Euobserver.com

The Macedonian parliament is poised to decide on Monday whether to accept changing the Balkan country's name in line with the Prespa agreement with Greece. If approved by a two-thirds majority, the state will be re-named North Macedonia and be one step closer to membership of Nato and EU. If not approved, prime minister Zoran Zaev is likely to call early elections.

The speaker of the Swedish parliament, Andreas Norlen, will on Monday launch a third round of consultations with all party leaders in order to form a new government after the elections on 9 September ended in deadlock. "I have done what I can, for now," said Ulf Kristersson, leader of Sweden's conservative Moderate Party, after the Centre and Liberal parties on Sunday rejected a proposal to form a government.

A new treaty, to be negotiated this week at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, aims to put an end to the 'organised irresponsibility' of transnational corporations on human rights and labour abuses. Time for EU to take note.

The European Commission has promised greater flexibility for local authorities when it comes to delivering on-the-ground results - but it has also tied cohesion policy to the European Semester, a tool used to coordinate macroeconomic policies.

A Macron versus Orbans styled election battle might lift turnout in next year's European Parliament elections, but under laying democratic problems would remain, warn experts.

EU leaders hope to seal a UK exit deal at a summit this week. Migrants, chemical weapons, and fish quotas also on this week's agenda.

EU member states and the European Commission are pressing ahead with plans to possibly use Morocco and Tunisia as countries to offload asylum seekers and migrants - part of larger bid to create a so-called "safe third country" list.

The EU should impose asset freezes and visa bans on people guilty of cyber attacks, a group of member states has urged.

The European Commission's secretariat-general told EUobserver in a letter on Friday that it did a renewed search for any written record of discussions at a two-day seminar of EU commissioners, ahead of president Jean-Claude Juncker's State of the Union speech. "Following this renewed search, I confirm that the European Commission does not hold any further documents that would correspond to the description given in your application," it said.

Poland has vetoed an EU human rights statement on grounds it covered gay people but not Jews or Christians.

Growing tensions since Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine on Thursday lead to a historic split of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians, as the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul allowed Kiev to establish an independent church. Kiev sees it is a vital step against Russian meddling in its affairs, while Moscow warned it would split the Orthodox world and trigger clashes over possession of major monasteries. .

Norway's supreme court on Thursday ruled that a doctor has the right to refuse medical procedures that are against their conscience. It said a Polish doctor, Katarzyna Jachimowicz, was entitled to compensation of €260,000 because she lost her job in Norway for objecting to fitting intrauterine devices (IUDs). Her lawyer, Haakon Bleken, said the ruling was important "not only for doctors, but for people of faith in all professions".

Luxembourgers go to the polls on Sunday for parliamentary elections that could see the return to power of the Christian Democrats (CSV) and lead to the departure of the liberal prime minister, Xavier Bettel, who ousted Jean-Claude Juncker in 2013 by forming a three-party coalition with Social Democrats and Greens. New rules on subsidising political parties penalise parties whose candidate lists contain less than 40 percent of an under-represented gender.

A new accreditation, registration and disclosure system is to be put in place to ensure that agents are regulated to the highest standards. Greater transparency relating to fees is to be introduced, with agents' commissions going through a clearing house.

The United Kingdom and the EU need to figure out how much access the UK will have to the EU-funded satellite navigation system after Brexit. Now the UK will study whether to set up its own system.

Merkel's key coalition ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union is expected to suffer a major loss at Sunday elections, as voters flee to either the far-right or the Greens.

EU member states are set for bitter negotiations over the next long-term budget for the bloc - where several issues pit eastern and western European countries against each other.

China joins a long list of countries - including Russia - accused of abusing Interpol's 'Red Notice' system to harras activists and dissidents.

Vladimir Putin's Ukraine "operation" has backfired by making its former vassal state more pro-Western than ever, a US diplomat has said.

The European Commission plans to unveil a new bioeconomy strategy on Thursday. EUobserver's third edition of Business magazine looked at the many aspects of the bioeconomy – the parts of the economy that use renewable biological resources.