Euobserver.com

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said his Fidesz party may need to leave the centre-right European People's Party (EPP) - in which case he will consider reaching out to Poland to build a new alliance. Orban said in a radio interview he would prefer to stay in the EPP and strengthen the anti-migration forces there. The EPP will discuss Fidesz's membership of the group on 20 March.

Finnish prime minister Juha Sipila's centre-right government resigned Friday after failing to push through a planned social and health reform. Sipila will ask president Sauli Niinisto to dissolve the parliament. Finland is due to hold general elections on 14 April. Sipila, who came to power in May 2015, will continue to serve as prime minister for now. Finland will take over the EU's rotating presidency in July.

British prime minister Theresa May is to urge the EU to back down on Ireland in a speech to eurosceptic British workers 21 days before the Brexit due date.

Representatives of the European Parliament, European Commission, and Council of the EU (representing national governments) agreed on Thursday what the rules should be for the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the 2021-2027 period. The CEF funds infrastructure projects in Europe, with €23.5bn available in 2014-2020. The budget for the new period will be agreed later. According to the commission, the new CEF will prioritise financing environmentally-friendly transport modes.

European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi announced Thursday that the ECB will not raise interest rates before 2019 ends - longer than previously announced. This means that private banks can continue to borrow money interest-free. If banks want to deposit money at the ECB, they have to pay 0.4%. "We are in a period of continued weakness and pervasive uncertainty," said Draghi as explanation for his policy.

"There is a lack of trust at this moment" between the EU and US, said EU trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom Thursday in Washington, according to the FT. Malmstrom also said the EU was "deeply offended" when the US branded it a national security risk when imposing tariffs. "If you want an ally and partner, this is not the way to go about it," she told Bloomberg.

We need a more meaningful representation of women in EU institutions and on EU's negotiation tables abroad. The most successful EU deal in the last years, the Iran deal, was brokered by women – Frederica Mogherini and Helga Schmid.

Proportionally, more men vote in the European elections than women - in a trend that has widened since 2009. Yet the European parliament's outreach strategy to voters targets only young people, students and "people who exert a certain influence".

Recognising the passion for women's football and its potential offers vast untapped opportunities, FIFA is committed to reaching an ambitious goal: by 2026, the number of women's footballers is to be doubled from 30 million to 60 million players worldwide.

EUobserver asked candidates for the presidency of the EU Commission to commit in principle to having minutes taken of their meetings with politicians and lobbyists. The 'Big 3' all said no.

Leaders of the European Parliament on Thursday backed Romanian former anti-corruption prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi as their pick to be the EU's chief prosecutor. The decision comes after two parliamentary committees backed her candidacy. The EP's leadership appointed three MEPs to negotiate the final choice with member states. Three ambassadors will head the council's negotiating team. Talks could drag on, as the countries picked the French candidate as their choice.

The European Commission has referred Italy to the Court of Justice of the EU over two separate cases of failing to apply EU environmental rules. The first case is about "a failure to protect citizens against the effects of nitrogen dioxide", the commission said on Thursday. The second is about waste water treatment. "Italy has not complied with EU rules in [16 Italian] regions for over 13 years," it said.

Face-to-face interviews with 15,179 women reveal that beliefs in female subservience and marital obedience continue to persist in south-eastern and eastern Europe.

Debate about carbon-free Europe at Romania's Brussels office was sponsored by nuclear lobby and attended by diplomats, but with no green NGOs present.

The Court of Justice of the EU ruled on Thursday that the public interest in accessing information in studies held by the European Food and Safety Agency (Efsa) on glyphosate, a widely used herbicide, outweighs any commercial interests. Therefore, it annulled Efsa's decision to refuse access to the glyphosate studies. A researcher and three Green MEPs had asked for the information, concerned that glyphosate may be carcinogenic.

Bavaria's Manfred Weber is running to take over the EU Commission presidency from fellow EPP member, Jean-Claude Juncker. His CSU party has lined up behind him, after last year's failed move to the right to compete with the populists.

With a record of 44 candidates running for president, it remains to be seen who will become Ukraine's next leader. But will Ukrainian politicians and their international partners be able to keep the country on the road to reform?

The EU is waiting for a new British proposal on Brexit with just 23 days left to a no-deal scenario, French Europe affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau has said. "We're still waiting for a proposal from London. It's really a British initiative which has to come. And it has to be supported domestically in the UK," she said in British daily The Guardian on Thursday ahead of bilateral talks in London.

Europe's "regulatory backlash" has turned off Chinese investors, who injected just €17.3bn into the EU last year - 40 percent less than in 2017 and almost 100 percent less than in 2016, the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a think-tank in Berlin, has said in a new study. "This shift in attitudes has been remarkably rapid in Europe," it noted, referring to Western concerns on Chinese strategic acquisitions.

Venezuela has expelled Germany's ambassador to the country, Daniel Kriener, after he met opposition leader Juan Guaido at the airport this week, accusing the diplomat of being in "alignment with the conspiracy agenda of extremist sectors". Dutch, French, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, and US diplomats also met Guaido to protect him upon his return to the country, but only Kriener has been ejected so far amid an economic and political crisis.