European Union

According to reports in the media in the event of a recession the German government is prepared to abandon the "Black Zero" policy of maintaining a balanced budget without deficit spending which has enabled Germany to avoid making any new debt in the last five years. Gaps in the budget resulting from lacking tax revenues could be plugged through the move. Commentators are at odds over whether this is the right course.

A court in Kiev has rule that Kirill Vyshinsky, editor-in-chief of the Russian news agency Ria Novosti, is to be released after 15 months in custody. The ruling is being widely interpreted as a sign of an imminent exchange of prisoners which Russia and Ukraine have been negotiating for some time. The media of the two countries, however, remain sceptical.

A growing number of Germans believe migrants drive wages down and burden the welfare system, according to a study analysing the attitude of Germans towards foreigners before and after the 2015 refugee crisis. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Committees’ meetings

Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

Germany's chancellor says she is contact with Turkey over an EU deal to stop refugees from landing on Greek islands. But the arrival of over 500 in one day, amid grim conditions, piles on pressure.

New Brexit talks will take place twice a week to avoid a no-deal "nightmare", as the British government takes flak over its parliament shutdown.

Same-sex marriage was legalised in the Faroe Islands in 2017, but could be banned again if national conservatives return to power in Saturday's general elections. The Centre Party (Midflokkurin) has announced that it wold repeal the same-sex law. Fisheries reforms carried by the current center-left government could also be changed back. The North Atlantic Faroe Islands are a self-governing part of Denmark, but not a member of the EU.

According to a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, 12 European cities are amongst the 30 safest ones in the world. In the ranking of 60 cities worldwide, Amsterdam was in 4th place, after Tokyo, Singapore, and Osaka. Other ranking European cities were Copenhagen (8th), Stockholm (12th), London (14th), Frankfurt (16th), Zurich (18th), Paris (23d), Brussels (24th), Madrid (25th), Barcelona (26th), Milan (29th), and Rome (30th).

The EU has extended import tariffs of up to 48.5 percent on Chinese bicycles to prevent a flood of imports, according to Reuters. Earlier this year the EU also imposed import duties on Chinese electronic bicycles, which China condemned strongly. EU citizens buy circa 18mn bicycles per year. Four percent come from China. Similar tariffs apply to bicycles coming from Indonesia, Malaysia, Tunisia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Pakistan, and The Philippines.

"Pushing Russia from Europe is a profound strategic error," president Emmanuel Macron told French diplomats on Tuesday following the G7 summit, The Moscow Times reports. Macron also said that "the European continent will never be stable, will never be secure, if we don't pacify and clarify our relations with Russia." However, he added that it is not "in our interest to be weak vis-a-vis Russia, to forget our disagreements."

Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orbán commiserated Thursday (29 August) with Italy's outgoing far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, calling him a "fellow combatant" in the fight for the "preservation of European Christian heritage and against migration".

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday (29 August) picked untested 35-year-old lawyer Oleksiy Goncharuk as his prime minister, as a new parliament met for the first time.