Donald Tusk

In a major blow to the hopes of the two Balkan countries, the European Council - preoccupied with Brexit -  on Thursday failed to give Albania and North Macedonia a date to start EU membership talks.

In a last-ditch effort to reach an agreement on the matter, amid fading hope, the Council moved the issue of enlargement to Friday's last session of the council.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has announced that Britain and the European Union have agreed on a new Brexit deal.

The basic foundations of the Brexit deal have been agreed, said European Council President Donald Tusk, adding that everything should be clear in the next seven to eight hours, BTA reported.

"The basic foundations of an agreement are ready and theoretically tomorrow we could accept this deal with Great Britain,"  Tusk told reporters.

And in Hungary's local elections, the opposition retook power in Budapest and won mayoral races in 10 other cities.

The question now is whether these results augur a broader political shift in the region.

EU governments threatened sanctions against Turkey on Friday over its offensive in Syria, angrily rejecting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's warning that he would "open the gates" and send 3.6 million refugees to Europe if they did not back him.

European Council President Donald Tusk chastised Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday for threatening to send millions of Syrian refugees to Europe and blasted the Turkish operation in northern Syria as destabilizing the region.

The president of the European Council has called on Turkey to stop illegal drilling off the coast of Cyprus, saying it's harming efforts to reunify the ethnically split island nation and undermines good relations with the EU.
Donald Tusk said Friday that his presence in the Cypriot capital is a demonstration of the European Union's "full solidarity" with Cyprus.

European Council President Donald Tusk speaks at the Athens Democracy Forum on Wednesday.

European Council President Donald Tusk has accused British Prime Minister Boris Johnson of playing with Europe's future, AFP reports. Tusk called on Britain to say what it wants to do with Brexit, DPA reported.

Cypriot government spokesman Prodromos Prodromou has condemned Turkish activities inside Cyprus' exclusive economic zone (EEZ) describing it as an invasion of the Mediterranean island's maritime domain.
"This is certainly an invasion of Cyprus' territorial waters," Prodromou told Skai radio on Wednesday.