Euobserver.com

The streets of Warsaw risk becoming a battleground for neo-fascists - and for Poland's EU reputation - on Sunday after local authorities banned a far-right march.

The debate organised by the centre-right European People's Party between its two candidates for the EU commission presidency revealed more unity than differences.

Danske Bank shareholders, led by shipping giant AP Moller Holding, agreed on Wednesday to let chairman Ole Andersen go, in a move to save Denmark's largest bank, which admitted to laundering to €200bn of suspicious money through its small Estonian branch. Karsten Dybvad, current head of the Confederation of Danish Industry and formerly head of the Danish finance ministry, is set to become the new chairman. 

The European Commission is gearing up preparation for a no-deal Brexit by organising a series of 12 high-level seminars for member states from 20 November onwards. The seminars will be held in private and cover aviation, financial services and citizens' rights among other topics, reported The Irish Times. A series of no-deal papers examining the impact on various sectors would, however, not be published by the commission, it said.

The ECB's governing council appointed on Wednesday, in a secret ballot, Italian Andrea Enria as head of the Single Supervisory Mechanism, which oversees the 118 most important European banks, holding almost 82 percent of all banking assets in the euro area. Enria, currently serving as chair of the London-based European Banking Authority, was elected in competition with Ireland's central bank deputy governor Sharon Donnery.

Italy's populist-coalition government won a confidence vote, 163 to 59, in the upper house Senate on Wednesday over a controversial security decree. Deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini called it a "historic day" on Twitter. The decree will make it easier for Italian authorities to deport convicted asylum seekers. Critics fear the new decree may increase crime by pushing migrants out of the system and into illegality.

Greece has taken one step closer to the separation of church and state by removing 10,000 church employees off the public payroll. A deal agreed between prime minister Alexis Tsipras and archbishop Ieronymos II also includes a settlement of a decade-old property dispute between the Greek state and the Orthodox Church - which is one of the country's largest real estate owners.

Europe's business alliance from the Middle Ages might work.

Lack of appetite for extra Russia sanctions and for US diplomacy are wider EU problems than just Italy, as Washington's man goes to Rome.

Hungarian police on Tuesday said they had closed an investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds by prime minister Viktor Orban's family (triggered by a report from the EU's anti-fraud agency, OLAF), saying it found no crimes were committed. The chairman of the European Parliament's budget committee overseeing EU funds, Inge Graessle, called the move "surprising", adding that the "OLAF report contained strong evidence on fraudulent irregularities".

The European Commission has told EUobserver that after a "renewed, thorough search" for minutes or any other records of seven meetings commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen held with lobbyists, it found no such documents. Last month, the lack of written records came to light after EUobserver filed an access to documents request - despite Katainen having claimed that when meeting lobbyists, one of his cabinet members "always" takes notes.

The EU's largest political family has gathered in Helsinki to chose its lead candidate for the European election next May. They need to take on populists - but are struggling to deal with the 'enfant terrible' within their own ranks.

As the Spitzenkandidat process starts up again - for only the second time - the EPP group selects its lead candidate in Helsinki. Amongst the choreographed friendly rivalry, there are still a lot of policy blanks to fill in.

German owners of dirty diesel cars have received a letter from an official government body suggesting they buy a new car. But the promoted websites are all for German companies.

In a damning report, the Court of Auditors said the European Commission's long-term vision on agriculture in the EU was "not apparent". It also said that clear goals were missing from its CAP plan.

While the course is voluntary, the number of MEPs who signed up stands in stark contrast with the number of MEPs who said they supported such remedies in the wake of the #metoo movement.

The EU needs a "real European army" to stand up to Russia, the French president has said. It must also fight populism at home by being less "ultra-liberal".

The UK's information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, said on Tuesday that Facebook would be referred to the Irish Data Protection Commission for breaking EU GDPR rules in a report to parliament with conclusions of an investigation into consultancy Cambridge Analytica and others' abuse of personal data in political campaigning. "Throughout our enquiries we found a disturbing disregard for voters' personal privacy by players across the political campaigning eco-system," she noted.

The EU would support a Kosovo-Serbia land swap deal if it meant lasting peace, Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz told Kosovo president Hashim Thaci in Pristina on Tuesday. "Even if it's correction of borders and exchange of territories, then it would be supported by the European Union," he said. He spoke as the holder of the rotating EU presidency, but Germany, among other EU states, are opposed to the territorial move.

EU finance ministers on Tuesday removed Namibia from the bloc's list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, bringing the number of blacklisted countries down to just five: American Samoa, Guam, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago and the US Virgin Islands. "Namibia has made sufficient commitments at a high political level to address EU concerns," the ministers said. The blacklist originally included 17 jurisdictions.