At their Council meeting on Monday, EU foreign affairs ministers adopted a decision and a regulation establishing a global human rights sanctions regime, an European version of the US Magnitsky Act. For the first time, the EU is equipping itself with a framework that will allow it to target individuals, entities and bodies responsible for, involved in or associated with serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide, no matter where they occurred. It includes state and non-state actors.

Charles Michel, President of the European Council, proposed on Thursday an international treaty on pandemics within the framework of the World Health Organization, while participating by video message in the Special Session of the UN General Assembly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on 3 and 4 December.

At the ECOFIN video conference on Tuesday, the German Presidency informed the economics and finance ministers about the agreement reached at technical level on amendments to the Council directive on administrative cooperation in the field of taxation, so called 'DAC 7'. 

At a video conference on Monday, EU education ministers held a debate on the goals and priorities of the cooperation in education and training among Member States in order to achieve a European Education Area by 2025.

The main challenges young people and youth organisations face during the Covid-19 pandemic were on the focus during the video conference of youth ministers that took place on Monday. 

European Union chief Charles Michel is inviting Joe Biden once he is US president to come visit and patch up trans-Atlantic relations that have suffered over the past four years under President Donald Trump.

Among the main topics at the video conference of defence ministers that took place on Friday was the development of the Strategic Compass to strengthen EU security and defence. They exchanged views about the first completed step in this process: the threat analysis.

The EU leaders’ corona coordination VTC on Thursday evening, convened by European Council President Charles Michel, commenced with a 30-minute discussion on the MFF and the recovery fund crisis. Three countries – Hungary, Poland and Slovenia strongly opposed tying up allocation of funds under these instruments to a wide-ranging rule of law conditionality regime.

On Thursday evening EU leaders will discuss the situation with the Covid-19 and the need to further reinforce the coordination in fighting the virus. The informal leaders’ video conference was convened by Charles Michel, President of the European Council. 

Enlargement was one of the items on the agenda during the video conference of European affairs ministers on 17 November. As expected, Sofia followed a firm line and did not give Skopje the long-awaited greenlight to start EU accession talks.