Spanish police have arrested a man suspected of being involved in the assassination of Serbian prime minister Zoran Djindjic. The prime minister was shot to death in Belgrade in 2003. The suspect, Luka Bojovic, was detained in eastern coastal city of Valencia on Thursday (9 February).

Greek anti-austerity protesters threw rocks and petrol bombs at police outside parliament on Friday, as MPs prepare to vote through new cuts over the weekend.

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EU countries are beginning to note shortages of specialised teachers in a problem that looks set to get worse, the European Commission has warned.

Germany on Friday followed Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia in suspending ratification of a controversial global anti-counterfeit treaty, Acta. "The German foreign minister has decided to withdraw the formal signing of Acta," a source told ZDNet UK.

Greece will dominate the headlines once more this week as it seeks to meet three conditions set by eurozone finance ministers by Wednesday.

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Is it possible to quantify the return that citizens get from the money invested in democracy, Flo Clucas asks in this contribution to the debate about the European Union's regional and social committees.

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World-wide protests against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta) are planned for Saturday (11 February). Demonstrations have been announced on the Stop Acta! Facebook page for the UK, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Denmark, Spain, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Czech Republic, Romania and Switzerland.

German finance minister Schauble has been caught on tape promising Portugal an adjustment to its programme after a deal with Greece.

Greek newspaper ekathimerini reports that 1% of €8.6bn in tax fines has been collected by the Greek government over the last two years. It notes that had a third been collected then Greece would not have had to negotiate almost €3bn in savings for 2012 with the EU and IMF.

Italian PM Mario Monti during a visit to Washington called on the EU to become “more growth-oriented” and said the IMF, involved in bailing out stricken euro countries, should be less focussed on "strict adherence" to deficit cuts in favour of looking for "pragmatic solutions."

EU institutions have agreed the final text of new rules to bring transparecy to the over-the-counter derivatives market.

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US and EU diplomats have begun recruiting countries to join a new group designed to bring down Syria's government.

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Ministers have given Greece six days to cough up another €325 million in cuts and pass the austerity bill through parliament to secure a desperately-needed bail-out.

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The European Commission has indicated it is ready to use its nuclear option - Article 7 on political sanctions - against Hungary if it continues to flout EU law.

The new Greek bail-out began to take shape on Thursday afternoon, when Prime Minister Lucas Papademos got political backing for his austerity plan and the European Central Bank signalled it might help.

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The European Parliament, member states and the EU commission on Thursday agreed on the final text of a new set of rules for trading in derivatives - one of the main causes of the 2008 crisis - with more supervision and mediation powers for an EU authority (Esma).

The Dutch far-right Freedom Party, a key ally of the centre-right coalition government, on Wednesday opened up a website to collect complaints about people from Central and Eastern Europe residing in The Netherlands.

Francois Hollande, socialist challenger for the French presidency, has honed his general opposition to the German-led fiscal discipline treaty by outlining the concrete changes he would like to see made to the document.

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Watering down the financial transactions tax to a stock tax with many loopholes doesn’t do the job of curing an ailing system and raising sufficient money to tackle poverty and climate change, writes Bernd Nilles.

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European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi did not rule out a swap of Greek bonds with the eurozone bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility. The ECB could not "give money" to the EFSF, but it could "redistribute income as part of the capital key", he said.