Euobserver.com

Germany has urged right-wing EU politicians to keep religion out of talks on Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean territorial dispute.

A damning report on the deterioration of rule of law and democracy in Poland is to be adopted by MEPs on Thursday, while Warsaw's supporters cry 'double standards'.

The EU Court of Justice on Tuesday backed EU net-neutrality rules, which require telecom operators to treat all traffic on the internet equally, in its first ruling on the principle of an open internet. Telecom operators are obliged to "protect internet users' rights, and to treat traffic in a non-discriminatory manner," judges said. The ruling comes after the Hungarian telecoms operator Telenor Magyarorszag offered customers preferential-access packages.

The Greek government pledged on Tuesday that the island of Lesbos will be emptied of refugees by next Easter, after a fire last week destroyed the overcrowded camp of Moria. "Of the roughly 12,000 refugees here currently, I foresee 6,000 being transferred to the mainland by Christmas and the rest by Easter," civil protection minister, Michalis Chrysochoidis, told the Guardian. Germany has offered to take in 1,500 refugees.

The Spanish coalition government on Tuesday presented a draft Democratic Memory bill to address the legacy of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and dictator Francisco Franco, whose regime lasted until 1975, el País reported. The bill declares the Francisco Franco Foundation illegal and closes down all associations that glorify the dictator. "This is an important law for Spanish democracy," said deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo.

Fossil-fuel backed lobby group Hydrogen Europe has taken charge of the EU's flagship alliance on clean hydrogen. NGOs say those who really want clean hydrogen are being bullied out.

Let us be clear: without this new financial windfall, cities, towns and regions will not be able to overcome a crisis of colossal proportions like the current one.

The U-turns of Horst Seehofer and Markus Söder, both of Germany's CSU, are worth exploring, because they contain a useful message for the rest of Europe, too.

The EU's updated 2030 climate-target plan, due to be presented by the European Commission, have been criticised for including land and forest carbon sinks in its emissions-reduction goal. Green groups describe it as an "accounting trick".

German chancellor Angela Merkel and interior minister Horst Seehofer have agreed that Germany will accept an additional 1,500 migrants and asylum-seekers currently held on the Greek islands, Deutsche Welle writes. Initially, Germany announced it would take 100 to 150 children from the destroyed Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos. That led to criticism Berlin was not doing enough.

British MPs voted 340 against 263 Monday to pass a new law granting London the right to violate its Brexit withdrawal treaty, in a project which had earlier attracted EU fury. The bill is still subject to a "second-reading" vote and to a final vote in Britain's upper house before it becomes law. MPs will, next week, also debate whether to impose an additional "parliamentary lock" on its controversial provisions.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny is "not planning to go into exile in Germany, but wants to return to Russia to continue his political mission", an official from the Berlin hospital said on Monday, Le Soir reports. Navalny is recovering in hospital after having been poisoned during a domestic flight in Russia. According to the hospital, Navalny's health was "improving", as he was capable of "temporarily leaving his bed".

Air-travel volumes are unlikely to return to normal for a long time due to the pandemic, the European Commission said Monday, after extending a waiver to let airlines hold on to flight slots at airports even if they did not use them to stabilise the industry. "Air-traffic levels remain low, and more importantly, they are not likely to recover in the near future," EU transport commissioner Adina Valean said.

Russia has loaned embattled Belarus president Alexander Lukashenko $1.5 billion, as he warned protesters not to cross his "red lines".

An EU decision, originally due next week, to extend permission for London-based firms to clear euro-denominated transactions on derivatives, will now be made at the end of September, Reuters reports, citing industry sources. The delay comes amid UK threats to violate its EU withdrawal agreement. Firms could, ultimately, be forced to move billions worth of business to Europe months ahead of the Brexit transition cut-off on 1 January.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will unveil a new diversity policy on Wednesday, saying the EU fundamental rights agency should work with national police to combat racist policing and urging member states to draw up anti-racism action plans by 2022, The Guardian reports. She aims to revive a 2008 non-discrimination law on the workplace, which also covers LGBTI rights, and conduct a survey on EU staff's ethnic origins.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU's long-awaited new pact on migration and asylum will be unveiled next Wednesday. "Yes, in fact we decided to forward the new migration pact to next week, the 23th of September," she said at a joint press conference with Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel.

France may seek to hold some sessions of the upcoming Conference on the Future of Europe in Strasbourg, in compensation for lost European Parliament plenaries there due to coronavirus, French Europe minister Clément Beaune said on Monday. "We are exploring various very concrete avenues ... so that the European Union unambiguously expresses its attachment to its presence in Strasbourg," he said.

The European Commission is now considering issuing 'green bonds' for the first ever time, after green groups and other critical voices called for the unprecedented commercial-markets debt to be used on environmental projects

Slacker EU standards, giving slaughterhouses more control over production, have led to more disease-contaminated meat entering the food chain in Europe, the association of Europe's meat inspectors, the European Working Community for Food Inspection and Consumer Protection, has said. "I don't think ... it's safe to feed people abscesses, pus, and TB material [from pig's heads]," even though it is now allowed, its spokesman told British daily The Guardian.