A framework to simplify and strengthen ties between Switzerland and the EU was on the road to collapsing on Wednesday as the Swiss government met to consider breaking off talks over ratification of a draft treaty struck in 2018. A summit last month failed to resolve differences over a pact widely criticised within Switzerland, Reuters reported.

European Union and US top trade officials on Thursday will seek to further cement recent advances in settling some key differences that have soured trans-Atlantic relations over the past few years.

Britain has asked the EU give it more time to solve the post-Brexit Northern Irish border riddle, proposing to phase in checks on food from October, the BBC reported on Monday. At the same time Ireland said the deal needed to be made to work.

European Union foreign ministers will hold urgent video talks on the escalating fighting between Israel and the Palestinians on Tuesday, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced, AFP reported. “In view of the ongoing escalation between Israel and Palestine and the unacceptable number of civilian casualties, I am convening an extraordinary VTC of the EU Foreign Ministers on Tuesday,” Josep Borrell wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

As the EU leaders did in the last weekend in Lisbon, we reassured Czechia with the strong support by the EU in light of the recent events related to Russia, but at the same time everybody agrees on the need not to increase the tensions, said Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy at a news conference on Monday after “a  long and intense” Foreign Affairs Council, held in person in Brussels.

The European Union started delivering EU-funded coronavirus vaccines on Tuesday to the Western Balkans, news wires reported. The European Commission last month announced that 651,000 Pfizer-BioNTech doses will be delivered to Serbia, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo from May to August.

The Russian foreign ministry on Friday barred eight officials from the EU from entering the country in retaliation for sanctions imposed on Russian citizens, news wires reported. Among those banned are Vera Jourova, Commission VP for values and transparency, and David Sassoli,  European Parliament President.

Russia's foreign ministry on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of seven diplomats from Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, in retaliation for the expulsion of Russian envoys. The ministry gave the three Slovak and two Lithuanian diplomats, as well as an envoy from Latvia and another from Estonia one week to leave Russia, Reuters reported.

Russia announced that 20 diplomats from the Czech Republic will be expelled from the country as an answer to the expulsion of 18 Russian diplomats on Saturday, news wires reported. Moscow has given the Czech diplomats a day to leave while Prague has given the Russians 72 hours. EU foreign ministers are set to discuss the matter during a meeting today.

The European Union said on Friday that Britain should not change trading rules in Northern Ireland on its own and that the bloc would continue its legal case over unilateral British action in the province for as long as necessary.