Euobserver.com

MEPs from all sides of the political spectrum have demanded the EU Commission revealed details of its demands on Poland and Hungary over their recovery plans

Progressive MEPs are piling on pressure for Texas to scrap its anti-abortion bill, with some proposing doctors seek refuge in Europe if necessary.

John Dalli, the former EU commissioner for health from Malta, could end up losing his EU pension following media revelations he had an undeclared offshore firm.

Slovenia implemented none of the 15 anti-corruption proposals it got from a European watchdog, painting an ugly picture of the flagship EU state.

In Afghanistan today at least 18 million people - nearly half the population - are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Now is the time to focus on them.

Three EU-based firms are suspected of trying to smuggle arms to Belarus and Russia via Moldova in what might be just the tip of a larger black market.

The first post-election talks on forming a coalition between the Greens and the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party, held over two hours in Berlin on Tuesday, were "constructive and objective", Annalena Baerbock, the Green candidate for German chancellor, told German media. The CDU was "basically prepared for such a union [with the Greens]" and the meeting was a "good exchange," the CDU's would-be chancellor, Armin Laschet, also said.

Irish and Luxembourgish regulators, where US tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have their EU HQs, should retain exclusive powers to police their Europe-wide behaviour, Christel Schaldemose, the centre-left Danish MEP shepherding the Digital Services Act, a landmark EU law on tech rules, through the EU Parliament, has told Reuters. "It makes sense to keep the country of origin principle," she said. But "targeted advertisements ... shouldn't be allowed".

The EU should create a joint fund to hedge against volatile energy prices, Greek finance and energy ministers have said in a letter to Paschal Donohoe, the head of the Eurogroup, a club of eurozone-finance ministers. "The unprecedented spike in gas prices, and by extension in electricity prices, is a major challenge for all EU member states that cannot be dealt with, solely, at national level," they said, Reuters reports.

Police fired tear gas and water cannons at anti-pandemic restrictions protesters in Ljubljana on Tuesday, as EU leaders began flying in for a Western Balkans summit in Brdo, a few miles from the capital, starting Wednesday. Police fought running battles with soccer-hooligan groups who took part for half the night, AP reports, in the third protest by anti-maskers in a month, who sought media exposure by targeting the EU event.

MEPs and transparency campaigners have ridiculed an EU decision to remove Anguilla, Dominica, and Seychelles from a tax-haven blacklist on Tuesday. Seychelles was "at the heart" of the recent Pandora Papers revelations of financial wrongdoing and the EU list was a "joke", Oxfam said. The EU de-listing was "grotesque", German Green MEP Sven Giegold said. The EU list excluded "the most important financial flows", French centre-left MEP Aurore Lalucq said.

The EU could hit Britain and Jersey's energy supply over the UK's failure to provide sufficient fishing licences to French fishermen, France's EU affairs minister Clément Beaune said, The Guardian reports. Beaune added that action would be decided on within days and discussions were already in motion. France has been pushing the EU to take a stronger stance against the UK over its obligations over fishing access to Channel waters.

The French Catholic Church has asked for forgiveness after admitting findings of "appalling" abuse by clergy and lay members over 70 years, The Guardian writes. It has expressed "shame" after a devastating report found that at least 330,000 children were victims of sexual abuse. The president of the investigative committee, Jean-Marc Sauvé, said: "Until the early 2000s the Catholic church showed a profound and even cruel indifference towards the victims."

"It raises questions on how EU funds that will be transferred to these new structures will have a transparent reading," Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield told journalists.

Russian firm Gazprom is continuing to reduce gas supplies to Europe via Belarus, potentially aggravating tense market conditions.

The European Parliament has backed a moratorium on facial recognition for law-enforcement purposes - bypassing attempts to torpedo the ban on potential mass surveillance.

Romania is seeking a new leader after a no-confidence vote in parliament - the same day it registered its highest daily coronavirus-infections ever.

"We stand ready to adopt further measures in response to unacceptable actions of the regime," EU home affairs commissioner Ylva Johansson told MEPs.

An EU army is not some ultra-federalist fantasy but a common-sense answer to the real-world challenges we face as European countries, says Guy Verhofstadt.

To counter propaganda and prevent democracy losing more ground against authoritarian regimes like China, we need to tell our children what morality is all about.