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The United States wants to increase by 50 percent its military presence in its Spanish naval base in Cádiz, El País reported on Wednesday. The proposal involves 600 more military personal, new infrastructure, and a reform of the bilateral agreement between Spain and the US - which was signed in 1988.

Scottish first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, on Tuesday told the parliament in Edinburgh that she will submit a request to hold another independence referendum in 2020, Bloomberg writes. "This is a watershed moment for Scotland," Sturgeon told lawmakers, adding that this week she will take "the next steps to secure Scotland's right to choose". During the last referendum in 2014, 55 percent of Scots chose to remain in the UK.

Violence erupted in Paris on Tuesday when riot police attempted to disperse protesters after coming under a hail of paving stones and missiles, the Guardian reported. As a result, there were 27 people arrested by late afternoon. Tuesday marked the 13th day of protest against pension reform. Unions have pledged to continue protesting until president Emmanuel Macron drops the reform, claiming that millions would have to delay their retirement.

Thousands of Ukrainians gathered on Tuesday outside the parliament in Kiev to protest against a new legislative proposal that would open up farmland for sale to locals and foreigners. Ukraine is known for having 32.5m hectares of arable land - twice as much as France's farmland. The draft law would open the market, which could lead to an additional 1.5 points growth in Ukraine, according to the World Bank.

The Viktor Leonov SSV-175, a Russian intelligence ship, was spotted in international waters just of the coast of the United States, CNN reports. It is not the first time this spy ship is seen close to the US, but this time it conducted actions in an "unsafe manner" and "other erratic manoeuvres". The spy ship was not using navigation lights or responding to commercial vessels to avoid potential accidents.

The US senate has passed a law that sanctions companies and countries working on the controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will provide Germany with Russian gas, Deutsche Welle reports. If Donald Trump signs the law, his administration would have 60 days to identify the companies and individuals, revoke their US visa and block their property. Germany's foreign minister Heiko Maas reacted saying "this is unacceptable".

Poland doesn't trust Germany on defence, the Germans don't trust the Italians on money, nobody trusts that France's nuclear weapons can become a pan-European deterrent. Croatia won't accept North Macedonia's new name, Spain wants Gibraltar back. The Irish fear Brexit.

Last week, the Vučjak camp in northwest Bosnia and Herzegovina was finally closed. Termed "The Jungle" by people who were living there, the camp had no running water, no electricity, no usable toilets, and mouldy, leaking, and overcrowded tents.

Calls for Maltese prime minister Jospeh Muscat to resign rang out from several sides in special European Parliament debate on Tuesday.

The Socialists and Democrats group leader said they supported European parliament president David Sassoli to lead the conference on the Future of Europe next year. "There is no better person to lead the conference than president Sassoli," MEP Iratxe Garcia said on Tuesday. The two-year conference would aim at reconnecting the EU with citizens and sorting out institutional issues such as transnational lists and the lead candidate election system.

Catalan separatist leaders Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín and Lluis Puig said on Tuesday that "the contempt that [Josep] Borrell showed towards the Belgian judicial authorities is improper of someone who holds a representative position within the European Commission". Borrell had said that "the judicial authorities of Flanders still have not fully understood the compliance with the European Arrest Warrant," after a Brussels court postponed a hearing of the Catalan leaders.

Some 34 MEPs on Tuesday asked the EU commissioner for health and food safety, Stella Kyriakides, to remove products containing the food additive E171 as a precautionary measure. The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health and Safety (ANSES) recently identified data gaps and uncertainties in relation to safety. This food additive can mainly be found in cakes, desserts, ice-cream, biscuits, chocolate bars or bakery products.

The agreement is the first step to set a framework for sustainable finance, that will help investors and consumers to identify economic activities that can unambiguously be considered environmentally green.

During a international geopolitical conference in Doha, the European Union was hardly represented - or even mentioned as a player.

Fewer journalists killed in line of work in past year, but targeted killings and state detentions, especially in Turkey and China, grew, a leading NGO has noted.

The gap between men and women, measured in terms of political influence, economic gain and health and education, will take another century to disappear, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said. The Swiss-based organisation tracks global progress in gender equality. While more women were entering government, the economic gap has widened, it said. Progress in the political sphere remained slow with women still holding only 21 percent of ministerial positions worldwide.

Estonia's president Kersti Kaljulaid apologised after the country's interior minister described Finland's new PM Sanna Marin as "a sales girl". 34-year old Marin is the world's youngest premier. Kaljulaid said she was "embarrassed" by the comments of Mart Helme, 70, who leads the far-right party Ekre. Helme said on a radio talk show that Marin is a "sales girl" and other "street activists" and "non-educated people" joined the Finnish cabinet.

The number of migrants crossing from Turkey to Europe grew by almost half in 2019 compared to 2018, according to an EU report published by German newspaper Die Welt. From January to the middle of December, 70,002 migrants reached the EU from Turkey, representing a 46 percent increase compared to the same period in 2018. Most migrants crossed the Aegean Sea to Greece, some reached Bulgaria, Italy and Cyprus.

British prime minister Boris Johnson will use his control of parliament to outlaw any extension of the Brexit transition period beyond 2020, UK media reported. Johnson wants to pressure the EU to agree on a trade deal by the end of 2020. The UK leaves the EU on 31 January and starts a transition period until the end of the year, leaving 11 months to agree on a future deal.

The mayors of four eastern EU capitals, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and Bratislava, formed an "pact of free cities" as an alliance of resistance against nationalist governments. The liberal-leaning mayors pledged to protect "freedom, human dignity, democracy, equality, rule of law, social justice, tolerance and cultural diversity." They also want to jointly lobby the EU for direct funding as some governments attempt to squeeze the budgets of opposition-led capitals.