Euobserver.com

The EU's Rapid Alert System (RAS), created in early 2019 to raise the alarm on disinformation campaigns, has not yet issued a single alert due to EU officials' caution on labelling media as propaganda, the New York Times reports. Two-thirds of EU states did not take part and the only information uploaded was a mix of news clippings and NGO reports with no added analysis, it said.

US president Donald Trump's administration was "dysfunctional ... unpredictable ... faction-riven ... diplomatically clumsy and inept," Britains' ambassador in Washington, Sir Kim Darroch, said in an email leaked to the Mail on Sunday, a British newspaper. Trump's policy on Iran was "incoherent, chaotic", he added. "You need to make your points simple, even blunt," when talking to the US leader, the British diplomat also said.

One of the Russian intelligence officers, Denis Sergeev, suspected of trying to assassinate a former Russian spy, Sergei Skripal, in the UK, made several trips to Switzerland via Bareclona and Paris between 2016 and 2018, investigative website Bellingcat reports, citing his phone metadata. His trips may have been linked to hacking operations against the sports anti-doping body, Wada, espionage against a US diplomat, or research on Skripal's activities, it said.

The EU parliament committees will start their work, as MEPs reflect on approving Ursula von der Leyen as new commission chief. Meanwhile, Greek is about to take a conservative turn.

Former Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko writes on the prospects for Monday's EU-Ukraine summit - the first under his successor Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and against a backdrop of ongoing Russian aggression

The outgoing EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said Friday (5 July) at a press conference in Helsinki that the nomination of his successor, Ursula von der Leyen, and others to the EU's new leadership "was not very transparent." Juncker said that the 'Spitzenkandidaten' process of nominating the parliament election winner to the top commission job "unfortunately didn't become a tradition". "I was the first and last Spitzenkandidat," he quipped.

Russia and Italy spoke out against EU sanctions in Rome on Thursday, as Italy's populist rulers seek allies on the world stage to counter Franco-German power in Europe.

European Commission anti-trust decisions should have "more flexibility" and "take into account competition at a global level", France, Germany, and Poland said in a joint paper published Thursday. The EU Council should play a role in deciding on mergers that could create European champions, they added. "We have to take into account the rise of China ... a new world means new rules," French finance minister Bruno Le Maire said.

An Italian NGO has saved 54 shipwrecked migrants between Lampedusa and Tunisia. Eleven of them are women (three pregnant), four are children. The NGO wants to go to Lampedusa, as they refuse to return people to Libya. Italy's minister of interior, Matteo Salvini, refused and told them to go to Tunisia. This week Italy arrested the German captain of another ship, the Sea Watch, but released her later.

Only one-in-three Germans agree with the EU leaders' choice of Ursula von der Leyen to lead the European Commission, according to an ARD opinion poll. 56 percent said they did not agree with the decision. Separately, two-thirds of the participants believed that the German state was too lenient with neo-Nazis and the extreme right. 71 percent believe there is a significant danger of far-right attacks.

Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday (4 July) that the country's submarine that caught fire was nuclear-powered. The incident killed 14 Russian sailors on Monday while carrying out a survey of the sea floor near the Arctic, according to the Russian ministry of defence. The ministry added that although the details are classified, the reactor has been safely contained.

The Sudanese military and opposition have agreed on sharing power and rotating the presidency of the sovereign council for three years. After three years there will be elections, which should be the end of military rule. The agreement, brokered by the Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed, comes after months of mass protests that ousted dictator Omar al Bashir. There is hope now this deal will end the deadly violence.

Internal movement will cause a radical reshuffling of the EU population by 2060 unless trends moderate. Under current conditions, dramatic population reductions await Romania (-30 percent), Croatia (-30 percent), and Lithuania (-38 percent) among others.

New Brexit Party MEP June Alison Mummery is the director of a company active in the fishing industry. She just joined the EU parliament's fisheries committee as a substitute member.

As the death toll of the Tajoura detention centre airstrike reached 53, including six children, the UN called for a halt to returning people to Libya. The EU - which is helping fund the Libyan coastguard - said no.

Former Italian prime minister and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi has joined the European Parliament's standing committee on foreign affairs, it emerged on Wednesday. It is the only committee the 82-year-old newly-elected MEP has joined. Despite the committee's apparent appeal among MEPs, the parliament has little power over issues of foreign affairs. In total, the committee has 71 members - one fewer than the previous parliament.

A majority of the new parliament's 14 vice-presidents are from the centre-right EPP or the centre-left S&D. They also control the Bureau, which decides on crucial internal issues like expenses transparency.

The EU Council president urged MEPs not to reject the first woman nominated by the EU leaders at a marathon summit as the new Commission president.

The EP elections results are the reality check and unless Polish opposition regroups into two blocks, there will be a hefty price to pay. This means an urgent need for unification of the Polish Left.

The British navy has seized an oil tanker called Grace 1 on its way past Gibraltar to the Syrian refinery of Baniyas, which is under EU sanctions. Fabian Picardo, the Gibraltar first minister, told the BBC he had written to the European Commission and EU Council presidents to give details. The operation comes amid uncertainty on UK-EU defence and foreign policy cooperation after Brexit due later this year.