German government

However, critics have argued from the outset that the system is vulnerable to fraud. Now those premonitions have come true.

Germany will impose a quarantine on people arriving from Britain due to the spread thereof the coronavirus variant first found in India, the Robert Koch health institute said on May 21. 

From Sunday, all travelers arriving from the U.K. will have to submit to a quarantine period of two weeks, regardless of whether they can provide a negative test result for the virus.

The Biden administration will waive sanctions on the company behind Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe and its chief executive, with the United States Department of State set to deliver a report as early as Wednesday, a source familiar with the plans told Reuters news agency on Wednesday.

Germany will soon authorize the AstraZeneca/Oxford COVID-19 vaccine for people over the age of 65, Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday, the same day Belgium authorized its rollout to seniors.

The countries - both criticized for the slow pace of their inoculation drives - had previously said there was insufficient data about the effect of the vaccine on older age groups.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a video conference with her Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, welcomed recent positive developments in the eastern Mediterranean, Germany said in a statement on Monday.

Turkey's oil and gas prospecting in eastern Mediterranean waters have been fiercely contested by Germany's European Union partners Cyprus and Greece.

Reports in German media outlets that the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is less effective in older people appear to be unfounded, the German government said Tuesday.

Yet, another topic is slowly returning to focus: the parliamentary elections and the departure of the chancellor.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed possibilites for closer cooperation in the coronavirus pandemic situation. The two leaders are said to have discussed possible ways of jointly producing vaccines during a phone call.

The health ministries of thw two countries will continue the talks on the matter together with exeprts.

European countries started banning flights coming from the U.K. on Dec. 20 as government in London warned that a potent new strain of the virus was "out of control".

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is set to approve its first COVID-19 vaccine on Dec. 23, a German government source told Reuters on Tuesday, putting EU countries on track to start to catch up with the United States and Britain, where immunisation campaigns are under way.