Euobserver.com

Women should take up two of the EU's top jobs in future, EU Council president Donald Tusk has said, in what would help end decades of inequality.

German CDU leader, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has come under fire from YouTube stars after calling for more discussion about regulation of political opinions in the digital sphere around election time. She spoke after a European election video by YouTuber Rezo urged voters to shun the ruling parties over their failure to act on climate change. YouTubers have now launched a petition calling for an end to attacks on free speech.

Serbia ordered on Tuesday its troops near the border with Kosovo to be on high alert after Serb-populated areas were raided by Kosovo police, in an operation which Kosovo said was targeted against organised crime and smuggling. Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic told his troops to stay ready to protect Serbia's ethnic diaspora if necessary. Majority-Albanian Kosovo broke away from Serbia following a Nato bombing campaign in 1999.

The UK parliament speaker, John Bercow, plans to stay in his post despite accusations among pro-Brexit MPss he has unfairly helped pro-EU MPs in his parliamentary decisions and wants to thwart a no-deal Brexit. Speaking to the Guardian, he said it was not "sensible to vacate the chair" while there are major issues before parliament. Bercow was first elected 10 years ago and re-elected unopposed in 2015 and 2017.

Sweden's young climate activist Greta Thunberg together with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and Austrian president Alexander Van der Bellen opened the R20 Austrian World Summit in Vienna on Tuesday. The annual event was established in 2011 by Hollywood star and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's environmental organisation R20 Regions of Climate Action, who also spoke at the event, pushing for "less talk, more action".

Three Roma have been elected members to the European Parliament, according to news server Romea.cz, two less than in the previous parliament. Romeo Franz of Germany and Livia Jaroka of Hungary were re-elected to their seats, while Peter Pollak managed to secure a seat in Slovakia. All three ran as candidates for majority parties. An estimated six million Roma people live across the EU, forming its biggest ethnic minority.

Former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis's DiEM25 party marginally failed to secure a seat in the European Parliament, getting 2.99 percent of the vote in Greece - short of the three percent threshold. Varoufakis announced he would be holding a press conference in Athens on Wednesday. A Greek government spokesman, Dimitris Tzanakopoulos, said on Tuesday that snap Greek parliamentary elections will be called for 7 July.

The UK's opposition Labour party expelled on Tuesday its former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, who served as press secretary to Labour prime minister Tony Blair, after he admitted voting for the Liberal Democrats in last week's EU elections. He said he had voted tactically for the pro-EU party. A Labour party spokeswoman told the Guardian that "support for another political party or candidate is incompatible with party membership".

The upcoming negotiations of the EU budget for 2021-2028 will be very tough. The cohesion policy will be wrongly criticised as obsolete, belonging to the "past". If the EU is to survive, the meaningful cohesion policy is essential.

With national leaders and the European Parliament divided over who to put forward for the commission presidency, the EU Council president will now start negotiations with all sides - hoping to come up with an answer by next month.

EU heads of government have their first face-to-faces discussions after the European elections on who should lead the EU commission. They are unlikely to decide quickly - with the parliament also divided over the candidates.

A clear majority, including among populist parties, agree that the EU has added value. For the pro-EU forces, it is time to clarify and consolidate our vision, without ignoring the populists' election results.

The majority of political groups in the European Parliament - with the now exception of ALDE - are gearing up for a fight with EU premiers on who and how people will get the top posts of the EU institutions.

Acting Austrian chancellor Hartwig Loeger will attend Tuesday's EU summit of national leaders, in the wake of Sebastian Kurz's losing power in Vienna on Monday, following a vote of no-confidence by both his scandal-hit hard-right coalition partners, the Freedom Party, and the centre-left SPO socialists. Loeger is Austria's finance minister, as well as acting chancellor.

EU leaders flock to Brussels for a top jobs summit on Tuesday, with Germany's main candidate under fire by France and Spain.

Spanish ministers Teresa Ribera (energy) and Maria Jesus Montero (budget) sent a letter last week to the European Commission proposing an assessment of a carbon tax for all imports, Reuters reported Monday. "Custom duties are traditional own budgetary resources; therefore, a carbon border tax would perfectly fit within the traditional EU approach on this field," the letter said. French president Emmanuel Macron also supports a carbon border tax.

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn now supports a second referendum on Brexit, he said a day after his centre-left party did poorly at European Parliament elections. "We are ready to support a public vote on any deal," Corbyn wrote to MPs the Guardian reported. Labour received 14 percent of the votes and ended third, behind the Brexit Party and the pro-EU Liberal Democrats.

The European Commission is preparing to start a procedure which could end up in a €3.5bn fine for Italy over its deficit, several media reported Monday and Tuesday. "I am waiting to read the letter from the EU, but the commission should acknowledge that people voted for change and growth," deputy PM Matteo Salvini said, after Italians gave his Lega 34 percent of votes in the EU elections.

The presidents of the political groups are meeting on Tuesday morning, ahead of a dinner in Brussels where heads of state and government will begin talks on new EU institutional leadership jobs.

Austrian centre-right chancellor Sebastian Kurz has been ousted from office after a no-confidence vote in which his former allies, the far-right FPO, as well as the opposition centre-left SPO and Green Jetzt Paris attacked his handing of the recent FPO corruption scandal. The vote camde despite Kurz's OVP party coming top in the European Parliament election. Austria will be run by a caretaker government until elections in September.