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The European Commission defended Atos for hosting EU police data, despite its own public guidelines that state operational and technical copies should not be entrusted to third parties. Atos former CEO Thierry Breton is set to become a European commissioner.

The president of the European parliament, David Sassoli, has threatened the leader the leftist GUE/NGL group, Manon Aubry, over a tweet in which she encouraged the eco-activist group Extinction Rebellion to occupy the European parliament.

Romania's new centrist government will propose MEP Siegfried Muresan as its commissioner in the new EU executive, ruling National Liberal Party officials said Tuesday. Muresan has been a European lawmaker since 2014, and hails from the centre-right European People's Party (EPP). He has been an EPP spokesperson and vice-chair for the group in parliament. The official nomnation letter will be sent to Brussels on TUesday or Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Poland broke EU law when it lowered the retirement age for judges in 2017 and introduced a different retirement age for women and men in the judiciary, the European Court of Justice ruled on Tuesday. The EU's top court said Poland "failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law" with the controversial measures, which have formed part of the EU's probe into the Polish government's respect for rule of law.

Hungary's 5G network will be built with the participation of Huawei, the controversial Chinese telecommunications giant, foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said on Tuesday in Shanghai. He added that Hungary does not differentiate between companies on the basis of nationality, the only condition is to comply with Hungary's laws. Huawei will work in partnership with British Vodafone and Germany's Deutsche Telekom, Szijjarto added.

After 163 days the Belgian government formation is not going anywhere. The King needs to be more creative than ever in trying to find a way out.

The leader of Brazil's 900,000 or so indigenous people, Sonia Guajajara, has urged the EU not to sign a trade deal with South American states in light of killings of activists in her home country. "[Signing] this deal would be turning a blind eye to what is happening in Brazil. It would be institutionalising genocide," she told the Reuters news agency, after illegal loggers killed another tribesman at the weekend.

Latvia's public prosecutor has accused its central bank chief Ilmars Rimsevics of taking hefty bribes in return for helping a distressed lender, Trasta Komercbanka, to tackle regulators. The allegations date back to 2010 in a case which has caused embarrassment for the European Central Bank in Frankfurt, on whose board he sits, and whose December meeting he is to attend despite the controversy. The trial started on Monday.

US aims to push France to lift veto on Western Balkans enlargement to correct a "historic mistake".

The EU argued on Monday for the withdrawal of tariffs imposed on metal imports by US president Donald Trump in front of a three-person panel of adjudicators at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Trump set duties in 2018 of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminium, citing a national security threat. The WTO panel said it will not deliver rulings before the final quarter of 2020, Reuters reported.

A Turkish court ordered the release of two journalists, Ahmet Altan and Nazli Ilicak, after a previous life sentence for aiding the network of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating a coup attempt in 2016, was overturned in a retrial on Monday. Since the failed coup, more than 77,000 people have been imprisoned and 150,000 people have been sacked or suspended from the public sector.

The EU Commission on Monday defended the bloc's agriculture policy, after a report in The New York Times detailed the corruption regarding part of €59bn of EU farm subsidies by oligarchs and government officials in central and eastern Europe. The commission said there was "zero tolerance" for fraud but that the bulk of enforcement lies with national authorities. "We are not here to replace national governments," spokeswoman Mina Andreeva said.

The EU is set to allow the US government and companies to participate in joint defence projects, Bloomberg reported. EU countries want to have more defence cooperation and develop their own capabilities outside of Nato. On Wednesday, EU ambassadors will discuss the rules for third countries to join the defence projects. Each participation would require unanimous decision by member states. The draft rules seem to exclude China as a partner.

EU finance ministers are set to remove the central American country of Belize from the bloc's blacklist of tax havens in a meeting this week, Reuters reported. The decision is to be formally adopted on Friday. The other eight jurisdictions are expected to remain on the list: Fiji, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, Vanuatu and the three US territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands.

The German government and car industry agreed to increase joint subsidies for electric-car buyers and extend the programme until 2025. For instance, subsidies for cars costing less than €40,000 will increase to €6,000 from €4,000. The cost of the subsidies would be evenly split between industry and government. The government will also invest €3.5bn to expand electric-car charging stations with the aim of 50,000 stations by 2022.

It is telling how often faraway dates feature in Europe's more successful projects: it creates momentum and focus for those that want to move forward. It also creates a sense of inevitability for those that need to move forward.

Romanians marched at the weekend to demand an end to illegal logging in their country and an independent investigation into the killings of two forest rangers. The EU Commission is looking into whether Romania has adequately implemented EU law.

Romania's parliament voted on Monday in favour of the new government led by the leader of the National Liberal Party (PNL), Ludovic Orban. Orban's cabinet replaces the socialist government of Viorica Dancila, which collapsed following a no-confidence motion on 10 October. With a new government, "we can expect a name for the commission very soon," an EU source said. Romania will be the last member state to present a commissioner-designate.

Germany's minister for health, Jens Spahn, has announced he is working on a law that bans so-called "conversion therapy" for LGTB people under 18-years old, Deutsche Welle reports. The "therapy" will still be possible for consenting adults, but under strict circumstances. Those who violate the law will receive up to a year in prison. Spahn said he wants to make clear "You're ok just the way as you are".

The office of British prime minister Boris Johnson is not approving the publication of a parliamentary report on Russian influence in the 2016 EU referendum ahead of the general election of 12 December, the Guardian reports. The possibly explosive 50-page document from the intelligence and security committee of the parliament describes how Russia might have distorted the outcome of the Brexit referendum.