Euobserver.com

Howard Wilkinson, the whistleblower who exposed a money-laundering scandal at Danske Bank, told MEPs in Brussels Wednesday that British shell firms, called LLPs, played a major role in wrongdoing. "The role of the United Kingdom is an absolute disgrace. Limited liability partnerships [LLPs] and Scottish liability partnerships have been abused for absolutely years," he said. Dankse Bank CEO Jesper Nielsen said he had reported 42 staff to Danish criminal authorities.

US tech giant Google has said it will force advertisers to undergo a verification process to establish who they represent to avoid clandestine political campaigns in next year's EU elections. It will publish the details in an "EU transparency report", saying who paid for ads, how much they spent, and whom they targeted in a publicly-searchable database. Its move comes amid EU appeals for Facebook to follow suit.

Hungary's decision to grant asylum to Nikola Gruevski, a former Macedonian PM wanted on corruption charges, was "surprising," EU enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn said Wednesday. "Rule of law remains a fundamental principle for member states," Hahn said, after Gruevski appeared to get his wish, which flies in the teeth of Hungarian law that Macedonia is a "safe country", because he is a close friend of Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban.

US activist Steve Bannon's plan to help far-right parties contest next year's EU elections are illegal in nine out of the 13 EU jurisdictions in which he planned to take action, according to British newspaper The Guardian. Foreign "in-kind" donations are illegal in France, Belgium, Spain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Finland and highly-limited in Germany and Austria. "There's certainly a problem," Bannon's man in Brussels, Mischael Modrikamen, said.

The EU court in Luxembourg has said Austria broke EU law in 2015 by imposing curbs on welfare for asylum seekers, blocking their access to employment schemes, and taking away their mobile phones and valuables. The ruling comes the same day British newspaper The Telegraph published a report saying EU-funded and trained Moroccan police were systematically raping migrant women trying to transit to the EU via the north-African country.

Kosovo has increased tariffs on imports of goods from Serbia from 10 percent to 100 percent after accusing Belgrade of blocking its bid to join the international police agency Interpol. "We will not halt their trucks or automobiles ... because we want to show the difference between responsible behaviour from one side, and the irresponsible behaviour from the other," Serb president Aleksandar Vucic said in response.

Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini said Wednesday he was ready to "confront [Jean-Claude] Juncker, [Pierre] Moscovici or whoever" over Italy's 2019 budget plan, referring to the European Commission president and finance commissioner. He spoke after the commission rejected Italy's spending plan a second time because it violated EU fiscal rules by overspending on welfare. The EU must "respect the Italian people", Salvini said, amid threats of EU financial sanctions.

Spain has threatened to block the draft Brexit withdrawal accord at an EU summit Sunday unless countries agree to give it a veto on the future status of Gibraltar. "If this isn't solved by Sunday, Spain, a pro-European government, will unfortunately have to vote 'no'," Spanish leader Pedro Sanchez said Wednesday. Irish MPs the same day voted by 158 against 10 to approve the Brexit deal on the Irish border.

German chancellor Angela Merkel and EU commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis have said an EU Brexit summit Sunday could be cancelled unless Britain and the EU pre-agree on a declaration on future relations. "We'll need to have agreed beforehand ... and we are not there yet," Dombrovskis said. British PM Theresa May, who met EU commission president Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels Wednesday, said she would come for a second pre-summit meeting Saturday.

EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and enlargement commissioner Johannes Hahn will meet Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara on Thursday, in the first meeting of its type in 18 months, signalling a mild thaw in relations after Turkey's authoritarian swerve. "We want to keep channels of communication open," an EU official told Turkish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News, with talks to focus on Middle East crises and EU-Turkey relations.

Denmark will follow Germany in halting arms exports to Saudi Arabia over its murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - even though France and the UK have not followed suit. "It's time for us to send a clear signal ... from the European side that a limit has been reached," Danish foreign minister Anders Samuelsen said. "I think it [the EU arms embargo] is going to broaden," he said.

The EU commission says it would like to see more of its 775 'expert groups' operate in public - but it has left it up to the groups themselves to decide.

The EU executive took the first step to disciplining a member state, in this case Italy, for breaking EU fiscal rules. The lengthy procedure could lead to fines, since Italy refuses to cave in.

The EU commission on Wednesday said it still finds Italy's budget plans a serious breach of EU rules and proposed launching a disciplinary procedure over Rome's ballooning public debt, which stands at 131 percent of GDP - double the benchmark according to EU rules. Launching the procedure, which ultimately could see sanctions for Italy, will be decided by member states.

With both Macron and Merkel losing support domestically, it is questionable whether their plans will succeed. Even more so, given the opposition by the Hanseatic states, the upcoming European elections and Italy's political hooliganism.

We must not undervalue what a massive step the European Parliament vote represents. The hard work has paid off. We can take a moment to celebrate, but the hard work begins again for finalising strong protection for European whistleblowers.

The European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee decided on Wednesday to postpone a vote about its internal rules, including on meeting lobbyists. It followed distribution on Tuesday of a long-overdue legal opinion. "Many colleagues haven't had time to read it," said the committee's chairwoman Danuta Huebner. The three largest groups, the European People's Party, the Socialists & Democrats and European Conservatives and Reformists supported the postponement.

Interpol member states voted by 101 to 61 in Dubai on Wednesday to appoint a South Korean candidate, Kim Jong Yang, as its new president, instead of Alexander Prokopchuk, a Russian official. The vote came after Lithuania and Ukraine threatened to quit Interpol if the Russian candidate got in, due to the fact he had personally overseen politically-motived abuses of its systems on behalf of the Kremlin.

Deutsche Bank, Germany's top lender, handled about €130bn of the "suspicious" money in the Danske Bank affair, new revelations show, as whistleblower testifies to MEPs.

Five international law firms have teamed up to launch a joint legal action against Danske Bank, seeking compensation for losses on shares following the money-laundering scandal in the bank's Estonian branch, Berlingske Tidende reports. US investment services company Battea has been hired to collect data on stocks and calculate losses. Battea was also behind collection of data for charges raised against Volkswagen over Dieselgate.