Euobserver.com

EU climate commissioner Miguel Arias Canete said the recent changes in government in Spain and Italy were noticeable in the Energy Council, held on Monday. "In the past their positions were less ambitious and now they have supported the more ambitious position taken by the parliament," said the Spaniard. Canete added that this ambition was in relation to the headline targets, but less clear about the details of the regulations.

The European Commission said Monday that ensuring the 600 people stranded in a boat in the Mediterranean "get the care they need" was "a humanitarian imperative." Italy and Malta have each been saying over the weekend that the other country should open its ports to the boat. The commission added that legally the "situation is everything but clear" and that it does not have a mandate over the issue.

Most EU leaders found US president Donald Trump "depressing" at the G7, but one of them - Italy's Giuseppe Conte - made a new friend.

More than 175,000 people in Spain's autonomous Basque region on Sunday formed a 200km human chain calling for the right to hold a referendum on independence from Madrid. Last year's independence referendum in the Catalan region prompted a brutal crackdown by Spanish security forces and saw several of its political leaders jailed or in exile.

Italy's new interior minister Matteo Salvini threatened on Sunday to close the country's ports to a migrant rescue ship in the Mediterranean carrying more than 600 people, and has asked Malta to open its doors to the vessel. Malta has refused to take the ship, Aquarius, in, saying in a statement it took the migrants onboard in international waters off Libya, in rescue operations coordinated by Italy.

Despite Brexit, the UK is still Europe's most favoured destination for foreign investment, attracting 18 percent of all foreign direct investment (FDI) last year, according to the EY Attractiveness Report. France enjoyed surging project numbers (up 31 percent) and has become a direct competitor to Germany and the UK. Europe's three largest economies, Germany, France and the UK together accounted for almost 50 percent of all FDI projects.

Emails leaked to UK press revealed on Sunday that British businessman Arron Banks, who backed the 'Leave' campaign in the Brexit referendum, had more extensive contacts with Russian officials than previously claimed, meeting Russia's UK ambassador, Alexander Yakovenko, three times, rather than once and shared at least one phone number for the Trump transition team with the Russians. He also refused an offer to participate in a Russian goldmine deal.

EUobserver asked the parliament for minutes of the meeting where the details of the hearing with Facebook CEO were determined. The format - later heavily criticised - had not been discussed.

Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte will debate the future of the EU with MEPs and with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Strasburg on Wednesday.

Poland's power behind the throne, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is unwell, but the ageing party chief's successor could be even worse for Warsaw's EU relations.

How many times have you actually read the entire 17,000-word privacy notice before agreeing to share your data? Do you feel more or less protected by clicking 'yes'?

The Joint Research Centre coordinates the EU-wide campaign to see if citizens in some member states receive inferior versions of products branded under the same name.

Nato is helping to sustain transatlantic unity amid a Western rift on trade, as Macron and Trump exchange blows on Twitter ahead of a 'G6+1' summit.

Nord Stream 2 pipeline may well not comply with EU rules, but Sweden has no legal reason to say no to Russia, Stockholm said.

With Russia and China posing (different) threats to the EU from its east, and migration pressures from Africa to the south, the EU needs to find ways - and quickly - to reinvigorate the Brussels-Washington axis.

Part-time employment is very common in the Netherlands, where half (49.8%) of all employed people aged 15 to 64 worked part-time last year, Eurostat revealed on Friday. Also in Austria (27.9%), Germany (26.9%), Denmark (25.3%), the UK (24.9%), Belgium (24.5%) and Sweden (23.3%) part-time employment was common. At the opposite end of the scale, less than five percent worked part-time in Bulgaria (2.2%), Hungary (4.3%) and Croatia (4.8%).

The Montenegrin public broadcaster, RTCG, on Thursday sacked its director Andrijana Kadija, prompting protests from journalists and civil society in the Balkan country that the government was undermining the broadcaster's independent editorial policies. The European Union condemned the dismissal of Kadija in a statement saying it is "completely unacceptable" and "goes against freedom of expression and media which is a fundamental value of the European Union".

Using the word "Glen" (which means valley in Gaelic), could be restricted to whisky produced in Scotland so as not to confuse consumers, the EU court of justice said on Thursday in a case where a Hamburg court had asked for advice. The Scotch Whisky Association had taken a German whisky labelled "Glen Buchenbach" to the Hamburg court. It must now weigh the EU court's advice before ruling.

Sweden's government has approved the Nordstream 2 undersea pipeline project to transport Russian gas to Germany. "National and international law does not permit Sweden to reject the application of a pipeline outside Swedish territory" explained minister for enterprise and innovation, Mikael Damberg in a press conference on Thursday. Finland and Germany have already approved the project, leaving Denmark as the only country not having accepted the project.

The UK proposed Thursday to stay in the EU customs union until a new customs arrangement is agreed, which includes a solution to avoid a hard border in Ireland. It said it expected the new arrangement "to be in place by the end of December 2021 at the latest." EU negotiator Michel Barnier welcomed the proposal but said he wanted to check it respects EU red lines.