Euobserver.com

Germany's largest lender, Deutsche Bank, suffered from "widespread and critical deficiencies" in parts of its business, according to stress tests by the Federal Reserve in the US designed to see which banks could survive another financial crisis. Some 31 out of 35 banks tested were given the all-clear, but global investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were only granted "conditional" passes.

The next European Parliament, which will be elected in May 2019, will count 705 members following the UK's EU exit, compared to the current 751. Under the new composition approved by EU leaders on Thursday, 27 seats of the 73 vacated by Brexit will be re-allocated to 14 member states "to better reflect the principle of degressive proportionality," with France and Spain gaining the most - five MEPs.

EU leaders wagged fingers at Theresa May for her inability to deliver on key issues, such as the Irish border, due to her own political weakness.

Italian and German demands on migration appear secured for the time being but the concepts agreed at the EU summit to create centres to check migrants within and outside the EU remain vague.

Countries in north African coast must first set up humane reception centres before the UN and the International Organisation for Migration agree to any migrant camps, such as those being discussed by EU leaders.

Italy's new prime minister Giuseppe Conte blocked all agreements during the meeting of EU leaders on Thursday until fellow leaders include his demands on migration in the final conclusions. Because of the unusual move, a planned press conference by European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and European Council president Donald Tusk has been postponed. This holds up conclusions already reached on security and defence, enlargement and the EU's budget.

Two million people in Macedonia will be hoping to become EU citizens in 2025 as leaders give nod to start talks.

As the EU summit opened in Brussels, positions were still apparently irreconcilable on how to deal with people trying to cross the Mediterranean sea, with the Italy's PM Giuseppe Conte threatening to veto conclusions.

MEPs receive a monthly €4,416 "general expenditure allowance" without any scrutiny. An internal working group has come up with a way to reform the system.

The new blend of religious nationalism will be more anti-West and anti-EU, as Brussels has anything but leverage on Turkey. The first signs of this strong rhetoric are already visible.

US president Donald Trump and Russian leader Vladimir Putin will meet in the Finnish capital Helsinki on 16 July, the White House announced on Thursday. "The two leaders will discuss relations between the United States and Russia and a range of national security issues," the White House said. The meeting will take place just days after the 11-12 July Nato summit in Brussels, and a UK visit on 13th.

"Migration could become a existential issue for the EU," German chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Thursday, ahead of a EU summit on the issue. She told German MPs that "either we manage it, so in Africa and elsewhere it is believed that we are guided by values and believe in multilateralism, not unilateralism, or nobody will believe any longer in our system of values, which made us so strong."

It is for an Irish court to decide if Poland's judiciary can guarantee a fair trial to a Polish citizens arrested in Ireland and wanted in Poland under the European arrest warrant, an advisor to the EU's top court said Thursday. Concerns over the Polish judiciary's independence triggered the Irish High Court to ask the European Court of Justice for guidance. The advocate general's opinion is not always followed.

EU banks are to face stricter oversight on money-laundering following scandals in Latvia and Malta, Mario Centeno, the head of the eurozone finance ministers' club, the Eurogroup, has said. "There is agreement on the importance of enhancing the current monitoring of the implementation of anti-money laundering measures," he told EU Council chief Donald Tusk in a letter seen by the Reuters news agency, promising "further measures by end 2018".

Greek PM Alexis Tsipras has told the Financial Times newspaper he would help Germany to stop migrants drifting across its border in a bilateral accord with Berlin amid EU disagreements on migration. ""We have to find a way ... to not have this unfair position for the frontline countries but also for Germany. Because it's not fair all these people to go to Germany," he said.

Turkey has attacked the EU's appraisal by foreign ministers this week that it was "moving further away" from Europe as president Recep Tayyip Erdogan consolidated his one-man rule over the country in recent elections there. Its EU minister said this could spell the end of a deal to keep migrants in Turkey. The EU was being "unjust and dishonest" as well as "hypocritical and inconsistent", Turkey's foreign ministry said.

European Commission vice-president Jyrki Katainen has said he will leave the political stage next year in order to help his wife run for a seat in the Finnish parliament. His announcement ended speculation that he would run as a candidate for the centre-right European People's Party to lead the next commission in the 2019 EU elections as a so-called 'spitzenkandidat'.

Disagreement on migration will dominate Thursday's summit, but leaders do see eye-to-eye on other issues, ranging from defence to trade and single market reform.

The main objective of Thursday's summit in Brussels will be to agree on new measures to reduce illegal migration, in order to help Angela Merkel at home and fight populists and extremists across the bloc.

Malta will allow the NGO migrant boat 'Lifeline' to dock in its ports, and accept and farm out refugees from the migrants aboard with seven other EU member states, the Maltese prime minister Joseph Muscat announced Wednesday. In what he called an "ad hoc European solution", Belgium, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherland, Portugal will accept successful asylum-seekers from the vessel. Others from the some 230 aboard will be returned.