European Union

Germany and France, along with the US and Canada, issued a joint statement Thursday with the UK, a day after London identified two men over the Salisbury nerve gas attack against Sergei and Yulia Skripal. They said they have "full confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers from the Russian military intelligence service" and that the operation was "almost certainly approved at a senior government level."

German chancellor Angela Merkel contradicted Thursday her interior minister Horst Seehofer, who said on Wednesday that migration was "the mother of all problems". "I say it differently," she replied in an interview on RTL television. "Migration presents us with challenges and here we have problems, here we also have successes," she said.

With the Venice Film Festival in full swing, European Council boss Donald Tusk dropped a trailer for this year’s hottest blockbuster. Now that the race to be the next Commission president has well and truly begun, wannabe Junckers should take a leaf out of the Pole’s political playbook.

For a long time, Warsaw has been looking for opportunities to boost regional cooperation with neighbours. Now plans for the so-called Carpathian Strategy have gained the support of some countries in the region, paving the way for a series of joint projects partly funded by the EU.

Next week's vote in the European Parliament on whether to trigger punitive Article 7 against Hungary will be a moment of truth for the EPP political group, whose behaviour will largely determine its outcome, an influential MEP said on Thursday (6 September).

The European Commission gave its green light Thursday for the acquisition of Shazam, a UK music recognition application, by US giant Apple. It said that the move would "not materially increase Apple's ability to target music enthusiasts" and would not restrict access to the Shazam app for streaming services. "Shazam's data is not unique and Apple's competitors would still have the opportunity to access and use similar databases," it said.

The liberalisation of European gas markets is widely recognised as a success by industry analysts. But EU politicians are sometimes reluctant to celebrate it because liberalisation on its own has failed to deliver on another key objective – supply diversification.

The European Commission presented two proposals on Electricity Market Design as part of its Clean Energy Package of November 2016. Discussions on the package have tended to focus on the level of ambition, in particular Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency targets.

A vote on the contentious copyright bill will take place in the European Parliament on 12 September in Strasbourg. The directive aims to ensure that producers of creative content are remunerated fairly online. A number of artists, including Sir Paul McCartney, have supported the bill, while opponents say it could lead to censorship.

The Federal Minister of Interior, Horst Seehofer, described Germany as “a divided country” and the issue of migration as “the mother of all political problems”. EURACTIV Germany reports.

Ahead of the Global Climate Action Summit on 12-14 September, Cambridge-based Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group has called for a worldwide government-mandated net zero carbon emissions target by 2050 to help speed up transition to a low-carbon economy.

CSU European politician Manfred Weber has announced that he will run for the post of EU Commission president after the European elections in 2019. The EPP will decide on November 8 whether it will name Weber, its current parliamentary group leader, as lead candidate. Europe's media are already weighing up the pros and cons of Weber becoming EU Commission President.

After the summer break political life has resumed in the EU and is dominated by the elections to the European Parliament next May. The haggling over the top EU posts has begun, and Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is pressing ahead with plans to abolish daylight saving time. Commentators observe how two opposing camps are positioning themselves for battle.