Wednesday
20th Mar 2019
What is really needed is not the theatre of a rebellion trial, but a forensic examination of whether public funds were misused, and a process of dialogue and negotiation on how the Catalan peoples' right to self-determination can be satisfied.
Now that the UK is leaving, Italy can, and should, step up. It is the third largest country and economy in the EU. Spain and Poland follow, but they are significantly smaller economically and population-wise.
It is disappointing that so many MEPs in the Socialist and Green group caved in to Russian interests, in fear of challenging a plutocratic regime, by saying 'no' to naming the Magnitsky legislation by its rightful name: Magnitsky.
EPP leader and prospective next EU Commission president Manfred Weber spells out his plan for dealing with recalcitrant EU member states - ahead of Wednesday's EPP meeting on the vexed issue of Hungary's Viktor Orban and Fidesz.
"We have made our choice: we choose democracy and rule of law," write the leaders of the National Coalition Party in Finland and the Moderate Party in Sweden.
The EU must call the Ukraine conflict by its true name - Russia's illegal war on its peaceful neighbour - and take commensurate action to protect peace in Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of people are joining Greta Thunberg on Friday for a Global Strike for Future. We can only support the appeal of these young people, who resolutely aim to forge a sustainable Europe, a sustainable planet.
Any new regime should focus on individual perpetrators, such as the prison guards and low-level administrators and officers - but it must also similarly allow the listing of individuals higher up in the command chain.
World leaders meeting in Brussels from 12-14 March must make the freeing of detainees held by Syria's Assad regime the number one priority on their agenda.
We need a more meaningful representation of women in EU institutions and on EU's negotiation tables abroad. The most successful EU deal in the last years, the Iran deal, was brokered by women – Frederica Mogherini and Helga Schmid.
Face-to-face interviews with 15,179 women reveal that beliefs in female subservience and marital obedience continue to persist in south-eastern and eastern Europe.
With a record of 44 candidates running for president, it remains to be seen who will become Ukraine's next leader. But will Ukrainian politicians and their international partners be able to keep the country on the road to reform?
Member states that are still willing to save lives in the Mediterranean should set up a new Mare Nostrum rescue mission.
EUobserver received this letter from the ambassador of the Slovak republic to the EU to clarify the reasons why Slovakia decided to strengthen its presence in Israel and open a Slovak Cultural and Information Centre in Jerusalem.
In May, hundreds of millions of Europeans will head to the polls to elect the next members of the European Parliament. Yet around 500,000 persons with disabilities will not be able to exercise this most basic of democratic rights.
MEPs have raised concerns about the risks presented by Le Freeport, a 22,000 square meter high-security facility located near Luxembourg airport, where goods can be stored with confidentiality - and without being taxed.
Senior figures in Italy's far-right League party have interests in a mysterious Russian firm, amid wider questions on the safety of European democracy.
EU countries and US should take every opportunity to shrink the group of wandering Islamist fighters in the Middle East and neighbouring regions.
Viktor Orban of Hungary and Poland's Jaroslaw Kaczynski seem to share the idea that the rights of some may come at the expense of the rights of others, and public institutions should serve the majority, and not all citizens.
There can be no more excuses for business. They will be held for responsible for their failure to take action to prevent the risk of human and labour rights through their supply chains.
Yulia Tymoshenko's contradictory politics raises questions about the direction she would lead Ukraine if she is elected president in March 2019.
Theresa May's venture seems very similar to the attempt by Alexis Tsipras in 2015 to persuade Brussels to accept his terms for the bail out - a huge negotiation failure, presented to the public as the best possible deal.
What is revelatory about the study by Corporate Europe Observatory is the sheer number of embassies, committees and advisory groups that lobbyists can target: from the Council all the way down to standing committee on plants, animals, food and feed.
The right-wing Eurosceptic Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD), Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF), and European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) groups hold 151 out of 751 seats - even large gains are unlikely to give them a majority.
With the new transatlantic trade deal, the EU is providing financial and political support for an increase in imports of fracked gas from the US.
Italy's 'marriage of convenience' coalition government likes picking battles with Brussels. But with the economy now in recession, and deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini needing to keep the business lobby on board, expect Rome to blink first.
Only time will tell, but in the very different context of the 21st century, Angela Merkel may have unwittingly revitalised what Bismarck had achieved and Hitler destroyed: a self-restrained but conscious and confident German national state.
Harmonising tax rates would probably not mean harmonising all tax systems to low rates – such as those in Ireland, for instance, but much rather an increase of taxes across the continent.
This decision to activate political scrutiny at EU level over the Hungarian government's reforms is a turning point for the Union after eight years of alarm bells ringing.
We propose several changes to the EU, derived from the political philosophy behind the current Polish government, and what Poles expect from the EU - this could be seen as a manifesto Poland wants the next European Commission to tackle.
The foreign ministers of Sweden, Poland and the Czech Republic reflect on 10 years of the Eastern Partnership with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
While the formation of a new government ends Sweden's fourth-month paralysis, it doesn't resolve the challenge from radical-right populists in Sweden. A key question remains: will treating populists like pariahs undercut the appeal of their, often anti-rights, politics?
It is especially Europe, geographically placed between the US and Russia, that is within the range of the missiles which the INF treaty prohibits.
