Euobserver.com

With the Polish minister of justice now enjoying the ability to dismiss and appoint heads of courts, there is concern about the "chilling effect" that this may have on judges.

EU students starting in English universities in autumn 2019 will pay the same tuition fees as English students, UK education secretary Damian Hinds said, according to British media. This status will last for the duration of their degree courses. The Scottish government has made a similar commitment to EU students starting in Scottish universities in autumn 2019. There are about 135,000 EU students in UK universities.

Leader of Italy's far-right League, Matteo Salvini, said on Sunday at the party's annual gathering that he wants to create a pan-European association of nationalist parties and turn next year's European Parliament election into a referendum on immigration and job security. "I am thinking of a League of the Leagues of Europe" he said. A survey in Saturday's Corriere della Sera newspaper polled Salvini's League at 31.2 percent support.

Thousands gathered in Paris on Sunday to pay tribute to Simone Veil, Holocaust survivor and women's rights champion, when she was laid to rest in the Pantheon, France's burial place for some of its most honoured citizens. Veil became the first president of the directly elected European Parliament in 1979 and the first woman to hold the post. She died on 30 June 2017 at the age of 89.

In a bid to calm tensions Spain's new socialist government allowed nine high-profile Catalan separatists in custody to be moved to prisons closer to their home region. Prime minister Pedro Sanchez has also agreed to meet Catalonia's secessionist president, Quim Torra, in Madrid on 9 July, which will be the first meeting between a Spanish prime minister and a Catalan regional leader since January 2017.

Croatia has officially become a high-income country, according to the World Bank's new income classifications lowering the thresholds for a classification as a high-income country to $12,055 GNI per capita. Only two EU member states, Romania and Bulgaria, are not in the top-class. They both rank in the second best class as upper-middle income countries with GNI per capita between $3,896 and $12,055.

Over 80,000 people took to the streets of Vienna on Saturday in protest against a new law allowing for a 12-hour day and subsequent 60-hour working week. The law is expected to be passed by parliament on Thursday. The rightwing government, comprising the conservative People's Party (OVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPO), want the changes to give businesses more flexibility. Currently, Austria has an eight-hour day and 40-hour week.

Big on promises and short on detail, the EU summit's focus on migration failed to tackle the fractured nature of asylum, leaving the prospect of internal border controls unanswered as leaders appeared to issue victory statements.

European Commission president will meet US president Donald Trump before the end of July to try to "de-dramatise" the tense trade relations.

Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki will appear in the European Parliament to give his vision on the future of Europe, but will also face questions about a controversial judicial reform.

EU countries approved on Friday a plan to ban localisation restrictions on data, and create a single market for data storage and processing services. Under the new rules, to be applied within six months, it will be possible to store or process non-personal data in any EU country. National authorities will still be allowed to impose restrictions, when they can be justified on grounds of public security.

Leaders of the 27 remaining EU member states on Friday in a summit declaration expressed their "concern that no substantial progress has yet been achieved on agreeing a backstop solution for Ireland/Northern Ireland" if the border issue is not resolved in the Brexit negotiations. They said that "the territorial application of the Withdrawal Agreement, notably as regards Gibraltar" also was undecided. The text was adopted within minutes.

Italy's new government did nothing to stop the EU extending sanctions on Russia - despite its earlier bravado.

US leader Donald Trump asked French president Emmanuel Macron "Why don't you leave the EU?" when the two men met in Washington in April, according to a report in the Washington Post. He also offered Macron a bilateral trade deal as an incentive to quit the union, the US daily said, citing two EU officials as sources. The White House declined to deny or corroborate the account.

Macedonia will be invited to join Nato at its summit in July and should complete formalities, including ratification by all 29 current Nato members, between one year and two years later, Nato head Jens Stoltenberg said in Brussels with Macedonian prime minister Zoran Zaev on Friday. Stoltenberg said Skopje's "historic opportunity" depended on Macedonian and Greek people agreeing to Macedonia's new name in referendums in autumn.

EU leaders will continue their meeting in Brussels on Friday at 11am, two hours later than scheduled, after a long overnight debate on migration. The leaders, without UK prime minister Theresa May, will first discuss the progress of Brexit talks. Then they will discuss the eurozone, specifically the banking union and the future of bailout fund the European Stability Mechanism, and whether to transform it to a monetary fund.

EU leaders quietly agreed to roll over economic sanctions on Russia for another six months in the small hours of Friday at a summit in Brussels. The decision came despite qualms voiced by the new government in Italy, an EU source told EUobserver, but "almost none" other EU states argued against the move, the source said. The sanctions were imposed over Russia's invasion of Ukraine and ongoing ceasefire violations there.

US leader Donald Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin plan to bring several hundred people each in their delegations to a showcase summit in Helsinki on 16 July, Finnish newspaper Yle reported. It says the numbers of officials, advisers, and business leaders coming on both sides could amount to 2,000 people in total, amid tight security by Finnish police, and together with up to 1,000 journalists to cover the event.

Europe's farmers are getting older according to EU statistics out Thursday, which said one third of them were over 65 years old and just 11 percent were under 40. Some 10 million people work in the sector, which covers two-fifths of the EU's territory. Large farms of over 100 hectares accounted for just three percent of all holdings but more than half the land, it added.

The European Parliament has published a slogan - "This Time I'm Voting" - to boost turnout in 2019's EU elections. "It's not enough to just hope for a better future: this time we all need to take responsibility for it," additional blurb said. EU elections in 2014 saw one of the lowest turnouts, at 43 percent, compared to a high point of 62 percent in the first vote in 1979.