Euobserver.com

A German court on Wednesday ruled that the country's financial capital Frankfurt will have to ban old diesel cars as part of an effort to reduce air pollution. "The driving ban is necessary because all other measures considered by the state will not lead to a significant reduction of nitrogen oxides emissions in an appropriate time," said the judge. The ban kicks in February 2019.

Manfred Weber, leader of the largest, centre-right group in the EP, has announced his bid to succeed Juncker at the helm of the European Commission. But his lack of experience and handling of Hungary's Orban are already raising questions.

The German centre-right MEP initially refused to take press questions. Meanwhile, he will have to find a way to distinguish himself from current commission president Juncker.

EU and UK chief Brexit negotiators will meet on Thursday in Brussels to work on the divorce deal as the October deadline for a timely agreement looms. Michel Barnier tweeted that he will meet UK Brexit secretary Dominic Raab to work on the withdrawal agreement, and find common ground between the UK's proposals on the future relationship and what the EU is able to do without compromising its single market.

The European Commission next week is set to publish a package of measures and recommendations for EU states to help stamp out election meddling. "We want free citizens to have free choice in the elections without being manipulated," Vera Jourova, EU justice commissioner, told reporters. She said people should know when they read or view political adverts. The package is, in part, a response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

The European Commission is in the final stages of a proposal that will force IT companies like Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to remove online terror propaganda content. Vera Jourova, EU justice commissioner, told reporters the proposal makes it mandatory for companies to delete the offending content. "We simply cannot rely any more on voluntary action of the IT providers," she said. The full proposal will be presented sometime this month.

Every year, almost 100,000 Europeans seek asylum in EU countries. The number of applications continues to grow, but the issue remains on the margins of political debate.

Czech and Slovenian authorities have voiced alarm over the emergence of armed anti-migrant militias in the two central European countries.

Austrian far-right FPO interior minister, Herbert Kickl, has come under growing pressure in a parliamentary inquiry opening on Tuesday into raids of private homes and offices of security officers in Austria's domestic BVT intelligence agency. The searches, which took place on 28 February, were carried out by a police street crime unit run by an FPO official and seized files that reportedly related to investigations into far-right extremist groups.

Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban will participate in person when the European Parliament on 11 September discusses a report on rule of law in Hungary prepared by Green MEP Judith Sargentini, reports Hungarian media. The report calls for the launch of an 'Article 7' procedure against Hungary, which could ultimately strip the country of EU voting rights. It was approved by the European Parliament's civil liberties committee in June.

Germany's government has begun preparations for a hard Brexit, with a set of measures to be adopted Wednesday, reports German newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung. "This includes eventual legislative measures, but also the hiring and training of additional staff, such as in customs," one official said. German chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday the government is doing all it can to ensure a divorce deal, but success was not guaranteed.

German conservative EPP group leader, Manfred Weber, is expected to announce on Wednesday his candidacy to run as the center-right parties' spitzenkandidat in European Parliament elections next May. Weber was last week backed by German chancellor Angela Merkel for the post. If his party wins the European elections in May, Weber could succeed Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission president provided the spitzenkandidat, or "top candidate", process continues.

Francois de Rugy, the president of the National Assembly, the French lower house, was appointed on Tuesday as minister for environment and energy transition. De Rugy, a former Green party leader who joined president Emmanuel Macron last year, replaces Nicolas Hulot, who resigned last week, prompting a debate on Macron's environmental record.

The European Commission maintains that the stealth promotion of Martin Selmayr to secretary-general followed all the rules despite findings of maladministration in a report by the EU's watchdog, the European Ombudsman. In a statement, EU budget commissioner Gunther Oettinger said that the commission "does not share all aspects of the underlying report". He also says the Commission "has a different factual assessment" on some aspects of the Ombudsman's findings.

Elevation of Juncker's right-hand man to a top post in the European Commission jeopardised "public trust", the EU ombudsman said, adding "maladministration" to charges of "coup" and "blackmail".

Denmark's top bank handled up to €28bn of dodgy Russian funds in just one year, in what has the makings of the biggest money-laundering scandal in European history.

Former French president Francois Hollande has said in memories that Russian leader Vladimir Putin inadvertently admitted to having troops in Ukraine in ceasefire talks in Minsk in 2015. " The Russian president was so worked up, that he started threatening to decisively crush his [Ukrainian] counterpart's forces. This showed that there are Russian troops in eastern Ukraine. Putin suddenly realised, and got a grip on himself," Hollande's new book says.

A European Parliament plenary session on 11-14 March 2019 will be the last possible in order to endorse any Brexit deal on time, Polish MEP Danuta Hubner, head of the European parliament's constitutional affairs committee, told fellow MEPs Monday, Reuters reports. The parliament's meeting 25-28 March would be too late because the Council also must approve it, she said. The UK is set to leave the EU on 29 March.

Just tree weeks before a referendum on 30 September on Macedonia's name deal with Greece, a US embassy cable revealed by Wikileaks showed the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) was willing to accept the name Republic of Northern Macedonia or Republic of North Macedonia as early as 2008. The name dispute has blocked closer EU relations. Meanwhile, German chancellor Merkel announced a visit to Macedonia on 8 September.

Plans to extend the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) to transport gas from Azerbaijan via Greece and Albania to Puglia in Southern Italy will be discussed in a meeting between former British prime minister Tony Blair and Italy's interior minister Matteo Salvini, reports the Guardian. Smaller than the Nord Stream 2 gas project, TAP is meant to diversify European gas supply, making it less dependent on Russia.