European Parliament Committee Approves Vaccine Certificate

The European Parliament Committee approved the regulation of the new type of coronavirus vaccine certificate, which is planned to be used in travels within the borders of the European Union (E.U.).

Members of the committee accepted the vaccination certificate arrangement for E.U. citizens with 52 “yes,” 13 “no,” and 3 “abstaining” votes, and the vaccine certificate arrangement for third-country nationals with 53 “yes,” 10 “no,” and 5 “abstention” votes.

According to the regulation, the vaccination certificate, which will come into force on July 1, will be free.

The certificate will be prepared on paper or digitally. People who are not vaccinated to prevent discrimination will also be able to have a certificate.

The vaccination certificate will include information showing whether people have a Covid-19 vaccine, where and which vaccine if any, a document about the recovery and antibody level of those who have had the disease, and the Covid-19 test result.

With the certificate, travel restrictions for people who have had Covid-19 vaccines approved in the E.U. can be lifted. After that, however, E.U. countries will decide for themselves whether to accept other vaccines.

However, the government of India has issued a warning against sharing their certificates on social media. The Ministry of Home Affairs has posted the advisory on Twitter from the Cyber Dost account, which is the Cyber-safety and Cybersecurity awareness handle. Warning users against posting their certificates, the government said in a tweet, “Beware of sharing #vaccination certificate on social media because the vaccine certificate contains your name and other personal details.”

EU-US Summit to be Held on June 15

It has been reported that the EU-US Summit, which will bring together the European Union (E.U.) and the U.S. President Joe Biden, will be held in Brussels on June 15.

European External Action Service Secretary-General Stefano Sannino, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of State, Wendy Sherman, welcomed the upcoming EU-US Summit as an essential step in the revitalized transatlantic partnership.

There was no official statement about the date of the meeting, where the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the President of the E.U. Commission Ursula von der Leyen will meet with U.S. President Joe Biden for the first time.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said in a statement about the talks with E.U. officials in Brussels today that the summit to be held on June 15 was discussed. The issue of how to revive the relations between the parties was discussed.

The document underlines, “The two sides underscored the shared EU-US interest in strengthening the rules-based international order and pledged further close cooperation in support of democratic values, global and regional stability, and universal human rights.”

“They discussed a range of foreign policy issues of mutual concern, such as Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, and the recent violence in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza,” adds the statement. “They exchanged views on the Eastern Mediterranean, Western Balkans, Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, the Indo-Pacific, Ethiopia, and Venezuela.”

In addition, Biden will travel from Brussels to Geneva to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin on June 16.

Investigation into Archegos Incident Shaking the Market

The Department of Justice investigates the market-rattling meltdown of Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management in March. This debacle left big banks in Europe, Asia, and the U.S. nursing more than $10 billion in losses.

In March, the hedge fund Archegos remained in an adverse position, and many investment banks sold billions of dollars of shares to collect collateral, which was the subject of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation.

According to sources close to the subject who spoke to Bloomberg, the Ministry sent a request for information to some banks. However, it was not clear at the first stage for which violations the banks were subject to investigation.

Due to the Archegos incident, many investment banks, especially Credit Suisse and Nomura, announced billions of dollars in losses.

Credit Suisse announced that it expected a $654 million loss in the second quarter of the year due to the collapse of the U.S. hedge fund Archegos Capital.

One of Archegos’ largest brokers, Morgan Stanley, had sold some of its most risky positions to hedge funds the night before sales at a loss that caused heavy losses to other investment banks.

Morgan Stanley sold Archegos’ $5 billion worth of positions in U.S. media and Chinese technology companies to a small hedge fund group on Thursday evening, March 25. Morgan Stanley survived this disaster undamaged, while Deutsche Bank was another bank that narrowly escaped the earthquake by selling its Archegos positions to a hedge fund.

Deutsche Bank, which sold its Archegos position of around $4 billion to hedge funds on Friday, March 26, shortly after the fund went into default, was spared the devastation that cost many banks billions of dollars.

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