Euobserver.com

The Czech Republic's government on Wednesday decided to join several other EU countries in rejecting a United Nations pact on the treatment of migrants, Reuters reported. The non-binding pact was agreed in July by over 190 countries and is expected to be signed in December. Hungary and Austria have already dropped out, with Bulgaria and Poland also expected not to sign. The EU commission has criticised Austria over its decision.

The European Investment Bank prefers hiding sensitive cases by limiting the mandate of its grievance mechanism.

The EU Commission will assess Italy's revised budgetary plan and publish its opinion on 21 November, a spokesperson announced on Wednesday. Italy submitted its revised budget plans for 2019 on Tuesday after the commission rejected its first draft, saying it risks breaching EU rules. The commission could decide to launch a monitoring procedure if it finds Italy has not tweaked the plan sufficiently.

British politicians from almost all sides have denounced a draft Brexit deal agreed between London and Brussels on Tuesday, raising the risk of a messy outcome.

Romania's data protection authority is headed by Ancuta Gianina Opre, who in 2017 was charged with abuse of office in her previous job. Last week, she threatened a €20m fine against journalists in their effort to uncover corruption.

EU Council chief and former Polish leader Donald Tusk is Poland's must trusted politician, according to an IBRiS poll out Tuesday in which he scored 47.7 percent, against Polish president Andrzej Duda on 45.8 percent and prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki on 42 percent. The figures come ahead of Polish elections next year and amid expectation that Tusk will try to oust the current eurosceptic Polish government from office.

Finnish prime minister Juha Sipila has told the country's STT news agency that Helsinki was making preparations to take over the next EU presidency, starting 1 January, from Romania, but that Bucharest had not filed a request to do so. He spoke after Romanian president Klaus Iohannis said his country was "totally unprepared". Romanian PM Viorica Dancila told press Tuesday: "I assure you that Romania is ready".

US leader Donald Trump has attacked France over wine exports in a veiled threat at imposing tariffs to protect US producers. "France makes it very hard for the US to sell its wines into France, and charges big tariffs, whereas the US makes it easy for French wines ... Not fair, must change!," he tweeted Tuesday. The US buys over 30 percent, or €7.5bn worth, of EU wines each year.

US defence chief James Mattis has defended Nato after France and Germany called for the creation of an EU army to respond to president Donald Trump's isolationism. "We see NATO as the cornerstone for the protection of Europe in the security realm and we fully support nations doing more to carry the load," he said Tuesday. Trump also tweeted that France should beware of Germany due to WWII history.

Italy's rulers have declined to change their 2019 budget despite European Commission warnings their deficit target was against EU rules. "We believe that this is the budget the country needs to start up again," deputy PM Luigi di Maio said, as a commission deadline for changes expired at midnight Tuesday. The commission could now instigate multi-billion euro fines in a dispute set to climax at next month's EU summit.

Jerome Corsi, a US conservative writer under investigation by the FBI over Russian election-meddling, has said he faced questions over the activities of British eurosceptic MEP Nigel Farage. They asked about "predominantly US politics, but of course Brexit was in the background," he told British newspaper The Guardian. Farage called it "malicious gossip". US newspaper The New York Times said Brexit bankroller Arron Banks was also under investigation.

Italian journalists' unions FNSI and Usigrai have held flash protests after top figures from the ruling 5 Star Movement (5MS) party called reporters "whores" and "jackals" over their coverage of alleged cronyism by Virginia Raggi, the party's Rome mayor. "Freedom of press is under attack," Usigrai president Vittorio di Trapani said. 5MS also threatened new laws to cut funding for publishers and to punish media for conflicts of interest.

Andrej Babis Jr., the son of Czech leader Andrej Babis, has told a TV documentary he was lured to Crimea, in Russia-occupied Ukraine, and abducted, to stop him testifying in a fraud case against his father. Babis, one of whose firms is accused of embezzling €2m in EU grants, called the report "a manipulation" designed to "destroy him". Babis Jr. has a history of mental illness.

The Danske Bank money-laundering affair, the largest in history, was probably "the tip of the iceberg," Stephen Kohn, a lawyer representing a Danske Bank whistleblower, has told the Reuters news agency. "The money ... all went to large, multinational Western financial institutions," he said. "Europe is asleep [on money laundering]. I am angry at what I see in Europe," he said. EU laws made whistleblowers "into martyrs", he added.

European Court of Auditors found there were "still some significant discrepancies between the animal welfare standards established in the EU legislation and the reality on the ground".

Few people commented on one key point in Macron's statement: he did not justify the idea of a European army by the need to intervene in Africa, which would have been France's traditional approach. Instead, he invoked the Russian threat,

EU and UK negotiators have agreed on a draft text of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, according to reports, as British prime minister Theresa May will on Wednesday have to convince her divided cabinet to accept it. The EU-27 ambassadors will also meet, and member states could still raise objections. The key obstacle, avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland, may have been overcome by a UK-wide customs arrangement.

Angela Merkel's much-anticipated speech to the European Parliament was brief and to the point. Her message: Europe is alone in the world, the EU should be more united on defence, but not on the economy.

The EU commission Tuesday proposed visa exemption for UK nationals for up to 90 days travelling in the bloc's passport-free Schengen area after the UK leaves the EU and a proposed transition ends in 2020. If no Brexit deal is agreed, thus voiding any transition period, the visa exemption would have to kick in next March. Member states and the EU parliament will have to agree on the legislation.

The European Parliament is "deeply concerned" over reforms to the Romanian judicial and criminal laws, it said in a resolution adopted on Tuesday, which highlights the undermining the separation of powers and the fight against corruption. The parliament called on Romanian authorities to stop any measures which would decriminalise corruption in office. Romania's ruling socialists have been criticised for tweaking legislation to have their top official avoid corruption charges.