Euobserver.com

The European Parliament rejected on Monday to hold a debate on the situation in Catalonia while gathering this week in Strasbourg. The Spanish region has been marred by civil unrest for the past week after the Spanish supreme court sent nine Catalan leaders to prison. The proposal on holding a debate on Catalonia was tabled by the leftist Gue group and the Greens, but rejected by 299 votes against 118.

Slovak authorities, on Monday, charged an important businessman and three others with murder over the killing of the 27-year old journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee last year. According to the Guardian, a fifth man confessed to participating in the plan, facilitating the killing. However, he made a plea deal with prosecutors to act as a witness in the trial of the other four.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday accused Western countries of "standing by terrorists" as they failed to support Turkey's operation against Syrian Kurdish fighters. "Can you imagine the whole West stood by the terrorists and all attacked us, including Nato member states and European Union countries?", Erdogan said in Istanbul. Turkey announced a 120-hour suspension of the offensive following a deal with US vice-president Mike Pence on Thursday.

About 300 migrants in Malta took control of part of one compound, set five cars on fire, and lightly injured a policeman on Sunday night, reported the Times of Malta. A police spokesman said the situation was brought back under control early on Monday. The riot in the so-called 'Tent Village' reportedly started when one of the residents was not allowed to enter for being drunk.

Spain's acting prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, was in Barcelona on Monday to visit the police injured during recent independence protests, he tweeted. In a letter sent to the president of Catalonia, Quim Torra, Sanchez accused him of "turning his back" on security forces and the anti-independence half of the population there. Replying to Sanchez's letter, Torra asked for "dialogue without conditions", after Sanchez refused to speak with him this weekend.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Monday Russia wanted to help African leaders without "political or other conditions" such as those established by Western countries, Reuters writes. "[Western countries] are try[ing] to return lost influence and dominance in their former colonies in a new guise and rushing to pump out maximum profits and to exploit the continent," he said before the first ever Russia-Africa summit on 23 and 24 October.

By blocking accession talks with North Macedonia and Albania, French president Emmanuel Macron is siding with illiberals.

Hundreds of pro-independence protesters marched on the streets of Barcelona for a seventh successive night on Sunday, after the Spanish supreme court sent nine Catalan leaders to prison. Acting interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said 288 police officers had been injured in the clashes, 267 police vehicles had been damaged, and 194 people had been arrested. "The riots are diminishing, but we are working on stopping them altogether," said Grande-Marlaska.

The Russian group known as Turla hijacked the Iranian cyber-espionage group (codenamed OilRig) to attack governments and industry organisations in several countries over the last 18 months, while masquerading as attackers from the Islamic Republic, reported Reuters. According to British and US officials, the hacking operation was mostly focused on the Middle East but also targeted organisations in Britain. Moscow and Tehran have both denied Western accusations over hacking operations.

The EU's future economic affairs commissioner, Paolo Gentiloni, said in an article published Sunday the EU needed less restrictive budgetary policies. Writing in the Italian financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore, Gentiloni said the EU's deficit and debt rules needed to be "reviewed and updated". The economy was slowing, he warned, adding that stimulating the economy "cannot be left to monetary policy alone".

Switzerland's Green Party, which had never won a seat in the Swiss Federal Council, gained strong support in Sunday's elections (13.2 percent), while the far right lost ground, Reuters reports. The far-right People's Party got 25.6 percent compared to the 29.4 percent in 2015. The Green Liberals also gained ground, taking 7.8 percent of the seats. The results marked "a tectonic shift", said Green Party president Regula Rytz.

North Macedonia's party leaders agreed on Sunday to hold snap elections on 12 April after the European Council blocked its promised accession talks.

British opposition MPs have begun to torpedo the latest Brexit deal with amendments that could delay or stop Britain from leaving the EU.

EU leaders discussed the EU's next buget, for 2021-2027, for the first time in detail, still without numbers. Positions are entrenched and are far away from each other.

The president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker described a decision to block Albania and North Macedonia from advancing into the next phase to eventually join the European Union as a historic mistake.

French president, Emmanuel Macron, said on Friday that Nato inability to react to the "madness" of Turkey's offensive into northern Syria was a "serious mistake". The lack of response weakens Nato's credibility "to find partners on the ground who will be by our side thinking they are protected in the long-term," Macron told reporters after the European summit in Brussels.

Climate change was part of the agenda of the EU leaders for Friday's summit. However, the council decided to finalise the EUʼs long-term strategy on climate change at its next meeting in December.

The future of Brexit continues to hang in the balance this week, with a crunch vote in Westminster on Saturday.

The EU said Friday it "regrets" the US decision to impose tariffs over the WTO's ruling on illegal subsidies to aircraft manufacturer Airbus. It leaves the EU with "no alternative but to follow through in due course with our own tariffs" in a similar case involving Boeing, trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said . "The European Commission is committed to defending European companies, farmers and consumers," she added.

The partly EU-financed and trained Libyan Coast Guard has intercepted 7,404 refugees and migrants at sea and returned them to the war-torn country so far this year, according to figures from the UN's International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Many are then sent to notorious Libyan detention centres amid an ongoing backlash from human-rights organisations. Some 45,700 refugees and asylum seekers in Libya are registered with the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).