Euobserver.com

It would take a "miracle" for Switzerland and the current EU Commission to clinch a quick deal over a stalled partnership treaty that has disrupted cross-border share-trading, Swiss foreign minister Ignazio Cassis told Blick newspaper in an interview. He said the position of the EU would likely remain the same, but the tone could change with new commission president Ursula von der Leyen in charge.

Ursula von der Leyen's in-tray must include those European executives on trial for systematic workplace harassment, the break-up of European slavery rings, and allegations of European companies' abuse in palm oil, including child labour, land grabs, and deforestation.

The European Union has nominated a record three women for its top posts, following the European Parliament elections in May, by choosing Bulgaria's Kristalina Georgieva to lead the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Last month Germany's Ursula von der Leyen was nominated president of the European Commission and France's Christine Lagarde picked to lead the European Central Bank. Georgieva is a former EU commissioner and currently World Bank chief executive.

Northern Ireland's DUP party has urged UK prime minister Boris Johnson to seek a time-limit to the Irish "backstop" in exchange for an all-Ireland food customs regime, the Irish edition of the Sunday Times reported. "The DUP has urged Johnson to seek a time-limit to the backstop, somewhere between three and six years, as a quid pro quo for a pact on food," it reported, without citing sources.

European media published on Monday research by the Returns Network, showing that European Union border agency Frontex guards tolerated violence against displaced people by their national counterparts on the EU's external border, and have treated refugees inhumanely themselves. They used nightsticks and pepper spray to subdue displaced people and used dogs to chase them through forests, according to the report, based on Frontex documents.

Russia's anti-Kremlin opposition is planning a nationwide protest next weekend, despite over 1,000 people being arrested for attending a march in Moscow on Saturday demanding free elections. The protests began in Moscow on 14 July, when prominent opposition candidates, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, were barred from taking part in the 8 September election for Moscow's city legislature.

Women in Romania have had a legal right to an abortion since 1990. But many seeking care find themselves in a Kafkaesque trap.

EU commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said back in January the EU should consider setting up its own space army - in response to Donald Trump's similar plan. Bar two speeches, not much has happened.

Spanish finance minister Nadia Calvino on Friday withdrew her name to be Europe's candidate for the post of president of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF), after no majority emerged at a first voting round, El Pais reported. Portugal's Mario Centeno, the current Eurogroup president, withdrew on Thursday, leaving Dutch former eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Finland's central bank governor Olli Rehn, and Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, CEO of the World Bank.

A European Commission spokesman called on the US and Russia on Friday to further reduce their arsenals of nuclear weapons, after the US formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty as of Friday. "Given the heightened tensions we must be careful not to enter the path of a new arms race that would offset the significant reductions achieved after the end of the Cold War," he said.

Europeans should also clarify that they are unwilling to tolerate restrictions on freedom of navigation or a further significant expansion of Iran's nuclear programme. Diplomacy can resolve the standoff over the captured British and Iranian tankers.

EU finance ministers on Friday will choose, by a qualified majority vote, Europe's candidate to succeed Christine Lagarde as the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) next manager. After weeks of negotiations, the 28 ministers will choose from Dutch former eurogroup chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Finland's central bank governor Olli Rehn, Spain's finance minister Nadia Calvino, and Bulgarian Kristalina Georgieva, World Bank chief executive, the Financial Times reported.

Britain's pro-EU Liberal Democrats won a parliamentary seat in Wales from the governing Conservatives on Thursday, in a blow to prime minister Boris Johnson, whose majority shrinks to just one. Johnson is expected to clash with MPs in September as he prepares for a no-deal Brexit. "Boris Johnson's shrinking majority makes it clear that he has no mandate to crash us out of the EU," liberal leader Jo Swinson said.

EU Commission president-elect Ursula von der Leyen is meeting Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte on Friday. Conte was one of the EU leaders who strongly opposed the nomination of her rival, the Dutch commissioner Frans Timmermans, for the top job last month. Italians have been eyeing an economic portfolio for their commission candidate, who is yet to be named.

Thousands of Poles took to the streets on Thursday to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw uprising, the largest military underground insurgency in Nazi-occupied Europe. Polish resistance took up arms in Warsaw against their Nazi occupiers to liberate the capital before the Soviet Army arrived, to prevent the Soviet occupation. Some 200,000 Poles, most of them civilians, died in the uprising, while the city was almost completely destroyed.

German carmaker BMW's chief executive Harald Kruger on Thursday urged British prime minister Boris Johnson to find a compromise on Brexit with the EU, saying a no-deal Brexit would be a "lose-lose". BMW earlier warned that it might be forced to stop making the Mini at its Oxford plant, putting 4,500 jobs at risk. The UK is the biggest-single export market for the German car industry, the Guardian reported.

The EU Commission president-elect said she had a "good talk" with Hungary's controversial premier. Orban returned the praise, saying said the former German defence minister "thinks with [a] central Europeans' head".

UK prime minister Boris Johnson's EU advisor David Frost held "introductory meetings" with senior EU officials on Thursday in Brussels, where both sides reiterated their existing positions, a commission official said. Johnson said the divorce deal is "dead", while the EU said it will not renegotiate. Johnson and EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker will meet "at the latest" on the G7 summit in France in August, the spokesperson said.

An estimated 28% of EU citizens could not afford to go on an annual one-week holiday away from home last year, Eurostat reported Wednesday, although this was less than in 2013 (39.5%). More than half of the citizens in Romania (58.9%), Croatia (51.3%, provisional data), Greece (51%) and Cyprus (51.0%, provisional data) were unable to afford a one-week holiday, while in Sweden that figure was only 9.7%.

One in every eight women giving birth for the first time in 2017 in Bulgaria and Romania were teenagers, Eurostat reported Thursday. They had the highest share of mothers below 20 in the EU, followed by Hungary (8.5%) and Slovakia (8.1%). The vast majority of first-time EU mothers were 20-39 years old, while some 4% were 40 or older. First-time mothers older than 40 were particularly common in Spain (8.8%).