Euobserver.com

Six Western-Balkans leaders will sit down with the 27 EU ones in a videoconference summit on Wednesday that was to have taken place in Zagreb as the centrepiece of the Croatian EU presidency. "The summit itself is the message, to say: we want you to join," an EU diplomat told Reuters, adding: "We will also say that you cannot pander to the Chinese and the Russians when it suits you".

Sicily's regional government is offering to subsidise holidays on the island for both domestic and international visitors in an effort to kickstart tourism after the coronavirus pandemic, the Guardian writes. Current plans include subsidising visitors' accommodation costs, as well as vouchers for cultural and heritage activities. It may also pay for up to half of the cost of flights, but this has not been confirmed yet.

Panama, the Bahamas, and Mauritius are to be added to an EU blacklist of countries on Thursday that "pose significant threats to the financial system of the [European] Union" on money-laundering grounds due to lax legislation at home, Reuters reports, citing a draft EU document. Barbados, Botswana, Cambodia, Ghana, Jamaica, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nicaragua and Zimbabwe are also on the list, meaning EU banks must do enhanced due diligence on transactions.

The US has elevated its ambassador to Belgium, former businessman Ronald J. Gidwitz, to the post of caretaker ambassador to the EU, it said Tuesday, adding he will "advance a strong US-EU partnership", help Europe in its economic recovery after the pandemic, and promote "our shared interests and values across the globe." The last US ambassador to the EU, businessman Gordon Sondland, left in disgrace over a Ukraine blackmail scandal.

The number of coronavirus deaths in the UK reached 29,427 Tuesday, surpassing Italy (29,029), to become Europe's worst-struck country and the second-worst globally after the US, while prompting calls for a public enquiry into government handling of the crisis. "I really don't like this league table of who's top and who's not, but there's no denying that these are really serious numbers," Cambridge University expert David Spiegelhalter told The Guardian.

Germans might be able to go abroad on holiday this summer, tourism minister Thomas Bareiss told Germany's Der Tagesspiegel newspaper on Tuesday. "I hope that, given the good numbers [on coronavirus infections], we will be able to relax the restrictions in the next four to eight weeks," he said. "I would not yet write off other regions in Europe, such as the Balearic islands or the Greek islands," Bareiss added.

France will not make a decision on holidays until early June - while Germany is warning against a "race to allow tourism first", and some smaller EU states, such as Greece, Denmark and Austria, are considering allowing foreign holidays.

The German Constitutional court ordered the European Central Bank to explain its 2015 bond-buying scheme that helped eurozone stay afloat - otherwise the German Bundesbank will not be allowed to take part.

Romania violated the rights of its former anti-corruption chief Laura Codruta Kovesi when they fired hire. The judgement issued by the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg follows a long catalogue of high-level corruption in Romania.

If the North-South divide is bridged by a significantly increased EU-budget for the next seven years, anti-democratic governments should not continue to benefit.

It is too soon to deliver a verdict on the Swedish 'non-lockdown'. However, should Stockholm succeed in containing the virus without bringing its economy to a standstill, Sweden will enter the looming economic recession in a much better shape.

Chinese spies have targeted Belgian biological warfare experts, vaccine-maker GSK, and other high-tech firms in the country, Belgium's intelligence service suspects.

The EU will insist on progress on fisheries and level-playing fields, in talks with Britain on their future relationship, parallel to the trade deal, Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney said Monday after talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier. Negotiations have stalled as the UK pushes for sectorial, streamlined agreements, while the EU wants a comprehensive deal. June is the deadline for any extension to the December 2020 exit date.

A new report from the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA) on the implementation of the EU Commission's 2018 code of practice on disinformation reveals "significant weaknesses" linked to the lack of transparency and voluntary approach. ERGA proposes shifting from the current flexible self-regulatory approach to co-regulatory. The code targeted companies such as Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Belgian TV is to start screening a new 10-episode comedy series called Parlement next week based on life in the EU institutions. The Franco-German-Belgian production makes fun of British MEPs celebrating Brexit and has characters based on real figures, such as Denmark's EU commissioner. It is the first time 'EU Bubble' life is being satirised on prime-time TV in Europe.

A new study out of Germany has suggested that the coronavirus infection rate there could be much higher than initially thought and that some 1.8m people could be infected nationwide, a quarter of them without symptoms, Deutsche Welle reports. The number of coronavirus infections in Germany could be 10 times higher than currently thought, says a much-discussed Heinsberg Report, which took a closer look at one small community in Germany.

The EU's disease prevention agency says more funds will be needed to shore up surveillance of infectious diseases, which it wants to make less reliant on humans.

The commissioner for the digital portfolio, Margrethe Vestager, warned that "without the technology, it will be very difficult to open [society] to the degree that we all want" - since new outbreaks might surge back until there is a vaccine.

Why a contract for consultancy work has angered green groups, and why it must be cancelled.

Media freedom watchdogs have written a joint letter to the attorney general of Malta, demanding a joint investigation team from Europol to help with the case of murdered investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was killed in a car bomb attack in October 2017. The 11 NGOs say they are "deeply concerned that legal proceedings around the murder have not yet delivered full justice for Caruana Galizia or her family."