EU donates €50m to Nigeria to fight Covid-19, Obama endorses Biden for president and more

The European Commission has recommended candidate status for Ukraine. Just over three months after being invaded by Russia, Kyiv has cleared the first hurdle on the road to membership.

Josep Borrell, the EU's foreign policy chief has called for Russia to end its blockade of Ukrainian ports. His comments come ahead of a meeting of the bloc's 27 foreign ministers.

French politics continues to dominate the papers as Emmanuel Macron desperately seeks an alliance to secure a parliamentary majority. The US Senate finds bipartisan support for new gun possession laws for the first time in 30 years. Organisers of the Miss France beauty pageant introduce radical new changes to shake up the contest. Finally, a man escapes his kidnappers by driving erratically on a highway in order to be stopped by authorities.

EU leaders are in Brussels to discuss the membership bids of Ukraine and Moldova. Meanwhile, the European Parliament has voted heavily in favor of the two countries' getting candidate status.

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech has begun construction of an COVID-19 vaccine plant in Rwanda. When completed, it will be the first mRNA vaccine plant in Africa.

Relatives of murdered Congolese independence hero Patrice Lumumba attend a sombre ceremony in Brussels as Belgium returns his tooth. It's all that remains of him after his assassination in 1961. Also, Kenya has no reproductive health legislation but the public is going to have its say on a regional bill that could make a big difference to national sexual health services. And the refugee status of hundreds of thousands of Ivorians who fled post-electoral violence in the country in 2011 is coming to an end.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine four months ago, the cost of living crisis has become a global issue. Prices have gone up around the world. In Europe, the countries that use the euro saw an average of 8.1 percent inflation in May. Pressure on prices, combined with stuttering economic growth, has sparked fears of a recession. These concerns could still come into play regarding the EU's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In this programme, we're joined by two MEPs to discuss how the EU should balance sanctions against Russia with the risk of recession.

This week on Talking Europe we take a look at some of the other countries, aside from Ukraine, that are knocking on the EU's door to join the bloc. EU leaders held a summit on Thursday with the Western Balkan states to discuss their accession process. For Albania, that started back in 2008 and still hasn't advanced to the negotiations stage. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama spoke to FRANCE 24’s Luke Brown on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans leaders' meeting in Brussels.

The leaders of the US, the UK, and Canada all slammed the Supreme Court's move, which puts US women at risk of losing their right to abortion. Meanwhile, Donald Trump said "God made the decision" on reproductive rights.

A new judicial report claims Jacob Zuma is "a critical player" in a massive theft from state enterprises in South Africa. But the ex-president pledged to challenge the findings.

Ecuador's president has accused Indigenous protesters of attempting a coup. Clashes between protesters and security forces have left six people dead, and six of the country's 24 provinces are under a state of emergency.

Although EU candidacy for Ukraine and Moldova has been hailed as historic, frustrations among other candidates years into their own membership bids should serve as a reminder that the path ahead won't be easy.