Italian agriculture minister Teresa Bellanova has expressed concern for the security of foreign seasonal workers who travel from "red areas" affected by the coronavirus pandemic to Italy via so-called green corridors allowing them to fly in to help pick the country's ripening crops.
Italian authorities and healthcare providers have distributed 1,200 kits with facemasks, disinfectant gels and detergents to migrants living near the Italian city of Foggia.
To fill the gap of trained seasonal foreign workers to harvest its crops, Italy has opened corridors for non-EU farmworkers who have had a work contract with Italian firms for years. Carrying over 100 farmworkers from Morocco, the first charter flight arrived in Italy on Thursday.
About 200 migrant farmworkers protested Thursday in the Foggia area of southern Italy against temporary legalization measures brought in by the government. The migrants claimed there is ''a lack of rights and not manpower'' in Italian fields.
A UK government scheme to grant permanent residency to relatives of foreign nationals who died from COVID-19 while working for the National Health Service (NHS) has been expanded to also include family members of low-paid NHS workers. Their earlier exclusion from the scheme had attracted widespread criticism.
The Greek Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development relaxed its coroanvirus restrictions to allow more foreign workers to come and help with the Greek harvest, amid fears that produce would rot in the fields. But could migrants and refugees help fill the gap?
Undocumented farmworkers employed in Italy's agricultural sector have organized a strike on May 21 against a new decree that will give migrants the chance to apply for a permit, saying the measure was approved only for the market's benefit rather than to promote workers' rights.
The German government is poised to approve better protections for workers in the meat industry. The squalid living quarters and unsafe working conditions aren't new, but COVID-19 has prompted politicians to finally act.
While EU countries negotiate with Ukraine about special flights for seasonal workers, some people are coming to the bloc on their own, despite coronavirus restrictions. But they face many obstacles on the way.
More than 22,000 Moroccan workers have been stuck abroad since Morocco suspended flights into the country in mid-March due to the novel coronavirus pandemic. Over the last month they have been demonstrating, demanding to be allowed to return home.
Italy's governing coalition parties have finally agreed to introducing changes to employment permits for migrants in the country. The four coalition parties hope the measures will benefit migrants as well as help sectors hit by the coronavirus.
Just as lockdown measures are lifting, more than 200 employees at a slaughterhouse in western Germany have contracted COVID-19. DW spoke to workers living in dilapidated, crowded conditions.