Germany has comfortable margins to abandon - at least temporarily - its fiscal orthodoxy and support its society and Europe in a time of global economic uncertainty and slower growth.

In its annual report, the EU's anti-fraud agency said it concluded nine investigations into Hungary and found irregularities in seven cases. In total, the agency recommended the recovery of €371m EU-wide.

Merkel wants an US-EU trade deal as soon as possible, she said, amid potential US tariffs on the car industry, a vital German sector in hard times.

The EU has little to lose and much to gain from such a move, not least to demonstrate moral leadership on an issue of global concern.

A European financial regulatory body set up after the financial crisis is at loggerheads with the European Commission over whether to carry out a transparency review of certain financial products. The reason: Brexit.

Tax haven-based companies win roughly five percent of value of public tenders throughout EU member states, according to a study

EU commissioners defended a far-reaching free trade agreement between the EU and four Latin American countries, against critics who fear it will damage European farmers' livelihoods and the global environment.

France has passed a new tax on tech companies that will affect US global giants like Facebook. Donald Trump has threatened retaliatory tariffs over it. The EU commission says it will "coordinate closely with French" on the next steps.

Eurozone banks, such as Deutsche Bank, might be much more vulnerable to a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis than EU "stress-tests" have said, according to a new audit.

Greece has ended its four-year romance with the far left in a victory for the centre-right New Democracy party in Sunday's elections.

Internal movement will cause a radical reshuffling of the EU population by 2060 unless trends moderate. Under current conditions, dramatic population reductions await Romania (-30 percent), Croatia (-30 percent), and Lithuania (-38 percent) among others.

The EU's top banks ought to keep more money in reserve, making them less profitable, in order to prevent another 2008-type crisis, Europe's banking supervisor has said.

The US has listed 89 more European products that could be hit with tariffs in a dispute on aircraft subsidies, but EU leaders have no time for trade talks on Tuesday.

German MEP and member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, Markus Ferber, warns of four separate threats from Facebook's Libra. A good moment to kick off the debate would be this week's G20 summit.