This article is part of our special report Delivering on CAP strategic plans. The European Commission has dismissed calls for more transparency in the drafting of the Common Agricultural Policy strategic plans, saying an excessive focus on this risks overburdening the process and missing the big picture.
Germany’s interior minister said Sunday (24 October) it was “legitimate” to protect borders, after several EU states asked Brussels to pay for barriers to prevent illegal migrants from entering the bloc.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called on the EU on Friday (22 October) to cooperate more closely with the military alliance after the latest EU defence efforts in recent months raised concerns of a parallel structure that might be competing with NATO.
EU leaders stressed the need to make digital regulation more innovation-friendly, but the digital agenda remained at the margins of the European Council summit.
EU leaders failed to offer a way forward on Poland’s challenge on European legal order in a “serene” discussion that barely lasted two hours on Thursday (21 October), a relatively short meeting by EU summit standards.
With EU leaders set to discuss migration and the situation at the EU’s eastern border with Belarus on Friday, Eastern Europeans are expected to ask for a review of the bloc’s legislation to reflect the ongoing crisis.
Statements from Russian officials linking an increase of gas deliveries to Europe with the completion of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline are “manipulative” and aimed at cementing Gazprom’s dominant position on the EU gas market, Poland has argued in a letter to the European Commission.
The European Commission on Tuesday (19 October) took another step towards reforming the EU’s much-discussed fiscal rules, including the bloc’s strict debt and deficit limits enshrined in the Stability and Growth Pact.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday (18 October) warned fellow EU leaders that the EU risked unravelling if there was no “democratic control” over its institutions.
Ahead of a new push by the European Commission to reform the EU’s fiscal rules, the chief of the bloc’s bailout fund, Klaus Regling pointed out the danger of sticking to rules that have become “economically nonsensical”.
