Euobserver.com

The EU Commission said on Wednesday that the draft budgets for 2020 prepared by Italy, France, Belgium and Spain risk violating EU rules on debt and deficit reduction. The EU executive did not request any immediate changes from the governments, but commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis said countries should take "the necessary measures" to ensure compliance. Dombrovskis said high debt levels limit countries' capacity to respond to economic shocks.

Germany foreign minister Heiko Maas said on Wednesday that a group of experts could strengthen Nato's political thinking, after French president Emmanuel Macon called the military alliance "brain dead". "We want above all in this process to make clear that Nato functions and has a future," he was quoted by Bloomberg after a meeting of Nato's foreign ministers in Brussels. German chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier that Nato remains "irreplaceable".

The European Union will need more integration and economic and fiscal instruments to survive the next economic and financial crisis.

Ursula von der Leyen, the first female president of the EU commission, has put a lot of emphasis on trying to create a gender-balanced EU executive. Expanding gender balance will also be a top priority for the FEMM committee.

As EU foreign affairs ministers meet in Brussels, we have seen unarmed protestors in Hong Kong shot at point blank range, others bloody and beaten, and then incarcerated over the border in mainland China in prison camps.

Europe's obsession with migration from Africa means it risks losing out the continent's potential when it comes to trade, says the EU's ambassador to the African Union, Ranier Sabatucci. "Africa is a growing continent, it is the future," he says.

Calls mount for Maltese leader to resign after oligarch's arrest implicates two of his senior officials in one of Europe's most notorious murders.

The outgoing president of the EU council, Donald Tusk, is set to be elected as the president of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP). Tusk will have to deal with the final decision over Hungary's ruling Fidesz.

Croatian prime minister Andrej Plenković said on Wednesday that the outgoing president of the EU Council Donald Tusk "will do a great job [as president of EPP] due to his national and European experience". Tusk will be elected the president of the European People's Party [EPP] during the political party's congress in Zagreb, since he is the only candidate for this position. He will replace French former MEP Joseph Daul.

Estonia's interior minister, Mart Helme, told Finnish media on Tuesday his country no longer "fully trusts" that Nato would defend it if it was attacked by Russia. Estonia was working on a "Plan B" for territorial defence with other Baltic states and Finland, Helme, who also chairs the far-right Ekre party in Estonia's ruling coalition, said. The Plan B included forging better relations with Germany and the US, he added.

For a long time, Europe's strategic chattering class has been wondering what would happen if you took the US out of Europe's security architecture.

Hungary vetoed a joint statement by the 28 EU countries, to have been issued on Monday, criticising a US announcement that Israeli settlements in the West Bank were not illegal, The Times of Israel, an Israeli newspaper, reported. The EU statement was instead published at a lower level, in the name of EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini only, while France and Germany published national statements after the debacle.

EU countries have given a mixed reaction to French proposals on enlargement reform, but ongoing talks did not mean the process had stalled, Finland said.

The first head-to-head TV debate between UK prime minister Boris Johnson and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday evening did not see a clear winner, according to a YouGov poll released immediately after the debate. A total of 51 percent of respondents said Johnson performed best while 49 percent said Corbyn did best. The election is held on 12 December and will be key for the Brexit process.

The US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, will testify in the US House Democrats' impeachment inquiry on Wednesday to clarify if president Donald Trump abused power by secretly pressuring the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to help his 2020 re-election campaign. Normally Ukraine is outside the scope for the American EU ambassador but Sondland appears to have played an influential role in Trump's policy towards Kiev.

The European labour market will face enormous challenges with its combination of an ageing population, climate change and a digital transformation and will increase the east-west divide in Europe.

As EU leaders are keen to transform the way politics is performed in the bloc, the constitutionals affairs committee will play a key role in the next five years in reforming electoral processes and initiating laws.

Hungary and Poland on Tuesday blocked a conclusion on the evaluation of the annual rule of law dialogue among member states. The Finnish EU presidency published the conclusions, representing consensus among the other 26 member states on strengthening the process. The 26 agreed the dialogue could use the EU commission's planned annual rule of law reports. Hungary and Poland objected to linking the annual report to the council's dialogue.

A new study reveals the current market ecosystem for artificial intelligence (AI) in Europe is uneven across both gender and demographic lines - raising new demographic concerns for the incoming AI legislation of the new commission.

Denmark and the Netherlands were "very close" to French ideas on a new enlargement method, and the views of Austria, the Czech Republic, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia were "convergent" with it, French EU affairs minister Amélie De Maontchalin said in Brussels Tuesday. EU minsters are holding first talks on the changes, which envisage more EU funding in return for more rigorous reforms, amid concern on EU 'enlargement fatigue'.