Euobserver.com

'Most people I talk to they are not so keen on who is who in Brussels,' said EU commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager.

The EU ought to tell the US their partnership on Israel is over if Trump endorses Israeli annexation of Palestinian territories, former top diplomats from all over Europe have said.

The president of the Party of European Socialists explains their manifesto, the New Social Contract for Europe, for the May European elections.

A political deal reached behind closed doors included MEPs giving up the right to veto how the subsidies from the European Defence Fund will be spent.

Can the trend of dropping voter turnout for the EU parliament elections finally be reversed? At a new political festival, political campaigners try to find out.

MEPs will gather for the last time this week in Strasbourg before the European elections in May to finalise several bills. Lawmakers will have a Brexit debate and hear from Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

France has blunted an EU call for Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar to halt his attack on Tripoli, despite Nato concern on Haftar's strategic threat.

At 52.7 percent, Belgium charged the highest average tax on wages in 2018, according to figures released by the OECD on Thursday. Despite a lowering of taxes in Belgium (1.09 percentage points compared to 2017), the country still taxed wages higher than Germany (49.5 percent), Italy (47.9 percent), Austria and France (47.6 percent). The UK (30.9 percent) and Ireland (32.7 percent) were charging the lowest taxes among EU countries.

Marine Le Pen's National Rally party has launched a crowdfunding campaign after banks refused to fund its campaign ahead of European parliament elections in May. LePen promises five percent interest rates for loans at €1,000 or more. Other parties are also hit by French bank's reluctance to get involved in financing of politics with Jean-Luc Melenchon's party, France Unbowed, also turning to the crowds for funding.

Swedish prosecutors on Thursday said they had received a request to reopen a rape investigation closed in 2017 involving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. It came after Assange was arrested on Thursday morning in London after Ecuador revoked his diplomatic asylum claim. If not sent to Sweden, Assange may be extradited and prosecuted in the US over his role in helping former Army intelligence specialist Chelsea Manning disclosing secret government documents.

Germany's secret security council, consisting of chancellor Angela Merkel and chief ministers, allowed on Thursday certain weapons shipments to members of the war coalition in Yemen, including Saudi Arabia. A ban on German export of arms to Saudi Arabia was introduced in November and extended for six months in March, but systems developed jointly with other EU states, notably France and Britain, were excluded as the ban was extended.

The European People's Party's (EPP) Spitzenkandidat in the European parliament elections, Manfred Weber, spoke on Friday in favour of a re-run of the Brexit referendum and criticised the possible participation of the British in May's EU elections. In a interview with Bavarian regional newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine Weber said that "a second referendum would be the logical step," adding that "only the British themselves can make the decision."

Rather than blame Germany, France and the UK should follow its lead and join other European states that have stood up for human rights, and help spare embattled Yemeni civilians.

The Juncker commission this week awarded it self top marks on the Energy Union, declaring it "completed". But a detailed analysis reveals the commission quietly stopped reporting on key indicators that would have shown the actual level of progress.

British prime minister Theresa May said on Thursday there was "more agreement [between Conservatives and Labour] than is often given credit for", as she briefed parliament on last night's EU's emergency summit. Currently, after three failed attempts to pass the withdrawal bill with the support of her Conservative party plus DUP MPs, May is trying to forge a cross-party consensus on a Brexit with a customs union with the EU.

Poland's Supreme Court overhaul, that introduced a new retirement age and forced more than a third of its judges out of office, broke EU law, the European Court of Justice's advocate general said Thursday. Evgeni Tanchev stated that the reforms "violate the requirements of judicial independence, since they are liable to expose the Supreme Court and its judges to external intervention and pressure from the president of the republic".

Yes, I was late filing an appeal to an access to documents request. But the commission is no shining example of replying on time either.

Uncertainty on Brexit is conspiring with wider factors to weaken the EU economy, European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi said Wednesday. He kept interest rates at a record low to prompt people to spend money on investment instead of hoarding it in banks. "The whole discussion on Brexit, which has lasted many years, really, is part and parcel of the overall uncertainty hanging over our continent," Draghi said.

The UK has urged EU nationals to stay after Brexit, amid new figures showing that 430,000 out of some 3.5m EU residents have applied for "settled status" after the UK leaves Europe in a British home office scheme. "EU citizens have contributed so much to this country and we want them all to stay," British home secretary Sajid Javid said on Wednesday, announcing €10m in extra support for people's applications.

A British pro-Brexit pressure group, the Constitutional Research Council (CRC), gave the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) a further €15,000 in irregular donations shortly after the Brexit referendum in 2016, according to a probe by the UK's electoral commission. The CRC was earlier caught giving the DUP €505,000, which it spent on pro-Brexit ads, amid wider concerns over cheating, lies, and foreign meddling in the British vote.