Most EU members demand more clarification, increased defense funds, or settling old scores before granting the Commission’s request for extra contributions, while the most frugal ones simply reject the idea altogether.

Fewer people think that inflation and the war are the biggest challenges facing the EU, while considerably more pointed to migration than six months ago, according to the Commission’s latest EU-wide survey.

Between negotiating about Ukraine’s future and increased defense spending requirements, NATO leaders will also find time to war game how to respond to a concrete attack from Russia.

The refugees must also be deemed dangerous to society, independent of their crime, creating a labyrinth of red tape for European countries looking to deport foreign criminals.

Leftist members accused the Hellenic Coast Guard of destroying evidence and falsifying data, demanding an independent investigation into the incident, while also blaming the Commission for every crime committed against migrants in Libya.

Although the overall progress is palpable, only 25% of last year’s recommendations have been fully implemented, the Commission’s report noted, while 35% wasn’t even started.

Chancellor Scholz did not officially reply to the request, but promised to keep lobbying on behalf of Romania’s Schengen accession by the end of the year.

“I could never complain about those who defend their national interests,” Italian PM Giorgia Meloni said in Warsaw, signaling support for Poland and Hungary’s sovereigntist position after vetoing the Migration Pact last week.

The Ukrainian advocacy group B4Ukraine revealed Western companies’ underlying hypocrisy, with some continuing to make billions even after pledging to leave—while most don’t even intend to—“further enabling Russia’s war of aggression.”

Despite the name, the new international body will not be able to prosecute the crime of aggression but is viewed as the first step toward creating another, Nuremberg-like war tribunal to put the entire Kremlin on the stand.

Spain’s EU Council Presidency was officially launched in Madrid, where both PM Sánchez and Commission President von der Leyen said they’d push through the Migration Pact regardless of Central European objections.

“There can be no sovereignty if you’re a colony,” Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik said, calling Bosnia’s western supervision illegitimate and announcing a possible referendum on the region’s future, which could rip the country apart.