Euobserver.com

On Thursday (December 6), the constitutional affairs committee of the European Parliament will finally have a crucial vote on changes to rules of procedure that govern MEPs. It's success - or failure - will largely depend on the EPP.

The European Commission wants EU states to voluntarily accept rescued asylum seekers - in a plan that would then phase out when the stalled reforms on the 'Dublin' regulation, which imposes relocation, are sorted.

The US has said it will scrap a Cold War-era treaty, the INF pact, which banned medium-range nuclear missiles, in 60 days unless Russia returned to "verifiable compliance". Nato ministers the same day agreed Russia had violated the accord by creating a new cruise missile that threatened European targets. The IMF treaty "strategically doesn't make sense" due to Russian violation, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said in Brussels Tuesday.

Some EU leaders do not understand US president Donald Trump's realpolitik, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, has said.

A UN migration pact aimed at laying down basic principles for tackling migration on a global level gets caught up in Europe's heated political debate on nationalism and migration, ahead of the May 2019 European elections.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino addressed the G20 leaders and placed football at their disposal as a powerful tool to help them address the challenges facing the world today.

After an all-night, 18-hour negotiation, finance ministers take steps to reinforce the defence of the euro, the single currency which celebrates its 20th birthday next month. However, the reform measures still need to be agreed by EU leaders.

An MEP who helped draft Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty has lambasted Tuesday's opinion from the EU court that a country can unilaterally withdraw its application to leave the EU. Jo Leinen, a German MEP and member of the constitutional convention, said: "The advocate general's assessment is misguided. Article 50 of the EU Treaty is not intended to allow a member state to take the European Union hostage".

In an effort to calm fierce protests across France, the government plans to announce on Tuesday the suspension of fuel tax increases slated for January, AFP reported. Emmanuel Macron's presidency has been facing its biggest crisis after the grassroots 'yellow vests' movement was sparked by the hike in diesel duties. Prime minister Edouard Philippe is also expected to unveil other measures to help boost the living standards of low-income households.

"Mr Selmayr's appointment did not follow EU law, and did not follow the Commission's own rules," the European Ombudsman has concluded after looking into the controversial appointment of the commission's highest-ranking official, secretary-general Martin Selmayr, in February 2018. "The commission created an artificial sense of urgency to fill the post of secretary-general in order to justify not publishing a vacancy notice," the ombudsman said, recommending a new appointment procedure.

British MPs will now vote on Brexit in the knowledge that their ballots could halt the whole process - if the EU court follows the opinion of one of its top jurists.

The EU treaty "allows the unilateral revocation of the notification of the intention to withdraw from the EU", an EU jurist said Tuesday, opening the way for British MPs to block Brexit if they do not like the deal. The EU advocate general's "opinion" is non-binding, but the court usually follows suit. It has promised a "quick" verdict, as MPs prepare to vote on the deal on 11 December.

US tech giants AirBnB, Amazon, Apple, and Swedish company Spotify look set to get off the hook on new EU taxes, but Facebook and Google are still in the crosshairs.

The centre-right Ciudadanos and the Popular Party (PP) are in talks to form a new government in Spain's Andalusia region, with support from the far-right party Vox. For the first time since the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, Vox secured seats for the far-right in a Spanish parliament on Sunday. The secretary general of Ciudadanos, Jose Manuel Villegas, said on Monday a deal with Vox was a possibility.

Hundreds of right-wing extremists are at large in Germany, despite arrest warrants against them, according to a response to a parliamentary request from leftwing MP Ulla Jelpke. In total, 467 sought-after right-wing extremists not been found by police by the end of March, the Neue Osnabruecker newspaper reported. The number of neo-Nazis wanted by police nearly doubled in the past four years, according to the response.

Top managers from German car makers Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW are up for talks with US government officials in the White House in Washington on Tuesday - prompting questions in Europe over the purpose of the meeting, as only the European Commission has the authority to negotiate trade and customs with other countries under EU treaties. President Donald Trump has long accused German automakers of an unfair trade imbalance.

The UK will be "indefinitely committed" to the Irish backstop, UK attorney general Geoffrey Cox told MPs on Monday. Cox, who gives legal advice to the government on the Brexit deal, said there would be no unilateral right for the UK to pull out of the backstop, which is designed to prevent a new Irish border if no trade deal is reached with the EU after Brexit.

The political crisis in France sparked by the 'yellow vest' movement is set to continue after representatives of the protesters pulled out of a meeting with prime minister Edouard Philippe, scheduled for Tuesday. Over the weekend Paris was hit by the worst riots since 1968. A Harris Interactive poll found 72 percent of French people support the yellow vests' tax protests but 85 percent are against the violence.

Nato foreign ministers arrive in Brussels on Tuesday for a two-day meeting likely to focus on security around the Black Sea, after Russia fired on Ukrainian vessels last week in the Azov Sea and detained several Ukrainian naval personnel. Moscow has blamed Ukraine for what it called a "provocation". Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko wants Nato to send warships to the Azov Sea, rising risks of a naval confrontation with Russia.

The American university is forced to move to Vienna, as EU institutions fail to curb Hungarian nationalist premier, Viktor Orban's push against academic freedom. "It is a dark day for Europe and a dark day for Hungary," the rector said.