Euobserver.com

A special summit designed to help Germany deal with immigration has turned into a car crash before it even began.

After late-night talks, the Eurogroup agreed on a €15bn disbursement and debt relief measures for Greece, while setting out a tight monitoring when the bailout ends in August.

Liviu Dragnea, the head of Romania's ruling Social Democratic Party (PSD), who is considered as the country's true leader, was sentenced on Thursday to 3.5 years in prison for abuse of power. Dragnea, who has been barred from serving as prime minister because of an earlier suspended jail sentence for election fraud, has over the last year pushed a controversial overhaul of the justice system. The ruling can be appealed.

A huge cross-border personal pension fund is being prepared by the EU - in the wake of suggestions from the world's largest asset fund manager BlackRock.

EU migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos says "regional disembarkation schemes" would be set up in countries around the Mediterranean - although none have expressed a desire to participate.

EU states at the Council level this week decided not to confirm some EU asylum reforms because they want them signed off as a single package. There are seven such reforms under discussion. Of those, the council had discussed this week the qualification regulations, the reception conditions directive, and an EU resettlement agreement. An EU source said they prefer treating the files "as a package".

The European Commission opened on Thursday an investigation into whether Qatar Petroleum is breaching EU antitrust rules by imposing territorial restrictions in its contracts with European companies. The state-owned company is the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe, with around 40 percent of the EU's imports. The commission says that contract clauses restrict European importers' rights to diverting Qatari LNG to other destinations.

EU countries definitively adopted on Thursday the revised directive on posted workers, after two years of discussions. Under the new rules, EU workers will be able to work up to 12 months in another country - with possibility of a six-month extension in some cases - with the same salary as local workers for the same job. Member states have two years to implement it.

EU leaders will ask for an EU-wide plan to develop artificial intelligence (AI), according to a leaked draft of the conclusions of next week's EU summit. "[The leaders invite] the [European] Commission to work with member states on a coordinated plan on artificial intelligence, building on its recent communication," the text said. It follows a commission strategy paper (the "communication") on AI published last April.

German domestic politics has taken over the EU migration agenda, as select leaders meet for a special mini-summit on Sunday.

The EU should not overuse the financial system in order to achieve environmental goals, or it risks the emergence of a green bond bubble which would be detrimental to the financial sector and hinder the achievement of climate targets.

Creditors are expected to agree Thursday on a final loan and debt relief measures for Greece. After eight years on an international lifeline, the country will remain under close surveillance - but will have to find a new economic model.

UK premier Theresa May passed a last Brexit hurdle when a 319 to 303 majority in parliament on Wednesday rejected a proposal from the House of Lords that MPs would be able to block a 'no deal' on Brexit. It came after assurances that MPs would have a meaningful say on UK future-EU relations. May could now attend an EU summit next week "with full strength," said MP Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Pope Francis has said that populists are "creating a psychosis" on the issue of immigration. In an interview with Reuters published on Wednesday, he said that ageing societies in Europe face "a great demographic winter" and "will become empty" without migration. Europe should stop exploiting Africa and invest in ways that benefit the continent more and this could help solve the problem of migration at its root.

Health committee MEPs called in a resolution adopted on Wednesday on the EU Commission and member states to restrict the sale of antibiotics by human and animal health professionals, limiting the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). "If nothing is done, antimicrobial resistance might cause more deaths than cancer by 2050," said Austrian social democrat Karin Kadenbach. Superbugs already kill estimated 25,000 people every year in the EU.

The European parliament's legal affairs committee voted on Wednesday 14-9 in favour of new controversial internet legislation to ensure fair pay for artists and journalists - but with the risk of stifling an open internet by requiring internet companies to install content filters to prevent users uploading copyrighted content. In order for the changes to pass, the legislation still needs approval from 28 EU governments and a plenary vote.

Germany has earned a decent profit on the Greek financial crisis, receiving since 2010 around €2.9bn in interest, according to figures revealed by the German government in response to a parliamentary query from the Green Party. "Contrary to all right-wing myths, Germany has benefited massively from the crisis in Greece," said Sven-Christian Kindler, Green member of the Bundestag, according to Spiegel.

Some EU careworkers in Belgium receive around €400 a month - despite their carers paying €2,500 a month and paying for flights and accommodation. The answer lies in how firms can skirt the safeguards in the EU's posted workers directive.

The subject is mandatory by law in some form in nearly all EU countries - but it is mostly reproduction- and biology-centred, covering topics such as unwanted pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections.

The Party of European Socialists (PES) will announce its list of candidates for the European Commission presidency post at the 2019 elections at a meeting in Latvia, on October 19, it announced Wednesday. If there is more than one nomination, the candidates will face a vote, with a winner announced in early December. The rival European People's Party (EPP) will announce its 'spitzenkandidat' at a congress in Helsinki in November.