Euobserver.com

The European Commission proposed on Tuesday suspending the so-called visa-facilitation pact with Russia, in place since 2007. Russian citizens will have to go through a longer visa-application process, except for those who are family members of EU citizens, journalists, dissidents and civil society representatives. This follows a political agreement reached by EU foreign affairs ministers, although some EU countries have called for a ban on Russian tourists.

Haarlem, a Dutch city northwest of Amsterdam, will become the first in the world to ban advertising which promotes meat-eating and meat products, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. The measure comes after meat was included in a list of products deemed to worsen climate change. The ban, covering also holiday flights, fossil-fuels and cars, will begin from 2024, due to existing contracts.

The unprecedented forest fires in the EU and UK this summer released the highest carbon emissions into the atmosphere for 15 years

While rushing to replace Russian gas, EU policymakers next week should ensure they keep biomethane in its sustainable niche, not use it as a bandage for a broken status quo.

€7,000 newspaper subscriptions, €30,000 for stationary, an accessories kit including a mouse, keyboard and headset with micro for €20,000. These are some of the expenses being billed by the EU's civilian mission to Central African Republic.

Iran has said it would be keen to sell gas to Europe if the US lifted sanctions under a nuclear non-proliferation deal. "Given Europe's energy supply problems triggered by the Ukraine crisis, Iran could provide Europe's energy needs if sanctions against it are lifted," Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said on Monday. EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday he was "less confident" of a quick nuclear deal.

The deputy CEO of Russian firm Gazprom, Vitaly Markelov, told Reuters at a forum in Vladivostock Monday that it was German engineering firm Siemens' fault its Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline was switched off. "You should ask Siemens. They have to repair equipment first," he said. Siemens earlier denied that it had been commissioned for repairs or that the kind of oil leak reported by Gazprom would merit a shutdown.

Germany was "sticking to the nuclear phase-out" it had planned before the Ukraine war, but would keep running two of its three remaining power plants for longer than envisaged to build up an "emergency reserve" for winter in the face of Russian cut-offs, its environment minister Robert Habeck said Monday. The Neckarwestheim and Isar 2 plants were to be stopped in December but will now go on until mid-April 2023.

Poland's ruling nationalist Law & Justice government (PiS) have demanded a staggering €1.3trillion in reparations from Germany for damages from the second world war, but what they really want is domestic approval, as the opinion-poll lead droops.

So far rich countries have pledged pitiful amounts of aid to Pakistan. The EU, responsible for 23.2 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions, has allocated a mere €1.8 million for humanitarian assistance — less than five cents per person.

Moscow said Western sanctions are causing the problems preventing the restoration of gas flows via the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, as energy prices soared in response to Russia's decision to keep the pipeline closed, following an apparent oil leak.

The former foreign minister was the one who introduced Northern Ireland protocol bill earlier this year, which would allow the UK government to abandon parts of the protocol — in breach of its divorce agreement with the EU.

The Czech EU presidency wants to start negotiations with the European Parliament on fingerprint rules known as Eurodac and a bill on screening that could lead to detention centres.

Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal has urged the EU to increase weapons deliveries and offered to share gas with Europe amid Russian cut-offs. "We need more modern weapons, such as air defence, missile defence and ship defence," he said in Brussels on Monday, Reuters reports. Ukraine had 30 billion cubic metres of gas in storage tanks, he added. "We can replace to a large extent the Russian imports," he said.

French president Emmanuel Macron has said he was against Germany's proposal to build a new gas pipeline from Portugal to Spain and France to help bring Algerian and LNG gas to central Europe. Existing pipelines were only operating at half capacity and most flows were from north to south, he said. "I do not understand why we would jump around like Pyrenees goats on this topic," he added.

The EU was accelerating plans to build a joint fleet of fire-fighting helicopters after a summer of wildfires in the Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Portugal and Spain, the bloc's crisis-management commissioner Janez Lenarčič said Monday. "We've reached our capacity limit. Some overwhelming fires in some member states did in fact not lead to a request for assistance because countries concerned ... knew no capacities would have been available," he said.

The EU foreign service has complained about Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's "threats and aggressive rhetoric" against Greece after he accused Greece of "occupying" demilitarised islands in the Aegean Sea and said he would "do what is necessary" to liberate them one day. "The continuous hostile remarks by the political leadership of Turkey against Greece ... raise serious concerns and fully contradict much needed de-escalation efforts," an EU spokesman said.

The current Czech EU presidency wants to fold Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania into the border-free Schengen zone, presently composed of all other EU member states [except Cyprus], as well as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland. "It's one of the high ambitions of the Czech presidency," said Czech interior minister Vít Rakušan, speaking on behalf of the EU presidency.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán was the only EU leader to attend obsequies for late Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow on Saturday, where thousands of Russians also paid their respects passing by an open casket. Russian president Vladimir Putin did not attend the ceremony, citing a busy agenda, in a move seen as a snub to a historical figure known for making peace with the West.

Russia may be planning an "exceptional" propaganda attack at the upcoming Swedish elections on 11 September, the country's Psychological Defence Agency has warned. "It might be an occasion that someone would like to harm Sweden, impact the Swedish democracy process, to do something exceptional towards the end of the election campaign," its spokesman Mikael Östlund told The Guardian on Sunday. The agency was on permanent "high alert," he added.