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DAKAR/BRUSSELS The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the European Union (EU) today announced that they are partnering in an 18-month project to improve the production, availability and consumption of nutritious foods to prevent malnutrition among women and children in Africas Central Sahel region comprising Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.

The project, backed with a contribution of 20 million by the EU through the European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, will see WFP provide immediate assistance to reduce food insecurity and malnutrition while supporting the entire value chain for nutritious foods.

The combined effects of conflict and climate change, compounded by the socio-economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, are disrupting food security and nutrition in the region. Close to 3 million children are at risk of becoming acutely malnourished across the three countries in the Central Sahel.

The EU engagement in the Central Sahel has been and will continue to be multidimensional. Along with our efforts to support governance and security, we are committed to providing essential services in remote areas, said Sandra Kramer, European Commission Director for Africa for International Partnerships Directorate General. This action with WFP will enable the production of locally produced nutritious food. It will create sustainable jobs and provide the most vulnerable with the food assistance they need to overcome the crisis at stake in the region.

We want to tackle malnutrition from the root and also ensure nutritious foods are available in a timely manner to respond to present and future shocks in the Central Sahel, said Chris Nikoi, WFPs Regional Director for Western Africa. WFP and the EU also intend to contribute to economic development through job creation by focusing on local production.

The project will include activities to reduce post-harvest losses, sharpen processing and commercialisation involving smallholder farmers, womens organizations, as well as the private and public sectors. These actions are complemented using cash-transfers that enable vulnerable women and children to access these nutritious foods in the market.

WFP and the EU recognize that long-term investments in food systems and local value chains interventions are key to ending hunger and malnutrition.

The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the worlds largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change.

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The EU and WFP partner to improve nutrition in the Central Sahel by strengthening local food systems - Burkina Faso - ReliefWeb

April 1, 2021

The following is a press release:

On 8 April 2021, the Latvian Foreign Minister, Edgars Rinkevics, meets with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain, Arancha Gonzlez Laya, who is coming to Latvia for a working visit on the occasion of the centenary of diplomatic relations between Latvia and Spain.

The Foreign Ministers will discuss bilateral relations and current issues concerning the European Union and security policy, as well as sharing views on developments in the EU s eastern and southern neighbourhoods.

During the visit, the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation will also meet with the President of Latvia, Egils Levits, and the Speaker of the Saeima (Latvian Parliament), Inara Murniece, as well as having an online conversation with the Prime Minister, Arturs Krijanis Karin. As part of her regional visit, the Spanish Foreign Minister will also be visiting Lithuania and Estonia.

Spain recognised Latvias independence on 9 April 1921. Together with other member countries of the European Community, Spain recognised the restored independence of the Republic of Latvia on 27 August 1991. The two countries resumed their diplomatic relations on 9 October 1991.

Information for the media

14.0014.30: an online press conference of the Ministers (via Zoom, connecting by 13.50, languages Latvian, English). Photo & Video Opportunity.

Members of the media accredited with Latvian agencies and institutions are asked to register their participation not later than 10.00 on 8 April by contacting the Media Centre of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at e-mail: media@mfa.gov.lv

Press Contacts:

Communications Group

Phone: (+371) 67016 272

Fax: (+371) 67828 121

Email: media@mfa.gov.lv

Website: http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en

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The Minister for Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation of Spain to arrive in Latvia on a working visit | Press Releases - leta.lv

(Reuters) - Britain is close to striking a vaccine deal with the European Union as soon as this weekend that will remove the threat of the bloc cutting off supplies, The Times reported on Saturday.

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds a small bottle labelled with a "Coronavirus COVID-19 Vaccine" sticker and a medical syringe in this illustration taken October 30, 2020. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/File Photo

Under the agreement the EU will remove its threat to ban the export of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines to Britain, it added.

In return, the British government will agree to forgo some long-term supplies of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine that had been due to be exported from a factory in Holland run by AstraZenecas subcontractor Halix, the newspaper reported.

However, the EU has never threatened a ban on the export of vaccines, but has only said it could block on a case-by-case basis specific vaccine shipments to countries with higher vaccination rates or that do not export vaccines to the EU.

We are only at the start of discussions with the UK. There are no talks over the weekend, an EU Commission source said on Saturday, adding that sending vaccines produced at Halix was not part of the talks.

A second EU source had previously said that the EU has no intention of sharing with Britain the vaccine substance from Halix, which is estimated to have already produced enough for about 15-20 million doses, and can produce the equivalent of 5 million shots per month.

The British government, Pfizer-BioNTech, and AstraZeneca were not immediately available for comment.

The EUs rebuff follows Britains repeated refusal to share with Brussels AstraZeneca doses produced at two factories in the UK.

On Friday, the European Medicines Agency approved the Halix production site in the Netherlands that makes the AstraZeneca vaccine and a facility in Marburg in Germany producing BioNTech/Pfizer shots.

The EUs clearing of the vaccine site comes as the union is banking on it boosting deliveries in the second quarter and accelerate the slow pace of inoculations in the bloc.

Europes troubled vaccine rollout has led to a quarrel with Britain, which has imported 21 million doses made in the EU, according to an EU official. Britain says it did a better job negotiating with manufacturers and arranging supply chains.

The EU says that Britain should share more, notably to help make up the shortfall in contracted deliveries of AstraZeneca shots.

Brussels and London sought to cool tensions on Wednesday, declaring they were working to create a win-win situation and expand vaccine supply for all our citizens.

Reporting by Akriti Sharma and Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Sabine Siebold and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Louise Heavens

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Britain nearing vaccine deal with European Union - The Times - Reuters

Perry Andersons third essay on the European project, The Breakaway, traces the history of the UKs involvement, from non-participant to rejected supplicant to member for 47 years and then to fractious departure.

The UK was an uninterested spectator as six European states formed the European Coal and Steel Community, the 1950s ancestor of the European Union. Neither was it involved when the Treaty of Rome in 1957 created the European Economic Community (EEC), superseding the Coal and Steel Community.

Later, national economic decline and foreign policy upheavals such as the Suez crisis and decolonisation led the two prime ministers named Harold Macmillan and Wilson to each seek membership of the Common Market, the European free-trade zone. The French president, Charles de Gaulle, vetoed both bids. Only when Georges Pompidou succeeded de Gaulle did a Conservative prime minister, Edward Heath, manage to break the logjam, joining the six founding member states in the EEC alongside Denmark and Ireland in 1973.

Forty or so of Heaths own MPs opposed joining, but a band of 69 pro-European MPs within the otherwise hostile parliamentary Labour Party outnumbered them, giving Heath a majority of 17 for passage of the European Communities Bill in 1972. Perhaps the narrowness of that margin dissuaded him from fulfilling his pledge not to join the EEC without the full-hearted consent of the British people. He rejected the idea of a referendum implied in that formulation and avoided mentioning the inescapable fact that the UK had sacrificed a degree of sovereignty in conceding the supremacy of European law a condition of EEC membership.

It was Wilson, returned to power, who says Anderson went through the motions of renegotiating the terms secured by Heath and then in 1975 mounted a referendum. On a turnout of 64%, the majority in favour of Wilsons deal was more than 2:1.

When Margaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election, she launched a campaign to cut the UKs disproportionate contribution to the EEC budget, and managed to recoup two-thirds. The Single European Act of 1987, a major revision of the Treaty of Rome, carried her personal stamp, having been steered through by her nominated commissioner. The countrys position in Europe seemed both distinctive and secure.

However, Thatcher having broken with her Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nigel Lawson, over his attempts to make sterling shadow the EECs Exchange Rate Mechanism was determined to resist the drive within Brussels and Frankfurt for the mechanism to be upgraded to a full-blown single currency. This opposition forced the resignation of her foreign secretary, Geoffrey Howe, who in turn lit the fuse that led to her own departure from Downing Street.

Her preferred candidate, John Major, won the succession and negotiated a British opt-out from the euro. But even in doing so, and to the dismay of many of his backbenchers, he signed up to the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, which created the European Union. The anti-Maastricht Tories, seeing the Danes reject the treaty in a referendum, called for just such a vote at home supported, as it happens, by the Liberal Democrats. Majors position was fatally undermined when the UK was forced out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism after a run on the pound on Black Wednesday later in 1992.

Under intense pressure from Brussels, Denmark held a second referendum, overturning the first. Major finally persuaded the British parliament to ratify Maastricht even so, but his authority over his own party was broken, and the humiliating exit from the Exchange Rate Mechanism had so tarnished the Tory brand that Tony Blair comfortably won the 1997 election.

Majors three successors as Tory leader, all opponents of Maastricht, all trailed behind Blair in voter preference. Instead, Blairs most formidable opponent proved to be his chancellor, Gordon Brown, whose dogged resistance thwarted all the prime ministers designs to join the single currency.

What Brown had not seen coming when in due course he himself became prime minister in 2007 was the financial crisis the following year. He was duly dislodged in 2010, with the first pro-Europe leader of the Conservatives since Major David Cameron heading the largest party within a coalition with the Liberal Democrats, the most ardent pro-Europeans in Parliament.

However, this victory was shadowed by the previous years European elections, where the upstart UK Independence Party beat Labour into second place. Pressure from UKIPs electoral successes and from his own malcontents on the back benches was generating a momentum that Cameron thought he could control, but could not.

Read more:
Why the UK's system of government is vastly superior to the European Union - Open Democracy

The supreme court of the European Union has been drawn into a German battle over whether Facebooks broad collection of user data is in breach of competition rules, in a landmark challenge threatening the viability of the technology giants business model.

The decision will be closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic amid a global effort to regulate Big Tech that has picked up speed over the past year.

The case involving the German competition regulator, the Bundeskartellamt, represents a unique nexus between privacy and competition laws. The regulator has effectively used data protection regulations as a method of challenging Facebooks market power.

The Higher Regional Court in Dsseldorf said on Wednesday that it would ask the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) to issue an opinion on whether the competition regulator was right to determine that Facebook FB, +1.54% was in breach of the EUs data protection rules, called the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

The court in Dsseldorf said it could only issue a decision on the fate of Facebooks broad collection of user data after the ECJ weighs in, effectively putting a hold on a verdict until the Luxembourg-based court has its say.

Essential reading: Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon could face multibillion-dollar fines under new EU tech regulations

The question of whether Facebook is abusing its dominant positionbecause it collects and uses the data of its users in violation of the GDPR can not be decided without referring to the ECJ, said the court, chaired by Prof. Dr. Jrgen Khnen, in a written statement that has been translated.

Wednesdays hearing is just the latest development in a case that stretches back to February 2019, when the Bundeskartellamt ordered Facebook to curb its data collection.

The regulator said at the time that the social media giant abused its market position by harvesting user data across its platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as from third-party services. Facebook was given a year to seek users consent for the company to combine personal data across platforms.

Plus: Google, Facebook undertake appeasement campaigns before Thursday CEO showdown in House

The social media giant appealed, and the Higher Regional Court in Dsseldorf suspended the Bundeskartellamts order. The regulator appealed to the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, a higher body, which then overruled the Dsseldorf courts decision in June 2020 and reinstated the order until the case was settled.

The case returned to Dsseldorf, where the original question of whether the competition regulator was right in deciding that Facebooks collection of user data is anticompetitive moved a step closer to being settled on Wednesday.

One of the reasons the Bundeskartellamts challenge against Facebook is so meaningful is that it threatens one of the pillars of Facebooks business model: selling comprehensive user profiles to advertisers. If the social media giant is unable to combine user data from across its platforms, as well as third parties, its ability to create comprehensive profiles will be hampered.

Today, the Dsseldorf Court has expressed doubts as to the legality of the Bundeskartellamts order and decided to refer questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union, Facebook said in a statement to MarketWatch. We believe that the Bundeskartellamts order also violates European law.

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The fate of Facebook's business model may lie in the hands of the European Union supreme court - MarketWatch