Euobserver.com

British PM Boris Johnson and European Commission president said "significant gaps" remained in Brexit trade talks after their phone call on Saturday, mentioning fisheries and state aid as areas where they needed to "step up" work. "Any deal must be fair. The days of being held over a barrel by Brussels are long gone," British foreign minister Dominic Raab also said in a speech broadcast the same day.

Fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region saw large cities on both sides - Ganja and Stepanakert - shelled over the weekend. Azerbaijan also claimed to capture a string of villages. The death toll after a week of intense violence reached at least 230, in the worst flare-up since full-scale war ended in 1994. The conflict risks drawing in regional powers Turkey and Russia if it escalates.

The EU will impose sanctions on Russia over its alleged poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny as soon as the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague confirms German evidence of the crime, German foreign minister Heiko Maas has said. "There will be a clear answer from the EU ... I am convinced that there will be no avoiding sanctions," Maas told the t-online.de news agency Saturday.

A disciplinary board is to waive the immunity of a government-critical Polish judge, Igor Tuleya, Monday in what judges' association Iustitia called a "gross violation" of an EU court inunction, last September, saying the board should be suspended due to its politicised nature. The case was to "show other judges what happens to them when they would rule in ways that ... may not suit the ruling party," Iustitia said.

Breakthroughs are needed this week in both the EU-UK talks and negotiations on the budget between member states and the European Parliament. Migration will also be back, with ministers having their first debate on the new migration pact proposal.

A new report reveals that the oversupply of electricity in Europe as a result of the coronavirus crisis has triggered wholesale electricity prices to drop below zero, affecting particularly wind-heavy markets such as Germany, Denmark and Ireland.

Saudi dissident and journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed two years ago on 2 October. Since then, mainly centre-right, conservative and far-right MEPs have voted down any moves to restrict, limit or ban the sales of weapons to the Saudi regime.

For over two decades, British tabloids have blamed faceless EU bureaucrats for creating rules to ban bendy bits of fruit. The truth is far more outrageous - it probably was the French.

The only reward the Covid-19 dogs get - in addition to having an interesting job - is a freeze-fried meat delicacy when it marks a positive corona-sample.

US secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue argues that the EU is taking an approach "more based on 'political science' than demonstrated agricultural science" in its new Farm to Fork strategy.

"Everyone is concerned that the number of [coronavirus] infections is on the rise" and "everybody knows that the most difficult months are ahead of us," German chancellor Angela Merkel said at a summit in Brussels Friday. "I hope that they recover well from their coronavirus infection and are soon completely healthy again," she said, on news that the US president and his wife had tested positive for Covid-19 overnight.

The EU, on Friday, removed Agila Saleh, the speaker of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives in Libya, from its sanctions list due to "his recent constructive engagement in support of a negotiated political solution". The EU and UN formally back Saleh's rival Tripoli-based government. But individual EU states have backed opposing sides in the conflict, muddling Europe's foreign policy on the conflict.

EU leaders underlined their non-recognition of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine on Friday by blacklisting two persons and four entities involved in building a bridge from Russia to the peninsula. "The European Union does not recognise the illegal annexation of Crimea," the EU Council said. EU leaders also "condemned" Russia's recent attempted murder of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, but stopped short of threatening sanctions against those involved.

China must do more to let EU firms compete with Chinese ones, EU leaders said after their summit in Brussels on Friday. "If the Chinese side gives no market access in certain areas, that will naturally mean that access to the European market will also be more restricted," German chancellor Angela Merkel added. Leaders also voiced "serious concern" about Chinese human rights abuses against Uighur minorities and Hong Kong protestors.

EU states have imposed asset-freezes and visa-bans on Belarus' interior minister and 39 other officials, after Cyprus dropped its veto in return for tough talk on Turkey.

The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen warned Friday "the epidemiological situation [in Europe] is worrying," saying progress on vaccines was key for a long-term solution for the crisis. The commission has sealed two vaccine agreements while five more are under negotiations. Von der Leyen also urged EU leaders to agree on common standards for the previously proposed Covid-19 colour map, to ensure better coordination.

British prime minister Boris Johnson and EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will speak on Saturday, for the first time since June, in a last push to find common ground on a post-Brexit trade deal. The UK and the EU will continue talks next week and until the next EU summit on 15-16 October in an effort to clinch a deal before the end of the year.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced on Friday a €720m deal to connect the Baltic states' energy grid with Poland, reducing energy dependence on Russia. The upcoming offshore energy strategy is expected to bring electricity from renewables to all countries around the Baltic Sea. Poland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia this week signed a declaration to accelerate the offshore wind capacities in the Baltic Sea.

On Friday morning, American president Donald Trump announced on Twitter he and the first lady had tested positive on Covid-19 and will go into quarantine. "Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!," he tweeted. Trump is a candidate to serve again as president in elections in November.

EU leaders have agreed to impose sanctions on 40 or so Belarusians, but not president Alexander Lukashenko, for violence and election-rigging using a fast-track written procedure on Friday. They also warned Turkey it would face sanctions in future unless it stopped "provocations" against Cyprus and Greece by sending gas-drilling ships into their waters. Cyprus had previously vetoed the Belarus move unless it got a tough line on Turkey.