Euobserver.com

Banks, insurance companies, and other financial firms ought to hedge against climate-change related risks to their business in measures to be monitored by European Commission stress tests, Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU financial services commissioner, has said. "That will mean assessing whether we need to make any regulatory changes to ensure better reporting," he said, signalling a change from previous, voluntary recommendations on how the financial sector should tackle climate emergencies.

The list of suspects orchestrating foreign influence campaigns is growing. The likes of China, Iran, India, Saudi Arabia are also tapping into Russia's disinfo playbook.

The 14,000 migrants trapped on the Greek island of Lesbos has been described as "the single most worrying fundamental rights issue that we are confronting anywhere in the European Union" by the head of the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency.

Ursula von der Leyen has chosen Alina Valean to be Romania's new commissioner. She will get the transport portfolio, putting an end to speculation that Hungary might lose the enlargement portfolio.

Flemish first minister Jan Jambon (N-VA) asked the Spanish ambassador in Belgium, Beatriz Larrotcha Palma, to "exchange ideas" about the situation in Catalonia, reported Belgium media Knack. "The conflict cannot be solved with police violence," said Jambon, adding that he has good contacts inside the Catalan movement. Last month, the Flemish parliament unanimously approved a resolution condemning the "disproportionate punishments by the Spanish Supreme Court of Catalan politicians and activists".

EU states' diplomats have reached a preliminary accord to stop the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg from lending money for fossil fuel projects for the sake of climate change, Reuters reports. The EU urges the bank to "adopt responsible investment policies and to phase out financing of fossil fuel projects", the draft text said. The EIB loaned €2bn for fossil fuel projects last year and €13.4bn since 2013.

The United Kingdom refused on Wednesday to process the European arrest warrant issued against the former Catalan minister Clara Ponsatí. The British Sirene office, which handles these procedures, replied to its Spanish counterpart that it will not proceed to the delivery of Ponsatí because it is "disproportionate under UK law". However, the National Crime Agency can evaluate again the situation if it receives more information on this issue.

Spain's socialist caretaker government has passed legislation to thwart the online ambitions of the Catalan government and independence activists, ahead of elections on November 10.

The EU Commission's incoming president Ursula von der Leyen has written to Boris Johnson on Wednesday, asking the British prime minister to propose a new candidate for commissioner as soon as possible. A commission spokeswoman said the letter encourages Johnson to put forward a female name. Because of the Brexit extension to January 2020, the UK needs to have a commissioner in the new EU executive, according to EU rules.

A new report published on Wednesday reveals that 40 percent of plastic products are garbage after less than a month, and that the current recycling systems in Europe cannot cope with such volumes of waste.

Some EU member states want to make ensure EU subsidies do not get cut in the next long-term budget - while others want to make sure the budget stays below one percent of GNI.

No one has been able to properly justify Brexit and a no-deal divorce was still possible in January, Michel Barnier, the EU's chief UK negotiator has said. "No one has ever managed to explain to me the added value of Brexit ... No one. And not even Nigel Farage," he said at a congress in Lisbon, naming a eurosceptic British MEP. "The risk of a cliff edge remains", he added.

Outgoing European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker told the BBC he had had "enough" of Brexit and that British media had been wrong to caricature him as a federalist. "They are lying when they call me an archaic, blind, stubborn European federalist. I'm not," he said. "The people of Europe are not ready for that [federalism]. We are who we are. Nations are important," Juncker said in his interview on Tuesday.

A poll released in France on Wednesday says some 42 percent of Muslims in France have faced discrimination at least once in their life due to their religion. The poll, conducted by Ifop and the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, reveals that those aged between 30 and 40 are more often victims. Some 60 percent of women who wear a veil also say they have been discriminated against at least once.

Outgoing EU Council president and former Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has said he will not run in Polish presidential elections in spring. "You need a candidate free from the baggage of unpopular decisions, and I am burdened with such baggage," Tusk said Tuesday, alluding to his endorsement of EU migrant quotas and other controversial topics in Poland. A Tusk-led coalition of pro-EU parties narrowly lost parliamentary elections in October.

The US' EU ambassador, Gordon Sondland, has changed his impeachment testimony to confirm the White House had threatened to withhold military aid from Ukraine if it did not attack US president Donald Trump's election rival, Joe Biden, on corruption allegations. "Resumption of the US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement," Sondland recalled telling Andriy Yermak, a senior Ukrainian aide, in Warsaw in September.

The French centrist party MoDem of Sylvie Goulard, France's failed European commissioner designate, was on Tuesday asked to give testimony over allegations it used European Parliament funds to pay the salaries of fictitious assistants, reports Le Monde newspaper. Goulard, along with other MoDem heavyweights like François Bayrou, will have to present themselves in front of authorities in early December.

Plans set to be unveiled in France aimed at capping the number of immigrants entering the country, include denying newly-arrived asylum seekers access to healthcare for at least three months. The new asylum measures, set to be announced Wednesday by French prime minister Edouard Philippe, are seen as a means to win over far-right voters. The plans also include imposing quotas for legal economic migrants.

If European countries want a strong role in this new order, they must redefine sovereignty and update it. This means that only if Europeans are prepared to pool power, they can help lay the foundations for new international institutions.

We interviewed 18 Syrian refugees in Turkey by phone. They all said Turkish authorities had arbitrarily detained them in immigration removal centres and forced them to sign forms they were not allowed to read but believed were voluntary repatriation forms.