Euobserver.com

Catalonia's largest separatist party to abstain during the upcoming confidence vote in the Socialist-led government in exchange for promises of political dialogue. Meanwhile a Belgian judge has suspended an arrest warrant for Carles Puigdemont.

Austria's ruling conservatives have agreed to form an unprecedented coalition government with the Greens after months of negotiations - in a deal that could foreshadow similar partnerships in Germany.

French union CGT called on Wednesday for more strikes in France, after president Emmanuel Macron pledged in his New Year's Eve speech to push through the pension-system reform - despite weeks of nationwide strikes by trade unions. Macron said he expected his government to quickly find a compromise with unions, but without backing down on key principles, Reuters reported. Another day of mass protests is set for 9 January.

The mother of a British woman convicted in Cyprus of lying about being raped by 12 Israeli men has supported calls for tourists to boycott the country, BBC reported. The 19-year-old was found guilty of causing public mischief, which prompted the UK to express "serious concern" about the case. The teenager said Cypriot police made her falsely confess to lying about the incident, which the police deny.

The largest low-emissions zone in southern Europe opened in Barcelona on New Year's Day, banning the most-polluting vehicles from entering the entire metropolitan area of the city and some satellite towns, the Guardian reported. Petrol-driven cars bought before 2000 and diesels older than 2006 are banned and face a fine of €100-€500 each time they enter the zone. A moratorium will be in place for the first three months.

EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan told the Irish Times newspaper that he was seeking to reset trade relations with the United States during a planned visit in Washington in January. "I will be seeking a reset of the EU/US trade relationship on issues like tariffs on steel and aluminium and the threat of US tariffs in response to a digital tax in Europe, " he said.

the UK chancellor of the exchequer Sajid Javid said the government will provide €3.4bn of funding over two years to support farmers as Britain leaves the European Union. "When we leave the EU and are freed from the Common Agricultural Policy, we will be able to support our vital rural communities," he said in a statement. EU funding accounted for over 60 percent of UK farmers' average income in 2014-17.

Jacques Vandenschrik, the president of the European Food Banks Federation, was quoted in the Guardian newspaper saying the EU's long-term budget proposal seeks to cut almost 50 percent of the €3.8bn in funding to feed the poorest in an effort to offset Brexit bills. "The explanation is that the overall budget of Europe needs to be tightened up. Brexit is one of the arguments," he said.

David McAllister, the German centre-right chair of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, told the Hanover-based RND news portal on Sunday that the return of an independent Scotland into the European Union would be "presumably shorter" when compared to outside candidates. "Scottish institutions are already asking me whether I can be their contact person in Brussels after Brexit," he said.

Poland has cried out for EU solidarity after Russian president Vladimir Putin spoke of Poles as "anti-Semitic pigs" who "colluded" with Hitler.

The outgoing head of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, warns companies and financial institutions that fossil fuel assets will potentially be "worthless".

The EU and UK are unlikely to conclude talks on future relations before end-2020, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has said. "It would be reasonable to review things in the middle of the year ... to see if an extension is needed," she told French newspaper Les Echos on Friday. The UK is to stay in the EU customs union despite Brexit in January under a transition deal.

Turkish government's two-year old ban deemed illegal by constitutional court in victory for "universal access to knowledge".

The French justice department says it is convinced Oussama Atar, a 35-year old Belgian, was the mastermind behind the deadly attacks in Paris (13 November 2015) and Brussels (22 March 2016) and behind the failed attacks on the Thalys train in Verviers and Villejuif, De Standaard writes. Atar, who was killed in Syria, was the head of an Isis brigade which planned terrorist attacks in Syria and Europe.

A British idea previously lambasted by engineers - to build a bridge from Scotland to Northern Ireland - might be "viable", Irish leader Leo Varadkar has said.

The number of migrants arriving in Italy by sea decreased by 50.72 percent in 2019 compared to 2018, according to the Italian ministry of interior. Compared to 2017, the numbers fell even by 90.38 percent. From the 11,439 migrants who arrived in Italy, 2,654 were from Tunisia, 1,180 from Pakistan and 1,135 from the Ivory Coast, while 1,618 of them were unaccompanied minors.

Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the government will submit a bill in parliament to vote on sending troops to Libya. The UN-backed Libyan government requested Turkish military help to defend Tripoli against the army of general Khalifa Haftar, who is supported by France, Russia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The Libyan government of PM Fayyez Saraj is receiving aid from Italy, Qatar, and Turkey.

An opinion poll conducted in December showed 64 percent of Ukrainians were in favour of joining the EU, Unian reports. Only 13 percent wanted accession to the Russia-led Eurasian customs union. The number of people in favour of the EU has grown steadily since 2014, when support was 57 percent, and was higher in western, central, and southern Ukraine. In the more russophone east Ukraine, EU support was 43 percent.

Socialist candidate and former Croatian prime minister Zoran Milanovic won the first round of presidential elections on Sunday. Milanovic got 29.5 percent of the votes, while centre-right incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, the candidate of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), only managed 26.7 percent. Miroslav Skoro, a popular conservative singer, came in third place with 24.4 percent. A run-off will take place on 5 January.

The German federal criminal police office said on Sunday that the country has prevented nine potential terrorist attacks since the Berlin Christmas market atrocity in 2016, in which a truck driver killed 12 people and left 56 others injured. "After the death of the IS [Islamic State] leader, there was an increasing call for terror in the West in radical Islamist circles," authorities told German daily Welt am Sonntag.