European People's Party

BRUSSELS - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will attend an EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels on Wednesday.

The summit will be chaired by new European Council President Antonio Costa and also attended by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

Vucic will attend a European People's Party-Western Balkans summit as well.

The European Commission is not considering changing Europe's policies to cut CO2 emissions from cars, despite a push from the EU's biggest political group to weaken the laws, the bloc's climate policy chief told Reuters on Thursday.

The European Parliament's biggest political group is mounting a campaign to weaken the EU's main policies for cutting CO2 emissions from cars, a draft position paper seen by Reuters showed.

Greek MEP and former New Democracy leader Vangelis Meimarakis has been appointed as his party's representative on the European People's Party (EPP) Task Force.

The Task Force, which includes senior EPP officials and members of the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies, will draft the EPP's manifesto.

Bulgaria's Mariya Gabriel has been appointed president of the Robert Schuman Institute, the European People's Party (EPP) announced.

Until recently, her name had been linked to a potential role as NATO Deputy Secretary General. However, that position was instead filled by Radmila Sekerinska, former Deputy Prime Minister of North Macedonia.

A European prosecutor's office is investigating allegations of fraud and corruption linked to Manfred Weber's 2019 European Parliament election campaign, including the potential misuse of EU funds, as reported by Politico. Weber, a significant figure in Brussels politics and the leader of the European People's Party (EPP), is not currently named as a suspect in the inquiry.

Polish MEP Tomas Zdechovsky, representing the European People's Party, has indicated that the vote for Ekaterina Zaharieva as Bulgaria's next European Commissioner is uncertain, BNR reports. He noted that many of his colleagues from the socialist and liberal groups have yet to decide whether they will support her nomination.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban described his recent debate in the European Parliament as an "attempt to crucify" the EU and accused European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of trying to remove him from power.

In the new EU parliament, small but consistent signals of rapprochement between the right and far right are alarming the center left, which sees it as a potential threat to the European Union's stability.

A scandal from six years ago, involving the alleged sale of Bulgarian passports, could jeopardize Ekaterina Zaharieva's candidacy for European Commissioner, Politico reports.