⊂ EUROPE ⊃

Merkel pressures Putin to act on Poland-Belarus standoff: In a telephone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel decried the „instrumentalisation of migrants“ by Belarus as „inhumane and unacceptable.“ She also asked the Russian leader to act on the matter, according to her spokesman, Steffen Seibert. European Council President Charles Michel met in Warsaw with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki in a gesture of solidarity. Michel said the EU is discussing the possibility of funding “physical infrastructure” on its external borders. Morawiecki accused Belarus of „state terrorism“ over its role in the influx of migrants gathered at the border.
dw.com, apnews.com, euronews.com

• After a meeting with US President Joe Biden in Washington, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the two leaders shared a common assessment of the situation. „This is a hybrid attack. Not a migration crisis,“ the Commission chief said on Twitter euronews.com
• Von der Leyen called for „approval of extended sanctions“ against Belarus on Monday dw.com
• Poland is considering a complete closure of its border with Belarus, according to government spokesman Piotr Müller welt.de
• Russia sends bombers to fly over Belarus reuters.com

Pushbacks: UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi accuses EU of breaking the law with its refugee policy. tagesschau.de

Balkans: Everyone is looking to Belarus – and overlooking the next big crisis. The situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina has come to a head. welt.de

Dispute over Brexit rules for Northern Ireland: British Brexit minister threatens escalation: Suspending the Northern Ireland part of the Brexit deal will be the „only option“ if UK-EU talks fail to resolve problems, UK Brexit Minister Lord Frost has said. But he said the UK was „not giving up“ yet and he wished to remain positive. The protocol is a post-Brexit trading arrangement specific to Northern Ireland, but the UK wants changes to the deal it agreed with the EU in 2019. Frost will meet his EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic on Friday for a fourth round of discussions.
bbc.com

• EU governments agreed on the need for „robust“ action against Britain if London follows through on its threat to escalate the post-Brexit trade dispute, EU diplomats said on Wednesday reuters.com
• EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said US President Joe Biden was in agreement with the EU that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson should not upend the Northern Ireland protocol theguardian.com

Google loses antitrust battle with EU: The EU’s General Court ruled Wednesday that the European Commission was right in fining Google for an antitrust breach. The ruling comes after the Commission said in 2017 that Google had favoured its own comparison shopping services and fined the company 2.42 billion euros for breaching antitrust rules. Alphabet-unit Google contested the claims using the EU’s second-highest court. “The General Court finds that, by favouring its own comparison shopping service on its general results pages through more favourable display and positioning, while relegating the results from competing comparison services in those pages by means of ranking algorithms, Google departed from competition on the merits,” the court said in a press release Wednesday.
cnbc.com

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COP26 draft deal calls on countries to make new climate pledges next year: A proposed deal for the COP26 climate talks laments countries‘ failure to align their targets with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and calls on them to submit new pledges in 2022. The text was released Wednesday morning. It kicks off a three-day debate between the almost 200 countries represented in Scotland, before the conference is scheduled to end Friday.
politico.eu

• US and China unveil emissions deal in bid to save UN climate talks reuters.com
• Around 30 countries, cities and car manufacturers are planning a total shift to emission-free vehicles by 2040. But a number of major automaking countries — including China, the US and Germany — are not on board dw.com
• Germany and almost 20 other countries want to make their shipping climate-neutral in the next few years handelsblatt.com
• Costa Rica’s Environment Minister Andrea Meza and a handful of other ministers want to phase out oil and gas production politico.eu

Agriculture sector: Agricultural implications of the COP26 methane pledge. euractiv.com

EU buys Valneva’s inactivated COVID-19 vaccine: French vaccine company Valneva on Wednesday said it had won approval from the EU Commission for a deal to supply up to 60 million doses of its potential Covid vaccine, VLA2001. Valneva is hoping its candidate, which uses more traditional technology than the mRNA vaccines, could be a more reassuring option for Europeans still reluctant to be immunised. While mRNA vaccines induce an immune response that targets just the spike protein of the coronavirus, the Valneva vaccine aims to stimulate an immune response to the entire virus, which could give it an edge in the fight.
france24.com

• Rapid increase in Covid infections in Eastern Europe tagesspiegel.de
• Austria discusses regional lockdowns for the unvaccinated spiegel.de
• Italy to offer booster jabs to all over-40s from December thelocal.it
• Bulgaria seeks equipment from EU to cope with Covid crisis sofiaglobe.com

Financial trade: Brussels to extend EU banks’ access to UK clearing houses past June 2022 ft.com
Basel III: Member states see national financial stability at risk euractiv.com
Digital Markets Act: EU countries agree on rules for internet companies heise.de
Securing talent: European tech sector faces its next challenge euractiv.com
Study away programme: Long road ahead on Erasmus’ green journey euractiv.com
Award ceremony: European Citizen’s Prize 2020 and 2021 europarl.europa.eu

⊂ QUOTE OF THE DAY ⊃

„This year’s Influence Index suggests MEPs from Germany have more political clout than MEPs from any other member state.“
Susan Hoelling, Co-CEO at BCW Germany, a consulting firm that had collaborated with VoteWatch on the 2021 VoteWatch Index of Influence.
euractiv.com

⊂ COUNTRIES ⊃

Poland should guarantee access to safe, legal abortion, says human rights commissioner: The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights on Wednesday called on Poland to restore access to abortion by fulfilling its international and European legal obligations. In written observations to the European Court of Human Rights, the commissioner, Dunja Mijatovic, said the ban „represents the latest step in an already overwhelmingly prohibitive legal and procedural framework governing access to safe and legal abortion care, with a harmful impact on women’s human rights in Poland.“
politico.eu

North Macedonia’s Zaev to delay resignation: North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, who announced his resignation over poor results in a local vote last month, will stay on in the job until the political situation stabilises, media reported on Wednesday. Zaev’s ruling SDSM party made the decision on Tuesday night, reacting to a no-confidence motion in the government filed by opposition parties led by the centre-right VMRO-DPMNE.
euractiv.com

Sweden’s prime minister Löfven officially resigns: Sweden’s Social Democrat Finance Minister Magdalena Andersson moved a step closer Wednesday to becoming her country’s first female prime minister as Stefan Löfven formally stepped down from the role. Löfven had announced in August his intention to step down. Andersson, who took over as Social Democrat leader from Löfven last week, is likely to get the first shot at having her candidacy as prime minister voted on by lawmakers — possibly as soon as early next week, experts say.
politico.eu

Greek prime minister angrily defends treatment of refugees: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has defended his government’s immigration policy in a heated exchange with a journalist who accused him of lying over the alleged turning away of asylum seekers in the Aegean. “Prime minister Mitsotakis, when, at last, will you stop lying? Lying about pushbacks, lying about what is happening with the refugees in Greece?” asked the Dutch reporter Ingeborg Beugel. Clearly irate, Mitsotakis responded: “I understand that in the Netherlands you have a culture of asking direct questions to politicians, which I very much respect. What I will not accept is that in this office you will insult me or the Greek people with accusations and expressions that are not supported by material facts.”
theguardian.com

Former French president Hollande testifies over 2015 Paris attacks: Francois Hollande has told a trial over the 2015 Paris attacks that the terrorists struck „our way of life itself“. Hollande was president when Islamic State (IS) extremists killed 130 people in the French capital. Hollande is facing questions about how the terrorists were able to avoid detection. The former president insisted France’s security services had „done all that they could“ to prevent an attack.
bbc.com

Czech prosecutors want immunity for Babis to be lifted: Czech prosecutors on Wednesday asked the newly-elected lower house of Parliament to lift Prime Minister Andrej Babis’s immunity from prosecution over alleged fraud involving EU subsidies. If the lawmakers give their approval, it would allow the prosecution to decide whether Babis should be indicted for his alleged involvement in the $2-million fraud. The allegations involve a farm that received EU subsidies after its ownership was transferred from the Babis-owned Agrofert conglomerate of around 250 companies to Babis’ family members. The subsidies were meant for medium-size and small businesses and Agrofert wouldn’t have been eligible for them.
apnews.com

France 1: Court convicts man in the murder of a Holocaust survivor nytimes.com
France 2: US Vice President Kamala Harris aims to bolster ‚America’s oldest alliance‘ on Paris trip france24.com
Poland: Trio back in court over posters showing Virgin Mary with LGBT halo euronews.com
Serbia: Interior minister doesn’t allow Mladić graffiti to be removed derstandard.at
Germany: Royal visit from Denmark stern.de
Is Bulgaria ready to give up coal? dw.com

⊂ POLITJOBS ⊃

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⊂ LAST BUT NOT LEAST ⊃

Britain’s red phone boxes could be saved: Thousands of Britain’s iconic red phone boxes will be preserved under new plans to support phone coverage, the UK’s communications regulator said on Wednesday. Areas with poor mobile phone signal and those boxes that have been used more than 52 times in the last 12 months should remain, Ofcom said.
euronews.com