Euobserver.com

The UK will struggle to get decent trade deals after Brexit and British food prices will surge if there is a no-deal departure, EU agriculture commissioner Phil Hogan said in Australia Thursday. The EU market of 500m customers "will always resonate more with a third country" than the British one of 65m, he said. No-deal UK border checks on EU imports would see a "major increase in food prices".

"Every fourth euro spent within the EU budget will go towards action to mitigate climate change," European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said in Brussels at an event with Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg in Brussels on Thursday, referring to the bloc's 2021 to 2027 budget. He also criticised US leader Donald Trump for saying climate change was "invented" and "ideological". "Talk to the scientists, listen to them", Thunberg said.

Swedish lender Swedbank has hired external auditors EY to check its books after Swedish Television revealed at least 40bn Swedish crowns (€3.8bn) were moved between accounts at Swedbank and Danske Bank in the Baltic states between 2007 and 2015, when Dankse Bank was involved in a huge money laundering scandal there. The Swedbank revelations saw 14 percent of its share value wiped out in one day.

Opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called the danger of Britain leaving the EU without a deal 'very serious' after a meeting Wednesday with EU negotiator Michel Barnier. Corbyn, whose Labour party lost eight MPs in protest of his Brexit policy and rising anti-semitism in the party, said he discussed the UK staying in the EU's customs union which could end the Brexit impasse, but ruled out by the UK government.

EU Council president and former Polish leader Donald Tusk told Polish broadcaster TVN Wednesday he will campaign on behalf of Polish candidates in the European Parliament (EP) elections in May for whom "democratic minimums and European minimums mean something". "I won't pretend to be neutral, because Polish interests are at stake," he said, referring to a clash between Poland's eurosceptic government and EU institutions on rule of law and values.

Russian hackers posed a threat to EU elections, US tech giant Microsoft has warned, amid fresh revelations of cyber-attacks against European targets.

No breakthroughs emerged from the latest meeting between the British prime minister and the EU commission chief, with only 37 days to go until Brexit.

No breakthroughs emerged from the latest meeting between the British prime minister and the EU commission chief, with only 37 days to go until Brexit.

Germany has rejected a UK appeal to exempt jet fighter parts from its Saudi Arabia arms ban so the UK could fulfill defence contracts with the oil kingdom. Germany's arms ban would depend on "developments in the Yemen conflict", where Saudi Arabia was bombing rebel groups, German foreign minister Heiko Maas said Wednesday. British foreign minister Jeremy Hunt said in Berlin that British arms sales could help "influence" Saudi behaviour.

French senators have said in a new report that president Emmanuel Macron's handling of the "Benalla affair" showed a "major dysfunction" in the Elysee. They also warned that Alexandre Benalla, a former Macron security aide, may have been "under the control of a foreign interest" due to his dealings with a Russian oligarch. Benalla was filmed attacking street protesters last year, prompting investigations, but Macron initially downplayed the scandal.

French president Emmanuel Macron has said France would ban three far-right groups - Bastion Social, Blood and Honour Hexagone, and Combat 18 - and adopt a tougher definition of antisemitism in reaction to a spike in hate crimes, such as recent vandalism of Jewish graves. "Europe, and most Western democracies, seem to be facing a resurgence of antisemitism unseen since World War II," Macron said.

Swedish activist, 16-year old Greta Thunberg, will discuss climate change at an event with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in the European Economic and Social Committee, an EU advisory body, in Brussels on Thursday morning prior to joining street protests by young people calling for change. Thunberg travelled to Belgium by train, Belgian media said, to highlight the damage done by aircraft emissions.

The visit of Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz to the White House on Wednesday showed that the current rift in transatlantic relations is deepening by the day.

The Court of Justice of the EU annulled legislation which relaxed toxic emission limits for cars. EU commissioner Bienkowska said the commission will appeal.

Swedish MEP Gunnar Hokmark Wednesday sent a letter to European People's Party group leader in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, calling for a discussion on Hungary's PM Viktor Orban and his Fidesz party, an EPP member. Hokmark said that Orban's recent anti-EU campaign is crossing "new red lines". "It is populism of its worst kind," he wrote. The next group meeting will take place on 6 March.

The majority of EU governments Wednesday endorsed a draft reform of copyright rules which would force Google, Facebook, and other platforms to pay publishers for news fragments and filter out copyright-protected content. Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Poland refused to back the deal, which they said damages the interests of citizens and companies. The final vote in the European Parliament is expected next month or in April.

The European Commission is not getting information from Germany it needs to assess if it can stop a legal procedure related to Dieselgate, a commission source said Wednesday. In December 2016, the commission opened a so-called infringement procedure against Germany for not punishing Volkswagen for its emissions cheating. A German prosecutor has since fined Volkswagen €1bn, but is leaving the commission in the dark about case details.

The murderers of Slovak journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kusnirova last year surveilled their house for several days before the killing, according to new findings by investigative journalists, citing Slovak police sources. The three suspects visited the house at least seven times. They said they were hired by an associate of Slovakia's richest businessman, who has not been charged with the crime and refused to comment.

Germany should resume arms sales to Saudi Arabia despite its slaying of journalist Jamal Khashoggi because German aircraft parts were needed to fulfil British contracts to sell fighter jets there, British foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt said in a letter to his German counterpart before visiting Berlin Wednesday. "I'm very concerned about the impact of the German government's decision on the British ... defence industry," Hunt said, Germany's Der Spiegel reports.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will have to continue paying €15m a year rent for 21 years on its offices in London after the UK high court said Wednesday that Brexit was not a legally valid reason for breaking its contract with the Canary Wharf property group. The EMA is moving to Amsterdam and closed the London office in January, costing the UK 900 jobs.