The “My Voice, My Choice” citizens’ initiative proposes a fund from the EU budget to cover procedures for people from nations with near-total bans or places where abortion is hard to access

International News via Reuters:

The European Union’s parliament voted on Wednesday in favour of a scheme that would enable women from nations restricting abortion to terminate pregnancies in another member state free of charge.

The “My Voice, My Choice” citizens’ initiative proposes a fund from the EU budget to cover procedures for people from nations with near-total bans such as Malta and Poland or places where abortion is hard to access, like Italy and Croatia.

While the trend in Europe has been towards more accessibility for abortions, with the UK decriminalising it and France making it a constitutional freedom, there has been a surge in popular support for far-right parties, many of which oppose abortion.  

After the parliament vote of 358 for and 202 against, the European Commission is to decide in March whether to adopt the proposal, though other citizens’ initiatives have not been entirely successful. 

Proponents of the initiative, including abortion rights campaigners and some members of parliament (MEPs) from the left to centre-right, say it should reduce unsafe practices and help women who lack funds for a procedure abroad.

Critics, including far-right and some centre-right MEPs, say the proposal interferes in national laws and traditional Christian values.

Under the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) mechanism launched in 2012, the parliamentary vote is advisory only but can influence the Commission decision. 

‘EU STANDS BY WOMEN’

“Today we show the world, but above all our citizens, that the EU stands by women. The EU stands for gender equality, and the EU is not afraid to fulfil all human rights, also women’s human rights,” Swedish MEP Abir Al-Sahlani of the centrist Renew Europe group told reporters in Strasbourg.

In Poland, where abortion was outlawed in nearly all cases in 2021, abortion rights activists applauded the vote. 

“With that resolution, it means that (Polish women) do not have to risk their lives in the Polish healthcare system,” said Mateusz Bieżuński, a lawyer with Polish organisation Federa (Foundation for Women and Family Planning).

Jerzy Kwasniewski, of Polish anti-abortion group Ordo Iuris, said he viewed the vote as “contrary to European values” and expected the proposal to be rejected by the Commission.

In the lead-up to Wednesday’s vote, opponents held events with anti-abortion rights federation One of Us and the European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ), a sister organisation of the American Center for Law and Justice, which litigates on abortion cases, and was involved in the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade case.

“It is sad that Europe is stuck in this ideological approach,” ECLJ director Gregor Puppinck said of the vote. “The battle for us is first and foremost a cultural one, and deep down we are convinced that life will win in the end.”

Reporting by Layli Foroudi in Strasbourg, Paul Carsten in Berlin, Anna Semczuk-Wlodarczak and Kuba Stezycki in Warsaw; editing by Andrew Cawthorne, Mark Heinrich and Ed Osmond

Under a proposed directive from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), airlines must inspect the thickness of certain panels near the front of the aircraft within 6 months or sooner

International News via Reuters:

European safety authorities issued preliminary instructions on Wednesday requiring airlines to inspect fuselage panels on dozens of A320-family jets after a production problem at a Spanish supplier prompted Airbus to slow deliveries.

Under a proposed directive from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), airlines must inspect the thickness of certain panels near the front of the aircraft within 6 months or sooner if the affected panels have already been repaired.

A total of 177 planes in service are covered by the inspection order, in addition to a further 451 still in various stages of production inside Airbus itself.

EASA said the inspections were designed to address a “potentially unsafe condition” on panels that have a combination of the wrong thickness and a history of previous repairs.

The safety directive was expected after Airbus prepared its own technical instructions and gives airlines a timetable for resolving the problem.

Industry sources said some airlines are nonetheless reluctant to take new deliveries until panels have been replaced, while others have pressed for compensation or improvements in warranty terms.

Airbus declined to comment on any commercial discussions.  

The company earlier this month lowered its 2025 delivery target by 4% to around 790 jets after the panel flaw slowed deliveries in November.

Industry sources say deliveries remained below average in the first half of December, but have accelerated in recent days.

Airbus, which has a history of speeding up deliveries in the final days of the year, declined to  comment on deliveries ahead of a full-year breakdown due on January 12.

Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Kirsten Donovan

The building, long occupied by squatters, was cleared under orders from Badalona Mayor Xabier Garcia Albiol of the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP)

International News via Reuters:

Spanish police on Wednesday evicted hundreds of migrants from a former high school in the northeastern city of Badalona, in what a union representing local tenants described as the largest such eviction ever in Spain.

The building, long occupied by squatters, was cleared under orders from Badalona Mayor Xabier Garcia Albiol of the conservative opposition People’s Party (PP), whose views on migration clash with a more permissive stance of Spain’s leftist government.

Brief clashes erupted between riot police and activists and migrants, but most left peacefully carrying their belongings in carts or sat in the street with their luggage, with no other place to go.

Albiol justified the move by the need to fight illegality and crime, which he has often linked to irregular immigration, advocating deportations for offenders.

Spain’s central government has largely embraced migration, highlighting its economic benefits, at a time when other EU countries have been tightening borders and right-wing parties gaining traction with promises of tougher immigration controls.

The tenants’ union and other associations urged authorities to provide housing alternatives for the roughly 400 people evicted, but the migrants, such as 25-year-old undocumented Senegalese man Boubacar, said they had no choice but to sleep rough.

“Tonight our plan is to sleep in the street because we don’t know where to go. And as you can see, it’s raining right now and it’s cold, and we don’t know what to do. We’re going to have to sleep like this; it’s very hard,” said Boubacar, who only gave his first name.

In the same city five years ago, five people died when an industrial building caught fire with West African migrants inside.

Writing by Emma Pinedo; Editing by Aidan Lewis