Euobserver.com

Businessman Yorgen Fenech, a "person of interest" in the investigation over the murder of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia arrested earlier this week by the authorities, has been released on bail, although he is expected to face further questioning on Friday, The Times of Malta writes. According to the newspaper, authorities have ordered 24-hour police surveillance as a precondition for the police bail.

A new report from Disability Rights International reveals that despite the reforms of the Bulgarian government to integrate children with disabilities in the country, hundreds of children still suffer from social isolation. The study found that about 1,000 Bulgarian children with disabilities live in "group homes", designed to replace often communist-era institutions, where children were kept in poor conditions away from the rest of Bulgarian society.

A new report World Health Organization (WHO) reveals that more than 80 percent of adolescents worldwide are not active enough, putting their current and future health at risk. Globally, girls tend to be less active than boys. The prevalence of insufficient physical activity slightly decreased in boys between 2001 and 2016 (from 80 percent to 78 percent), but there was no change over time in girls (remaining around 85 percent).

Span's High Court, the Audiencia Nacional, has opened an investigation against the group 'Unit 29155', linked to the Russian intelligence services, for its alleged activities during the 2017 Catalan breakaway bid, El País reported. "Russia is trying to use secret operations to influence public opinion through extremist and racist organisations," said the former head of Germany's intelligence service Hans-Georg Maassen earlier this year.

The fast-growing impact of artificial intelligence will be the biggest challenge for business and consumers in Europe's single market of tomorrow.

The European Commission proposed to increase the EU budget from 1.03 to 1.11 percent. As Brexit will mean that net-contributing countries will have to pay more, a big debate is on its way.

Sweden has lost an argument with the United Nations in Geneva over its refusal to release documents relating to the controversial pesticide chlorpyrifos.

We are aware that the normalisation of relations between Zimbabwe and the EU will take time. No-one can expect immediate miracles from what is only the beginning of the first ministerial level dialogue for 20 years, writes Zimbabwe's foreign minister.

The EU parliament will vote on the new EU commission led by Ursula von der Leyen on 27 November at noon, the leaders of the parliament decided on Thursday. The vote will come following a presentation by von der Leyen of the commissioners and their programmes. If MEPs give a green light to the new commission, von der Leyen and her team can take office on 1 December.

The centre-right European People's Party (EPP) pledge at its Zagreb congress to deliver a middle-ground compromise between "utopian environmental policies" and climate-change denial.

Italian former prime minister and MEP Silvio Berlusconi said on Thursday that Europe needs to become a global military power "to have a seat at the table where decision are made" with America and China. "We also need military capacity to defend ourselves in case of a massive invasion phenomenon," Berlusconi added, saying his party will return to government soon as the current Italian government is "unprepared, unqualified and inexperienced".

Hungary's top court ruled on Wednesday that nationalist prime minister Viktor Orban's government had published "misleading and falsely presented facts" about a refugee rights group in a questionnaire sent to millions of households in 2017. The NGO Hungarian Helsinki Committee said the Supreme Court ruled that the government had damaged its reputation over the "national consultation" questionnaire about US billionaire George Soros, ordered an apology and compensation of €6,000.

The newly-elected president of the European People's Party (EPP), Donald Tusk, said on Thursday that group of 'wise men' evaluating the EPP membership of Hungarian ruling party Fidesz will present a report before the end of the year. "Then I will start an intensive consultation [and] we will have a decision at the end of January," said Tusk.

An emergency resolution adopted at the European People's Party (EPP) congress in Zagreb calls on the EU Council and member states to take a positive decision on opening accession negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania as soon as possible.

A crowd of hundreds of anti-corruption protesters caused rowdy scenes outside the office of Maltese leader Joseph Muscat in Valletta on Wednesday, Maltese media report. They chanted "mafia!", blocked a minister's car, and a policewoman was injured, reports said. Three NGOs had called the demonstration after the arrest of a Maltese oligarch in the case of murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia pointed to high-level government involvement.

The US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, told an impeachment enquiry in Washington Wednesday he acted on president Donald Trump's orders to pressure Ukraine to interfere in upcoming US elections. "We followed the president's orders," Sondland said. "Was there a quid pro quo? ... the answer is yes," he added, referring to US diplomatic favours, but not the more serious charge, that Trump also threatened to withhold military aid.

The EU and UN-backed Libyan government in Tripoli has turned refugees' misery into a "profitable business model", according to a leaked report by the EU Council presidency, Finland, seen by British newspaper The Guardian. The more than 5,000 people held in Libya camps were victims of "human trafficking" and "serious cases of corruption and bribery", the report said, amid joint EU operations with Libyan authorities to halt Europe-bound migrants.

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a speech that the first priority for the new European Commission should be managing migration, Ekathimerini reports. He said that "Greece has reached its limits," adding that "we need a common system on asylum that will replace Dublin." Mitsotakis pointed out that Greece receives an average of 500 asylum seekers a day and called the situation on the Greek islands "unmanageable".

The EU ought to recognise Palestinian statehood in reaction to a US announcement, on Monday, that Israeli settlements were not illegal, Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn told the Reuters news agency Wednesday. The move would be "mere recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to its own state," he said. "Israeli colonisation" remained illicit, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, and the UK said in a joint statement the same day.

Members of the CDU, the party of Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel, will introduce three motions at the party's congress this week to directly or indirectly ban the involvement of the Chinese mobile company Huawei in the setting up of the 5G network, Politico writes. Foreign minister Heiko Maas (SPD) said in an interview "we cannot afford to ignore the political and legal realities to which a supplier is subject."