Euobserver.com

Britain is almost certain to leave the EU in January after a huge election win for prime minister Boris Johnson, but Scotland aims to break off and stay.

Former presidents of Slovenia and Croatia said that the EU should speak out in support of the nine Catalan leaders jailed in Spain, BalkanInsight reported. "It is unacceptable that in the European Union, which is based on the values of human rights, we have political prisoners," said the first president of independent Slovenia, Milan Kucan. Stjepan Mesic wrote to Spanish prime minister Pedro Sanchez to express concern over the sentences.

A court in Rome ruled on Thursday that Facebook must reactivate the account of the neo-fascist party CasaPound and pay the group €800 for each day the account has been down, the Guardian writes. The judge concluded that the party was "excluded (or extremely limited) from the Italian political debate". CasaPound was founded in the late 1990s as a pro-Mussolini drinking club. Facebook is looking at the issue.

EU leaders agreed on Thursday evening to extend economic sanctions against Russia for another six months. The measures, which were set to expire in January, are now updated until the end of July 2020. The sanctions were first implemented in 2014 after Moscow annexed Ukraine's Crimea. The EU's restrictions target Russia's energy, financial and arms sectors.

A visit to Carme Forcadell, the former Speaker of the Catalan parliament, currently imprisoned near Tarragona.

EU leaders agreed on setting a climate-neutrality by 2050 target early on Friday morning - although Poland refused to endorse the target, leaving the crucial summit without unanimity.

EU leaders on Thursday endorsed the idea of holding a two-year post-Brexit soul-searching exercise across the EU at their summit.

The exit poll from the UK general election on Thursday night predicted a majority of 86 for the Conservative party of Boris Johnson, with 368 seats. Labour were behind, on 191 seats, the Scottish National Party (SNP) on 55 seats, and the Liberal Democrats a distant fourth on 13 seats. If that prediction translates into seats on Friday morning, it makes Brexit next month almost a certainty.

The Dutch prime minister and figures from the European Parliament are both piling on pressure for leaders at the EU summit to discuss the rule of law in Malta, as the presence of the island-nation's prime minister draws protests.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said on Thursday that the EU Commission cannot make "poor countries and poor people pay for the costs of combating climate change". But he said Hungary also wants the European economy to be climate-neutral by 2050 and Budapest was ready to sign up to an agreement on this. "[But] we need clear financial guarantees and we will discuss the details of this," he added.

German chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday that she hopes that EU leaders agree on reaching the 2050 climate-neutrality target. "It would be a strong signal, if Europe is the continent that will be climate-neutral in 2050," she told reporters at the EU summit, stating that Germany supports the ambitious European Green Deal presented by the EU Commission on Wednesday.

The Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, said on Thursday that achieving climate neutrality "without nuclear is not possible" for his country. "Nuclear energy is clean energy, I don't know why a lot of countries have a problem with it," he said at the EU summit. Babiš also questioned EU's efforts to globally tackle climate change, since countries such as China and the USA are not on board.

Achieving full carbon neutrality by 2050 would mean an almost "unbearable burden" for Hungarian citizens, and the EU should contribute to its costs, Gergely Gulyas, minister for the prime minister's office said Thursday ahead of the EU summit in Brussels. He also stressed that the target cannot be achieved without nuclear energy. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic are hesitant to sign up to the EU's new climate goal.

EUobserver has obtained notification reports from five European states explaining why they want to impose internal border checks. Few provide any substantial evidence to justify the controls, putting the European Commission in a difficult position to end them.

A group of human rights organisations has filed a complaint at the International Criminal Court against German arms manufacturers and the German government for selling arms to Saudi Arabia and its allies and thus aiding war crimes in Yemen. Targeting schools and hospitals in Yemen was made possible by the German arms and technology, the complaint says. Germany restricted arms sales to Saudi Arabia, but did not stop it.

Israel is heading for new elections, the third in 12 months, as the time limit to form a government expired on Wednesday (11 December) at midnight. The two candidates to become prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and his rival Benny Gantz, did not succeed in forming a government. Netanyahu is facing indictment in several corruptions cases and a mutiny in his Likud party.

German mobile provider Telefonica Deutschland, known under the brand O2, has chosen Finland's Nokia and China's Huawei as its "proven strategic partners" to build its 5G network, Deutsche Welle writes. The network will be divided equally between Nokia and Huawei. The German government said Huawei must prove its network is safe. The US and others have raised concerns about a possible abuse by China of the network.

Ten percent of the population in Luxembourg , and 9.2 percent in Germany showed signs of depressive symptoms, according to a Robert Koch Institute study published on Wednesday. In Portugal 9.1 percent showed such signs, in Sweden 8.8 and in Hungary 8.5 percent, while the EU average is 6.6 percent. The study referred to symptoms such as diminished interest, weight loss, insomnia, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness or guilt.

Malta's prime minister Joseph Muscat, is facing new calls to quit immediately as a coaition of 12 media and transparency groups urged EU leaders gathering in Brussels to take a stand. Muscat said he would quit in January, but is under pressure to leave now over his role in the investigation into journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's murder. Muscat might himself address the issue to EU leaders, an EU diplomat said.

French prime minister Edouard Philippe introduced Wednesday a plan to reform the country's complex pension system amid fierce resistance from trade unions and nationwide strikes. The aim is to create a single, points-based system instead of the current 42 separate pension schemes. Philippe told workers in sectors enjoying early retirement that the reforms would be applied gradually. Unions said they will not call off strikes unless the plans are scrapped.