Malta

The Finnish government says it has agreed to take in up to 175 asylum-seekers from camps in Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Malta "to alleviate the humanitarian situation" experienced by refugees in the Mediterranean members of the European Union.

In 2018, the European Union (EU) countries with the highest number of marriages relative to the population were Cyprus (7.8 marriages per 1 000 inhabitants), Romania (7.4), Lithuania (7.0) and Latvia (6.8). These were followed by Malta (5.8), Slovakia (5.7) and Denmark (5.6), Eurostat reported.

The European Commission said it sent a letter of formal notice to Greece on Wednesday over its failure to produce a national plan to control air pollution.

Member-states are required under EU directives to draw up and implement programs to limit their annual emissions. They had until April 1, 2019 to present the plan to the EU.

The EU's industrial output in 2019 slipped 1.1 percent compared to previous year, the bloc's statistical office reported on Feb. 12.

Eurostat said the figure was also down 1.7 percent in Eurozone during the same period.

The eurozone/euro area or EA19 represents member states that use the single currency -- euro -- while the EU27 includes all member countries of the bloc.

In 2019, approximately 1 in 3 EU citizens aged 16 to 74 reported security-related incidents when using the internet for private purposes in 2019 in the last 12 months.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias (left) and his Spanish counterpart, Arancha Gonzalez Laya (right), give a press conference following talks in Madrid on Monday. The officials agreed to "expand coordination in the context of the European Union, during the debate on reform of the Union's rules on asylum and on migration in general," Dendias said.

Tellingly, the new strategy was put together without consultation on the ground in the Balkans, which would have given it a better understanding of local realities.

In 2018, 5.2% of employed persons aged 15 to 64 in the European Union (EU) usually worked from home. This share has remained constant at around 5% throughout the last decade. However, over the same period, the share of those who sometimes work from home increased from 5.8% in 2008 to 8.3% in 2018.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is visiting Malta on Wednesday for talks with the country's President George Vella as well as with European and Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo.
Talks were to focus on issues of bilateral interest, including migration and ongoing regional developments, the Greek foreign ministry said. 

Athens and Ankara can resolve their differences to the benefit of both, said Greece's foreign minister on Feb. 3.

"I truly believe that Greece and Turkey can figure things out; it is in both our interests," Nikos Dendias said in an interview with Greek radio station Thema.