EU and Belarus discuss migration crisis, Brussels prepares sanctions

The European Union is ready to apply new sanctions against Belarus, after the first high-level contact between Brussels and Minsk since the start of the migration crisis on the EU's eastern border. After a telephone interview with the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei warned that any sanctions aimed at his country would be "hopeless" and "counterproductive". Borrell said the humanitarian situation is "precarious" on the Polish-Belarusian border. "The current situation is unacceptable and must end. People must not be used as weapons," he tweeted.

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Fine particle pollution caused 307,000 premature deaths in the European Union in 2019, a figure which remains alarming but which has fallen by more than 10% in one year, according to a report by the European Environment Agency published on Monday .

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