Euobserver.com

Commodities trading firm Trafigura has warned of potential power outages in Europe this winter. "We haven't got enough gas at the moment quite frankly, we're not storing for the winter period. So hence there's a real concern that there's a potential if we have a cold winter that we could have rolling blackouts in Europe," the company' CEO said Tuesday, Reuters reports.

Above 50 percent more people died in Bulgaria than usual during September, official Eurostat data showed. Bulgaria is the EU's least-vaccinated country, and it is the hardest-hit during the resurgence of coronavirus cases since late summer. In the Eurostat report comparing additional deaths with pre-pandemic levels, Bulgaria had the highest excess-mortality in the EU, followed by Lithuania, Greece and Romania, all at over 30 percent, Reuters said.

German regulator Bundesnetzagentur Tuesday paused certification of Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline until it created a German subsidiary, to be "organised in a legal shape compliant with German law", it said, prompting gas prices to jump 11 percent, Reuters reported. "Any delays in the pipeline certification, all the more so on the eve of winter, is not in the interests of the European Union," Russian MP Konstantin Kosachyov said.

Greece has offered to loan UK museums two classical artefacts, the golden Mask of Agamemnon and the Artemision Bronze statue of Zeus, if Britain permanently returned the Elgin Marbles to Athens, The Times reports. "We are advocating for the reunification of the marbles, I will be making my case to the British prime minister ... [the marbles] were stolen by Lord Elgin," Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in London.

An open letter, signed by 19 organisations representing Syrian refugees, wants Interpol to place safeguards to protect refugees from Red Notice abuse. It follows Interpol's decision to reinstate the Syrian government's access to its information system, allowing Syrian authorities to issue Red Notices. "There is a very real danger that the Syrian authorities will use Red Notices to try to target, arrest and extradite refugees,' said Fair Trials, an NGO.

Khalifa Haftar, a major figure in the Libyan civil war who wields wide sway over the east of the country, announced on Tuesday he will run in a 24 December presidential election that aims to help end a decade of conflict, France24 reports. Earlier this week it was reported that Saif Al Islam, the son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, filed his candidacy for the elections.

Armenia on Tuesday reported an unspecified number of deaths, plus the loss of military positions, in border clashes with Azerbaijani troops - a year after the longtime-foes fought a war over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, AFP writes. The six-week conflict, which left more than 6,500 dead, ended last November in a Russian-brokered deal that saw Armenia cede swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.

Dubai, Turkey, and the Western Balkans are hotspots of criminality in the EU neighbourhood, while Afghanistan's methamphetamine output is "expanding rapidly".

North Macedonia's minister of foreign affairs Bujar Osmani says Nato's presence - and regional maturity - means conflict remains unlikely in the event of Bosnia and Herzegovina's possible break-up.

A last-minute attempt by the Dutch government to scrap the country's dividend tax and keep Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands failed. The UK is the one of a few countries in Europe that does not levy a dividend tax.

In a joint letter, five European Parliament groups - from centre-right to far-left - called on EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen to defend EU law and take all necessary measures.

A group of civil society organisations has urged EU commissioners to withdraw their participation from a top event organised in partnership with one of the world's largest cigarette companies.

People in Bishop Auckland who voted for Brexit are like the French who idolise Éric Zemmour because he blames France's misfortunes on Muslims, or like the Dutch who support Thierry Baudet, whose far-right party organises paramilitary training in plain view.

The death at the age of 56 of the leader of the successor social democratic party in Greece has opened up the possibility of a return to top table politics for George Papandreou

Russian travellers are flocking to Croatia to get jabs of EU-approved vaccines, according to Reuters. "Just this month we've had about 1,000 Russians who received vaccines. So far we have had altogether 4,908 foreign citizens here, most of whom are Russians," the head of Zagreb's biggest vaccination centre said. "Demand is not just big, it's avalanche-like and growing exponentially," an employee of Russian travel agency Russian Express also said.

A French court began hearing an appeal by former prime minister François Fillon against a conviction in a corruption scandal that torpedoed his presidential ambitions and sealed the rise of Emmanuel Macron, France24 writes. Fillon, a conservative candidate in the presidential elections in 2017, was charged with corruption after revelations that his wife Penelope was paid over €800,000 over 15 years for a suspected fake job as a parliamentary assistant.

The EU has said Russia was complicit in Belarus' attack on Polish borders, while warning Russian president Vladimir Putin not to also strike Ukraine.

Belgium's government is bringing forward a meeting to decide on tighter measures to control the spread of Covid-19, amid a rapid increase in infections and hospital admissions, The Guardian writes. The meeting, originally set for Friday, was brought forward to Wednesday so that any measure approved midweek could be operational by the weekend, the government said this morning. Hospital admissions are up 30 percent on a weekly basis.

The European Environment Agency on Monday revealed that 307,000 people died prematurely due to air pollution in the EU in 2019. These deaths are concretely related to the exposure of fine particulate matter, coming from emission sources like road transport, industrial processes or agriculture. At least 58 percent, or 178,000, of these deaths could have been avoided, if all member states had applied international air quality standards, it said.

A letter from 180 MEPs is demanding the European Commission perform better when it comes to responding to their written questions, in an initiative taken by Dutch liberal MEP Sophie In't Veld. "The quality of answers to written questions is deplorable. Answers come in too late, they are evasive, incomplete, and void of any substance," she said, demanding the executive takes measures to improve responses.