Saturday
15th Dec 2018
As Sebastian Kurz's government takes over the helm of EU-policy making for the next six months, Austrian MEPs from opposing sides weigh in on the EU's youngest prime minister's possible influence on the continent's future.
German interior minister says European solution is "a matter for the heads of government" - throwing the gauntlet back to his boss, Angela Merkel.
German interior minister Horst Seehofer is in Vienna on Thursday - as his plan to reject some asylum seekers was met by an Austrian threat to close its borders too.
An agreement on measures to reduce risks in the banking sector will help start discussions on risk-sharing and on Franco-German plans.
Greece and Italy have a duty to better control migration into Europe, said Boyko Borisov, whose country holds the EU presidency.
At the first summit in 15 years with Western Balkan leaders, EU chiefs made it clear that enlargement is not at hand - but offered economic incentives to keep the region close to the bloc.
"With friends like that, who needs enemies?" European Council Donald Tusk asked on Wednesday, as EU leaders were trying to come up with a reply to the US president's questioning of the transatlantic relationship.
The accusation by some eastern European leaders that food companies were shipping inferior products to the eastern part of the EU has put the European Commission in a bind - leading to a months-long struggle to find a response.
Ahead of an EU summit in Sofia in May, two different viewpoints look at Kosovo's future accession to the EU - one from Pristina and one from Brussels.
Declaration supported by only 23 of 28 member states, as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Slovakia are unhappy about relatively lower pay-out per hectare to farmers.
A Friends of the Presidency group, set up by the Bulgarian EU presidency, has sifted through the European Commission's proposal to reform Dublin, an EU asylum law that has sparked widespread political tensions and divisions.
Negotiators from the member states, EU Parliament and Commission reached a 'common understanding' to guarantee equal pay for equal work in the EU. They hope to reach a final agreement in June.
Some governments have closed their eyes, hoping that the menace will go away. It will not - it will only become stronger, according to the former prime minister of Estonia, one of the EU's leading digital states.
The European Commission's new West Balkans strategy means well - but it will need serious commitment to respecting the rule of law, not just paying attention when violence flares.
It is crucial that the EU strategy and the Sofia summit provide the same accession perspective to all six Western Balkan countries, Kosovo president's top official says.
Just as Bulgaria begins its six-month presidency of the EU, thousands of neo-Nazis will be marching in the streets of the capital, Sofia. This homage to Hristo Lukov, responsible for 11,300 Jewish deaths, must be banned.
The Bulgarian EU presidency may delay efforts to tackle the thorny issue of refugee quotas until some easier points in a key EU asylum reform proposal are sorted out.
Corruption, organised crime, lack of foreign investment and digital skills make Bulgaria an unlikely standard bearer for the EU during its presidency. But perhaps Sofia can pull it off.
Finance ministers removed eight entities from the tax havens blacklist, while ruling out more transparency or sanctions - prompting criticism from tax-campaigning NGOs such as Oxfam.
A dispute between the government and the president over an anti-corruption law has put the spotlight on one of the Bulgaria's main problems - just as it is trying to showcase its economic and social progress.
The EU Commission's 2025 deadline for enlargement is 'realistic' and necessary for EU stability and influence, but the region's countries will have to deliver.
Bulgaria joining the single currency "will not result in any additional risk for the euro system", its finance minister said. The country's lev currency has been pegged to the euro since 1997, making it already highly dependent on ECB policy.
The EU 'should not get to the point' of deciding whether to impose sanctions on Poland over the rule of law, said Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borisov.
Bulgaria is starting its six-month EU presidency amid attempts to shake off issues of corruption and poor press freedoms. Earlier this week, Bulgaria's president vetoed an anti-graft bill, claiming it was too weak.
Former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner said EU would be wrong to roll out red carpet in Brussels for Austrian ministers who were "heirs of Nazism".
The EU is reforming a number of internal asylum laws, but lack of staff, politics, and the sheer complexity of the bills means deadlines - like those announced by EU council chief Tusk - are likely to come and go.
Non-personal data should be allowed to cross EU borders without restrictions, with an exemption for security reasons, diplomats meeting in the Council of the EU have agreed.
The building sector accounts for around 40 percent of the EU's greenhouse gas emissions. 'Increasing energy-efficiency is a no-brainer,' says Estonia minister Simson.
'What we want do is add value on top, and do things' such as border controls and free data movement, said Norwegian state secretary Paul Chaffey about Nordic-Baltic digital cooperation.
Council of the EU, representing national governments, adopt positions on energy files that disappoint climate activists.
Estonia will continue with its plan to develop tokens based on the blockchain technology, tentatively titled estcoin.
At a final ministerial meeting under the outgoing Estonian EU presidency, ministers will try to reach political agreement about four complex energy files.
At the previous EU summit, EU leaders asked for a political agreement on three digital files. The current Estonian council presidency managed to achieve deals on two of them.
