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Turkish deputy interior minister Ismail Catakli rejects claims, accusing Greece of pushing back 231 migrants in seven incidents.

Greece has accused Turkey of trying to provoke it by attempting to push boats carrying migrants into Greek waters, a claim Ankara strongly rejected.

Greece and Turkey disagree on a range of issues, including energy resources in the Mediterranean Sea, and tensions between the NATO allies rose last year when thousands of asylum seekers in Turkey tried to storm the Greek land border.

Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said the Greek coastguard reported multiple incidents on Friday of the Turkish coastguard and navy accompanying migrant boats to the border of Europe, in an effort to provoke an escalation with Greece.

It is beyond doubt that these migrants departed Turkish shores, and given the fact they were supported by Turkey, were not at risk, Mitarachi said in a statement.We call on Turkey to stand down and stop this unwarranted provocation.

Turkish Deputy Interior Minister Ismail Catakli responded to Mitarachi on Twitter, saying he was distorting the events and telling lies.

Catakli accused Greece of pushing back 231 migrants in seven incidents that took place on Friday, adding that Turkey rescued them.

Thats a crime against humanity to slander the Turkish Coast Guard saving people you left to death. Thats typical of you, Catakli wrote.

Turkeys Coast Guard Command said it rescued the migrants from rubber boats off Izmir, Balikesir and Canakkale provinces.

The Greek coastguard said in one incident a boat carrying migrants tried to enter Greek territorial waters on Friday accompanied by a Turkish coastguard vessel. In another, two Turkish vessels tried to push a dingy with migrants into Greek waters.

In a third incident off the island of Lesbos, a Turkish coastguard vessel entered Greek territorial waters and harassed a Greek patrol boat, it said.

Nearly a million asylum seekers, mostly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans, crossed into Greece from Turkey on boats in 2015 at the start of Europes migration crisis. A year later, the European Union struck a deal with Ankara to stem the flow and numbers fell dramatically.

Mitarachi called on Turkey to live up to its commitments under the deal.

The neighbouring NATO allies are at odds over issues such as competing claims over their respective continental shelves, maritime rights, and air space in the Mediterranean, energy, ethnically split Cyprus, and the status of some islands in the Aegean Sea.

Underlining the tensions, Turkey last month protested against a deal between Greece, Israel and Cyprus for an undersea cable linking their electricity grids.

According to the state-run Anadolu news agency, Ankara believes the planned route for the cable runs through Turkeys continental shelf.

Exploratory talks are meant to lay the ground for formal negotiations, but the two countries have made little progress in more than 60 rounds of meetings since 2002 and cannot even agree on what issues to discuss.

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Greece accuses Turkey of trying to provoke it with migrant boats - Al Jazeera English

A range of European Union institutions including the European Commission were hit by a significant cyber-attack last week.

A spokesperson for the commission said that a number of EU bodies experienced an IT security incident in their IT infrastructure. The spokesperson said forensic analysis of the incident is still in its initial phase and that its too early to provide any conclusive information about the nature of the attack.

We are working closely with CERT-EU, the Computer Emergency Response Team for all EU institutions, bodies and agencies and the vendor of the affected IT solution, the spokesperson said. Thus far, no major information breach was detected.

The attack was serious enough for senior officials at the commission to be alerted, according to a person familiar with the matter. The same person said the incident was bigger than the usual attacks that regularly hit the EU. Another EU official said that staff had recently been warned about potential phishing attempts.

Western institutions have uncovered at least two serious cyber-attacks recently.

The European Banking Authority disclosed last month that its systems may have been compromised following an attack on Microsoft Corp.s email software that was linked to China and exposed the data of tens of thousands of organizations, according to cybersecurity experts. The U.S. government was hit by suspected Russian cyber-attackers last yearafter systems at The SolarWinds Corp. were breached.

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European Institutions Were Targeted in a Cyber-Attack Last Week - Bloomberg

A vision for a healthier European Union

The COVID-19 pandemic has reminded us of the foundational importance of our health and has exposed weaknesses in health systems all over the world. For example, in Europe, during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, an estimated 84% of rare disease patients experienced some sort of disruption of their care. Going forward, it is evident that EU Health needs to be stronger than ever, and in this instance, can ensure that all rare disease patients in Europe have access to the right diagnosis and treatment they need.

This strategy is precisely the plan being adopted by the European Commission as we start to look beyond the COVID-19 crisis. The EU recognises the need to grasp this opportunity to strengthen its healthcare systems in terms of effectiveness, resilience, and accessibility.

The new EU4Health Programme is Europes most ambitious funding programme for health ever and will make an enormous contribution to the post-COVID-19 recovery by helping the European population to be healthier, strengthening the resilience of its health systems, and promoting innovation within the health sector. Furthermore, it will help fill the gaps revealed by the COVID-19 crisis and ensure that EU health systems are stronger if faced with new unprecedented health threats, as part of a future robust European Health Union. It is opening up a new chapter for EU health policy.

Starting with a focus on building a solid foundation of recovery and resilience, the programme will then work to build back better, by boosting and expanding work on urgent health priorities such as successful initiatives such as the European Reference Networks for rare diseases, the fight against cancer, reducing the number of antimicrobial-resistant infections and pursuing international cooperation on global health threats and challenges. The overarching aims of the project are:

Boosting digital health and disease prevention. The ongoing digital transformation of healthcare is a vital tool that must be utilised to improve accessibility.

Stella Kyriakides, Commissioner for Health and Food Safety commented on the impressive funding of the programme, stating that with 5.1 billion, EU4Health will help strengthen our crisis preparedness and management of cross-border health threats as well as reinforcing the EUs healthcare systems overall. EU4Health opens up a new chapter for EU health policy and sends a clear signal to people in Europe that public health is our priority and that we have listened to their concerns.

Through the approval of the EU4Health Programme, it is clear to see that Europe is committed to improving its healthcare sector and meeting its ambitious goals.

On top of this, other EU programmes alongside EU4Health will provide additional investments in the health sector to complement the programme. These consist of:

European Social Fund Plus (ESF+) to support vulnerable groups in accessing healthcare.

European Regional and Development Fund to improve regional health infrastructure.

Horizon Europe for health research.

Union Civil Protection Mechanism/rescEU to create stockpiles for emergency medical supplies.

Digital Europe and Connecting Europe Facility for creating the digital infrastructure needed for digital health tools.

Commissioner Kyriakides made a keynote speech in March 2021 calling to place significant emphasis on having patients at the very centre when re-designing Europes healthcare provision. She firmly stated that while this has been a priority in the past, in European healthcare today, there is still a need for more integration, and more cooperation between patients, informal carers and health professionals. What may seem to be a good result from a doctors perspective may not be the same for a patient. As we strive to build stronger health systems, the patients perspective is invaluable. It complements our knowledge and helps us to improve, she highlighted.

Therefore, the EUs Health Programme has funded initiatives that target this goal, and Europe is well on its way to building back a more sustainable and resilient healthcare system with patients at the heart.

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A vision for a healthier European Union - Open Access Government

The European Union on Sunday called for the departure of all foreign forces and mercenaries from Libya, describing it as a precondition for a return to stability in the war-torn country.

At a news conference in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, EU Council President Charles Michel described the appointment of a transitional government earlier this year as a historic moment. The government is meant to shepherd the country through until general elections on Dec. 24.

You have created an opportunity to rebuild your country, but there is one precondition all foreign fighters and troops must leave the country, he said, urging Libyas political and mostly armed factions to seize a unique opportunity to build a united sovereign stable and prosperous country.

A recently released report by U.N. experts accused several foreign governments of turning the oil-rich country into a stage to play out rivalries and ignoring U.N. sanctions and a decade-long U.N. arms embargo, which it said has remained totally ineffective.

The experts identified Turkey and Qatar as the backers of forces loyal to the U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli, to the west, while the United Arab Emirates, Russia, and Egypt have supported Khalifa Hifter, the military commander controlling eastern and southern parts of Libya.

Michel, who met the leaders of the newly appointed government, said the EU was supporting efforts at national reconciliation, following the years of chaos since the 2011 uprising that overthrew and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

Mohammad Younes Menfi, head of the presidential council, said he and Michel discussed migration and the security of maritime borders between Libya and the EU, according to the office of the Libyan leader. Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and seeking a better life in Europe.

Other European leaders would be visiting Libya in the coming days, reflecting the importance of EU-Libyan ties, an EU official said, adding that the EU ambassador to Libya would return to Tripoli by the end of April. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

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European Union calls for foreign forces and mercenaries to leave Libya - Haaretz

On two separate occasions prior to the Easter holiday, New Europe had the opportunity to meet with Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italys Lega party and the former deputy prime minister, in Rome to about a wide range of issues that included the EUs immigration policy, management of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines and a development plan for the south of Italy proposed by his party.

New Europe (NE): After your meeting with the prime ministers of Poland and Hungary, are you planning to found a new group in the European Parliament? If so, and if were talking about immigration, what are your priorities at the EU level?

Matteo Salvini (MS): The top priories are the EU repatriation policy and border protection. When were talking about these two specific issues, were asking for more Europe . In some policy areas, we want the other members of the European Union to be able to decide for themselves on other issues, but on these two specific points, we think Europe should have a major role in terms of cooperation. Speaking about a larger vision for the future of the European Union, I think after the COVID crisis, the EU needs to reinvent itself and find a new soul. The political groups inside the European Parliament should seize the occasion and use it as a way to change. If today we could fuse together the European Conservatives and Reformists and Identity and Democracy groups, we could have the second biggest group in the parliament, a true alternative to the European Peoples Party/Socialists and Democrats duo.

NE: What do you think about the possibility of locking all of Italy for the entire month of April as has been suggested by Health Minister Roberto Speranza?

MS: I personally requested that Prime Minister Mario Draghi should always take the scientific data into consideration. If the data tells us that those specific areas should stay in the red zone, then restrictions need to be kept. However, if other areas in the country have good data in terms of positive cases and hospitalizations, they need to be put in the yellow zone. This is not the case now in terms of how it is being done. For example, as of March 31, based on the most up-to-date data that we have, Sardinia could reopen. I dont know why the 1.5 million inhabitants of Sardinia should be forced to stay home and close up their shops for the entire month of April only because some only see red across the whole country. Red is the color seen by bulls and Communists. Were asking for a clear and logical system if it red we close but if the situation is good we must reopen. I agree with what PM Draghi said that we have to look at the scientific data. If in April, some regions should be classified in the yellow zone, then we must reopen them, What is at stake are thousands of jobs and the mental health of Italians. It is completely nonsense to be able to verify, from March 31 till the end of April, specific restrictions about red and orange zones. This issue should not be treated from an ideological point of view, but only one that is scientific and pragmatic. Yesterday, I saw the updated data from the regions about the pandemic in Italy. The number of hospitalizations, ICUs and positive cases are all decreasing. Therefore, if this trend continues for the next several days, there is no way to justify extended lockdown closures after April 15.

NE: The lack of vaccines jabs in Italy and the EU is still an unresolved issue. Which of the other available vaccines could be interesting for you? For Example, I know that you have contacts with the Indian authorities.

MS: Whatever vaccine is effective is welcome in Italy. India is a very advanced country with regards its pharmaceutical research. I would use the Indian vaccine tomorrow morning, if possible. I spoke with the President of the Veneto Region, Luca Zaia, and in the Veneto, they are distributing vaccines very fast, but now the main problem is that the original vaccine provisions are coming to an end and new doses are not arriving. Regarding the self-sufficiency of vaccines, Giancarlo Giorgetti, the Minister for Economic Development, is working to accelerate the production of vaccines in Italy. By the end of the year, Italy-based production should be at full speed.

NE: Youve developed a plan to relaunch and support the development of Southern Italy. How can Europe help with this initiative and what are you asking the EU to do to help implement your plan?

MS: We havent asked for anything. Europe should only respect the existing pacts and let us continue to work on our own. The EU should deliver on its promised numbers of vaccines and let Italian entrepreneurs, farmers, fishermen and researchers work without ridiculous regulations that block the further development of a company like Alitalia. Were not asking for money, just the right to the freedom to work.

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INTERVIEW with Matteo Salvini: The European Union needs to reinvent itself and find a new soul - New Europe