Europe at a glance

Brussels

Covid package: European leaders agreed an unprecedented s750bn fiscal stimulus package this week, to help member states worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. Funded by the issuance of the EU’s first major common debt, the package was hammered out at a marathon – and sometimes rancorous – 100-hour summit that ended at 5.30am on Tuesday, following an all-night session. In a concession to the “frugal four” northern states (the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden and Denmark), grants account for only 52% of the funds, rather than the twothirds originally proposed. The rest will be made up of repayable loans. To be eligible, countries will have to prepare “recovery and resilience plans”, which must be approved by a vote of EU leaders. The main beneficiaries are expected to include Italy, Spain and Poland. Analysts broadly saw the agreement as a sensible template for managing the crisis ( see page 49).

Nantes

Cathedral fire: A major fire broke out at Nantes Cathedral early last Saturday, destroying a 17th century organ and shattering a stained-glass window – but the blaze was swiftly brought under control, and most of the building, including the roof, was saved. Initial reports suggested the fire had started in three separate areas of the Gothic building. An investigation into arson has been opened, but officials stressed that the cause of the fire had not been established. A Rwandan refugee who was taken in for questioning was later cleared of any involvement. Work on the cathedral began in 1434, and was finally completed in 1891. After a fire in 1972, its wooden roof was replaced with a concrete one.

Barcelona

Covid surge: Almost four million people in Catalonia, including parts of Barcelona, have been urged to stay at home, as part of a raft of measures to counter a resurgence in coronavirus cases. The new round of restrictions stop short of a mandatory lockdown, but are the strictest to be imposed in Spain since the lifting of its state of emergency last month. Foreign tourists are expected to comply with the stay at home guidance, which is aimed at avoiding a return to full lockdown. Yet museums and other tourist attractions in Barcelona have remained open – as have restaurants, albeit with sharply reduced capacity. Last weekend, King Felipe led a memorial event for the more than 28,000 people who have died with Covid-19 in Spain – a ceremony intended as an act of national closure. However, since then, the country has recorded its biggest daily increases in new cases since mid-May.

Minsk

New candidate: Opponents of Belarus’s authoritarian president Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in office since 1994 and is seeking a sixth term next month, have rallied behind a 38-year-old housewife with no political experience. Svetlana Tikhanovskaya announced her candidacy after her husband Sergei – a popular blogger – was arrested at one of the many recent anti-Lukashenko protests. All of the president’s rivals have either been jailed or barred from standing in the election, including Viktar Babaryka, 56, a former banker who was arrested in June, and Valery Tsepkalo, a former ambassador to the US. Both have now backed Tikhanovskaya.

Athens

Pensioners wanted: Greece is hoping to boost its economy by offering a flat rate of 7% income tax to foreign pensioners who settle in the country. “We want pensioners to relocate here,” said Athina Kalyva, head of tax policy at the finance ministry. “We have a beautiful country, a very good climate, so why not?” Greece won plaudits for its success in tackling the pandemic, but its tourism sector has been hard hit, and its economy is forecast to shrink by 9% this year. The government believes persuading foreign retirees to transfer their tax residence will help drive the recovery. The flat-rate tax would apply to all sources of income, including dividends, for ten years. “We hope that pensioners benefiting from this attractive rate will spend most of their time in Greece,” Kalyva told The Observer. Other EU states criticised the move, saying the measure amounted to running a discriminatory tax regime.

Oslo

Undertakers suffer: Norway’s response to the pandemic has been so effective, the country’s overall death rate has actually fallen – and six firms of undertakers have had to apply for state aid as a result. Erik Lande, a funeral director from the town of Lyngdal, said he’d normally expect to organise 30 funerals a month in the spring, but after lockdown was imposed in March, that fell to ten. Not one of those deaths was from Covid-19. “It not only broke the back of the coronavirus, but other viruses too,” he said. “So much so that some of the old and sick people who would have died in normal circumstances are still around.” Norway has recorded just 255 Covid deaths. Overall deaths were down 6% in May, and 13% in June.

Sofia

Beach row sparks national protests: A small protest over access to a beach on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast has ballooned into the country’s biggest anti-corruption protests in years – with tens of thousands of people taking to the streets nightly, demanding the resignation of the PM, Boyko Borissov. The wave of anger was sparked by the revelation that the stretch of state-owned beach had been appropriated for the private use of Ahmed Dogan, 66, a multimillionaire businessman and founder of a small political party that backs Borissov’s right-wing government. Earlier this month, an opposition politician and former justice minister was forcibly removed from the beach, which is close to Dogan’s villa, by suspected state security guards. A video of the incident went viral – crystallising long-standing fears Bulgaria has fallen under the sway of an unaccountable oligarchy.