EU Commission, Spain exchange bitter letters over Catalan amnesty

Good morning from Madrid,

A letter from the EU Commission expressing concerns about Spain’s rule of law developments and requesting information on the controversial Catalan amnesty law sparked a tense response from the Spanish government on Thursday.

Meanwhile, tensions in Spain escalated as some far-right “Francoists” took part in riots outside the socialist party’s headquarters. Read more.

BERLIN

Germany’s ageing population and rapidly outdating economic structures are putting its future growth at risk, the country’s top economic advisors warned on Wednesday, stressing that it must also draw in more private capital from other European countries. Read more.

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PARIS

French EU minister points to bloc’s troubled roll-out of anti-Semitism strategies. Thirteen EU member states have not adopted national plans to combat anti-Semitism, French EU Minister Laurence Boone told a Senate hearing on Wednesday, referring to one of the recommendations in the EU strategy on the matter, which states pledged to adopt by the end of 2022. Read more.

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BRUSSELS | ROME | BUCHAREST

Belgium, Italy, Romania, US unite to boost small modular reactors research. Five industrial and research actors from Belgium, Romania, Italy and the US want to speed up the development of small modular reactors (SMRs), a memorandum of understanding between the five signed on Wednesday reads. Read more.

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VIENNA

Austrian Greens delay EU election kickoff amid dropout rumours. Currently polling at 9%, Austria’s Greens may not reach their 2019 EU election record of 14% this time around, as rumours about the party’s favoured candidate, Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler, pulling out of the race may have been the reason for the party cancelling its EU election kick-off congress. Read more.

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THE HAGUE

Dutch centre-left parties urge cabinet to stop deliveries of F-35 spare parts to Israel. Several left and centre-left parties have called on the caretaker cabinet to immediately halt all deliveries of spare parts for F-35 fighter jets to Israel, reacting to revelations earlier this week that the country’s government had continued to do so despite possible complicity in Israeli war crimes against Palestine. Read more.

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European Commission recommends accession talks with Ukraine, Moldova. In a boost for the bloc’s floundering enlargement process, the European Commission recommended opening accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova – as well as potentially Bosnia, at a much later stage – once they finalise implementing key outstanding reforms. Read more.

Ukraine’s Kuleba pitches his country as ‘asset’ for the EU. Ukraine will be “an asset and not a burden” once it becomes a full member of the European Union, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told Euractiv ahead of an expected positive European Commission recommendation to open accession talks with Kyiv. Read more.

STOCKHOLM

Sweden’s radical left pins foreign minister over Israel comments. The Swedish Left Party filed a complaint against Foreign Minister Tobias Billström with the parliamentary constitutional committee following his statement calling Israel’s response to the Hamas strike proportionate. Read more.

ROME

Italy’s gender pay gap continues to widen. There was a nearly €8,000 difference between the average wages of men and women in 2022 in comparison to 2021, when it was around €6,700, the Observatory on Private Sector Employees of the National Social Security Institute (INPS) wrote in their annual report, adding that this number will only keep widening. Read more.

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LISBON

All Portuguese parties ask president to call early elections except Costa’s socialists. All political forces in Portugal asked President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa on Wednesday to call early elections ‘in two months’, following Prime Minister António Costa’s resignation. Read more.

WARSAW

If PiS fails to obtain a vote of confidence and Donald Tusk returns to power as prime minister, he will have to work alongside PiS President Andrzej Duda, which may leave him with déjà vu as he worked alongside previous PiS President Lech Kaczyński during his first term as prime minister in 2007. Read more.

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PRAGUE

ANO EU elections lead candidate to oppose Green Deal. Klára Dostálová, future leader of the ANO party (Renew affiliated) candidate list for the 2024 EU elections, promises to fight against the Green Deal and protect member states’ sovereignty, ANO movement chairman and former prime minister Andrej Babiš told the media. Read more.

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BRATISLAVA

Slovakia to continue de-Russification of nuclear fuel. Slovakia plans to switch from Russian nuclear fuel to American and French, according to new Economy Minister Denisa Saková, despite previous criticism from the nationalists, as the French ambassador speaks of involving Slovak companies in the supply chain. Read more.

SOFIA

Bulgaria’s We Continue the Change party was listed as a member of Renew alongside the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), which aroused many questions in Bulgaria because there was no official announcement about the membership. While they were later removed, Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov was left on Renew’s website, an action his party called a mistake on Wednesday. Read more.

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BUDAPEST | BUCHAREST

Hungarian FM: We reject any political or ideological approach to energy supply. Hungary’s gas supply strategy is solely dictated by infrastructure, Hungarian Foreign Affairs Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Wednesday at a conference in Bucharest, emphasising that Budapest rejects the notion of gas purchases being influenced by political matters. Read more.

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BELGRADE | PRISTINA

EU rebukes Serbia, Kosovo for limited progress on dialogue and membership reforms. The European Commission urged both Belgrade and Pristina on Wednesday (8 November) to begin implementing their obligations under past agreements, including a revival of their stalled normalisation talks, stressing this was vital for their future EU path. Read more.

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BELGRADE

EU Commission report shows Serbia has not regressed, only stagnated, says PM. The most important aspect of the EU Commission’s report is the absence of any regression in Serbia, and while progress has been observed in all key areas, there are three that show stagnation, Prime Minister Ana Brnabić said about the report that analyses Serbia’s efforts to align their framework with European standards. Read more.

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[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Daniel Eck, Zoran Radosavljevic, Alice Taylor, Sofia Stuart Leeson]