UK election plus EU summit in focus This WEEK

The anti-Brexit and anti-Tory vote has been split between Labour and the staunchly pro-EU LibDems, while Nigel Farage's Brexit party has agreed not to run against Conservative candidates in about half of the constituencies to avoid splitting the pro-Brexit vote.

Polls have become less reliable in recent years, and the election could yet result a hung parliament, which would mean a possible minority Labour government, with some LibDem and Scottish National party support - and a second Brexit referendum.

However, if Johnson is able to claim victory, as polls predict, the UK will likely leave the EU at the end of January 2020.

EU leaders, gathering for a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (12-13 December), will take stock of the UK elections results on Friday, and urge post-Brexit trade talks to start soon.

If the new parliament adopts the Brexit deal negotiated by the UK and EU, the transition period would end at the end of 2020, so a trade deal would have to be negotiated unprecedentedly quickly.

Climate challenge

EU leaders' main aim at the summit will be to try to reach a consensus on making Europe climate neutral by 2050.

A previous attempt to achieve this goal was blocked by Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, which largely rely on coal.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last week announced that she wants to mobilise €100bn in investment to help finance helping to green the economy in less developed regions.

A new fund will leverage public and private money, with the help of the European Investment Bank (EIB) which will be come Europe's Climate Bank.

On Wednesday (11 December) the European parliament will hold an extraordinary plenary session, where von der Leyen and commission vice-president Frans Timmermans will present the European Green Deal, a flagship policy of the new executive.

Haggling

EU leaders will also lock horns over the EU's long-term budget.

Positions of the four net payers who want to cap the first post-Brexit budget at 1.0 percent of the gross national income of the bloc, and the over dozen countries which don't want to see EU subsidies cut.

The Finnish EU presidency presented numbers of the different policies, but had received for a lot of criticism for not reaching the 1.0 percent cut, yet cutting deeper into EU funds for regional development.

EU leaders have already presented their opinions at the summit in October.

But positions have only hardened since then, and the new meeting will be an opportunity for a clash between the groups of member states and for new EU council president Charles Michel to start de-escalating the debate and find a compromise next year.

Bad apple

But before EU leaders get together, EU affairs ministers will have a first go at the long-term budget, starting in 2021, on Tuesday (10 December).

EU affair ministers will also have their second hearing with Hungary, which is under the Article 7 EU probe for breaching EU rules and values.

Ministers who want to can join the chair of the parliament's civil liberties committee, Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar

and the MEP in charge of the Hungary file, Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield for breakfast before the hearing.

The process was triggered by a parliament report in 2018, but the parliament's representatives have not been allowed to attend the ministers' meeting.

This time, ministers will focus on the independence of the judiciary, media and academic freedom when quizzing their Hungarian colleague.

The commission will also debrief ministers over an Article 7 procedure against Poland, where a recent European Court of Justice decision said there are reasons to question the independence of a new judicial chamber in Poland to oversee judges.

On Monday (9 December) foreign affairs ministers will look at human rights, and EU-Africa relations, while touching upon political developments in Libya and Bolivia, and in Iran.

On the same day, MEPs in the parliament's constitutional affairs committee will finalise its advice to the leaders of the parliament on the structure of the conference on the future of Europe.

The conference is aimed at reforming EU institutions, and the functioning of the EU to bring it closer to its citizens.