Euobserver.com

Shell's CEO called the relocation "necessary" - saying it will simplify company structure, making stock buybacks easier, and prop up value. Shareholders will vote on the move at a general meeting on 10 December.

EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič met with Swiss federal foreign minister Ignazio Cassis in Brussels to restart negotiations - after Switzerland abruptly halted talks in May.

EU Commission vice-president Maroš Šefčovič met with Swiss federal foreign minister Ignazio Cassis in Brussels to restart negotiations - after Switzerland abruptly halted talks in May.

Efforts to update and revise 20-year old EU transparency rules on document-access have been delayed for years - in part, because of the Council, representing member states. The European Commission has opted for internal guidelines, which are currently being drafted.

The flagship policy of the 5 Star Movement is being attacked in the Italian parliament - despite Italy being led by a cabinet of national unity under M5S president Mario Draghi.

This week, the European Investment Bank's board of directors, comprised of European Commission and member state representatives, will decide on a new transparency policy. It must seize this opportunity to salvage its image by drastically improving the bank's information disclosure

All important future challenges - climate protection, digitalisation, strong public health care - call for massive and comprehensive investment programmes.

One shortcoming is that this cornerstone of EU transparency comes from a radically different era, predating many modern communications tools, such as smartphones and instant messaging, and the emergence of 'Big Data'.

A new report has found a dramatic increase in the number of criminal and administrative cases against people who help migrants. The report comes as a number of sea-rescue activists face up to 25 years in prison in Greece.

There is a greater risk of an accidental war breaking out between the West and Russia than at any time since the Cold War, Britain's most senior military officer has said, Reuters reports. General Nick Carter, chief of the defence staff, told Times Radio there was a greater risk of tensions in the new era of a "multipolar world", where governments competed for different objectives and different agendas.

Pacific Rim leaders and activists have voiced opposition with the 'COP26' climate-change summit, which wrapped up in Glasgow last weekend. "The fundamental fact remains: we are still headed for a two-degree-plus world," Pacific-region senior advisor Auimatagi Joe Moeono-Kolio told The Guardian. The final summit declaration cut mention of phasing out coal use or paying for the economic damage caused by climate events in the world's least developed states.

Unambitious EU vehicle-emissions targets could see Europe's biggest carmakers to produce millions more combustion-engine vehicles than need be by 2030, NGO Transport and Environment has warned. The situation meant a "lost decade" in the fight against climate change, it told The Guardian. Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, who all signed the 'COP26' climate pledge, now emitted more carbon than five years ago due to high sales of SUV-type models.

Three German state health ministers urged parties negotiating to form a new government to prolong states' power to implement stricter pandemic measures, such as lockdowns or school closures, as the country's seven-day Covid-19 incidence rate hit record highs, Reuters writes. The number of people per 100,000 infected last week rose to 277.4, data showed on Saturday, and has risen to over 500 in some regions of the country.

"We call upon you to engage with Belarusian authorities and other relevant stakeholders in order to organise humanitarian and medical assistance" for people stuck on the Belarus border, the interior ministers of Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland wrote to the EU Commission on Friday. "It is essential that international organisations and NGOs help migrants to return to their countries of origin, provide the necessary assistance," they added.

"We don't want to leave the EU ... [but] we want to keep our sovereignty," Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán told a party rally on Sunday. "We will not give up the right to defend our borders, to stop migrants ... [and] we insist that marriage in Hungary is between a man and a woman," he also said, setting out his political stall ahead of elections expected in April 2022.

A new centrist, anti-corruption party called We Continue The Change came top in Bulgarian elections on Sunday with 26 percent of the vote, according to exit polls by Alpha Research, Gallup International, Market Links and Trend, Reuters reports. Prime minister Boyko Borisov's GERB party came a narrow second. "Bulgaria is headed onto a new path," centrist party leader Kiril Petkov said, following a protracted political deadlock in the country.

Austria has instructed the 2 million or so unvaccinated people in the country to stay home, except for essential work or food-shopping trips, in the EU's first-ever selective lockdown of its type. "We are not taking this step lightly, but unfortunately it is necessary," Austrian chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said. Austria has one of the lowest inoculation rates, just 65 percent, in Europe and one of its highest daily infection rates.

Russian prosecutors have filed a lawsuit to liquidate the country's oldest human-rights NGO, Memorial, created by Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in the 1980s to document Stalin-era crimes. "We're in shock. On the other hand, this isn't surprising," Oleg Orlov, a Memorial board member, told Reuters last Friday. "This is obviously a political decision [and] ... a blow to all of civil society and a really serious alarm bell," he added.

Russia is "important" and should be "engaged" with despite its aggression, the EU is preparing to say in a landmark security document.

Russia has been accused of massing an invasion force beside Ukraine amid ongoing violence on the Belarusian-Polish border, where two more people died.