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On the International Day against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia (IDAHOT), the European Union reaffirms its strong commitment to respect, protect and fulfil the full and equal enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons.

Across the world, over 2 billion people live in countries where homosexuality is illegal, while death penalty is retained as a legal punishment for consensual same sex relationships in 11 jurisdictions.

Over the last 10 years, we have seen signs of progress worldwide. Yet, discrimination and exclusion because of sexual orientation and gender identity persist, and we are witnessing a worrying pushback of the rights of LGBTI persons. Levels of violence against LGBTI persons are also alarming, even though largely underreported.

Armed conflicts and humanitarian emergencies put LGBTI persons at particular risk. Russias unprovoked and unjustified aggression against Ukraine has put the spotlight on LGBTI persons trying to flee the war. There have been reports of transgender persons that have been hindered from leaving the country as well as incidents of violence against LGBTI-persons. More needs to be done to offer them support, protection and safe spaces.

Young persons, in particular, face rejection by their families, homelessness and harassment online and offline based on their sexual orientation and gender identity. This year 2022 is the European Year of Youth: young persons need to be accepted and valued for who they are. We must strive to build peaceful, inclusive societies, where everyone can thrive and feel safe.

The EU stands with all LGBTI persons and will not compromise. We will continue to speak up for the human rights of LGBTI persons. We will combat discrimination, violence and hate speech based on sexual orientation and gender identity in times of peace and times of conflict. We will continue our efforts to promote legal, political and financial anti-discrimination measures in close co-operation with civil society.

Equality, respect for dignity and respect for diversity are at the heart of our Union. Everyone should be free to be who they are and love whom they choose without fear.

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International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, 17 May 2022: Declaration by the High Representative on behalf of the European Union -...

BRUSSELS Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen urged European nations on Tuesday to step up their spending to support Ukraine as Russias attacks on the countrys critical infrastructure showed few signs of abating.

The United States and Europe have coordinated closely in enacting sweeping sanctions against Russia in the nearly three months since its president, Vladimir V. Putin, ordered an invasion. But they have been less aligned on the need to help prop up Ukraines economy and to assist with its rebuilding once the war ends.

Congress has already approved a $13.6 billion emergency spending package for Ukraine and is expected to approve another $40 billion worth of aid. While the European Union and international financial institutions have also been making large aid contributions, Ms. Yellen said that more must be done.

I sincerely ask all our partners to join us in increasing their financial support to Ukraine, Ms. Yellen said in a speech at the Brussels Economic Forum, according to her prepared remarks. Our joint efforts are critical to help ensure Ukraines democracy prevails over Putins aggression.

The Treasury secretary is in the midst of a weeklong trip to Europe, with stops in Warsaw, Brussels and Bonn, Germany, where she will meet her counterparts at the Group of 7 finance ministers summit. Aid to Ukraine is expected to be a central topic at that meeting.

Ms. Yellen said that Ukraines financial needs are immediate and that it lacks funding to pay soldiers, pensioners and employees to keep its government running.

Whats clear is that the bilateral and multilateral support announced so far will not be sufficient to address Ukraines needs, even in the short term, she said.

Whether her call will be heeded remains to be seen. European nations are facing their own economic strain, including rapid inflation and soaring energy costs, and big challenges lie ahead as they look to wean themselves off Russian energy.

Ms. Yellen said that the United States would help break Europes dependence on Russian energy, in part by increasing American exports of liquefied natural gas. She acknowledged some climate goals to reduce emissions could be set back by the need to rely on coal and fossil fuels, but she said the current predicament should be a reminder of the need to redouble our efforts on clean and renewable energy.

Energy is another major issue that policymakers will discuss at the Group of 7 finance ministers summit in Bonn later this week. The United States is expected to press the European Union to consider alternative options ahead of its plan to phase in a Russian oil embargo by the end of the year.

Treasury Department officials said on Tuesday that they wanted Europe to consider pricing mechanisms such a price cap or tariff that would eat away at much of Russias oil profits while still giving the country enough incentive to keep producing.

The Treasury officials declined to share their estimates for what impact an embargo would have on the price of oil, but they said that constraining global oil supplies risked pushing prices sharply higher at a time when inflation is already running hot.

Following a meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, Ms. Yellen told reporters that she believes that tariffs on Russian oil could be enacted quickly and combined with the phaseout proposal that Europe is considering.

In Mariupol. The bloodiest battle of the war in Ukraine ended in Mariupol, as the Ukrainian military ordered fighters holed up at a steel plant in the city to surrender. Ukraines decision to end combat gave Moscow full control over a vast sweep of southern Ukraine, stretching from the Russian border to Crimea.

NATOs show of strength. Although planned before the invasion of Ukraine, NATO held a large military exerciseon Russias doorstep in Estonia. The drills come as Finlandand Swedenconfirmed that they would cast aside decades of strategic neutrality and apply for membership in the alliance.

Theyre talking about next year as a time frame and in the meantime it might be possible to combine a phaseout with a price mechanism, Ms. Yellen said, referring to a tariff or price cap. It is critically important that they reduce their dependence on Russian oil; were very supportive of it.

She added that the United States would help to ensure that Europe has energy supplies to meet its needs.

In her speech, Ms. Yellen said Russias decision to cut of gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria should be a lesson that Western nations should not trade national security for cheaper resources. That situation has now left them vulnerable to countries that can use their abundance of natural resources to disrupt markets.

She cited China as a concern in that regard because of its supply of rare earth minerals that are used to make airplanes, cars and high-tech batteries.

China is building a consequential market share in certain technology products and seeks a dominant position in the manufacture and use of semiconductors, Ms. Yellen said. And China has employed a variety of unfair trade practices in its efforts to achieve this position.

Still, Ms. Yellen made clear that she was not calling for more protectionism or a reversal of globalization. Instead, she said, nations should not put all their eggs in one basket when it comes to international trade.

My point is to suggest that we should consider ways to maintain free trade and at the same time lessen some of these risks, she said.

More here:
Yellen Calls on Europe to Boost Ukraine Aid - The New York Times

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