Euobserver.com

The Greens are demanding an internal investigation by the European Parliament into Czech MEP Jan Zahradil following a story by this website on possible conflicts of interest in his role as lead negotiator on the EU trade deal with Vietnam. "These allegations reported by EUobserver are serious," said Belgian Green MEP Saskia Bricmont, in a statement, noting Zahradil should step down as rapporteur if the allegations are proven correct.

Hundreds of explosions and bursts of small arms fire were reported on the contact line in east Ukraine, as France prepares to host the first peace summit on the war in three years.

Over 250 civil society organisations and trade unions say that the Energy Charter Treaty is incompatible with the Paris Climate Agreement and the new Green Deal - becoming an obstacle to the clean-energy transition.

Luxembourg's foreign minister Jean Asselborn is trying to convince his EU counterparts to recognise Palestine, Axios reports. In a letter to his colleagues and to EU high representative Josep Borrell he writes: "it is time to start a debate within the European Union on the opportunity of a recognition of the state of Palestine by all its member states," adding "in no way would it be directed against Israel."

Brussels' minister for the promotion of multilingualism, Sven Gatz, presents a plan at the Brussels regional parliament on Monday to ensure everyone graduating from school at 18 in Brussels speaks French, Dutch and English. "The Brussels government has made of multilingualism a priority to make better function the cosmopolitan city, to stimulate social cohesion between its citizens and prepare them better for the labour market, Gatz said.

French president Emmanuel Macron and prime minister Edouard Philippe decided to go ahead with their pension reforms plans despite four-day long protests and strikes that brought national transport to a standstill. The government wants to unite 42 different pension plans into one plan and give financial incentives to work longer without changing the retirement age of 62. The three railway unions called for another general strike and protests on Tuesday.

Sanna Marin, Finland's current transport minister, has become the country's next prime minister. Selected by the Social Democrats, she will be the youngest prime minister in Finland's history, and the third female prime minister. At 34 years she is possibly the youngest prime minister in the world. The previous Finnish prime minister lost the confidence from his coalition partners following his handling of a postal strike.

Two Danish ministers - for environment, and for food and fisheries - call on the EU to reconsider the unintended consequences of zoning rules and income support in the Common Agricultural Policy.

The French liberal MEP Pascal Canfin, who is chairing the European Parliament's committee on environment, public health, and food safety, is adamant to deliver the Green Deal quickly - because "we cannot afford to waste time".

Right-wing Czech MEP Jan Zahradil is leading European Parliament negotiations on a trade deal with Vietnam. As rapporteur, he is supposed to be neutral but has neglected to declare his involvement in a group with ties to the Communist party.

A report from NGO Oxfam and the Greek Council for Refugees (GCR) found that people who seek protection in Greece are regularly denied access to a "fair and efficient asylum process" due to a lack of lawyers and access to information in the overcrowded camps on the Greek islands. "The Greek government is weakening fundamental safeguards of the reception and asylum systems," said Maria Papamina from GCR.

The Arctic future conference kicked off with optimistic presentations by ministers and officials of the Russian government — but also a burst of scepticism from representatives of those actually living in Russia's Arctic and Far East regions.

EU leaders will try to agree on the 2050 emission-free target - but they will deeply disagree on EU spending over the next seven years. Meanwhile the UK will elect its new political leadership.

A new report of a Nato-accredited group concludes that social media companies like Facebook and YouTube are "the new frontier for antagonists seeking to influence elections, polarise public opinion, and side-track legitimate political discussions." These companies fail to stop fake accounts, content, likes, and followers that might influence public opinion. "The manipulation industry is growing year-by-year [and] self-regulation is not working," the report states.

Turkey condemned on Friday Greece expelling its Libyan ambassador, following a dispute over an agreement signed between Libya and Turkey on maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean. The Greek PM, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, believes that "the deal will collapse" because it has no legal merits. "Expelling an ambassador just because of the [agreement] that we signed is not a mature behaviour in diplomacy. This is outrageous," said Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The new incoming co-leader of the of Germany's Social Democrats (SPD), Saskia Esken, said on Friday that she was sceptical about the future of their ruling coalition with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, Reuters writes. "I was and I am sceptical about the future of this grand coalition. But with this resolution, we give the coalition a realistic chance of continuing - not more, not less," she told SPD delegates.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will be in Ethiopia on Saturday in her first visit outside the EU as president of the institution. "My visit is a political statement. The African Union is a partner on which the European Union counts. Together we will continue to work on joint interests and common objectives, in the spirit of a true partnership of equals," she said in a statement.

More than 5,500 scientists and academics on Friday called on the EU Commission to enforce the European Water Framework Directive, ensuring Europe has "healthy and resilient freshwater bodies to support people and nature, today and in the future". About 60 percent of surface water in the EU is currently not in a good state. "There cannot be an effective European Green Deal without healthy water ecosystems," the statement concludes.

A trend has emerged over the past few months where desperate people are paying to get locked up in Libyan detention centres to escape the conflict and with the hope they stand a better chance of getting resettled to Europe.

Iran was "determined to resolutely continue its activities related to ballistic missiles and space launch vehicles" in violation of a UN resolution related to a 2015 nuclear non-proliferation deal, its UN envoy, Majid Takhte Ravanchi, has said in an open letter. Its foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the EU had shown "incompetence in fulfilling [the] bare minimum" of its side of the nuclear pact after the US abandoned it.