Euobserver.com

The socialist coalition partner (SPD) of German chancellor Angela Merkel has asked for a renegotiation of the coalition agreement. The newly-elected co-leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), Norbert Walter-Borjans, said "if the coalition partner then takes an obstructive approach for these new tasks then you have to make a decision that it cannot continue." Defence minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) dismissed any renegotiation, and said the CDU stands by the coalition.

According to the Czech news site Respekt, an audit of the European Commission has found that the Czech prime minister Andrej Babic has a conflict of interests in his business empire. The report would confirm earlier findings by the European Commission that Babic, a billionaire, still had ties with his businesses while having influenced decisions on the EU subsidies they have received. Babic has denied the allegations.

The new leaders of the European Union took office on 1 December: Ursula von der Leyen as head of the European Commission and Charles Michel as president of the European Council. Together with Christine Lagarde, head of the European Central Bank and European Parliament president David Sassoli, they celebrated the 10th anniversary of the Lisbon Treaty. France, Germany and several other members have called for a reform of the EU.

On Friday (6 December) Ursula von der Leyen will go to Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia, for her first official trip outside the European Union. "I will go to Addis Ababa on Friday to meet African Union representative Moussa Faki, Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed and Ethiopian president Sahle-Work Zewde, the only woman at the head of an African country," she said.

On Saturday Belgium's royal "informator" Paul Magnette (PS) organised a secret meeting with the leaders of six parties: the francophone socialists (PS), the Flemish socialists (sp.a), the francophone liberals (MR), the Flemish liberals (Open Vld), the francophone greens (ECOLO) and the Flemish greens (GROEN). Together these parties would have a majority of one seat in the Chamber of Representatives. The Flemish nationalists (NVA) and Christian Democrats (CD&V) were not invited.

Britain's ruling Conservative party is to propose Monday that EU visitors should, after Brexit, obtain a new security permit before being allowed into the UK, British newspaper The Times reports. The Tory pre-election pledge resembles a US travel permit system called Esta and an EU one called Etias. The Conservatives are polling over 10 points higher than their nearest rivals, the Labour party, ahead of a snap election 12 December.

Ahead of its summit in London this week, Nato foreign ministers confirmed the intention to make space an "operational domain" – alongside air, land, sea, and cyber. The move will bring space within the scope of the alliance's collective-defence commitment.

Last year, the European Commission presented a strategy paper on how the EU should take the lead shaping the ethics of Artificial Intelligence. It is a challenge the JURI committee has tasked itself to complete over the next five years.

World AIDS Day (Sunday 1 December) is both a time to celebrate the advancements across western Europe and a time for decisive action to address disparities in HIV care in eastern Europe and central Asia.

Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat has voiced his intention to resign after the political and legal crisis stemming from the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Times of Malta reported on Friday. The paper reported that Muscat visited president George Vella on Friday morning when he seems to have given notice of his intention to quit. This week, two ministers and Muscat's chief of staff also resigned.

A trial over the deaths of 862 people during the 1989 anti-communist revolution in Romania started on Friday at the High Court of Justice in Bucharest, the daily BalkanInsight reported. The former Romanian president Ion Iliescu, former deputy prime minister Gelu Voican Voiculescu and former air force head Iosif Rus are accused of crimes against humanity, since they allegedly used security agencies to cause a generalised mood of terror.

British police shot dead a man on Friday after a series of stabbings in the London Bridge area, the Guardian reported. "We believe a number of people have been injured," police said. "I'm being kept updated on the incident at London Bridge and want to thank the police and all emergency services for their immediate response," prime minister Boris Johnson said in a statement.

Greenpeace have accused the incoming European Commission of Ursula von der Leyen of preparing draft new climate and environmental laws whose measures are "too weak, half-baked or missing altogether".

Ursula von der Leyen and her new team of commissioners will have their first meeting on Wednesday. In the meantime, Malta descends into political turmoil over the death of an investigative journalist.

Malta's finance minister, Edward Scicluna, is to face a criminal inquiry on his role in the sale of three Maltese hospitals, a local magistrate has ruled. The affair comes after other senior government figures recently resigned over alleged links to the murder of a journalist in 2017. "A eurozone finance minister under money laundering investigations is unbearable" and Scicluna ought to "step down," Sven Giegold, a German Green MEP, said.

Charles Michel, the new EU Council president, said the EU could be "collateral damage" in "a new Cold War between the US and China" in an interview with six European newspapers on Thursday. He warned post-Brexit talks on a new UK-EU trade deal could split member states "based on different economic situations in different countries". Eurozone reform, enlargement, climate change and the EU budget would be his priorities, he added.

MEPs are to send a "fact-finding mission" to Malta amid calls for EU sanctions if its prime minister, Joseph Muscat, refuses to step down over the killing of a journalist.

Luxembourg, Malta, Cyprus, and Ireland - some of the EU's main offshore banking and tax haven-type countries - voted Thursday against new EU rules to force multinationals such as Amazon or Apple to reveal how much profit they make and how little tax they pay in Europe, The Guardian reports. Latvia, Slovenia, Estonia, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, and Sweden also voted against, while the UK, another offshore centre, abstained.

A Finnish EU presidency paper on migration, designed to feed into the new European Commission, lays out a vision to prevent irregular migration, forced displacement, and boost cooperation on return and readmission.

Ordinary EU citizens should get a say in Brussels lawmaking and hold officials to account via the European Parliament's petitions committee in the next five years, according to its chairman, Spanish centre-right MEP Dolors Montserrat.