Health

Aurélie, 27, spent several years in prison. Maxime, 35, was an inmate in the Paris region, where the overcrowding rate is 160%. Like 13,000 other prisoners, he got out thanks to early-release measures enacted between March and May 2020. They told us their stories. 

While the poor state of French prisons led many to fear a serious health crisis in the wake of Covid-19, the worst of those fears have not materialised. However, the drastic lockdown measures have done nothing to benefit the mental health of detainees. Nor have they led to any serious reevaluation of the system itself.

Prisons make fertile breeding grounds for viruses, yet administrations have revealed little about Covid-19 cases, deaths and vaccinations in Europe’s prisons. Data from 32 countries show the pandemic’s impact on prisons.

Many autonomous communities are not providing the bare minimum of provision in Spain’s health service and are using stripped back services, age limits and imposing fees in order to avoid providing the service.

Barriers in many European countries push thousands of people abroad to access assisted reproductive technology techniques. In some cases, they take out huge loans to pay for the treatments.

The situation is much more difficult for trans and intersex people. In addition to the legal barriers, they face economic stumbling blocks: most public health systems cover only part of the costs or have very long wait lists or narrow access criteria.

The Covid-19 restrictive measures in the Balkans risk putting young people – a segment of the population that has been in constant demographic decline for years – in even more difficulty. A look at the pandemic and the state of the vaccination campaign in the Balkans for the youngest population.

In Europe, the period 2020-2021 was to mark the turning point in the fight against plastic waste, one of the most urgent problems of our century. Then came the new Coronavirus: with masks, gloves, and anti-contagion packaging, the risk of a step back is increasingly concrete

Meetings with dozens of assistants and thousands of civil servants fly under the radar of the EU's transparency register. The heads of the pharmaceutical industry, EFPIA is one of the most active lobby groups. In less than a year and a half since the start of the pandemic they have held as many meetings with senior Commission officials as in the last five years.

As the EU sets its sights on harmonising taxation of the rising e-cigarette and heated tobacco products market, lobbyists fight to keep prices down and smokers hooked. The forthcoming negotiations are intertwined with the bitter competition between the two industry giants.