France’s prime minister Friday strongly recommended French citizens not travel to the Spanish region of Catalonia after a surge in COVID-19 cases there in recent weeks.Prime Minister Jean Castex made the comments to reporters at Charles de Gaulle Airport just north of Paris. He said the French government is in discussion with Spanish and Catalan authorities, to limit the number of travelers coming into France from Spain as well. He said the border between the two countries would remain open for now.Nearly 8,000 cases were diagnosed in Catalonia in the 14 days leading up to Thursday — almost half of the 16,410 detected throughout Spain during that time — despite guidelines for residents of regional capital Barcelona to stay at home. Compulsory testingCastex also told reporters France would begin compulsory testing of people arriving at French airports and seaports from 16 countries outside the European Union where the infection rate is high. Those who test positive will be required to enter quarantine. Health care workers wearing protective equipment gear collect a swab sample from a passenger at a COVID-19 screening booth set up in the arrival hall of Charles de Gaulle Airport, north of Paris, July 24, 2020.The 16 countries include the United States, Brazil, Algeria, Bahrain, Israel, India, South Africa, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Panama, Peru, Serbia, Turkey and Madagascar.Castex said around 3,000 arrivals from these countries are expected to be tested at the Charles de Gaulle Airport. He said the testing would be conducted as quickly as possible with the help of the Paris Hospital Service. The prime minister did not specify if people would have to wait at the airport for the results of their tests. 
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Hungary’s prime minister on Friday touted what he called his victory at the European Union summit, where the bloc’s leaders decided on a massive seven-year budget and coronavirus recovery plan, but acknowledged he did not achieve his goal of de-linking EU funds from rule of law considerations.
Hungary and Poland, two nations led by right-wing populist governments, are both in the midst of EU proceedings over concerns that they are violating EU standards with laws and practices that threaten the independence of judges and press freedoms, and could face sanctions. At the marathon EU summit that ended Tuesday, leaders had debated tying receiving EU funds to demands that member nations follow EU democratic standards but did not explicitly do so.
“Polish and Hungarians … thwarted the attempt of others deciding about the money due to us,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Friday on state radio about the EU deal worth just over 1.8 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in which Hungary and Poland were considered to be among the greatest beneficiaries.
At the end of the summit, Orban said “any attempt to make a connection between the rule of law and the budget was … successfully rejected,” but on Friday he acknowledged the issue is far from settled.
“We didn’t win the war but simply only a very important battle,” Orban said.
According to news site portfolio.hu, Hungary may get as much as 52.8 billion euros ($61.3 billion) from the EU in the seven-year budget period starting in 2021, about 35% more than in the last budget.
Orban arrived at the EU summit with a resolution from the Hungarian parliament demanding, among other things, an end to an EU sanctioning process launched against Hungary in 2018 due to rule of law concerns.
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said the initiative to close the proceeding “must come from Hungary.”  
“Hungary would like — this is what Prime Minister Orban has told me — for this not to be such an impasse,” Merkel at the end of the summit. “We will support Hungary in this. But the decisive paths must, of course, be specified by Hungary.”
While Orban had mentioned even vetoing a deal at the summit if funds were tied to rule of law standards, it would have been highly risky to go directly against the wishes of Germany, which is Hungary’s largest trading partner and was strongly behind the coronavirus recovery package.
“Viktor Orban understood that he could not fundamentally oppose German aspirations and interests, which were for there to be an agreement by all means,” said Attila Tibor Nagy of the Center for Fair Political Analysis.
He said with Germany worried about a collapse of key export markets like Italy and Spain, “the Hungarian government realized that the rule of law clause was not worth vetoing over.”
After the EU summit, however, EU officials reiterated that nations still must adhere to democratic standards. There are also concerns that Hungary and Poland have refused to join the EU public prosecutor’s office, which will be investigating fraud connected to EU funds.  
Hungary has built a rash of large soccer stadiums in small towns under Orban’s rule. Some officials in Hungary and other EU nations have also been accused of obtuse land deals that gave them access to EU farm subsidies while impoverishing farmers.  
“Protecting our budget and the respect for the rule of law go hand in hand,” EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday in the EU Parliament. “We must also do everything we can to protect European money by stepping up the fight against fraud.”
“This means having the right controls in place, including a database that puts us in the position to know who the final beneficiaries of EU funding are,” she added.
Von der Leyen said the Commission would seek to again advance its proposal for funding cuts to member states that had a lack of judicial independence or other democratic failings. And EU Parliament President David Sassoli said this week that tying rule of law demands to disbursements was “a topic the Parliament cares a lot about.”  
The EU legislature on Thursday adopted a resolution by a wide majority which, while criticizing cuts to the 2021-2027 EU budget in research and health, also expressed lawmakers’ desire to make sure that governments violating the bloc’s “fundamental values” will have their access to EU funds blocked or limited.
The European Parliament has the final say in approving the budget.
Given that atmosphere, the Orban government is preparing supporters for new confrontations with the EU over its perceived democratic deficits.
Hungarian Justice Minister Judit Varga, who has faced strong criticism in the European Parliament while defending Hungarian policies, told the pro-government Magyar Nemzet newspaper that “the gist of the fight is yet to come.”
“I expect a new series of tougher, more unscrupulous attacks than ever before to begin in the fall,” Varga said.
Analysts said the trend in the EU was to reinforce rule of law principles.
“It’s evident that Viktor Orban sees, as do others, that the EU is increasingly going moving toward the implementation of these kinds of conditions and the retention of funds,” said Andrea Virag, strategic director at Republikon Institute, a Budapest-based liberal think-tank. “So while they may be talking about a victory, they are readying themselves and voters that a debate about this is still to come.”
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New rules on wearing masks in England came into effect Friday, with people going to shops, banks and supermarkets now required to wear face coverings. The move came a day after Belgium imposed its own mask requirement to slow increasing coronavirus infections.
Those in England can be fined as much as 100 pounds ($127) by police if they refuse. The British government had given mixed signals for weeks before deciding on the policy. Venues like restaurants, pubs, gyms and hairdressers are exempt.
John Apter, the national chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, says officers will be available as a last resort but that he hopes the public “will continue to do the right thing” to protect other citizens.  
In Belgium, health authorities said a three-year old girl has died after testing positive for COVID-19 as new infections surged 89% from the previous week.
On Thursday, Belgian authorities beefed up restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus, including making masks mandatory in crowded outdoor public spaces. A country of 11.5 million, Belgium has been hard hit by the pandemic with 64,847 cases and 9,812 deaths recorded so far.
In Italy, the number of daily new infections reported Thursday jumped to over 300, the first time they had surpassed more than 300 since mid-June. Most of the new cases have occurred in northern Italy, where the outbreak in Europe began in February. But southern regions, relatively spared from the worst of the pandemic, have lately been seeing clusters of infections.
Many recent cases have been traced to people returning from abroad, most of them foreign workers from Asia, Eastern Europe or the Balkans. Other clusters were among migrants rescued at sea and southern Italy.
But there have also been clusters sparked among vacationers, including in Riccione, a beach resort town on the Adriatic Sea, linked to a young woman’s contacts in a disco.  
Last week, the mayor of Capri, one of the two main towns on the tourist-mecca island in the Mediterranean off Naples, ordered people to wear masks while walking in the streets. Capri’s main square, with its trendy cafes, and its narrow streets lined with luxury fashion shops, had been jammed with holiday-goers, many of them not wearing masks.  
Three young Romans who returned home this week after a holiday were positive for COVID-19, Italian media said Friday.
In Italy, masks must be worn in shops, banks, churches, on public transport and in all places where it’s impossible to keep a safe distance apart, including outdoors.
Amid fears in Spain that poor living conditions for seasonal agricultural workers are creating coronavirus hotspots, that nation’s farm minister on Friday said authorities are pressing employers to provide decent accommodations and transport. Spain’s Health Ministry reported 971 new infections on Thursday in the last 24 hours, the biggest daily increase in the country since lockdown ended.  
Some clusters in Europe have been linked to workplaces, including at a slaughterhouse in Germany. The company that runs the slaughterhouse that was at the center of a major outbreak last month said 30 more employees have tested positive for the coronavirus — but most of them were old cases.
Authorities have linked more than 2,000 cases to the outbreak at the Toennies slaughterhouse in the western German town of Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, which led last month to a partial lockdown of the surrounding area. Those restrictions have since been lifted and the facility has reopened after a four-week closure.
And as scientists around the world search for a vaccine to halt the pandemic, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has dismissed activists seeking to oppose vaccinations as “nuts.”
Johnson was promoting a campaign for flu vaccinations ahead of winter. Britain has Europe’s worst recorded pandemic toll at over 45,600 deaths.
Overall, Europe has seen over 201,000 deaths in the pandemic, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the true toll of the pandemic worldwide is much higher than all reported numbers, due to limited testing and other issues.
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