The Slovenian government has decided to extend border controls with Croatia and Hungary until 19 November. Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg urges EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to stick to the EU leaders’ summit declaration on the Middle East. French President Emmanuel Macron hopes the Putin-Orban meeting will not weaken EU unity.
Vaccines against Covid-19 are estimated to have saved millions of lives during the pandemic, yet false and misleading information about their safety continues to circulate online. During an event at the European Parliament in September 2023, US cardiologist Peter McCullough claimed that mRNA vaccines have caused a “wave” of severe side effects, and called for them to be banned. A video of the talk has circulated widely in several languages, including Swedish. However, as experts told AFP and as multiple scientific studies show, while the vaccines have adverse effects, severe cases are extremely rare, and several of the conditions mentioned by McCullough are more common following Covid-19 infection, rather than vaccination. Moreover, McCullough’s talk was not an official hearing at the EU parliament, as online publications suggested, but part of an event organised by a handful of MEPs.
On October 30, the European Newsroom hosted a full-day online workshop on artificial intelligence, facilitated by dpa. Participants learned about deepfakes, technological possibilities of AI and how it may impact their journalistic work.
Austrian Chancellor Nehammer said it was “unthinkable” to expand Schengen at the moment, but this had nothing to do with Bulgaria and Romania. During a first visit to Brussels, Polish opposition leader Tusk vowed to restore Poland-EU relations. The European Commission doubles funding for wind energy to 1.4 billion euros.
One hundred years after Kemal Atatürk proclaimed the Turkish Republic, the country is trying to balance between east and west. Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants to leave his mark on the destiny of the country to the detriment of its illustrious founder by imposing the idea of a “Century of Turkey”.