Belgium

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - European Union leaders will pause their meeting in Brussels on Thursday for a farewell photograph with Angela Merkel, who is attending what could be the last of more than 100 summits over nearly 16 years as chancellor of Germany.

The doyenne of European politics has sat at the conference table with four French presidents, five British prime ministers and eight Italian premiers since her first EU summit in December 2005.

Back then, as today with Poland challenging the supremacy of EU law, there was a row blazing between members of the bloc.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - NATO defence ministers are set to agree a new master plan on Thursday to defend against any potential Russian attack on multiple fronts, reaffirming the alliance's core goal of deterring Moscow despite a growing focus on China.

The confidential strategy aims to prepare for any simultaneous attack in the Baltic and Black Sea regions that could include nuclear weapons, hacking of computer networks and assaults from space.

"It recognises a more 21st century threat and how to deal with it," British defence minister Ben Wallace told reporters.

BRUSSELS, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Poland will not bow to European Union "blackmail" but will seek to solve ongoing disputes, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said, as he arrived on Thursday to defend his nation before a meeting of fellow leaders in an escalating ideological battle.

Long-running tensions between Poland's ruling nationalists and the bloc's liberal majority have risen sharply since Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled on Oct. 7 that elements of EU law were incompatible with the country's charter.

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders pressured a defiant Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki Thursday to fall back into line on recognizing that EU law trumps national decision-making, hoping that dialogue will stave off a fundamental crisis in the bloc.

BRUSSELS, October 20. /TASS/: NATO’s offer to hold a Russia-NATO Council meeting remains relevant, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday, adding that Brussels expects Moscow’s response.

"The offer to meet in the NATO-Russia Council is still on the table. It’s for Russia to respond in a positive way," he said, noting with regret that the NATO-Russia relations are at their lowest point since the Cold War.

"That's actually not an argument against dialogue, that's an argument in favor of a dialogue," the official added.

BRUSSELS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was awarded the European Parliament's annual human rights prize on Wednesday for his efforts to challenge President Vladimir Putin's grip on power.

Navalny, 45, who was poisoned in August 2020 by what Western nations said was a nerve agent, is serving a 2-1/2-year sentence for parole violations he calls trumped up. The EU has imposed sanctions on Russian officials over Navalny's poisoning and imprisonment.

BRUSSELS, Oct 20 (Reuters) - NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that the alliance would still need to talk to Russia after Moscow suspended its diplomatic mission to the alliance over an espionage dispute.

That means relying on a hotline between Russia's chief of general staff, Valery Gerasimov, and Tod Wolters, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, as well as Stoltenberg's meetings with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, officials and diplomats said.

BRUSSELS, Oct 19 (Reuters) - The European Commission's chief executive warned Poland on Tuesday that its challenge to the supremacy of European Union law called into question the very foundations of the 27-nation bloc and could not go unpunished.

Poland's Constitutional Tribunal ruled last week that parts of EU law are incompatible with the Polish constitution, undermining the legal pillar on which the union stands and raising fears that Poland could eventually leave the bloc.

16 Oct 2021; MEMO: Member of European Parliament Chris MacManus has asserted that the European Union (EU) cannot continue to remain silent as new data shows a sharp increase in the demolition of Palestinian homes by the Israeli occupation, Wafa News Agency reported on Friday.

15 Oct 2021; MEMO: Iran is not ready to return to talks with world powers over its nuclear programme yet and its new negotiating team wants to discuss the texts that will be put forward when it meets with the EU in Brussels in the next few weeks, a senior EU official said today.