Euobserver.com

Italian far-right populist Giorgia Meloni has come out in favour of supplying arms to Ukraine in a bid to make her a more internationally acceptable candidate for future prime minister, The Times reported Saturday. "Italy should not abandon its international allies," she told paper. "I think Italy should show it is a faithful, solid and credible ally, above and beyond the Ukrainian cause, which I support," she said.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin, French president Emmanuel Macron, and German chancellor Olaf Scholz held phone talks Saturday, in which Putin discussed releasing Ukrainian grain shipments to ease world food prices, and also spoke of boosting Russian fertiliser exports in return for Western sanctions relief. "Russia is ready to help find options for the unhindered export of grain, including the export of Ukrainian grain from Black Sea ports," the Kremlin said.

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has continued to oppose Finland and Sweden's entry into Nato despite high-level talks last week over Turkish allegations the two EU states harbour Kurdish "terrorists". "For as long as Tayyip Erdoğan is the head of the Republic of Turkey, we definitely cannot say 'yes' to countries which support terrorism entering Nato," he said on Saturday, Turkish state broadcaster TRT Haber reported.

The EU has spent some €143m to promote European meat products in the last five years — despite increasing calls to halt taxpayer funded meat-promotion in light of the climate crisis.

The Visegrád Group, the New Hanseatic League, the Benelux or the Nordics have frequently worked together — however, southern European member states have frequently found themselves in loose cooperation or, worse, competition.

The EU is aiming to launch three new military missions in West Africa after Russia pushed Europe out of Mali and threatens to do so in Burkina Faso.

EU leaders are gathering in Brussels after they got stuck on imposing on oil embargo on Russia. Poland's recovery plan gets approved and Danish voters will vote in a historic referendum this week.

Leaders are, however, unlikely to unblock Hungary's opposition to a sixth package of sanctions against Russia, inluding introducing an oil embargo by the end of the year.

The Dutch journalists' trade union, the Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten (NVJ), has filed a lawsuit at the EU Court of Justice challenging EU sanctions against Russian propaganda outlets Russia Today and Sputnik, which were banned in Europe in March. The ban is too loosely worded and was "punishing the European people, by not treating them like adults and not giving them the possibility to access information," NVJ said, Reuters reports.

EU countries have frozen just €23bn of Russian Central Bank reserves, compared to some five times that by the US (and some €280bn in total by Western countries), EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders said Wednesday. The EU Commission the same day tabled new laws on seizing criminal assets — a measure which could be used to confiscate Russian money in future and use it to pay for Ukraine's reconstruction.

EU leaders will vow to continue arming and financing Ukraine in the face of "unspeakable" Russian "atrocities", according to a draft of next week's summit declaration.

Russian president Vladimir Putin signed a decree on Wednesday to accelerate the process of handing Russian citizenship to residents of Ukraine's Russian-occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, Reuters reported. This was already the case in the Russian-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in southeastern Ukraine, where around 800,000 Russian passports have been issued since 2019. Meanwhile, the Russia's parliament has approved a law removing age limits for army recruits.

A handful of Palestinian civil society groups have denounced, in a letter , European Parliament president Roberta Metsola's visit with Israeli officials and MPs. They also accuse Metsola of being complicit "in the institutionalised domination and systematic oppression of the Palestinian people." Metsola's visit coincided with a decision by Israel to bar a European Parliament delegation from entering Gaza and meeting with Palestinian NGOs.

British prime minister Boris Johnson has rejected calls to resign, following the publication of an independent report into a string of parties held at Downing Street during the UK's Covid lockdowns — in breach of government guidance at the time. Johnson, who attend several of the parties investigated, told MPs and press he believed they were work events. He has already been fined by Metropolitan police over one party.

The EU's border guard, Frontex, says it has over 2,000 agents, 13 vessels and over 200 patrol cars deployed at Europe's external borders. The Warsaw-based agency is still looking for a new chief after Fabrice Leggeri resigned, following intense media and NGO scrutiny over rights abuses, plus an internal anti-fraud probe by EU watchdog Olaf.

Hungary's premier Viktor Orbán declared a state of emergency due to the war in neighbouring Ukraine hours after pushing a constitutional amendment through parliament, where two-thirds of MPs are controlled by his Fidesz party, allowing his government special powers.

Political pressure is mounting for the European Parliament to unilaterally strip Russian lobbyists of their access badges.

A Ukrainian environmental lawyer has filed a complaint with the European Ombudsman, arguing that imports of Russian fossil fuels breach EU law and violate international human rights.

The government in Budapest responds to EUobserver opinion piece "Are Orban's Covid powers now the 'new normal' in Hungary?"

Neither Reagan nor Gorbachev achieved their goal at the famous Reykjavik summit of 1986. Despite that fact there are lessons that current leaders — particularly Vladimir Putin — could adopt from these two iconic leaders.