The bloc should have at least 1,000 gigawatts of photovoltaics installed in the region by 2030 — equivalent to roughly the world’s current capacity — according to a joint letter signed by Austria, Belgium, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Spain to the bloc’s climate chief Frans Timmermans and Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson. The EU can deploy at least 70 million solar rooftops by the end of the decade it said.

“Solar rooftops should be the norm for newly built houses and for houses going through a major renovation,” said the letter dated Wednesday, signed by the countries’ energy ministers and seen by Bloomberg. “Every photovoltaic panel reduces immediately and directly our energy dependence from Russia.”

It comes just weeks before the European Commission is set to outline its plan to slash its reliance on Russian gas. The bloc will outline a raft of measures, from speeding up the rollout of renewables to cutting red tape for wind and solar farms, while also kicking off a campaign for consumers to save energy. Possible measures to curb recent electricity market volatility are also being considered.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and fears of a potential cutoff from gas — which made up around 40% of imports to the bloc before the war — have spurred the EU to seek other sources of fossil fuels as well as put in place measures to speed up the transition in the long run. In 2021, the EU had around 166 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, according to BloombergNEF.

The EU countries are also calling for 75% of solar panels to be produced within the bloc, which would help boost independence from China, which currently manufactures the bulk of the world’s photovoltaics.

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In the French capital, Paris, protesters – many of them unmasked – braved the cold and the rain on Saturday, carrying placards that read “Truth”, “Freedom” and “No to vaccine pass”.

Some also took aim at President Emmanuel Macron, who had caused an uproar last week when he said he wanted to “p*** off” the unvaccinated by making their lives so complicated they would end up getting the job.

The protesters retorted by adopting his language, chanting “We’ll p*** you off”.

A person holds a sign that reads ‘Freedom’ as people attend a demonstration to 
protest against a bill that would transform France’s current coronavirus disease 
health pass into a ‘vaccine pass’, in Paris, France, on January 8, 2022. 
[Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters]

The protests came as France recorded more than 300,000 COVID-19 infections in a single day on Friday and the country’s lower house on Thursday approved a government bill that will require individuals to prove they are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus before they can eat out, travel on intercity trains or attend cultural events.

The government has said it expects the new requirements to be implemented by January 15, although legislators in the Senate could now delay the process.

The French interior ministry said 105,200 people participated in Saturday’s protests across France, 18,000 of them in the capital Paris, where police reported 10 arrests and three officers slightly injured.

Elsewhere there were 24 arrests and seven police officers lightly injured according to the ministry.

Among the larger demonstrations, about 6,000 demonstrators turned out in Toulon, while in Montpellier police used tear gas during clashes with protesters.

More than 40,000 people also protested in the Austrian capital, Vienna, where vaccination against COVID-19 is set to become compulsory from next month.

Police said the demonstration was largely peaceful.

In Germany, protesters rallied in several cities on Saturday, with the largest event held in Hamburg, where some 16,000 people attended, according to the police.

The protest was held under the banner “Enough! Hands off our children”.

Protesters take part in a demonstration and hold banners reading ‘We are the 
red line, no compulsory vaccination, protect the children’ and ‘Double 
vaccinated, lied to multiple times! Booster? No thanks’ in Duesseldorf, 
western Germany, on December 18, 2021 [Ina Fassbender/ AFP]

Italians gather to protest against mandatory vaccinations for people more 
than 50 and stricter rules for the unvaccinated in Turin, Italy, January 8, 
2022 [Massimo Pinca/ Reuters]

Germany, which is considering imposing a general vaccine mandate, began offering COVID-19 jabs to children between the ages of five and 11 last month

One protester wore a Star of David with the inscription “unvaccinated,” according to a police tweet. Officers added that they were investigating for incitement.

In Berlin, one coronavirus demonstration took the form of a car-and-bike convoy. Police counted more than 100 vehicles, 70 bikes and approximately 200 people overall.

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said the arguments made by vaccination opponents and coronavirus deniers had lost all measure and focus.

“A small group is willing to wipe all scientific knowledge off the table and voluntarily enter a bubble of bogus truths,” he said in comments to the Welt am Sonntag newspaper.

Protests also took place in Italy, with hundreds of people in the city of Turin protesting against rules that make vaccines mandatory for anyone more than the age of 50.

Tougher laws are also coming into force for others – from Monday, those who are unvaccinated can no longer use public transport or visit restaurants.

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The Alpine country is also the first EU nation to make vaccination mandatory, saying this will be implemented from February 1.

The new measures were announced by Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg on Friday morning after discussions with regional governors. “We have to look reality in the face,” he said at a news conference in the Tyrol.

Last Monday, Vienna announced a nationwide lockdown for the unvaccinated. That has now been extended to everyone as Austria battles to contain a fourth wave of the coronavirus.

“We do not want a fifth wave,” the chancellor said, as reported by public broadcaster ORF. “Nor do we want a sixth or seventh wave.”

Lockdown to begin on Monday

Schallenberg said the lockdown will start on Monday and initially last for 10 days. Most stores will close, and cultural events will be canceled.

Austria’s health minister said that schools would remain open for those who needed to go there but all parents were asked to keep their children at home if possible.

Under the lockdown for the unvaccinated announced earlier this week, people 12 years and older are banned from going outside except for essential activities such as work, attending classes, essential shopping, or going for a walk.

After 10 days, the effects will be assessed and if virus cases have not gone down sufficiently, the lockdown can be extended to a maximum of 20 days.

The latest data shows COVID infections in Austria have soared in recent weeks. Daily case numbers have trebled in November to more than 15,000 on Thursday. The country’s per capita infection rate is the highest so far this year.

Hospitals have been overwhelmed with many new COVID-19 patients, and deaths have been rising again, too.

Vaccination compulsory from February 1

The chancellor also addressed the decision to make vaccinations against COVID-19 compulsory.

“Despite months of work on persuasion, we have not succeeded in convincing enough people to get vaccinated,” Schallenberg said on Friday, deploring the overload on intensive care units.

“Increasing the vaccination rate durably is the only way of getting out of this vicious circle,” he added, saying this was the “exit ticket” from the pandemic.

Just over 64% of Austria’s population of 8.9 million was listed as being fully vaccinated against COVID by November 19, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). This is well below the average for Western Europe, although the figure for the EU as a whole is 65.5%.

For now, vaccination appears to have kept fatalities down. In the week of November 14, there were 35 deaths per 1 million population.

At the peak of an outbreak late last year, that figure stood at 169.

“We have too many political forces in this country vehemently opposing” vaccination, the chancellor complained, denouncing an “attack against our health system”.

Austrian authorities said on November 17 that travelers would need to show a negative PCR test upon entering the country. Previously, results from the cheaper lateral flow tests were allowed.

Across Europe, the pandemic has been accelerating and several countries have announced more restrictions in recent days to contain rising cases.

Authorities in Germany decided on Thursday to target the unvaccinated, restricting their access to the workplace and public transport.

The Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Greece have also announced similar measures in recent days.

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The migrants were found dead in the van intercepted at the Hungarian border on Tuesday, police told AFP.

The army checked the vehicle, which they found suspicious, and discovered 26 people alive, and two dead. All the migrants found in the van were men from Syria, according to initial findings.

The driver of the vehicle fled on foot and is currently being sought.

“This terrible act clearly shows one thing: the death of one or more people is deliberately accepted by the traffickers,” said conservative Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer.

Austria, which has seen an influx of migrants at its eastern and southern borders, stepped up controls in July.

Two hundred and fifty smugglers have been arrested since the start of the year, police said.

The east of the country had already been the scene of a similar drama a few years ago.

On 27 August 2015, 71 illegal immigrants from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, including three children and a baby, died of suffocation in the airtight compartment of a van, where they had been hidden by the smugglers. They were discovered in Austria but died while still on the other side of the border. Almost four years later, the Hungarian courts sentenced their smugglers to life imprisonment.

The emotion generated by the case helped to temporarily open the borders to hundreds of thousands of people seeking to reach Western Europe at the start of the 2015-2016 migration wave.

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Broad economic sanctions would be the EU’s strongest response yet to the forced landing of a Ryanair flight in May by Belarusian authorities to arrest an exiled dissident, a move the bloc’s leaders have called state piracy.

Restrictions on the Belarusian financial sector, if agreed by EU governments at a political level, will include a ban on new loans, a ban on EU investors from trading securities or buying short-term bonds, and a ban on EU banks from providing investment services. EU export credits will also end.

Friday’s agreement overcame objections from Austria, whose Raiffeisen Bank International is a big player in Belarus through its Priorbank subsidiary.

EU leaders meet next Thursday for a scheduled summit. It was not yet clear if they will approve the deal agreed by expert officials.

“With this agreement, the EU is sending a clear and targeted signal against the Belarusian regime’s unbearable acts of repression,” the Austrian foreign ministry said in a statement.

President Alexander Lukashenko, in power since 1994, has argued that the journalist pulled off the plane on May 23, Roman Protasevich, had been plotting a rebellion, and he has accused the West of waging a hybrid war against him.

The EU, NATO, Britain, Canada and the United States have expressed outrage that a flight between EU members Greece and Lithuania was pressed to land in Minsk and authorities then arrested the 26-year-old exiled dissident with his 23-year-old girlfriend.

POTASH, TOBACCO, OIL

EU experts tasked with drawing up sanctions agreed on a ban of exports from the bloc of any communications equipment that could be used for spying, and a tighter arms embargo to include hunting rifles.

They also agreed with restrictions on EU purchases from Belarus of tobacco products, as well as oil and oil-related products, and a ban on importing potash, a major Belarusian export.

There will be exemptions in the financial sanctions for humanitarian purposes, while private savings of Belarusian citizens will not be affected, one of the diplomats said.

Closely allied to Russia, which sees Belarus as a buffer country against NATO expansion, Lukashenko has been impervious to foreign pressure since disputed elections last August, which the opposition and the West say were rigged. Massive street protests have had little impact on his grip on power.

The EU has already imposed three rounds of sanctions on individuals, including Lukashenko, since last year, freezing their assets in the EU and banning travel. On Monday, foreign ministers will approve another round, with 78 people and eight entities to be blacklisted, diplomats said.

EU governments now want to hit sectors that are central to the Belarus economy, to inflict real punishment on Lukashenko.

Exports of potash – a potassium-rich salt used in fertilizer – are a major source of foreign currency for Belarus, and state firm Belaruskali says it produces 20% of the world’s supply.

The EU statistics agency said the bloc imported 1.2 billion euros ($1.5 billion) worth of chemicals including potash from Belarus last year, as well as more than 1 billion euros worth of crude oil and related products such as fuel and lubricants.

Germany has said sanctions should continue until Belarus holds free elections and releases political prisoners.

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The Netherlands, Belgium and Austria on Sunday banned flights from the U.K. and Germany considered limiting such flights to make sure that a new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southern England does not establish a strong foothold on the continent.

The Netherlands banned flights from the U.K. for at least the rest of the year while Belgium issued a flight ban for 24 hours starting at midnight and also halted train links to Britain, including the Eurostar. German officials were considering “serious options” regarding incoming flights from the U.K., but have not yet taken action.

Austria said it would also halt flights from the U.K. but there were no immediate details on the timing of the ban, the Austrian news agency APA reported. The Czech Republic, meanwhile, imposed stricter quarantine measures from people arriving from the U.K.

The five EU governments say their response comes in reaction to tougher measures imposed Saturday in London and surrounding areas by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He immediately put those regions into a new Tier 4 level of restrictions, saying that a fast-moving new variant of the virus that is 70% more transmissible than existing strains appears to be driving the rapid spread of new infections in London and southern England.

“There’s no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness,” Johnson said, or that vaccines will be less effective against it.

Italy also plans to suspend flights to and from the U.K. over concerns about the new coronavirus strain, its Foreign Minister Luigi di Maio announced Sunday afternoon local time.

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The fast-food chain’s 194 local branches in the country will act as contact points for distressed US citizens trying to get help from their embassy.

Anyone asking for help in McDonald’s will be connected to a 24-hour hotline to reach their representative.

The move came at the request of US consular officials, McDonald’s spokesman Wilhelm Baldia told local news site, Kurier.

“Firstly, because of the brand’s great reputation among Americans, and secondly, because there are relatively many branches in Austria,” he said.

Baldia said the restaurants could not provide any emergency services, nor would the golden arches become US territory as is usually the case with foreign embassies.

The burger chain tie-up does not replace any consular staff or services.

“This partnership is only one extra way for Americans to connect to the embassy when they are in an emergency situation,” the embassy explained on its Facebook page. “Our embassy is fully staffed and ready to assist American citizens in need.”

Its page shows Isabelle Kuster, Managing Director of McDonald’s in Austria, shaking hands with U.S. Ambassador Trevor Traina, a former tech entrepreneur and Republican Party donor from San Francisco who was appointed in 2018 by President Donald Trump.

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