, told Ministers to ‘take the moral high ground’ when speaking to their counterparts across the Channel in the face of stubbornness from Brussels. But he has also urged them to step up their planning in case talks over a new trading arrangement break down. Downing Street is preparing to issue warnings that the UK is heading for an ‘Australia-style deal’ with the EU...

The European Commission announced Thursday it suspended shipments of 10 million masks made in China after two countries reported they were of "poor quality," Al Jazeera reported. Following the first disbursement of 1.5 million mask deliveries to 17 out of 27 member states and the U.K., Poland's Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said at least 600,000 masks the country received lacked European certificates and did not meet required medical standards. The Netherlands also reported similar quality complaints about the masks the country received. The commissioner for health and food safety, Stella Kyriakides, advised other countries who already received masks to provide...

The official overseeing vaccines at Europe's highest medical approval board said Thursday that "optimistic" predictions put approval of a coronavirus vaccine in early 2021. Reuters reported that the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Marco Cavaleri told reporters Thursday that his agency was working as fast as possible to speed up vaccine development, but cautioned that it would likely not be enough to see one on the market later this year. “For vaccines, since the development has to start from scratch ... we might look from an optimistic side in a year from now, so beginning of 2021,” he reportedly said. Cavaleri...

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has predicted that coronavirus could bring about the end of the EU. Soros expressed his doubts about the institution’s survival as it is an “incomplete union” and cited Germany’s ruling on the European Central Bank as a cause for concern. The 89-year-old also posited that the global pandemic could bring an end to capitalism as we know it.In an interview with the Independent, Soros said: “I am particularly concerned about the survival of the EU because it is an incomplete union.” According to Soros, this makes Europe “more vulnerable” than the US “not just because it...

Hungary rejects EU domestic violence treaty for ‘gender as social construct’ language 'If something contradicts the Fundamental Law, it cannot be adopted by Parliament,' a Hungarian diplomat explained. BUDAPEST, May 11, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Hungary is refusing to ratify a Council of Europe human rights treaty on combating violence against women and domestic violence because its definition of “gender” denies there are only two sexes and because it could open the door to illegal immigration. Hungary’s Parliament voted overwhelmingly last week not to ratify the Istanbul Convention because of its “unacceptable approach to defining gender” and to lobby the European...

May 9 marks traditionally the celebration of the Schuman Declaration, a visionary short statement given by the French Foreign Minister exactly five years and one day after the end of the Second World War. Since then, the European project has, sometimes enthusiastically and sometimes painfully, followed a course which, in retrospect, is totally unique in the history of mankind – a voluntary devolution of powers from 27 countries to a joint set of institutions, decision-making powers in some respect, and more diluted coordination in many others. Rereading the Declaration 70 years later, amidst the worst crisis in Europe since World...

BEIJING - The European Union ambassador to China said on Thursday it was “regrettable” that part of an opinion piece co-authored by 27 European ambassadors and published in the official China Daily had been removed before publication. A comparison between the original op-ed uploaded onto the EU embassy website and the one published on Tuesday by the China Daily showed that in a sentence beginning, “But the outbreak of the coronavirus”, the words that followed - “in China, and its subsequent spread to the rest of the world over the past three months” - were removed. “It is regrettable that...

The European Union’s response to the novel coronavirus is a sight to behold. For decades, the EU has linked the promotion of its progressive ideology and the construction of its supranational institutions to a vibrant promise. The ideology and institutions were supposed to lead to a more open and unified Europe that looks after the welfare of its citizens at home and matches the international power of Russia, China, and the United States. The coronavirus crisis has exposed this grand vision as a fairy tale. The fiasco began in February, when Italy appealed to the EU’s Emergency Response Coordination Centre,...

There are two things a quarantined European will reliably find when he goes online for news in this age of the coronavirus: first, the clucking of local pundits at how the Trump administration has managed the epidemic in the United States; second, unmistakable evidence that every one of the major countries of Western Europe, with the exception of Angela Merkel’s Germany, is doing worse...

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - World leaders and organisations pledged $8 billion to research, manufacture and distribute a possible vaccine and treatments for COVID-19 on Monday, but the United States refused to contribute to the global effort. Organisers included the European Union and non-EU countries Britain, Norway and Saudi Arabia. Leaders from Japan, Canada, South Africa and dozens of other countries joined the virtual event, while China, where the virus is believed to have originated, was only represented by its ambassador to the European Union. Governments aim to continue raising funds for several weeks or months, building on efforts by the World...

The president of the European Commission backed calls for an investigation into the origin of the new coronavirus and said China should be involved in the process. Lawmakers in countries like Germany, Sweden and Australia have called for a probe into how the virus started, which has so far infected over 3.2 million people and killed over 230,000. Speaking to CNBC, Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the EU’s executive arm, said she would like to see China work together with her organization, and others, to get to the bottom of exactly how it emerged. “I think this is...

The European Union was scheduled to release a report last week detailing China's disinformation campaign to downplay its role in the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. The Chinese Communist Party pressured the EU to downplay the regime's role in the pandemic after a POLITICO article quoted an advanced copy of the report. From the original POLITICO story: DISINFO WARNING: Russian and Chinese “official and state-backed” accounts continue to “widely target both conspiracy narratives both at public audiences in the EU and the wider neighbourhood,” according to a report by the European External Action Service’s StratCom division, obtained by Playbook ahead of publication,...

The European Union toned down part of a report about Chinese state-backed disinformation because it feared Beijing would retaliate by withholding medical supplies, diplomatic sources have said. The initial version of the report, seen by the South China Morning Post, described China as running a “global disinformation campaign” to deflect blame for the coronavirus outbreak using “both overt and covert tactics”. But the Post has learnt that this section was removed after Beijing intervened and warned EU diplomats based in China there would be unspecified repercussions. EU diplomats were worried that this would “strain” relations and make it “more difficult...