Euobserver.com

The European Commission has "no specific comment" to make about the resignation of Brexit secretary David Davis. Its spokesman said the EU "will continue to negotiate 'bona fide' with prime minister Theresa May and the UK government." Ahead of the publication of a white paper on future relationships by the UK this week, the commission "welcomes the fact that the UK government is having an in-depth discussion on futures projects."

The EU-Japan summit due on Wednesday in Brussels to sign a free trade agreement will take place next week in Tokyo, the European Commission announced on Monday. Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe cancelled his trip to Europe after mass flooding left at least 100 people dead in Japan in recent days.

UK housing minister Dominic Raab was appointed the new Brexit secretary on Monday, the prime minister's office announced. The move comes after the dramatic overnight resignation of David Davis, the UK's top negotiator. Raab is considered a close ally of premier Theresa May, who could now face a leadership challenge from hardline Brexiteers. May and her entire cabinet only agreed their new Brexit customs policy last Friday.

Romania's president Klaus Iohannis signed Monday a decree to revoke the head of the anti-corruption National Anti-Corruption Directorate, Laura Codruta Kovesi. Centre-right Iohannis, who previously opposed the centre-left government's decision to fire Codruta Koves, was obliged by a Constitutional Court ruling to do so. The government has been criticised by the EU and the Council of Europe for its reform of the judiciary, increasing political control over prosecutors and judges.

Britain's Brexit negotiator, David Davis, has resigned in a mini-rebellion, adding to uncertainty on the EU talks as the clock ticks to March 2019.

European aircraft maker Airbus is expecting 37,390 new aircraft will be required in the next 20 years as traffic will grow at 4.4 percent per year. The more than doubling in the world fleet to 48,000 aircraft will spark a need for 540,000 new pilots, according to the company's new Global Market Forecast 2018-2037. Aviation is already estimated to be responsible for 2.0-2.5 percent of global CO2 emissions.

Georgia is the largest per capita contributor to the Nato mission in Afghanistan and the only non-Nato country to join Nato's rapid response team.

Chinese state broadcaster CGTN plans to hire more than 350 London-based journalists over the next 18 months as part of a global expansion, according to a recruiter's email seen by BuzzFeed News. "We aim to differentiate ourselves from leading Western media" and focus on "stories often ignored by western media," the ad reads. CGTN did not return requests for comment and the site is temporarily unavailable in certain EU countries.

More than 18,000 civil servants, including police officers, academics and military staff, in Turkey are to be dismissed, according to a 461-page decree issued on Sunday. The move comes before Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday is sworn in as president following re-election in June and prior to lifting a state of emergency in place since summer 2016. Twelve NGOs, three newspapers and one television station will also be closed.

French far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, said on Sunday that her party "will be dead by the end of August" if French judges decided to block €2m of state subsidies to the party, according to AFP. The judges reportedly have decided to stop the money as part of an investigation into alleged misuse by the party of European parliamentary funds.

Italy's far-right interior minister, Matteo Salvini, will make a request on Thursday when meeting EU interior ministers in Innsbruck that refugees who are rescued at sea by ships from border control missions are no longer taken to Italy. Salvini announced his intentions on social media on Sunday after an Irish navy ship arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina with 106 migrants, after participating in the EU-sponsored Operation Sophia.

Trump is back in the EU, amid fresh doubt on Nato and Russia, while the immigration crisis and Brexit dominate internal European affairs.

The European Commission approved on Friday three new migration programmes in north Africa, totalling €90.5m, after last week's EU summit dominated by the issue. The schemes are intended to reduce crossings into Europe on the central Mediterranean route and "improve partner countries' ability to better manage their borders." EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said it would include "countries along the migratory routes, including inside Libya, and in the Sahel."

France's Constitutional Court ruled Friday that helping someone, "regardless of the legality of their presence on national territory", falls under a "principle of fraternity" included in the French constitution. Referring to France's motto "liberty, equality, fraternity", judges said that a law under which Cedric Herrou, a farmer, was given a four-month suspended sentence last year for helping migrants at the Italian border did not respect the spirit of the constitution.

Britain's divided government will try to agree on a single Brexit wishlist at Friday's special meeting, but none of the options augur well for EU talks.

The European Ombudsman says that "maladministration" in the European Central Bank continues to exist as long as its president remains member of the secretive 'Group of Thirty'.

Friends of prime minister Viktor Orban have "grasped power and occupied all state institutions," says the country's first EU commissioner - but he hopes new 'conditionality' clauses in the next EU budget could help reduce misuse of public money.

One third (34 percent) of households in the EU were single-person households without children in 2017, up from 31 percent in 2010, according to Eurostat figures published on Friday. Sweden tops the chart with over half (51 percent) single households, followed by Denmark (44 percent) and Lithuania (43 percent). At the other end Malta had just 20 percent single households, 22 percent in Portugal and Slovakia.

The German CSU party appears to have gained support from voters after stirring a major political crisis over migration policies. It is now backed by 42.5 percent compared to 41.1 percent one month ago, a Civey survey for Spiegel and Augsburger Allgemeine showed. The far-right AfD dropped slightly to now 13.1 percent support and lost the rank as the second strongest party in Bavaria to the SPD (13.7 percent).

Following weeks of power struggle the three parties forming Germany's government, CDU, CSU and SPD, agreed on Thursday to a two-page document on tightening of migration policies, while skipping plans for transit centres at the borders, which was too much for the Social Democrats. The deal averted a collapse of Merkel's fragile government. It was branded political "summer theatre" by SPD finance minister Olaf Scholz.