European Union

Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman, accused of ordering the gruesome murder of a dissident journalist, met with Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte at a G20 summit in Argentina over the weekend. He also shook hands with British leader Theresa May and spoke with France's Emmanuel Macron. The exchanges come after Germany and others banned arms sales to Saudi Arabia, a move which the UK and France declined to follow.

"The war [in east Ukraine] will continue as long as they [current Ukrainian leaders] stay in power," because "they aren't interested in solving it," Russian president Vladimir Putin said at Argentina's G20 summit Saturday. Russia fired on the Ukrainian navy last week in what the EU and US said was unprovoked. "We're dealing with someone [Putin] that we simply cannot trust," US defence chief James Mattis said also on Saturday.

Iran has test-fired a missile "that allows it to strike parts of Europe and anywhere in the Middle East" with a nuclear payload, if it had one, the US state department said on Saturday. The test broke a UN resolution amid "accumulating risk of escalation in the region if we fail to restore deterrence," the US added. America recently walked away from an EU-backed Iran nuclear arms control treaty.

G20 leaders met in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 November and 1 December 2018 and agreed a joint declaration.

Bulgaria has agreed to build a €1.4bn pipeline from its border with Turkey to Serbia to pump Russian gas into central Europe. The link is to take gas from TurkStream, a new Russian pipeline to Turkey, bypassing Ukraine. It comes after the European Commission forced Bulgaria in 2014 to halt construction of a direct pipeline to Russia, called South Stream. Bulgaria said it would "eliminate" all "mistakes" this time round.

German chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman tweeted a picture of her shaking Russian leader Vladimir Putin's hand at a G20 summit in Argentina Saturday, one week after Russian warships fired on Ukrainian vessels, an action condemned by the EU. "The focus was on the situation in Syria and the situation between Russia and Ukraine in the Kerch Strait and the Sea of Azov," Merkel's spokesman said.

Austria's far-right agitator will chair talks on how to send more migrants home with fellow EU interior ministers in Brussels, one day after a Romanian circus comes to town.

The Group of Twenty most powerful nations were nearing an agreement late on Friday (30 November), in which a reference to a rules-based multilateral trade system was expected to be included. But ambition was lowered in the climate field to overcome the US opposition to the Paris Agreement.

The Council today agreed its position (partial general approach) on the regulation on Horizon Europe. Horizon Europe is the next framework programme on research and innovation for the years 2021 to 2027.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

At a press conference ahead of the summit, President Tusk appealed to the G20 leaders to seriously discuss real issues such as trade war and addressed the question of Brexit.

The European Ombudsman suggested Friday that, when citizens request documents, the European Commission should consider also disclosing those parts not strictly covered by the requester's description. She made the suggestion in the context of an access to documents request by EUobserver about the EU's free wifi fund. Being less rigid in answering such requests would avoid "giving citizens a false impression of a lack of transparency", the ombudsman said.

Members of the European Parliament have received in their letter boxes a copy of a magazine which on the back cover featured an advertisement for an escort service. Greens MEP Pascal Durand and left-wing MEP Malin Bjork have asked parliament president Antonio Tajani and secretary-general Klaus Welle for an investigation. "It is unacceptable that this kind of extremely sexist material is being distributed in the parliament," they wrote.

The EU should strengthen regional investment in innovation through cohesion policy to compete with the US and China, regional leaders said during the European Innovation Summit in Brussels this week. 

In 1633, the ‘father of modern physics,’ Galileo Galilei was found to be “vehemently suspect of heresy,” as the Roman Catholic Inquisition ordered the scientist to relinquish his alliance to heliocentricism – the theory that the Earth moves around the Sun.

The post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) discussions started at long last in the European Parliament, but in a deeply divided Agricultural Committee. MEPs still seem a long way from an agreement on how to spend the money and who should get the subsidies.

Paris wants to place the emphasis on greening measures in the future Common Agricultural Policy. This is in order to support the transition to agroecology. EURACTIV France reports.

The EU continues to lead the world in balancing ethics with science, although the gap with other regions is "significantly" narrowing, Charles Laroche, industry co-chair of the European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing.