Euobserver.com

Austria on Wednesday wrapped up the final details of a bill that cuts welfare and other benefits to migrants and asylum seekers with poor German language skills. The reforms, pushed through by the ruling centre-right People's Party (OVP) and far-right Freedom Party (FPO), will be put to a vote early next year. Minimum monthly payments will be set at €863. Asylum seekers with poor German or English will get €563.

Backsliding on rule of law and democracy have led to EU penalties for Moldova - a former success story for EU policy in the former Soviet region.

Danish prosecutors have filed criminal charges against the country's top bank, but it remains to be seen if any individuals will face justice over mass-scale money laundering.

The Hungarian government has hired a van to drive around Brussels with billboards showing Guy Verhoftstadt, a leading Belgian liberal MEP, next to images of recent terrorist attacks in the EU, and with the slogan saying it was "insane" to claim, as Verhoftstadt had done, that there was no migration crisis. "He and cabal of European liberals push a pro-migration agenda," Zoltan Kovacs, a Hungarian government spokesman, said.

The far-left GUE/NGL group in the European Parliament has joined the chorus of demands for an internal probe on MEPs involved in Morocco lobbying, following an investigation by EUobserver. This website exposed how Morocco lobbies parliament for its claim on the Western Sahara. The GUE/NGL are demanding the parliament's lead rapporteur on Morocco file, French liberal Patricia Lalonde, be replaced. Lalonde is on the board of a pro-Morocco foundation.

Germany has said France should give up its permanent seat and veto on the UN Security Council and turn it into an EU seat instead. "I realize this will take some convincing in Paris, but it would be a bold and smart goal," German finance minister Olaf Scholz said in Berlin Wednesday, AFP reports. The French UN ambassador, Gerard Araud, said it would be "legally impossible" under UN charter rules.

France and Germany are not interested in imposing extra sanctions on Russia for its recent attack on the Ukrainian navy, Kurt Volker, the US envoy to Ukraine, said in Berlin Wednesday. "We certainly encourage our European allies to look harder at what additional sanctions could be implemented," he said, adding: "That is not something Germany and France have said they're considering, but these things, I think, can develop over time".

The European Commission is not touching controversial issues like whether Europeans should eat less meat or fly less often.

France is the most heavily taxed EU state, with the French treasury taking back 48.4% of the GDP in one form of levy or another, according to a European Commission study. Belgium came second on 47.3% and Denmark third on 46.8%. The EU average was 40.2%, with taxes on the up across the board since 2010. Ireland had the lowest rating, on 23.5%, followed by Romania (25.8%) and Bulgaria (29.5%).

A no-deal Brexit would slash 9.3% off the British economy over the next 15 years, while the current Brexit deal would cost 4.9% according to a UK government study published Wednesday. The House of Commons is set to vote on the Brexit deal on 11 December. An EU court jurist plans to give a non-binding opinion on 4 December if the UK could unilaterally revoke Brexit if it wanted to.

The Greens have demanded an EU parliament code of conduct probe against a group of MEPs following an EUobserver investigation on Moroccan lobbying.

British government and EU lawyers have heaped scorn on the idea that Britain could unilaterally revoke its Brexit process.

A survey of 12 EU states ranks Finland as the place where people of African descent experience the most abuse, followed by Luxembourg and Ireland.

EU funding of military research will not be without consequence. It will likely fuel an arms race.

The European consumer is hardly buying any hydrogen cars, despite the EU's belief that it has a potential to reduce the use of fossil fuels.

A Spanish fishing boat, the Nuestra Madre Loreto, has been stuck out at sea for six days after rescuing 12 African asylum seekers from a dinghy because no EU country has agreed to take them in, AFP reports. Italy and Malta told the boat's captain, Pascual Dura, to take the migrants back to Libya, but he said the migrants would "mutiny" if he tried. "We can't go anywhere," Dura said.

EU states will consider fresh sanctions on Russia over its aggression against Ukraine in the Azov Sea, depending "on the exposition of facts and the further conduct of both parties", Karin Kneissl, Austria's foreign minister said Tuesday, speaking for the Austrian EU presidency. Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland, as well as some senior German politicians have also called for punitive measures. EU foreign ministers next meet on 10 December.

Iran will restart enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels unless the EU starts buying its oil in line with a 2015 accord, the country's atomic energy chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Reuters. "If we cannot sell our oil and we don't enjoy financial transactions, then I don't think keeping the deal will benefit us," he said. EU firms are wary of Iranian oil after the US threatened them with sanctions.

The US ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, wrote in The Times the White House "hopes there will be room for an ambitious trade deal with the United States" after Brexit and that the terms of the UK's EU exit were "for the British people to decide". His op-ed came after president Donald Trump mocked British PM Theresa May for caving to the EU and endangering US-UK free trade.

EU states are to endorse a sanctions process against Italy over non-compliance with EU budget rules, Reuters reports citing a draft document by the Economic and Financial Committee, an EU Council advisory body composed of national officials. "Overall, the committee is of the opinion that ... the debt criterion should be considered as not complied with," the document said. "A debt-based EDP [Excessive Deficit Procedure] is thus warranted," it added.