Euobserver.com

First EU talks on Franco-German plan to create a eurozone budget got a cool reception on Monday, with both northern states and Italy wary of the move.

The man who uncovered the biggest money-laundering scandal in EU history says he is gagged from telling all, as MEPs prepare to grill Danske Bank's chief exeuctive.

While EU and UK negotiators now focus in on the declaration on the future relationship, following last week's withdrawal agreement, Spain has now raised concerns over how it will affect Gibraltar.

An Irish court has ordered a Polish citizen's surrender to face trial in his native country - despite finding "generalised and systemic" violations to the independence of Poland's judiciary. On Monday, the Irish court concluded that "systemic and generalised deficiencies in the independence of the judiciary in Poland of themselves" did not risk the right to a fair trial in this case.

EU foreign ministers must choose between contaminating their civilian missions and operations with panic over security and migration, and reaffirming the EU's core values as a global actor for peace and development.

A new EU sanctions regime should punish people who attack human rights activists, among other crimes, the Dutch foreign ministry has said.

A motley crew of has-been politicians from fringe EU parties flocked to Russia-occupied Ukraine to cheer on puppet rulers there last week.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz and his French counterpart Bruno Le Maire have agreed a joint plan for a eurozone-only budget to be presented in Monday's Eurogroup meeting in Brussels, with view to adoption at the 14 December euro summit, German media reported. Eurozone finance ministers, rather than the European Commission, would be in charge of designing investment programmes to be paid via new taxes.

Austrian foreign minister Karin Kneissl (FPO) has criticised the European Union's policy towards Israel. "I have the impression that particularly strict standards are being applied to Israel," she said in an interview with the Times of Israel. Austria is working to inject "more realism" in EU-Israel relations, she added. Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak this week in Vienna at a high-level anti-Semitism conference.

Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz on Sunday met US investor and philanthropist George Soros to discuss how to resettle the Soros-funded Central European University (CEU) in Vienna after it was pushed out of Hungary, Austrian daily Kurier reported. The two reportedly also agreed that Brexit is regrettable and that a hard Brexit must be avoided, while on the issue of migration policy they had "quite different views".

EU foreign ministers will discuss Bosnia and Herzegovina on Monday. The EU has the opportunity to show that it is not a political dwarf in the Balkans, where not only economic, but also political reforms are necessary.

EU governments and European Parliament representatives may agree on draft legislation to screen foreign direct investment (FDI) into the EU in a meeting on Tuesday, Franck Proust, a French MEP representing the parliament in the talks, told Bloomberg. The EU currently has no joint rules to review investment from, for example, China, to protect national security or public order - while Australia, Canada, Japan, and the US have well-established schemes.

French president Emmanuel Macron called on Sunday for closer ties between Germany and France, saying Europe "has the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos". Europe must not "become a plaything of great powers," he said in a speech to the German Bundestag, on the annual day of mourning for victims of war, while also urging larger defence spending.

All eyes on London this week, where May struggles to hold onto power against Brexit rebels, while EU leaders meet in Brussels on Sunday to try to clinch agreement.

Banks and firms participating in a special EU initiative to protect trade with Iran risk US sanctions, US special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, warned in Brussels Thursday. The EU is working on a 'Special Purpose Vehicle' (SPV) to enable European non-dollar trade with Iran to preserve a nuclear arms control treaty. Brussels wanted the SPV in place this month but no country has offered to host it, Reuters reported.

German chancellor Angela Merkel personally intervened and called Romania's president Klaus Iohannis in April urging him to stop plans by Romania's social-democrat lead government to move Romania's embassy to Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Post reports that Merkel also called other European politicians as part of a campaign to block the relocation of European embassies to Jerusalem. The US relocated its embassy to Jerusalem in May.

Thousands protested in Prague Thursday demanding that Czech prime minister Andrej Babis resign over suspected criminal corruption and EU subsidy fraud. Public criticism of Babis has spiked after his mentally-ill son told media that he was held in Crimea in an attempt to hinder corruption investigations into his father. Babis leads a minority government composed of his ANO party and left-wing Social Democrats supported by the Communists.

A spokeswoman for Germany's foreign ministry "strongly condemned" a website labelling former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as an "enemy of the state" in Ukraine. "We have informed Ukraine of our position in the past and have insisted the Ukrainian government delete this website," she said, German media report. The controversial Ukrainian website Myrotvorets (Peacemaker) denounced Schroeder for chairing the supervisory board of Russian oil company Rosneft.

A group of French-led EU member states including Denmark, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands on Thursday called for changes to fishing arrangements in the draft Brexit deal agreed between London and Brussels. More than 50 percent of fish caught in UK waters last year were caught by non-UK vessels. The draft Brexit deal states that the two sides would try to agree on the future of fisheries by July 2020.

Former employees in Danske Bank's Estonian branch are suspected of having received illegal cash payments in return for helping criminals to whitewash billions through the bank, Berlingske Tidende reports. Large and suspicious deposits on their own accounts are being investigated, it said. Danske Bank's €200bn money-laundering scandal might be only the "tip of the iceberg" in a scandal involving other major banks, Danske Bank whistleblower Howard Wilkinson's lawyer told Reuters.