Germany calls for powerful EU budget commissioner

Germany has announced an increase in police checks on its border with Poland and the Czech Republic — in a bid to respond to irregular migration along smuggling routes.

Emily O'Reilly cited the post-pandemic recovery funds, the windfall taxes on energy companies, and the joint purchase of vaccines, as procedures which received limited scrutiny from the national parliaments — as a result of emergency decision-making powers that bypassed parliament.

The EU Commission's new magic formula for avoiding scrutiny is simple. You declare the documents in question to be "short-lived correspondence for a preliminary exchange of views" and thus exempt them from being logged in the official inventory.

Political parties facing multiple corruption charges are hoping for a grand comeback at Saturday's snap elections in Slovakia —which could also lead to a reversal of the central European country's position on Ukraine and Russia.

The EU and US have urged Azerbaijan to give aid groups more access to ethnic Armenians, as tens of thousands flee the conflict zone.

The EU is urging Big Tech platforms to act against the Kremlin's "war of ideas" ahead of the 2024 elections, as Russia's disinformation is flowering on Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter) platform.