Germany

With Ankara's stance seen as nothing but an effort to buy time with no real intention for a candid dialogue, Athens is expected to insist on a hard line in favor of sanctions during the upcoming European Council on December 10 and 11.

According to Athens, Ankara's behavior over the previous five days in particular leaves no room for optimism.

Europe lacks visionary leaders, and some of them risk the peace of Muslims there, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said.

Prime Minister Ludovic Orban had a video conference talk with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday, during which he underlined Romania's major interest in deepening Romanian-German cooperation, especially on the economic dimension, informs a Government press release.

Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation Friday into the search of a Turkish commercial freighter by the crew of a German frigate participating in a European Union mission to enforce an arms embargo on Libya.

Germany has confirmed 22,806 new COVID-19 cases over the past 24 hours, with the total count reaching 1,006,394, the Robert Koch Institute said on Friday.

A comprehensive survey about the Syrian immigrants presented to a sub-commission of Turkish Parliament has shown that Syrians were happy in Turkey, and half of them were willing to stay rather than go back to their homeland.

The news is not all bad. Owing to farsighted policy decisions by EU leaders, north-south relations within the Union are on a firmer footing than they have been for many years. One sign of this is that the spreads between German and Italian interest rates are at a record low, indicating that Italy's position in the euro is now rock solid.

Germany is seeking an agreement with EU countries to keep ski resorts closed until early January, in an attempt to curb the spread of coronavirus.

"I will say this openly that it won't be easy, but we will try," Chancellor Angela Merkel said after speaking to Germany's regional leaders on Tuesday.

The news came as the country extended its partial lockdown until 20 December.

Germany prolongs the coronavirus-linked restrictions until December 20, while the limitations of social contacts are likely to be in place until January, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at a press conference after the meeting with minister-presidents of federal states.

Germany announced on Nov. 25 that it will push for Europe to ban ski holidays in a bid to curb coronavirus infections, while cases of COVID-19 reached a new peak of more than 60 million globally.