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The European Union and its Member States, together with its international partners, strongly condemn the malicious cyber activity conducted by the Russian Federation against Ukraine, which targeted the satellite KA-SAT network, owned by Viasat.

The cyberattack took place one hour before Russias unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 thus facilitating the military aggression. This cyberattack had a significant impact causing indiscriminate communication outages and disruptions across several public authorities, businesses and users in Ukraine, as well as affecting several EU Member States.

This unacceptable cyberattack is yet another example of Russias continued pattern of irresponsible behaviour in cyberspace, which also formed an integral part of its illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine. Such behaviour is contrary to the expectations set by all UN Member States, including the Russian Federation, of responsible State behaviour and the intentions of States in cyberspace.

Cyberattacks targeting Ukraine, including against critical infrastructure, could spill over into other countries and cause systemic effects putting the security of Europes citizens at risk.

The European Union, working closely with its partners, is considering further steps to prevent, discourage, deter and respond to such malicious behaviour in cyberspace. The European Union will continue to provide coordinated political, financial and material support to Ukraine to strengthen its cyber resilience.

Russia must stop this war and bring an end to the senseless human suffering immediately.

The Candidate Countries North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania1, the country of the Stabilisation and Association Process and potential candidate Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the EFTA countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, members of the European Economic Area, as well as Ukraine, Republic of Moldova and Georgia align themselves with this declaration.

1North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Albania continue to be part of the Stabilisation and Association Process.

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Russian cyber operations against Ukraine: Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union - Consilium.europa.eu

Overview

What does the European Union mean for health? What can it mean for health?

This comprehensively revised third edition answers these questions. It provides a broad and up-to-date review and analysis of European Union public health policies. It begins by explaining the basic politics of European integration and European policy-making in health, including the basic question of how the European Union (EU) came to have a health policy and what that policy does. Thereafter, it moves on to the three faces of European Union health policy.

The first face is explicit health policy, both public health policy and policies to strengthen health services and systems in areas such as cancer, and communicable diseases. The second face is internal market building policies, which are often more consequential for health services, but are not made with health as a core objective. These include professional and patient mobility, regulation of insurers and health care providers, and competition in health care. They also include some of the policies through which the EU has had dramatic and positive health effects, namely environmental regulation, consumer protection and labour law. The third face is fiscal governance, in which the EU institutions police member state decisions, including relating to health.

Each face has different politics, law, policy, and health effects. The book provides a synthesis of the different faces and the different ways in which they have been used to strengthen or weaken public health and health systems in Europe. It shows the many, often unappreciated, ways that the EU has worked for health, as well as the opportunities to further strengthen the EU's positive impact on health.

This book is aimed at policy-makers and students of health systems in the EU who seek to understand how the influence of the EU on health policy affects those systems and their patients. To ensure that the EUs impact on health is wholly positive, the wider health community must understand and engage with the EU in the future something this book aims to encourage.

The Observatory is currently planning activities related to this subject or publication. If you would like to hear from us when details become available, please register your interest here.

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Everything you always wanted to know about European Union health policies but were afraid to ask - European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies

LONDON -- Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday renewed British threats to break a Brexit agreement with the European Union, blaming it for a political crisis that's blocking the formation of a new government in Northern Ireland.

Johnson said there would be a necessity to act if the EU doesn't agree to overhaul post-Brexit trade rules that he says are destabilizing Northern Ireland's delicate political balance.

Johnson held private talks with the leaders of Northern Ireland's main political parties, urging them to get back to work. But his public message was aimed at the 27-nation EU, which he accused of refusing to give ground over post-Brexit border checks.

I hope the EUs position changes. If it does not, there will be a necessity to act, Johnson wrote in the Belfast Telegraph.

The government is expected Tuesday to outline planned legislation that would give Britain powers to override parts of its Brexit treaty with the EU.

EU member Ireland warned that a unilateral move by Britain could imperil the entire post-Brexit trade agreement that the U.K. and the bloc hammered out in months of rancorous negotiations before the U.K.'s exit from the bloc in 2020.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said Britain's stance "calls into question the functioning of the TCA the trade and cooperation agreement between the U.K. and the EU.

Northern Ireland elected a new Assembly earlier this month, in a vote that saw the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein win the most seats. It was the first time a party that seeks union with the Republic of Ireland has won an election in Northern Ireland, a bastion of Protestant unionist power.

The Democratic Unionist Party came second and is refusing to form a government, or even allow the assembly to sit, until Johnsons government scraps post-Brexit checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

Under power-sharing rules set up as part of Northern Irelands peace process, a government cant be formed without the cooperation of both nationalist and unionist parties.

Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with the EU. When Britain left the bloc and its borderless free-trade zone, a deal was agreed to keep the Irish land border free of customs posts and other checks, because an open border is a key pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Instead, there are checks on some goods, such as meat and eggs, entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K.

The arrangement is opposed by unionists in Northern Ireland, who say the new checks have put a burden on businesses and frayed the bonds between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

The British government agrees that the regulations, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, are destabilizing a peace agreement that relies on support from both Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist communities.

The DUP has a mandate to see the Protocol replaced with arrangements that restore our place within the U.K. internal market, party leader Jeffrey Donaldson said after meeting Monday with Johnson. "Our mandate will be respected.

But while the DUP wants the Protocol scrapped, most other parties in Northern Ireland want to keep it, with some tweaks.

The EU says the treaty cant be renegotiated, but it is willing to be flexible to ease the burden of checks.

Johnson, however, accused the EU of failing to recognize that the arrangements arent working.

We dont want to scrap it, but we think it can be fixed," Johnson said after his meetings with the parties at Hillsborough Castle near Belfast.

He said he would prefer to do that through talks with the EU, but to have the insurance, we need to proceed with a legislative solution as well.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald accused the British government of cynical antics" and placating the DUP.

"It seems to us absolutely extraordinary that the British government would propose to legislate to break the law" by overriding the Brexit treaty, she said.

New legislation would take months to pass through Parliament, but the unilateral move would immediately anger the EU, which would hit back with legal action and potentially trade sanctions. Even after Brexit, bloc is Britains biggest economic partner.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said he had spoken to EU Council chief Charles Michel and agreed that the only way to resolve this issue is through substantive talks between the European Union and the United Kingdom government.

Coveney said a U.K.-EU feud is the last thing Europe needs right now" as it seeks unity in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

This is a time for calmness," Coveney said at an EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels. "Its a time for dialogue. Its a time for compromise and partnership between the EU and the U.K. to solve these outstanding issues.

Samuel Petrequin in Brussels contributed to this story.

More AP coverage of Brexit: https://apnews.com/hub/brexit

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Johnson: UK will act on Northern Ireland rules if EU won't - ABC News

BUDAPEST, May 16 (Reuters) - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Monday raised the spectre of an "era of recession" in Europe as the continent grapples with surging energy costs and rising inflation due to the war in Ukraine.

Orban, taking his oath of office after being elected in April for a fourth consecutive term, took a typically bullish line towards Brussels, telling parliament it was "abusing its power day by day" by pushing back member states' sovereignty.

Nonetheless, he said Hungary's place was in the European Union for the next decade.

Register

He also said Hungary would not block European Union sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine as long as they posed no risk to Hungary's energy security.

Hungary, with a few other member states, has so far rejected the EU's proposed current sanctions on Russian oil. Budapest says it wants hundreds of millions of euros from the bloc to mitigate the cost of ditching Russian crude. The EU needs all 27 states to agree to the embargo for it to go ahead.

He said the most important task of his new government would be to steer Hungary's economy through a European economic crisis, defending the tax breaks and benefits granted to families and defending households' capped energy bills.

"The war and the European policy of sanctions given in response, has created an energy crisis," Orban said.

"The energy crisis, and the interest rate hikes in the United States have jointly brought about the era of high inflation. All this will bring about the era of recession, when a decline in economic output, stagnation and years of slight increases in output will follow each other in Europe."

Orban has repeatedly clashed with the EU over policies, most lately over LGBTQ rights and rule of law issues, but said the importance of Hungary being a member of NATO had never been as obvious as now.

He projected the war in neighbouring Ukraine would "last for a long time ... and will pose a permanent security threat to Hungary".

He said the National Bank of Hungary and the government would have to coordinate steps to curb inflation.

"We will sync these steps ... we will take cautious but firm measures to regulate prices," Orban said in a speech. His government has already capped fuel prices, basic foodstuffs and mortgage rates, as well as households' energy bills.

Earlier in the day, the European Commission published its fresh economic forecasts, in which it said Hungary's GDP growth would slow to 3.6% this year from 7.1% in 2021, while average inflation would come in at 9% this year.

"In 2022, the deficit is forecast to remain elevated at 6.0% of GDP, reflecting the introduction of several expansionary measures and additional spending related to high energy prices," it added.

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Reporting by Krisztina Than and Gergely Szakacs; Editing by Alison Williams

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Hungary PM Orban warns of "era of recession" in Europe - Reuters

In the first quarter of 2022, GDP in the Eurozone increased by 0.3 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. And in the European Union, it rose by 0.4 percent. The European Unions statistics office, Eurostat, reported this on Tuesday in Luxembourg. The number of employees also increased slightly.

In a preliminary estimate, economists expected eurozone GDP to rise by just 0.2%. Compared to the first quarter of 2021, the seasonally adjusted GDP in the eurozone increased by 5.1 percent. Economists expected growth of 5 percent. In the European Union, GDP growth was 5.2 percent year on year.

In comparison, the US GDP in the first quarter of 2022 decreased by 0.4 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. On an annual basis, GDP in the first quarter of 2022 increased by 3.6 percent.

Compared to the previous quarter, the number of employed people in the euro area increased by 0.5 percent, in the European Union by 0.4 percent. On an annual basis, the number of employed people in the Eurozone increased by 2.6 percent. In the European Union, the increase was 2.5 percent.

The eurozone comprises nineteen countries with Belgium, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Finland. In the European Union, those member states are joined by Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden.

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The economy in the Eurozone and the European Union is improving again, and the number of workers is rising - Aviation Analysis Wing