EU visa bans and asset freezes in the air over Turkish gas drilling in Cypriot waters as Ankara sends a second ship into disputed zone.

The General Court of the European Union in Luxembourg will next month hold a public hearing on the refusal by Frontex, the EU's border agency, to release documents concerning its border control and surveillance operation known as Triton.

Now is the time to be bold in our approach and for leaders to take a positive and decisive stance in welcoming refugees.

In 2013, the European Commission declared ships that help migrants in distress would not face sanctions. Now - six years later - Italy's government endorses a decree to impose fines up to €50,000 for rescue boats docking in Italian ports.

Home affairs ministers are set to endorse reforms for tougher EU return laws to send unwanted migrants home. But an absent lead MEP on the file and a wary EU parliament means their agreement may not amount to much.

An Austrian criminal intelligence service persuaded Italy's interior minister Matteo Salvini to set up a unit in Sicily against migrant smuggling, while in Senegal EU development money is financing an European-police led reform of Dakar's defence and interior ministries.

Europe's far-right is set to rise in the next European Parliament election. This vote will not yet allow the populists to build a majority. But it may become another milestone in their process of changing European politics.

Budapest tried and failed last week to deport three families to Afghanistan, and is accused of denying food to others stuck in its transit zone. The European Commission says it is taking the allegations "quite seriously."

Eurosceptic parties are nothing new. They also had a large presence in the first directly elected European Parliament back in 1979, when the EU was known as the European Economic Community (EEC) and consisted of only nine member states.

In a speech aimed at quelling yellow vest unrest, French president did not come with radical new European proposals.

Romanian EU presidency set to publish operational guidelines next month on how to share refugees who get stuck on NGO rescue boats in Mediterranean Sea.

The cornerstone the EU's asylum reforms referred to by the shorthand as 'Dublin' could end up in the scrapheap following the European elections in May.

The EU has appealed to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar to stop fighting, amid concern that a civil war could prompt more people to flee to Europe.

Italy's far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, has tried to make friends with the French establishment, amid a possible "flop" in his plan to create an anti-EU league.