Euobserver.com

EU countries are to discuss imposing a gas-price cap, as strained markets reopen this week to news that Russia's pipeline to Germany will stay shut.

Far-right Italian politician Matteo Salvini has questioned EU sanctions on Russia in the run-up to 15 September elections in Italy. If "after seven months of war it [Russia] has not been hurt [by the sanctions], at least considering a change seems legitimate to me," he said at a conference on Sunday, Italian media report. Italy's far-right PM hopeful, Giorgia Meloni, has firmly sided with Western allies on Russia instead.

The Conservative party is expected to announce at 11.30 British time on Monday that Liz Truss will take the reins as Britain's next prime minister. Truss, 47, has been a frontrunner to replace Boris Johnson, who resigned in July after being caught out in lies. If she takes over, she has promised to tackle soaring energy prices and inflation as her top priorities.

The ECB is expected to raise the interest rate by 75 basis point, its steepest single rate hike since the creation of the euro, as the bank struggles to fight increasing inflation.

Europe's energy supply from both hydro power and nuclear is down by double-digit percentages so far this year, despite the need to diversify from interrupted Russian gas supplies.

Although cases are dropping, the European Commission has warned that Covid spikes may occur during the autumn and winter months. "The Covid-19 pandemic is still very much with us" EU health commissioner Stella Kyriakides said, killing 2,300 Europeans daily.

According to a second stress test of the German energy system commissioned by economy minister Robert Habeck, it could make sense to keep two of the remaining three still active nuclear reactors online after the end of the year. German newspaper Handelsblatt cited ministry insiders saying Habeck was expected to decide to continue operating the Isar 2 and Neckarwestheim 2 kilns for a limited period of time.

Negotiations on a revived nuclear deal with Iran have foundered, as the US rejected the latest Iranian proposal as being "not constructive." Washington's rapid reaction to the Iranian text on Friday morning directly contradicted Tehran's claims that its proposals presented "a constructive approach" aimed at "finalising the negotiations". "We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive," a state department spokesman said.

The "physical integrity" of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in south-eastern Ukraine has been "violated several times", the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Rafael Grossi said on Thursday. Grossi led a team of inspectors to the Russian-controlled plant which has been shelled in recent weeks. He said that some members of his mission will stay at the facility "until Sunday or Monday, continuing with the assessment".

The EU's medicines regulator, the European Medicines Agency (EMA), said on Thursday it had given the green light to two vaccines that target the omicron variant of Covid-19, AFP reported. They were developed by US-German BioNTech-Pfizer and by US company Moderna, both of which created vaccines against the original strain of the virus. They function as boosters for people who have already had a full dose of the original vaccine.

The European Lesbian Conference is expected to take place in Budapest at the end of September. The event was held in Vienna and Kyiv in previous years.

The EU mulls measures to cut electricity demand, as part of its efforts to tackle skyrocketing energy prices, after focusing efforts on reducing gas consumption amid concerns that Russia could further curb gas flows.

The EU will hold steady on how it deals with China — while at the same time pursue relations with Taiwan, said a senior EU official.

Kosovo has started a 61-day countdown to a potential new flashpoint with Serbia amid EU appeals for calm.

The pressure group Pesticide Action Network (PAN) on Thursday lodged a complaint with the European Court of Justice over the widely-used insecticide cypermethrin, recently re-approved by the European Commission. PAN argues that the re-approval does not respect EU legislation, since the commission did not follow the conclusions of the European Food Safety Authority to ban this particular insecticide, despite numerous toxicity issues raised by the scientific body.  

The EU on Thursday condemned human rights violations against Uyghurs after the UN released a report highlighting that China may have committed "crimes against humanity" in Xinjiang. The UN report refers to China's "arbitrary and discriminatory detention" of Uyghurs and its political re-education camps. The EU joined the UN's call to closely monitor the human rights situation in China, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement.

Poland suffered losses of more than €1.3 trillion during World War II, according to a report by a Polish parliamentary commission, AP reported. "We will turn to Germany to open negotiations on the reparations," leader of the Law and Justice party Jaroslaw Kaczynski said on Thursday, describing the next steps as "long" and "not easy". Some 30 economists, historians and other specialists worked on the report since 2017.

Russia has threatened to take action against European visitors in retaliation for the EU suspending a visa-facilitation pact. Its response would "make the situation more difficult for Europeans as well", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday. The Russian foreign ministry also said "radiation doesn't need a visa to cross borders", mentioning Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian nuclear power plant on the front line, in a bid the belittle the EU visa move.

Projections made by analysts Rystad Energy on Thursday show oil and gas-extracting companies — including ExxonMobil, BP and Shell — are set to make €776bn profits this year, a new high exceeding last year's record of €493bn by 70 percent. The largest share is returned to investors, followed by debt-servicing, Rystad figures show. Investments in new oil and gas field remain relatively low.

A new Human Rights Watch report documents how Russia has forcibly transferred Ukrainian citizens from their homes to Russia and Russian-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine, a war crime in breach of international law, in a so-called "filtration" process.