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BUDAPEST
Hungary’s top EU court nominee chosen unilaterally without formal selection, sources say. Neither a public application nor any other formal selection procedure preceded the nomination of Zoltán Csehi as the country’s new member of the European Court of Justice by Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga. According to Telex sources, Csehi had been a lawyer in the law firm of Varga’s predecessor until 2016 and had little experience in European law prior to being appointed to the European General Court that same year. Read more.
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EU PRESIDENCY
Commission wants to ‘explore options’ for India trade, investment. The European Commission said on Thursday it wants to “explore options” for expanding the EU’s trade and investment with India, notably ahead of a summit scheduled for May in Porto as part of Portugal’s presidency of the Council of the EU. Read the full story.
“We may be looking at the new, Croatian variant, of virus,” said Dr Oliver Vugrek, leader of the team of experts at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, who are still waiting for more data.
According to the team’s research – based on a sample collected in Zagreb on 30 January from a patient who caught the virus three months after successfully recovering from COVID-19 – the Brazil variant of the Sars-Cov-2 appears to have possibly mutated even further, though it remains unknown, for the time being, how fast the new variant will spread.
“Unfortunately, the situation is not as simple. The Ruđer Bošković Institute has discovered only one of the possible mutations which could date not only from the Brazilian but also from the virus’ South African and British variants. I spoke to Dr. Vugrek, who told us they are still analysing the genome. We will know more about the new variant in a week.” said the country’s Health Minister Vili Beroš, who also stressed the importance
ZAGREB, Dec 13 (Hina) – Thirty doctors and scientists said in an open letter on Sunday that without vaccination coronavirus would not go away, stressing that based on strict scientific tests they were confident that all approved vaccines would be effective and safe.
“Based on strict tests that are conducted before a vaccine is approved for use, in line with rigorous rules of the medical and scientific communities and regulatory agencies, we are confident that all approved vaccines against COVID-19 will be efficient and safe and that the risk of any serious side effects will be the smallest possible,” the signatories to the letter, including researcher Ivan Djikic, say.