Angela Merkel

"Germany wants the UK to maintain a close partnership with the EU after Brexit." This was stated by Chancellor Angela Merkel, quoted by Reuters and BTA.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis is planning a series of trips abroad toward the end of this month and next, hoping to convince Greece's creditors of the recently elected government's commitment to reforms and to lay the groundwork for reducing demanding primary surplus targets agreed under the country's post-bailout agreement.

It is being referred to in public as a diplomatic scandal, at least, as the most clumsily worded political stance, Radio Free Europe reports.

With snap elections now in the offing, his resignation has left experts scrambling to assess the fallout in a country struggling to make progress in terms of European integration.

But he did not have to choose the two-day Balkan summit to resign, and his no-show at the meeting, some said, spoke volumes about his seeming indifference to a region in which Britain was once an influential player.

Then there was the suspension of Hungary's governing party, Fidesz, from the European People's Party due to the party's overt shift toward authoritarianism in the past years and straightforward attacks on European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Greece a glimmer of hope on Friday for a possible review of the terms agreed by Athens and its creditors on state debt, including a high primary surplus target.

In an interview for KTV, he said that "statements of the leaders of political parties, their positions, even different from those in public and in closed meetings," make Kosovo "seem inferior to Serbia."
According to him, Serbia is doing everything to enfeeble Kosovo, while local Kosovo leaders do the same on their part.

The European Parliament on Tuesday elected Ursula von der Leyen as the next president of the European Commission — the first woman to hold the EU's top executive job, reported POLITICO. 

After meeting his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic, Macron said he would invite delegations from both countries to Paris, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, "Euronews" reports.