Italian police on Friday smashed a northern Italian organisation made up of Iraqi Kurds engaged to help illegal immigrants come to Europe from Kurdistan, ANSA reported. The gang allegedly provided the migrants with fake documents in exchange for large sums of money, police said. Seven Iraqi Kurds were arrested in the police operation.

Lithuania on Friday refused to extradite to Belarus the opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, with the Baltic nation's foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis saying “hell will freeze over first" before the demand by Belarus' authoritarian leader is granted, AP reported.

Cyprus will open its doors from 1 May to British tourists who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, AFP reported, citing a government minister in Nicosia. "We informed the British government that as of May 1, we would facilitate the arrival of British citizens immunised with EU-licenced vaccines to enter Cyprus with no negative Covid-19 test and no quarantine," Tourism Minister Savvas Perdios said, quoted by the state-funded Cyprus News Agency.

Italy told the European Commission it was blocking the export of over 250,000 doses of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to Australia, the first EU member to make such a move, and the EC accepted the proposal, ANSA reported on Thursday. The shots were due to go to Australia. Italy's proposal was made in line with the new European mechanism on export controls.

Authorities in Hungary are tightening pandemic restrictions in an effort to mitigate a rapid rise in deaths and hospitalizations caused by COVID-19.

A French court on Thursday acquitted former prime minister Edouard Balladur on corruption charges after he was accused of using kickbacks from an arms deal but handed a suspended jail term to his former defence minister.

Two weeks before the general election in The Netherlands, scheduled for 17 March, the latest poll of polls hints that as many as 15 parties could be represented in the new parliament, DutchNews.nl reported. While support for PM Mark Rutte’s VVD remains far above the rest – with 23% to 25% of the vote – a number of new parties may win one or two, including pan European party Volt.

Swedish police on Thursday said they were no longer investigating possible terror motives for the attack in the town of Vetlanda, where a man stabbed and injured eight people a day earlier, AFP reported.

Lithuania will open a trade representation office this year in Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway province, a move that is bound to anger the Asian giant, Reuters reported. The office will be opened in a bid to boost economic diplomacy in Asia, Vytaute Smaizyte, the spokeswoman of the Economic and Innovation Ministry said on Wednesday.

German business groups expressed disappointment on Thursday after Chancellor Angela Merkel and state leaders agreed a gradual easing of coronavirus curbs but added an “emergency brake” to re-impose restrictions if case numbers get out of control, Reuters reported. “The results of the coronavirus summit are a disaster for the retail sector,” said Stefan Genth, chief executive of the HDE retail association.