Euobserver.com

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has turned the thumbscrews on Sweden by personally naming who he wants Swedish judges to extradite in return for Nato membership.

On Wednesday, the EU commission is expected to lay out detailed plans on the new €18bn assitance package for Ukraine for next year, while disagreements over financing remain.

The liberal Renew Europe group in the European Parliament on Tuesday in a letter asked parliament president Roberta Metsola to invite the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, to a parliamentary hearing. Liberal MEPs warned that the standards applied by Twitter may be weakened, ahead of the European elections and amid the fight against disinformation. "Twitter cannot become a dystopian hellscape," MEP Dita Charanzová said, citing Musk.

Mastodon is much more than a company registered in Berlin with one employee — founder, chief executive and only shareholder, the young programmer Eugen Rochko. He designed Mastodon as open software that allows people and groups to build a network.

Democracy in Europe is being undermined by alleged government-led spyware on citizens, journalists and politicians, says Dutch liberal MEP Sophie In't Veld, who is lead report writer for a European Parliament probe into the abuse.

If Musk's trajectory is towards multiplying political dog-fights and opening the gates to far-out opinions, the promise is not a better Twitter. The promise is MySpace — which fizzled out when users started to share obscene, nasty, and outrageous content.

By focusing on achieving arbitrarily set low-debt objectives rather than responsible investment, the EU's economic policy has damaged public services, living standards and our efforts to tackle the climate crisis. It's time for change.

A Bulgarian police officer was shot dead at the border with Turkey, the interior minister said Tuesday. The incident occurred on Monday evening when an unidentified person shot at a border police officer on patrol, AP reported. The shooter was not captured and believed to be on Turkish territory. Bulgaria deployed 350 troops and 40 army vehicles along its border with Turkey to help with a growing migrant influx.

A German humanitarian group said its ship docked in southern Italy early Tuesday and disembarked 89 people rescued at sea, AP reported. Mission Lifeline posted videos on social media of the 25-meter Rise Above freighter docking in Reggio Calabria and added that all 89 were allowed to disembark. The group had waited for days for Italy to assign it a port after it etered Italian waters because of rough waters.

Hundreds more Kosovar-Serb police have resigned in northern Kosovo in a rolling protest that risks looking like de facto secession.

The stand-off with Italy's far-right government continues — as four charity vessel ships seek to disembark those had rescued at sea. The stalemate comes as another 500 people need rescuing.

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres told the COP27 climate conference in Egypt that the world is on "a highway to climate hell, with our foot on the accelerator." He told leaders to "cooperate or perish," singling out the two biggest polluters, China and the US. He called for a pact between rich and poor countries. "It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact — or a collective suicide pact" Guterres said.

British prime minister Rishi Sunak and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen agreed to work to resolve problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, at a meeting on Monday at the COP27 conference in Egypt, Downing street said in a statement. Sunak's spokesperson said the two had agreed "on the importance of working together to agree a resolution." Britain has previously threatened to override the post-Brexit trade agreement.

Poland's ruling party leader triggered anger and ridicule by claiming that the country's low birthrate is partly caused by overconsumption of alcohol by young women, AP reported. Jarosław Kaczyński, the 73-year-old lifelong bachelor, said Saturday that "if [...] the situation remains such that, until the age of 25, girls, young women, drink the same amount as their peers, there will be no children." The Polish government has restricted abortion rights.

The EU Commission on Monday proposed rules to make Airbnb and other short-term home rental companies share monthly data on the number of people using their platforms. Currently, different national laws regulate Airbnb and its rivals, and authorities have little oversight over their activities. The hope is that improving transparency on the short-term accommodation hosts will lead to harmonisation of rules, preventing illegal listings, and more sustainable tourism.

Brexit has curtailed Britain's role within European internal security, presenting new risks. The greatest impact comes from the loss of UK influence — and the newfound reliance on informal influence and the goodwill of its European counterparts.

Is it kind of funny to watch Elon Musk burn billions of dollars driving a popular social media company into the ground in a quixotic quest to build a better 'public square'?

As Italy's new government eyes plans for more humane jails aimed at rehabilitating convicts, there are two unconventional spots that are successful case studies.

The European Commission says it is powerless to stop Italy from banning charity rescue boats entering its territorial waters. The statement follows moves by the new government under Georgia Meloni to further crack down on the Mediterranean Sea rescues.

Renowned British conspiracy theorist David Icke has been denied entry to the Netherlands for two years.