Ursula Von Der Leyen

The fact the European Union (EU) are stockpiling millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine should not stop the jab manufacturer delivering supply to the bloc, a Belgian MEP has said. Philippe Lamberts conceded that the EU do have doses at their disposal, but this should not 'exonerate' the company...Read Full StoryAstrazenecaMepCoronavirus VaccinePublic HealthVaccine DosesCancer Research UKAstraZenecaThe European UnionThe British GovernmentThe European CommissionBritishBBC Radio 4 'sGPNHS EmployersNon-CovidPhilippe LambertsBoris JohnsonJudith WoodsJair BolsonaroUrsula Von Der Leyen

BRUSSELS — The European Union moved Wednesday toward stricter export controls for coronavirus vaccines, seeking to make sure its 27 nations have more COVID-19 shots to boost the bloc's flagging vaccine campaign amid a surge in new infections. The EU’s executive Commission said on the eve of a summit of...Read Full StoryBrexitEu CitizensEu CountriesPublic HealthEU OfficialsEU CommissionEU CitizensBorder TradeThe European UnionBritonsEuropean CommissionCanadianAstraZenecaPfizer-BioNTechBritishValdis DombrovskisUrsula Von Der LeyenBoris JohnsonEmmanuel Macron

ROME (Reuters) - EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for a greater openness and reciprocity on vaccine exports, speaking about an ongoing row with Britain and the United States over vaccine deliveries. 'I ask for greater openness as Europe is among the regions in the world that exports...Read Full StoryEuropean UnionEu CountriesReciprocityPublic HealthEuropean CountriesUnited StatesBritainReutersEU CommissionLa RepubblicaVaccine ExportsVaccine DeliveriesCOVID Pandemic ROMESummer TravelUrsula Von Der Leyen

This article is an extract from The Telegraph’s Economic Intelligence newsletter. Sign up here to get exclusive insight from two of the UK’s leading economic commentators – Ambrose Evans-Pritchard and Jeremy Warner – delivered direct to your inbox every Tuesday. Language matters. The Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen states that...Read Full StoryEuropean UnionBrexitEu CountriesBritainUkEuropean CountriesEU CountriesGermanySouthern EuropeCommissionAmericanPfizerTurkishAstraZenecaBritishJeremy WarnerEmmanuel MacronAngela MerkelUrsula Von Der Leyen

LONDON (AP) — Britain and the European Union warned Tuesday that talks on a post-Brexit free-trade deal are teetering on the brink of collapse, with just over three weeks until an economic rupture that will cause upheaval for businesses on both sides of the English Channel.Officials downplayed the chances of a breakthrough when Prime Minister Boris Johnson heads to Brussels for face-to-face talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the next few days.With negotiators deadlocked on key issues after months of tense talks, German European Affairs Minister Michael Roth said the bloc’s confidence in Britain was hanging in the balance.“What we need is political will in London,” said Roth, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency. “Let me be very clear, our future relationship is based on trust and confidence. It’s precisely this confidence that is at stake in our negotiations right now.“We want to reach a deal, but not at any price,” Roth told reporters before chairing videoconference talks among his EU counterparts.Johnson’s Downing St. office said the situation was “very tricky” and collapse of the talks was a distinct possibility.Johnson and von der Leyen, head of the EU’s executive arm, spoke by phone Monday for the second time in 48 hours. They said afterwards that “significant differences” remained on three key issues — fishing rights, fair-competition rules and the governance of future disputes — and “the conditions for finalizing an agreement are not there.”The two leaders said in the joint statement that they planned to discuss the remaining differences “in a physical meeting in Brussels in the coming days.”Leaders of the EU’s 27 nations are holding a two-day summit in Brussels starting Thursday.The U.K. left the EU politically on Jan. 31, but remains within the bloc’s tariff-free single market and customs union through Dec. 31. Reaching a trade deal by then would ensure there are no tariffs and trade quotas on goods exported or imported by the two sides, although there would still be new costs and red tape.Both sides would suffer economically from a failure to secure a trade deal, but most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half its trade with the bloc.While both Britain and the EU say they want a trade deal, trust and goodwill are strained after months of testy negotiations.The relationship has been further strained by British legislation that breaches the legally binding Brexit withdrawal agreement Johnson struck with the EU last year.Britain says the Internal Market Bill, which gives the government power to override parts of the withdrawal agreement relating to trade with Northern Ireland, is needed as an “insurance policy” to protect the flow of goods within the U.K. in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The EU sees it as an act of bad faith that could imperil Northern Ireland’s peace settlement.The House of Lords, Parliament’s unelected upper chamber, removed the law-breaking clauses from the legislation last month, but the elected House of Commons restored them on Monday night.As the parliamentary tussle continues, the British government has offered the bloc an olive branch on the issue, saying it will remove the lawbreaking clauses if a joint U.K.-EU committee on Northern Ireland finds solutions in the coming days.___Cook reported from Brussels.___Follow all AP stories about Brexit and British politics at https://apnews.com/BrexitNo-deal BrexitBritish PoliticsPeace TalksEUPeace NegotiationsJohnson BrusselsAPThe European UnionThe English ChannelEuropean CommissionGerman EuropeanThe House Of LordsParliamentHouse Of CommonsEuropean AffairsBoris JohnsonUrsula Von Der Leyen

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FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Germany, Hungary and Slovakia began giving out their first coronavirus vaccine shots on Saturday only hours after receiving their first shipments, upsetting the European Union’s plans for a coordinated rollout Sunday across the bloc’s 27 nations.“Every day that we wait is one day too many,” said Tobias Krueger, operator of a nursing home where immunizations began in Halberstadt, in the northeast German region of Saxony-Anhalt. The first person at the home to be immunized with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was 101-year-old Edith Kwoizalla, the dpa news agency reported.Krueger said 40 of the home’s 59 residents wanted the immunization shot along with 10 of around 40 workers. He was among those immunized but added, “I also understand the concerns.”In Hungary, health care workers were vaccinated at the Southern Pest Central Hospital in Budapest, while in Slovakia, the first person to receive a jab was a 60-year-old top expert on infectious diseases, Vladimir Krcmery. He was vaccinated along with doctors at the University Hospital in the city of Nitra, in what Health Minister Marek Krajci called a “historic moment.”The first shipments of the vaccine arrived at hospitals across the EU in super-cold containers late Friday and early Saturday after being sent from a manufacturing center in Belgium before Christmas.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen released a video celebrating the vaccine rollout for the bloc of nearly 450 million people, calling it “a touching moment of unity.”“Today, we start turning the page on a difficult year. The COVID-19 vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries. Vaccination will begin tomorrow across the EU,” she said.The rollout marks a moment of hope for a region that includes some of the world’s earliest and worst-hit virus hot spots — Italy and Spain — and others like the Czech Republic, which were spared early on only to see their health care systems near their breaking point in the fall. In all, EU nations have recorded at least 16 million coronavirus infections and more than 336,000 deaths — huge numbers that experts agree still understate the true toll of the pandemic due to missed cases and limited testing. Still, the vaccine rollout helps the bloc project a sense of unity in a complex lifesaving mission after it faced a year of difficulties in negotiating a post-Brexit trade deal with Britain. It also brings a sigh of relief for EU politicians who were frustrated after Britain, Canada and the United States began their vaccination programs earlier this month with the same German-developed shot.“It’s here, the good news at Christmas,” German Health Minister Jens Spahn told a news conference Saturday. “This vaccine is the decisive key to end this pandemic ... it is the key to getting our lives back.”The first shipments were limited to just under 10,000 doses in most countries, with the EU’s mass vaccination programs expected to begin only in January. Each country is deciding on its own who will get the first shots — but they are all putting the most vulnerable first.In Hungary, the first shipment of 9,750 doses — enough to vaccinate 4,875 people, since two doses are needed per person — arrived by truck early Saturday and were taken to the South Pest Central Hospital in Budapest. The government said four other hospitals, two in Budapest and two others in the eastern cities of Debrecen and Nyíregyháza, would also receive vaccines from the initial shipment.French authorities said they will prioritize the elderly and the French medical safety agency will monitor the vaccine rollout for any potential problems. Germany, where the pandemic has cost more than 30,000 lives, was beginning with those over 80 and people who take care of vulnerable groups. Spanish authorities said the first batch of the vaccine arrived in the central city of Guadalajara, where the first shots will be administered Sunday morning at a nursing home.In Italy, which has Europe’s worst virus toll at over 71,000 dead, a nurse in Rome’s Spallanzani Hospital, the main infectious diseases facility in the capital, will be the first in the country to receive the vaccine, followed by other health care personnel.In Poland, the first two people to be vaccinated Sunday will be a nurse and a doctor at the Interior Ministry hospital in Warsaw, followed by medical personnel in dozens of other hospitals. Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said it was the patriotic duty of Poles to get vaccinated — a message directed at a society where there’s a high degree of vaccine hesitancy born from a distrust of authorities.In Bulgaria, where fears about vaccines also run high, the first person to get the shot will be Health Minister Kostadin Angelov, who has promised an aggressive campaign to promote the benefits of vaccines.In Croatia, a nursing home resident in Zagreb, the capital, will be the first to receive the vaccine on Sunday morning, according to state HRT TV. Authorities also planned to involve celebrities and other public figures in a pro-vaccination campaign.“We have been waiting for this for a year now,” Romanian Prime Minister Florin Catu said Saturday after the first vaccines arrived at a military-run storage facility.The vaccinations began as the first cases of a new virus variant that has been spreading in the U.K. have been detected in France and Spain. The new variant, which British authorities said is much more easily transmitted, has caused European countries, the United States and China to put new restrictions on travel for people from Britain.A French man living in England arrived in France on Dec. 19 and tested positive for the new variant Friday, the French health agency said. He has no symptoms and is isolating at home in the central city of Tours.Health authorities in Madrid confirmed the U.K. variant in four people, all of whom are in good health. Regional health chief Enrique Ruiz Escudero said the new strain had arrived when an infected person flew into Madrid’s airport.The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the new U.K. variant, but said further studies are needed to be completely certain.___Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Associated Press writers Lorne Cook in Brussels, Angela Charlton in Paris, Joseph Wilson in Barcelona, Spain, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Jovana Gec in Belgrade, Serbia, Karel Janicek in Prague, and Veselin Toshkov in Sofia, Bulgaria, contributed to this report.___Follow AP’s coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://a pnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccin e and https: //apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreakHungarySpainBulgariaPolandGermanyCroatiaAPThe European Union 'sPfizerDpa News AgencyThe University HospitalHealthEuropean CommissionFrenchSpanishUrsula Von Der LeyenJens SpahnMateusz MorawieckiKostadin Angelov

Long lines of trucks carrying stockpiles for British companies jam the highways leading to France's northern port of Calais, while in the coastal town of Boulogne-sur-Mer, French fishermen pull in their lines and fear that battles over fishing rights will soon erupt. Up and down France's northern coast, the uncertainty of Brexit is causing ripples of chaos and frustration. With just three weeks left to go before Britain is completely out of the European Union, no one knows if there will be a post-Brexit trade deal or a chaotic economic rupture between the two sides. Britain left the EU on Jan. 31 but remains in its massive market until the end of the year. That means, barring a trade agreement, New Year's Day could herald quite a hangover for businesses on both sides of the English Channel. For Mathieu Pinto, a 28-year-old French fisherman, a no-deal Brexit will disastrously impact his right to fish in British waters, where he says he makes “between 70% and 80%" of his yearly income. Pinto is based in France's coastal town of Boulogne, home to Europe’s largest fish-processing center. He had just returned from a night fishing sea-snails or whelk when he spoke to The Associated Press. He worries that his days of making a living in the family business could be numbered. “(A no-deal Brexit) will already impact us hugely. And then we are going to have to share our French waters with foreigners as well,” he said. That would mean fighting for fish in French maritime territory alongside northern EU neighbors from the Netherlands and Belgium, which he says could create an impossibly tense situation. There is simply is not enough catch to go around without access to UK waters, he said. "There will be war. Let’s not hide it. There will be war,” Pinto said. Ireland and Denmark are also among those directly affected by the potential closing off of U.K. waters. Under current EU rules, EU countries can currently fish in British maritime territory, as they have for decades. But the overexploitation of these rules — and the seas — have meant that fish numbers have declined sharply. And so, too, did British fisherman. Saving British waters for U.K. fishermen became a rallying cry, fueling the Brexit vote for the U.K. to leave the bloc. Since then, fishing rules have remained a major issue at the heart of the Brexit impasse. Meanwhile in Calais, trails of truck exhaust fumes on the roadside illustrate the path to Brexit is, literally, jammed with uncertainty. And that has caused British companies to stockpile goods, leading to a huge increase in the number of trucks heading to Calais’ port and the undersea tunnel to Britain in the past few weeks. French police are delaying hundreds of trucks at the roadside to cope with the soaring traffic flow. It's a perfect storm on the highways, coming just as a coronavirus-related tourism slump has reduced the number of vehicle-carrying ferries crossing the English Channel. Sebastien Rivera, a top regional official for the National Road Transport Federation, an industry group that represents some 350 companies that send their goods to the U.K., blasted the situation as “catastrophic.” “For about the last three weeks, we’ve seen an increase in the flow of traffic toward Great Britain due to stockpiling. The platforms, whether it’s the port or the (Euro)tunnel, don’t have capacity to absorb this increase in traffic,” he said. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this week there's a “strong possibility” that negotiations on a new economic relationship with the EU to take effect Jan. 1 will fail. He and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have set a Sunday deadline to decide whether to keep talking or prepare for a no-deal break. A failure to secure a trade deal would mean tariffs and other barriers going up that would hurt both sides, although most economists think the British economy would take a greater hit because the U.K. does almost half of its trade with the 27-nation bloc. Rivera said the sheer uncertainty of what trade rules are going to be has caused enormous stress and additional costs to the transport industry, not to mention the hours of wasted time that truck drivers have spent stuck in traffic jams. “It’s not right that we’re three weeks away and we don’t have answers,” he said. ——— This story corrects the title for Sebastien Rivera to a top regional official of the National Road Transport Federation, not the top official for the national group. ——— Follow all AP stories on Brexit developments at https://apnews.com/hub/Brexit. Great BritainNo-deal BrexitNetherlandsEu CountriesTo FranceUncertaintyCalaisThe European UnionThe English ChannelMathieu PintoThe Associated PressEuropean CommissionAPBrexit DevelopmentsRipplesBoris JohnsonUrsula Von Der Leyen

Under pressure to deliver an updated climate target this month, European Union leaders are unlikely to agree on a more ambitious number when they meet this week if they can't compromise on the 27-nation bloc's long-term budget, top European diplomat says. The last time EU leaders discussed climate targets in October, they could not immediately adopt a proposal requiring unanimous support to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, and decided to try again during their December summit. But a dispute over the bloc's money has since emerged as Poland and Hungary now threaten to veto a major coronavirus pandemic aid package and the EU's budget for 2021-2027 because of a mechanism linking EU funding with members’ adherence to democratic standards. According to the diplomat, who was not authorized to speak publicly before the EU summit that starts talks Thursday, it will be “difficult to see” any agreement on climate if there is no agreement on the EU's long-term budget and recovery package. In her ambition to make the EU carbon neutral by mid-century, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has said she wants 37% of the 750 billion euros (nearly $900 billion) in the coronavirus recovery money to be given to EU countries to spend on environmental objectives. A report published Monday by environmental groups gave the EU a “high” performance rating for its climate efforts, weighed down by the poor performance of members such as as Hungary, Slovenia and Poland. Audrey Mathieu, a senior analyst at the group Germanwatch, which co-publishes the annual Climate Change Performance Index, said the 27-nation bloc stands at a crossroads. Noting that the European Parliament has called for a 60% drop in emissions, not including measures to remove carbon from the atmosphere, Mathieu said the current draft proposal for a 55% cut being discussed by leaders in Brussels would be a “a huge step, but does not go far enough." “This December council will set the bar for the EU’s overall climate ambition for the coming decade,” she said. Even before the budget spat, EU eastern countries had been reluctant to commit to a more ambitious climate goal, arguing about the social and economic costs of a quicker transition to a greener economy. Poland, which gets the vast majority of its energy from coal, did not commit last year to the EU’s 2050 climate neutrality goal and has asked for more details about the measures planned to deliver the revised emissions target. World leaders agreed five years ago in Paris to keep the global warming increase to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally no more than 1.5 degrees C (2.7 F) by the end of the century. Under the Paris accord, countries are required to submit updated climate targets by the end of this year. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week he wants the U.K. to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 68% from 1990 levels by 2030 — a more ambitious goal than the EU's. Another delay in revising the EU's current 40% emission cuts target for 2030 up to 55% would also be particularly ill-timed ahead of the virtual Climate Ambition Summit marking five years since the Paris agreement. The event on Saturday will be co-hosted by the U.K. with the United Nations and France. The aim of the virtual summit is to maintain international momentum on combating global warming ahead of the next round of annual U.N. climate talks in November 2021. This year’s gathering was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. ——— Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed. ——— Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate Eu LeadersBudget TalksEu CountriesGlobal WarmingHungaryEU LeadersEU CountriesGlobal EmissionsCarbon EmissionsThe European CommissionThe European ParliamentBritishThe United NationsU.N.APUrsula Von Der LeyenBoris Johnson

Infection specialist Giovanni Di Perri is one of the first people in Italy to receive the Covid-19 vaccine, at the Amedeo di Savoia Hospital in Turin, on December 27, 2020. (CNN) — A pilot took to the skies above Germany using his flight path to draw a syringe, ahead of the launch of the Covid-19 vaccination campaign across Europe, according to data from FlightRadar24.The pilot, Samy Kramer, invited people on his Instagram account to follow his flight, in a two-seater plane, on website FlightRadar24. The air traffic tracking site reported that the flight took off from Friedrichshafen, near Lake Constance in southern Germany, on December 23, and lasted one hour and 44 minutes.This image, from plane tracking website FlightRadar24, shows the syringe-shaped path of pilot Samy Kramer's December 23 flight.The European Union (EU) officially kicked off its Covid-19 vaccination campaign on Sunday, days after approving the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine on December 21."The ... vaccine has been delivered to all EU countries," European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter on Saturday.The Commission has declared December 27, 28 and 29 "EU vaccination days," which von der Leyen said were "a touching moment of unity." She added that: "Vaccination is the lasting way out of the pandemic."The first people to receive doses of the vaccine were largely elderly or frontline medical workers.In France a 78-year-old woman named Mauricette was the first to be given the vaccine, according to a tweet by Aurélien Rousseau, the director-general of the Ile-de-France region's health agency. Mauricette, a former housekeeper, received the vaccine at a public hospital in the greater Paris area. Italy -- once the European epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic -- also administered its first doses of the vaccine on Sunday.Professor Maria Rosaria Capobianchi, a virologist at the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases, was one of the first to be given it. Capobianchi is part of the team that first isolated the virus in Italy. Also among the first group to be given the jab were a doctor and a nurse.Dr. Alessandra D'Abramo was working at the institute when Italy's first two coronavirus patients -- a Chinese couple -- were hospitalized there on January 30. "This is a great day because after a long time of great work in the ward, now is a day of hope and I'm so proud of this," she told CNN shortly after she was given the injection. "The vaccine is approved by the FDA, the EMA and AIFA -- the Italian [regulator] -- so I think it's safe and effective," she added.A 96-year-old nursing home resident was the first to be given the vaccine in Spain. Araceli Rosario Hidalgo, who was born in 1924, received her dose on Sunday at a care home in Guadalajara, near Madrid.The second person in the country to receive a vaccine was a staff member at the same home, nursing assistant Mónica Tapias.The Czech Republic took a different approach -- its first dose of the vaccine was administered to the country's Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, while the second dose was given to war veteran Emilia Řepíková.Babiš has come under fire in recent months, after coronavirus cases spiked in the country. The PM was initially reluctant to impose stricter rules on the population, citing the need to protect the country's economy, but the decision led to the virus spreading widely. Eventually restrictions were enforced and Babiš apologized.While the EU officially launched its vaccination program on Sunday, some countries had made a start on vaccinating people a day earlier -- doses were administered on Saturday in both Germany and Slovakia.The vaccine rollout comes as European governments race to contain the spread of a new Covid-19 variant that was first detected in the UK.The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is continuing its rolling review of other promising vaccine candidates, including those from AstraZeneca and Oxford University, and from Johnson & Johnson.CNN's Barbie Nadeau, Nicola Ruotolo, Atika Shubert, Ya Chun Wang ad Niamh Kennedy contributed to this report.SpainFdaVaccinationAstrazenecaPublic HealthVaccine DosesLaunchesCNNInstagramThe European UnionPfizer/BioNTechEuropean CommissionTwitterThe Ile-de-FranceCapobianchiUrsula Von Der LeyenAndrej BabišAtika Shubert