Euobserver.com

As Slovenia takes over the rotating council presidency this week, a group of MEPs called for the suspension of EU funds to the country - over Ljubljana's failure to appoint its candidates to the new European public prosecutor office,

Somewhere east of Sardinia in the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Ocean Viking crew ran drills on their two primary rescue speed boats. The teams are preparing for the real rescues, which may take place before the end of the week.

'Zoomers' are young Europeans, born between roughly 1995 and 2005. Most are highly-educated, grew up with multiple crises, and a strong belief that the state (not markets) must intervene. Zoomers are hyper-individualistic, and allergic to injustice.

It is a mistake for the EU to act so dismissively towards Ethiopia at a time when conflict remains ongoing and a humanitarian crisis is occurring in Tigray.

A year ago China ended democracy in Hong Kong by introducing its National Security Law. China has since ended most opposition to its authoritarian regime - putting pro-democracy politicians behind bars, ending media freedom and installing a blanket surveillance-state.

Some 53 economists, including 33 Nobel laureates, have urged the Spanish government not to impose a harsh fine on Andreu Mas-Colell, a 76-year old economist and former Ctalan finance minister, accused on misusing state funds to help the independence movement. "We are deeply worried by the news and the situation of Prof. Andreu Mas-Colell, one of Spain's best-known and respected economists," they said. Mas-Colell risks being made penniless and homeless.

A senior Italian MEP made his own political family appear crooked to try to save face over fake election-monitoring.

EU countries have given the final approval to a law to make the bloc's greenhouse-gas emissions-targets legally-binding, as EU policymakers prepare a huge new package of policies to fight climate change, Reuters reports. The law sets targets to reduce net EU emissions by 55 percent by 2030, from 1990 levels, and eliminate them by 2050. All EU countries approved the deal, except for Bulgaria, which abstained.

"The United States continues to urge countries – including coalition partners – to repatriate, rehabilitate and, where applicable, prosecute its citizens," the US secretary of state said at a summit of the international coalition against Isis, held in Rome, The Guardian reports. In remarks aimed primarily at France and the UK, Antony Blinken said: "This situation is simply untenable. It just can't persist indefinitely.

The European Commission has said UK data protection standards were "adequate" to comply with EU-wide laws, enabling businesses and law enforcement agencies to keep sharing information despite Brexit. The decision will expire unless renewed in four years' time in a sunset clause, in case British standards diverged in the meantime, however. The UK had earlier recognised that European standards were up to scratch, while business chiefs welcomed Monday's EU decision.

The UK is preparing to pass a Danish-type law to enable processing of people's asylum claims while holding them in a foreign detention centre, possibly in Africa, The Times reports. Britain's 'Nationality and Borders Bill', due out next week, comes after talks with Denmark on sharing an offshore facility, with Copenhagen looking to Rwanda as a potential host state. The EU Commission has said Denmark's plan was a "wrong signal".

Belarus has recalled its ambassador from Brussels in reaction to EU economic sanctions imposed last week. It also said, on Monday, the EU ambassador in Minsk should return to Brussels "for consultations" and that those whom it deemed responsible for the EU measures would be banned from entering Belarus - without naming names. Minsk said sanctions would "negatively affect cooperation" on organised crime and illegal migration to neighbouring EU states.

German chancellor Angela Merkel continued to push for an EU summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday, despite failing to get fellow EU leaders' support for it last week. "The relationship between Russia and the European Union is really not good at the moment, but even in the Cold War we talked to each other," she said in an online debate with French and German MPs Monday, AP reported.

France's highest court has banned putting glue on sticks to trap songbirds for recreation or to eat them, saying it was in breach of EU law and that it caused birds permanent harm. The EU law dated to 1979, but France, in 1989, decreed that it was exempt so long as the glue-trapping was "selective, controlled and in limited quantity". No other EU country allows the practice.

Empirical evidence shows rescue operations at sea are not a pull-factor. But that suspicion has underpinned a campaign to criminalise NGO actions. Eight legal cases were launched this year alone, bringing the total caseload to 58.

The EU Commission is expected to approve the Hungarian plan on 8 July, an EU official said. Ursula on der Leyen has been visiting capitals of EU countries whose plans have been approved by the commission.

Three years of backroom wrangling and fierce public debate came to an end, as EU member states finally greenlit 'green' reform of the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP). We take a look at what is in it - and what's not.

The foreign ministers of the five Nordic nations – Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden – express deep concern that Europe's common core principles of human rights, democracy and the rule of law are increasingly contested.

Swedish prime minister Stefan Lofven has handed in his notice of resignation, giving parliament's speaker the job of finding a new government after the Social Democrat leader lost a vote of no-confidence last week, Reuters reports. According to Lofven, the majority of Sweden do not want new elections. Lofven said he is open to a grand coalition with the conservative Moderates, but not with the Swedish Democrats.

Czech president Miloš Zeman called transgender people "disgusting" in an interview on CNN Prima News, during a discussion of a controversial new law in Hungary. The Hungarian law bans all educational materials and programs for children that are considered to promote homosexuality and gender reassignment. "I can understand gays, lesbians, and so on. But do you know who I do not understand at all? These transgender people," Zeman said.