Euobserver.com

The move comes after the commission gave Poland until 16 August to explain how - and under what timeline - they will implement two EU court decisions. But Warsaw has not laid out any concrete plans.

Fewer Iraqi and Afghan migrants are entering the EU from Belarus, but new sanctions on Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko are coming anyway.

When one member state is threatened, Brussels will come up with its usual denouncements and superficial sanctions, just to let the other member states relapse into their habit of trading with rivals, and focussing on the next election campaign.

Many regard Fit for 55 as the moment for European climate policy. However, wait just a little longer, as perhaps most crucial piece of legislation will be the revision of the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive in the autumn.

UK home secretary Priti Patel has told British MPs that France "won't see a penny" of the £54m (€63m) Britain had promised to pay to double coast-guard patrols after some 1,000 migrants crossed the English Channel on Monday alone - the highest daily figure on record. About 13,500 people have come to the UK on irregular boat-crossings so far this year, compared to 8,420 in the whole of last year.

Austria's prosecution of Julian Hessenthaler, a German security guard who leaked a video exposing corruption in the far-right FPÖ party in the 'Ibizagate' scandal in 2019, was an attack on whistleblowers in Europe in general, a coalition of 15 NGOs, including Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International, has said. "He is being made an example of to deter potential future informers," Thomas Lohninger, from Austrian digitial-rights NGO epicenter.works said.

The EU is preparing a fifth round of sanctions against Belarus over its recent campaign of pushing migrants across EU borders. "There is no question there will be new sanctions and they will touch people who support [Belarus president Alexander] Lukashenko financially," an EU source said. The EU foreign service also urged Belarus to reverse a 10-year jail sentence handed to a lawyer on Monday for defending opposition figures.

EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell has thanked Iraq for its help in stopping migrants being flown from Baghdad to Minsk and sent over the EU border by the Belarusian regime. "We have had a good cooperation in recent months, reinforcing migration governance," Borrell said on his first visit to Iraq Monday. Iraq first shut down Minsk flights in late July and has promised not to resume them in 2021.

Cypriot former EU commissioner for humanitarian aid and crisis management, Christos Stylianides, will head the newly-formed climate crisis and civil protection ministry of Greece, Ekathimerini writes. Stylianides, a Cypriot citizen, will receive an honorary Greek citizenship in order to serve ahead of his swearing-in ceremony on Friday, in line with Greek law. The creation of the new ministry came after devastating wildfires this summer.

Germany has accused Russia of hacking the German parliament again, ahead of federal elections this month, just as it did in 2015 ahead of previous elections. "The German government has reliable information according to which ghost-writer activities can be attributed to cyber protagonists of the Russian state or Russia's GRU military intelligence [service]," a German foreign-ministry spokesman told Reuters Monday, urging Moscow "to put an immediate end" to its operation.

Chinese firm Great Wall Motor is to launch a hybrid SUV with a 150km, electric-powered range, in Germany in 2021 it said Monday, Reuters reports, as well as a mini-hybrid car, with an electric-powered range of 400km, more broadly in Europe in 2022. Chinese electric-car company Nio recently began sales in Norway. Chinese firms Xpeng and BYD already sell cars in Europe.

Germany's ambassador to China has died suddenly, some 12 days after taking up his post in Beijing. "We have no indications that Jan Hecker's passing was related in any way at all to his professional role," German foreign minister Heiko Maas told the DPA newswire Monday, without disclosing any cause of death. The 54-year old Hecker, a former foreign-policy advisor to German chancellor Angela Merkel, was married with three children.

After severe floods and fires hit several EU countries this summer, MEPs in the regional committee argue that EU emergency funds are not sufficient or future-proof.

Andreas Von Brandt, head of EU delegation to Afghanistan told MEPs that "for the moment - and this needs to be verified and confirmed - there has not been a dramatic change, so far, and that is a good thing".

The most-recent UN climate panel's report on global warming has also heated up the election campaign in Norway - and boosted the far-left and green parties.

The research estimates that a 25-percent minimum tax rate (the lowest current rate within the seven largest world economies) would net member states an extra €10-13bn a year in tax revenue.

The United States' loss in Afghanistan has paved the way for autocracy, and Washington has offered it political legitimacy as a bonus. The Taliban are not only victors in the GWOT; they are now heroes of the anti-West front.

A military unit has seized power in Guinea in a putsch in the mineral-rich West African country, the junta said Sunday. "The personalisation of political life is over. We will no longer entrust politics to one man, we will entrust it to the people," colonel Mamadi Doumbouya said, referring to the deposed, 83-year old president Alpha Condé. The EU had not yet spoken out on the development as of Monday.

The EU needed to become the world's third-largest military superpower, the debacle in Afghanistan has shown, French defence minster Bruno Le Maire said at a business congress near Lake Como in Italy Saturday, Reuters reports. "Europe has to become the number three super-power besides China and the United States. Let's open our eyes, we're facing threats and we cannot rely anymore on the protection of the United States", he said.

The EU needed to agree "substantial and significant change" to post-Brexit Northern Ireland customs rules or face "cold mistrust" from the UK, its Brexit minister, David Frost, said Saturday, Reuters reports. "I want to be clear that any response which avoids serious engagement with those ideas, and aims at just dragging out the process, will in the end not work for us," he told the British-Irish Association, an intergovernmental body.