European Union

The US ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, has threatened that troops will be pulled out of Germany and sent to Poland. The US's repeated demands that Germany increase its defence budget are the background to his comments. More US soldiers are stationed in Germany than in any other European country. Will this soon change?

Prague was home to a Pride Parade for the ninth time last weekend. Activists drew attention to the fact that the liberalisation of Czech society and the reduction of stigmatisation of LGBTI people have stagnated for several years. Commentators point out why.

In July, a spat broke out between Hungary and Finland, which took over the EU's rotating Council presidency Romania and with its program quickly became a new enemy for Budapest.

Former prime ministers Matteo Renzi and Enrico Letta propose to form a new "technical government" without Salvini's League.

Dominic Cummings, special advisor to British prime minister Boris Johnson and a zealous advocate of Brexit, benefitted from EU agriculture subsidies via a farm that he co-owned with his relatives, British newspaper The Observer reported on Sunday. The farm in Durham, northern England, received about €250,000 of EU funds over 20 years, records showed. The news exposed Cummings' "sheer hypocrisy", a spokeswoman for the British opposition Liberal Party said.

About 800,000 British people have spent €4.3bn stockpiling food, drinks, and medicine in case a no-deal Brexit on 31 October causes supply problems, according to data from British financial firm Premium Credit. "The British would be the big losers," in a hard Brexit, outgoing European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker also said in Tiroler Tageszeitung, an Austrian newspaper, on Saturday. "We [the EU] are well prepared [for no-deal Brexit]," he added.

Lega chief Matteo Salvini's call for snap Italian elections after he turned on his own coalition partner faced mounting resistance on Sunday (11 August), with both his former 5-Star ally and the centre-left opposition seeking to put the brakes on.

The EU border deal will not be up for discussion when Irish leader Leo Varadkar meets British prime minister Boris Johnson in Dublin in early September, the Irish government has said. "The withdrawal agreement and the backstop are not up for negotiation," it said on Sunday, referring to "backstop" plans, hated by Johnson, to keep Britain in the EU customs union in order to maintain an open border with Ireland.

The EU needs to properly classify which economic activities help the environment to help direct public funding and private investment toward climate-friendly sectors, EU financial services commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis has told the Financial Times newspaper. "In this way you avoid greenwashing, you provide clarity," he said. The European Commission proposed a new classification scheme last year, but capitals are wary of giving Brussels more power on dividing up joint funds.

The Finnish EU presidency has defended its deal with German car maker BMW to provide 100 vehicles free of charge to ferry VIPs back and forth from events in Helsinki. BMW got the job after "an EU-wide call for tenders" and BMW executives did "not have opportunities to meet" with politicians, Anja Laisi, a presidency spokeswoman, told the Yle news agency. BMW provided no fuel or drivers, she added.

Norwegian police are treating a mosque attack on Saturday as a potential act of far-right terrorism amid reports the attacker held anti-immigrant views and had published online praise of a massacre of Muslims in New Zealand, which took place earlier this year. Saturday's attempted murder was due to "long-lasting hate of Muslims that has been allowed to spread in Norway", the Islamic Council Norway, an NGO, said.

John Bolton, US President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, arrived in London on the weekend for talks at which he is expected to urge Britain to toughen its stance on Iran and Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accepted an offer to meet Irish leader Leo Varadkar to discuss Brexit and the Northern Irish backstop, the Sunday Telegraph said citing UK government sources.