DIDIER REYNDERS

The European Commission has recommended that the bloc's 27 nations end golden passport schemes that allow wealthy people — among them Russian oligarchs — to buy their way to EU citizenship.

New Zealand’s government summoned Russian Ambassador Georgii Zuev to meet Wednesday with top diplomatic officials who are urging Russia to return to diplomatic negotiations over Ukraine.

The European Union is warning members that they risk undermining the 27-nation bloc’s COVID-19 travel and access certificate system with new uncoordinated restrictions some are introducing to try to thwart a surge in cases.

The clash strikes at questions over how far an E.U. state can break from Brussels.

Hungary’s government has called for a national referendum in defense of what it calls child protection measures that many have criticized as an attack on LGBT rights.

The European Commission has given Chinese-owned video app TikTok one month to answer complaints from an European consumers organization over its commercial practices.

FILE - In this file photo taken on Monday, Oct. 5, 2015 a woman walks by the entrance to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. The European Union is referring Poland to Europes top court over long-standing concerns about respect for the rule of law and the independence of the countrys Supreme Court judges. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert, File)BRUSSELS – The European Union is referring Poland to Europe's top court over long-standing concerns about respect for the rule of law and the independence of the country's Supreme Court judges, EU officials said Wednesday. “It's a crucial step in the infraction procedure," EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said of the court referral. Tuleya, who was critical of the changes to the justice system, has become the symbol of the struggle for judicial independence in Poland.

Since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the concept of a "vaccine passport" has been floated regularly. Now as vaccine rollouts gather pace, the prospect of these digital passports or certificates have caught the eye of many different industries. The International Air Transport Association introduced its "travel pass" late last year and launched a trial with Singapore Airlines this month. Given the sensitive health-related data at play, launching any digital service raises questions around privacy and data protection. This includes vaccine or test data and a unique identifier for the certificate.

Under the post-Brexit deal, EU products should still be able to travel unhindered from the bloc to Northern Ireland. The “vaccine export transparency mechanism″ will be used at least until the end of March to control shipments to non-EU countries. The “advanced purchasing agreement” with the EU was signed in August, before the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine had been properly tested. The European Medicines Agency approved the vaccine on Friday, making it the third authorized for use by EU nations. The U.K. is thought to be paying far more for the vaccine than EU countries.

(AP Photo/Bob Edme, File)BRUSSELS – The European Union's executive body proposed Monday that the bloc's 27 nations impose more travel restrictions to counter the worrying spread of new coronavirus variants but make sure to keep goods and workers moving across EU borders. More than 400,000 EU citizens have already died from the virus since the pandemic first hit Europe last year. “The start of the EU vaccination campaign kicked off the beginning of the end of the pandemic," EU Justice commissioner Didier Reynders said. “At the same time, new, more transmissible variants of the virus have surfaced. Since the discovery of the new virus variants, several EU countries have already reinforced their lockdown measures.

Quick tests will be accepted if they are able to detect the new virus variant, Djebbari said. The problem, he explained, is that the empty trucks sitting in England can’t reach the continent to pick up deliveries for Britain. The virus is blamed for 1.7 million deaths worldwide, including more than 68,000 in Britain, the second-highest death toll in Europe, behind Italy’s 69,000. Switzerland was one of the 40-odd countries to ban flights from Britain over the new variant. ___Angela Charlton in Paris, Jo Kearney in Dover, England, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

On December 11, the U.S.-EU Ministerial Meeting on Justice and Home Affairs took place in Washington D.C. The United States of America was represented by Attorney General William P. Barr and Acting Secretary for Homeland Security Chad Wolf. The Ministerial which is held twice a year -- aims to oversee transatlantic cooperation in the area of Justice and Home affairs and address common security threats. We welcomed achievements in this domain, in particular the U.S. efforts to share information on foreign terrorist fighters with EU Member States and Europol. The U.S.-EU agreement on Passenger Name Records (PNR) remains an important instrument for enhancing the security of our citizens.