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The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Belgium violated human rights when deporting Sudanese refugees. According to the court, the refugee was "prevented from pursuing the asylum application that he had lodged in Belgium, and the Belgian authorities had not sufficiently assessed the real risks that he faced in Sudan." Former asylum and migration minister Theo Francken cooperated with the Sudanese regime to deport Sudanese refugees.

The EU's border agency Frontex announced on Tuesday it has launched an internal inquiry into allegations of pushbacks in the Aegean sea by vessels under its mandate. The agency had initially rejected such a probe but now says it will look into the issue following widespread public pressure and talks with the EU commission. The agency says that so far no evidence suggests any violations have been committed.

Police in Italy have fired tear gas to disperse angry crowds in the northern cities of Turin and Milan after protests against the latest round of anti-coronavirus restrictions flared into violence, the Guardian writes. Luxury goods shops were ransacked in the centre of Turin as crowds of youths took to the streets after nightfall. Earlier on Monday, there were peaceful protests in several Italian cities.

Warfare between Armenia and Azerbaijan resumed moments after a US-brokered ceasefire went into effect at 8AM on Monday morning, with both sides blaming the other for firing first. Two previous, Russia-brokered ceasefires also unravelled in recent weeks in fighting which has claimed some 5,000 lives. Rotax, an Austrian firm, on Monday said it would halt sales of drone engines to Turkey, which had supplied the attack robots to Azerbaijan.

Pro-choice protesters blocked roads and waved anti-government placards in some 50 cities across Poland on Monday in anger at last week's court ruling on banning most kinds of abortion, Polish media report. Poland's justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, the same day, ordered the prosecution service to go after demonstrators who had disrupted church services on Sunday on grounds of "criminal actions" against worshipers. More protests are expected on Tuesday.

Support for populist beliefs in Europe has fallen markedly over the past year, according to a major YouGov survey, the Guardian reports. Political scientists expressed surprise at the size of the fall but said since the main reasons for it were most likely related to the coronavirus pandemic. Support for populist beliefs could recover as the focus of the crisis becomes more economic.

The leaders of German chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party have decided to postpone the party congress planned for December to elect a new leader, Reuters reported. Party leaders will decide on 16 January if it is possible to hold the gathering amid the pandemic. Federal elections are due by October 2021, when Merkel is not running. One of the candidates, Merkel-rival Friedrich Merz spoke out against a delay.

Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier traveled to London on Monday for talks with Britain on the future relations agreement that need to be agreed on in the next weeks to avoid trade disruptions between the bloc and the UK. Barnier and his EU team will be in London until Wednesday, after which talks will switch to Brussels and continue through the weekend.

Belgium has asked the Netherlands to take some Covid-19 patients for treatment in its hospitals and ease the increasing pressure on Belgian facilities, but the Netherlands said warned it has little spare capacity, Dutch news agency ANP reports. "Just like Germany helped us, we could do the same for Belgium, based on reciprocity. However, right now it's very difficult," Ernst Kuipers, head Dutch health emergency coordinator, said.

The German EU presidency, currently steering the council of member states until the end of the year, "will reduce physical meetings at expert level to the absolute minimum necessary" as Brussels is particularly hard-hit by a rise in Covid-19 infections, a spokesperson said. "Only essential meetings necessary for the functioning of the EU or to coordinate the Covid-19 crisis response will continue to take place in person," the spokesperson added.

The European Commission says Frontex, the EU's border agency, has an obligation to investigate allegations that its vessels participated in illegal pushbacks of migrants off the Greek coast. Asked if it would, Frontex said it rejected the allegations.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has become the first and only foreign leader to call for a boycott of French goods over alleged Islamophobia.

EU leaders welcomed new Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga's pledge to achieve climate-neutrality by 2050 - a move that puts Tokyo's plans on the same timeline as Europe and a decade ahead of China.

Intersectionality is the concept that overlapping identities - disability, gender, race and sexual-orientation for example - create forms of discrimination that can go unaddressed. But many EU leaders are wary of the kind of identity politics that intersectionality implies.

Viktor Orban is threatening to block the coronavirus recovery fund and the next EU budget if rule-of-law conditionalities are not to his liking. But a lack of EU funding would threaten the very fundamentals of his system and his cronies.

UN secretary general, António Guterres, discusses the Covid-19 crisis and the challenges the pandemic poses for the global community in a live meeting with Nordic Council party groups and prime ministers. Live on EUobserver today from 18:00 (CET).

Authorities in Brussels have banned festivities linked to Halloween, extended a curfew, and limited public gatherings to just four people in new anti-coronavirus measures adopted Saturday that enter into force Monday. "Of course, there will be no door-to-door, no processions at Halloween - all of that, clearly, is also forbidden," Brussels region premier Rudi Vervoort said. Spain, also this weekend, imposed a nationwide curfew to help curb contagion.

Some 100,000 pro-democracy protesters marched through Minsk in the 11th weekend in a row since August's rigged elections, prompting police attacks with stun grenades and water cannon and hundreds of arrests. The opposition leader, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, called for a nationwide strike Monday. Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko told US secretary of state Mike Pompeo Saturday that Belarus and Russia would repel external threats, insinuating the movement was being orchestrated from outside.

MEPs, in a vote last Friday, rejected proposals to ban shops and restaurants from using words such as "burger" and "sausage" to describe vegetarian food. Customers "are in no way confused by a soy steak or chickpea-based sausage, so long as it is clearly labelled," the European Consumer Organisation said. The EU court, in 2017, said non-dairy drinks such as ones made from soy or almonds, cannot be called "milk".

French president Emmanuel Macron said Friday the pandemic was likely to last "at best, until next summer", as several EU states, including France, Italy, and the Netherlands, detected record numbers of infections. Irish deputy PM Leo Varadkar was more optimistic. "In the next couple of months and in the first half or first quarter of next year it'll be possible to start vaccinating those most at risk," he said Sunday.