Luxembourg

A group of 10 European Union countries, including Greece, that support a common financial transactions tax (FTT) will meet on Monday in Luxembourg to discuss the issue but no breakthrough is expected yet, two EU officials said on Friday.

Greece is likely to meet by next week the conditions for the release of a 2.8-billion-euro loan from the eurozone, concluding a first phase of an aid and reform plan agreed with international lenders, senior eurozone officials said on Friday.

Europe needs a new model of economic development that will be “fairer, more social and more participatory”, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said during a keynote speech at an event organized by the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg on Wednesday.

Bulgaria compares to most other EU member states which have not accepted a big enough share of the 160 000 migrants from Italy and Greece, EU data released on Wednesday shows.

Bulgaria has so far taken in only six people, all from Greece, the same figure that was reported by the State Agency for Refugees early in August.

In Thursday’s Euro Working Group Greece will present 3 less prior actions from the 15 that were agreed last summer.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble on Wednesday evening doused hopes for strong measures to ease Greece's debt, although earlier his Greek counterpart Euclid Tsakalotos and European Stability Mechanism chief Klaus Regling had met to discuss measures to reduce the country's arrears.

NEW YORK - Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic on Tuesday met with the heads of government of Romania, Austria, Moldova and Luxembourg on the fringes of a UNGA session in New York.

Vucic and his Romanian counterpart Dacian Ciolos agreed to hold their next meeting in Belgrade or Bucharest soon.

Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn has admitted Europeans failed in their response to the July 15 failed coup attempt in Turkey.

"We could not fully recognize the depth of the wound in public opinion in Turkey after the coup attempt," Asselborn said on Sept. 21 in an interview with German daily Die Welt.

The informal meeting of the European Council has begun in Bratislava.

"I talked to German Chancellor and the Prime Minister of Luxembourg Xavier Bettel," wrote Bulgarian PM Borissov on Facebook.

Hungary should be excluded from the European Union because of its tough anti-migrant policies, including erecting a razor-wire fence, which undermine the EU's values, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told the Germany's newspaper Die Welt on Sept. 13. 

The unusually strong comments against Viktor Orban's government come days before an EU summit in Bratislava.