Euobserver.com

Around one million people marched in the streets of Barcelona on Tuesday to mark Catalonia's national day, the Diada, and to show continued support for regional independence. The turnout was roughly the same as last year, reported the BBC. Catalonia last October held a referendum on independence despite Spain's Constitutional Court ruling that it breached the Spanish constitution.

Every year, air pollution causes about 400,000 premature deaths in the EU and hundreds of billions of euros in health-related external costs, a report from the European Court of Auditors has found, adding that people in urban areas are particularly exposed ."Air pollution is the biggest environmental risk to health in the European Union," said Janusz Wojciechowski, member of the European Court of Auditors and responsible for the report.

Poland's former leader and the current EU Council president, Donald Tusk, has more trust (42.7%) among Polish people than either Polish president Andrzej Duda (40.8%) or prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki (40%), according to a new poll by Ibris for the Onet.pl news website. The survey comes ahead of Polish elections next year, where Tusk may try to stage a comeback against Duda and Morawiecki's nationalist-populist Law and Justice party.

Weber, the head of the centre-right EPP group, has said he would back triggering Article 7 on Hungary, in what Orban dubbed an attack on Hungarian people.

Luxleaks, the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers - these scandals exposed the double-speak of Juncker's European Pillar of Social Rights, which has not moved beyond rhetoric, and eroded the people's trust in the EU.

MEPs in Strasbourg debated triggering the Article 7 sanctions procedure against Hungary, for infringing EU rules and values - while prime minister Viktor Orban claimed the parliament was about to punish Hungarians for protecting Europe's borders from immigrants.

Seven leftwing MEPs from France and Belgium - Isabelle Thomas, Maria Arena, Georges Bach, Guillaume Balas, Jose Bove, Edouard Martin and Claude Rolin - have been barred for five days from all parliamentary activities by the president of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. In July, they occupied a control room in support of EP interpreters, striking over working conditions. Parliamentary authorities said it was in violation of house rules.

Austrian leader Sebastian Kurz has said his party's MEPs will vote in favour of sanctions against Hungary in the European Parliament on Wednesday.

A deal is "not far" away and some 80 percent of the withdrawal agreement has been agreed, EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said at the Bled Strategic Forum conference in Slovenia on Monday. He acknowledged that difficult issues such as the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland are not solved but called it "realistic" to expect a deal in six to eight weeks.

Moderate leader Ulf Kristersson moved Monday one step further away from forming a new Swedish government, after correction of a human error in vote counting shifted one seat from the Centre party to the Sweden Democrats. It leaves the centre-left, led by PM Stefan Lofven with 144 seats against Kristersson's 142 seats. The error occurred when votes from a local election were reported by mistake as votes for the Riksdag.

Greenland's four-month-old ruling coalition government has lost its parliamentary majority. Pro-independence party Naleraq pulled out because the government chose Copenhagen as a project partner, over China, to fund an update of three airports. Denmark's prime minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen travelled to Greenland on Monday to discuss the plans for Danish support with Greenland's prime minister Kim Kielsen - both fearing that Chinese funding could potentially complicate relations with the US.

A Braunschweig court on Monday opened hearings in the first German court case against Volkswagen over diesel emission fraud. A group of investors are seeking €9bn in compensation for losses caused by the scandal, that caused share prices to fall and resulted in large penalties and fines in the US. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the VW should have told the market in June 2008 that they were cheating.

The president of the European Commission met six lobbyists so far this year, but no one took notes of what was said.

Populist forces in Hungary and Italy are gearing up ahead of the European parliament elections, as Donald Trump's former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, embarks on a Eurosceptic populist movement. Italy's Salvini has joined with Bannon - Hungary appears more cautious.

The number of refugees and migrants stuck on the Greek islands is now over 20,000. Greek government figures show some 20,110 people trapped in so-called 'hotspots', an EU concept where they are supposed to be screened. The overcrowded camps are rife with violence and abuse given the limited resources. Oxfam says unaccompanied children and pregnant women have to wait ten months before meeting any asylum officer.

Political groups in the European Parliament are split about how to vote for a directive that would reform the EU's copyright regime - amid warnings that freedom of expression and creators' rights are at risk.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has urged Macedonian people to "seize" the chance to vote in a referendum on a name depute with Greece later this month. "This is a historic chance that a generation has only once. Don't stay at home: seize the democratic opportunity," she said in Skopje Saturday. Adoption of the new name, "Northern Macedonia', could unlock the Balkan country's EU and Nato bids.

Minutes published Friday show that the group leaders want the European Parliament to have another look at how to reform the controversial office expenses system.

Liberal MEPs want to form an anti-nationalist "movement" with French leader Emmanuel Macron to contest the far right in next year's EU election.

The EU has urged activists in Kosovo to let Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic visit the ethnic-Serb town of Banje in north Kosovo after former guerrilla fighters blocked him over the weekend. "We urge those responsible to ... secure the safe passage," EU spokeswoman Maja Kocijancic said on Sunday. "Full commitment to peace and security ... are the things we need now," she said, amid talks on a Kosovo-Serbia land-swap deal.