Euobserver.com

Italy should respect EU "budgetary rigour", but eurozone states should show "greater public solidarity" if a member state treasury has bad luck, the French central bank president, Francois Villeroy de Galhau, said in what he called a "friendly" op-ed in Italian newspaper Corierre della Sera Friday. Rome faces EU sanctions over its plan to splurge on welfare, with the French banker urging it to commit "to a stable European framework".

Britain will crash out of the EU with no deal or not leave at all if British MPs reject the withdrawal pact agreed last Sunday, EU Council president Donald Tusk told Reuters at a G20 summit in Argentina Friday. "If this deal is rejected in the Commons, we are left with ... an alternative: no deal or no Brexit at all," he said, adding the EU was"prepared for every scenario".

"I am sure that the EU will roll over the sanctions against Russia in December," EU Council president Donald Tusk said at a G20 summit in Argentina Friday. Russia's use of force against Ukrainian ships last Sunday was "totally unacceptable", he added. The EU imposed economic sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Calls for new sanctions over the naval incident did not immediately gain traction.

French president Emmanuel Macron has threatened not to sign an EU-Latin America trade deal if Brazil's president-elect Jair Bolsonaro withdrew from the Paris climate pact. "I am not in favour of signing major trade accords with powers who have announced that they won't respect the Paris agreement," Macron said. The trade deal with the Mercosur club, which includes Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay has been 17 years in the making.

Border checks between Schengen countries should be limited to a maximum of one year, instead of the current two-year period, the European Parliament said in a draft law on Thursday, backed by 319 votes against 241, with 78 abstentions. Negotiations with EU ministers are now set to begin. Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have internal checks since the 2015 migration crisis. France has special measures due to terror threats.

Slovakia's foreign minister Miroslav Lajcak announced on Thursday he would resign in protest over a decision in parliament to reject the UN migration accord. Lajcak was president of the UN General Assembly when the migration pact was adopted. The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration is set to be formally adopted in Morocco in December. One out of every 30 people worldwide is a migrant.

Deutsche Bank's Frankfurt headquarter and five other offices in the city were raided by police in an anti-money laundering probe on Thursday. The bank, which is Germany's biggest, was fined €550m by US and UK regulators in 2017 in connection with Russian money laundering and has been connected with another scandal at Denmark's Danske Bank.

German chancellor Angela Merkel is expected to miss the start of the G20 summit in Argentina on Friday after her flight was forced to land in Cologne shortly after departing from Berlin on Thursday evening due to a "malfunction of several electronic systems". Merkel had planned bilateral talks with the presidents of the United States, China, Russia and India, which may be affected by the delay.

Hard to comprehend why European automobile industry is pushing politicians into drastically speeding up transition away from the private car.

The finances and opulent lifestyles of Kremlin linked Oligarchs should be scrutinised fiercely in line with EU money laundering legislation.

The EU defence establishment has locked itself into an arms race on autonomous systems, while locking out the voice of civil society from the debate.

Criticism of Israel's occupation of Palestine could be labelled as "antisemitism" under an EU declaration drawn up by Austria.

French liberal Patricia Lalonde is leaving EuroMeda, a Belgian foundation, following an investigation by this website into Morocco lobbying. She maintains her impartiality.

The European Parliament on Thursday called on Hungarian authorities to extradite Macedonian ex-prime minister Nikola Gruevski to his home country, who has been convicted for abuse of power there and sentenced to jail-time but fled to Hungary with the covert help of Hungarian diplomats. MEPs in a resolution on Macedonia's progress towards possible EU accession said they considered this an act of interference in the internal affairs of Macedonia.

"It is now up to Switzerland to take action and decide," a European Commission spokesman said on Thursday, a day after it was revealed that commission vice president Valdis Dombrovskis had said that talks between the EU and Switzerland had not made enough progress to extend recognition of Swiss stock-exchange regulations beyond this year. Talks on a framework agreement will be reviewed by the Swiss cabinet on Friday.

The Visegrad Four would be wise to focus on how the lack of migrants could undermine their economic models, future prosperity and welfare.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz on Wednesday urged France to cede its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and hand it over to the EU. "I realise this will take some convincing in Paris but it would be a bold and smart goal," Scholz said. France immediately rejected the idea. In a tweet, France's ambassador to the US Gerard Araud described it as "legally impossible".

The US and the UK agreed on Wednesday how to govern air travel after Brexit. UK transport minister Chris Grayling said the deal would ensure that the UK remains one of the world's leading aviation hubs after Brexit for both travellers and businesses. Around 20 million passengers fly between the two countries each year, accounting for nearly one-third of all air travel between the US and Europe.

The UK is not the only country currently negotiating its future relations with the European Union. On Friday, the Swiss federal council will discuss the final stages of renewing some 120 bilateral accords with the EU. The EU regards Switzerland as having cherry picked the best parts of EU membership, something it wants to avoid in its Brexit talks with the UK.

Italy on Wednesday adopted an anti-migrant bill designed to more easily expel migrants and limit residency permits. Pushed through the lower parliament with 396 against 99, the bill spells the end for two-year "humanitarian protection" residency permits. Its adoption followed moves by Rome to also distance itself from ratifying the UN migration pact. Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia also oppose the non-binding UN pact.