Euobserver.com

Both Germany and the Netherlands are said to be vehemently opposed to new EU borrowing to deal with the energy crisis and economic outfall of the war.

EU leaders will meet for the second time this month to discuss emergency measures to tackle the energy crisis — although divisions are likely to prove challenging.

New EU sanctions on Iran make clear that it has joined Russia's war against Ukraine by supplying lethal drones to Moscow.

The EU is aiming to pull 10 south-east Asian states into the Western camp on Russia and China when they meet for their first-ever summit in December.

The European Parliament awarded the people of Ukraine the 2022 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. "This award is for those Ukrainians fighting on the ground. For those who have been forced to flee," said Roberta Metsola, president of the European Parliament. The nomination follows Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. The award, which is named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, will be handed out 14 December in Strasbourg.

The EU is gathering intelligence on right wing extremist threats for a wider assessment, said the European Commission. The comments come amid a debate on Russia's influence on far-right parties and politicians in Europe.

The Netherlands has been the last EU country to announce that it would quit the controversial Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) over climate concerns — after Poland and Spain.

If you live in the EU, chances are your plastic trash might be recycled by child or migrant workers in Turkey. The Waste Shipment Regulation should be amended to prevent this.

"Mental health is the silent pandemic," Irish centre-right MEP Maria Walsh, who spearheads several parliament initiatives on mental health, said, arguing that the EU needs to have a strategy implemented in "weeks, not years".

Is Europe really increasingly polarising? A few recent academic studies seem to have evidence that suggests the opposite. How is that for a polarising opinion?

EU affairs ministers on Tuesday commented on the European Parliament's proposals on reforming EU elections, including formalising the so-called spitzenkandidat process — choosing the next EU Commission president through the election –, lowering the voting age to 16 and having transnational lists and a common voting day. Several ministers criticised the proposals arguing that they interfere with national electoral systems, and do not take into account sufficiently the national specificities.

EU Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans scolded Hungary's foreign minister Tuesday after Péter Szijjártó travelled to Moscow recently. "I don't think going on your knees in front of [Russian president] Putin in Moscow is going to be a long-term solution for our problems," he told journalists, adding: "I was quite disgusted by seeing minister Szijjártó again going to Moscow, begging for mercy from someone who has invaded a peaceful European country."

EU institutions have proposed to re-channel €40bn from the bloc's budget to help people struggling with high energy bills, as part of wider measures to tackle the energy crisis.

Nine EU countries are pushing for a Europe-wide ban to the systematic extermination of male chicks in farms.

Some EU politicians want to expand gas supply to deal with high energy prices, but global think tanks Ember and E3G claim a better way to deal with high energy prices is by fast-tracking renewables.

The European Parliament refused to endorse the EU's border police Frontex, following numerous reports of abuse under its previous leadership. The vote saw MEPs declining to grant the agency discharge for its 2020 annual budget.

Europe will never use gas in the same way again, but the Commission planning as though it can. If unchanged, Europe will be denied the opportunity to plan a future beyond gas

The EU is preparing a ninth round of sanctions on Russia as well as weighing related measures against Moscow's ally, Iran, following drone strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine.

"The return of war on our continent has accentuated the need to create a real European Security and Defence Union."

EU leaders will threaten to impose fresh sanctions on Belarus if it continues to support Russia's war in Ukraine, according to draft conclusions of this week's summit. Leaders will urge Minsk "to stop enabling the Russian war of aggression" and say Europe "remains ready to move quickly with further sanctions against Belarus if needed." Russia is planning to station 9,000 soldiers in Belarus and shortly hold joint live-free military drills.