Israel and Greece have signed their biggest ever defence procurement deal, which Israel said on Sunday would strengthen political and economic ties between the countries.

The Czech Republic is expelling 18 Russian diplomats over suspicions that Russian intelligence services were involved in an ammunition depot explosion in 2014, Prime Minister Andrej Babis and Foreign Minister Jan Hamaceksaid on Saturday.

A judge in Sicily on Saturday ordered former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial for having refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people at sea for days.

In the rising tensions between the United States and Russia, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has offered his country's support as host for a possible meeting between the countries' leaders.

Some European Union governments will miss the 30 April deadline to submit their recovery plans to the European Commission, its Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on Friday, but they are still likely to submit the plans within a few weeks afterwards.

The European Commission will next week present the first part of a "green taxonomy" list of energy sources and technology to be labelled as sustainable investments, but a question mark hangs over the inclusion of natural gas, AFP reports.

The Eurogroup meeting held on Friday, focused on thematic discussion on insolvency frameworks and the euro as digital currency. In inclusive format finance ministers of EU27 held a discussion on the Banking Union. The President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, provided information to the Eurogroup on the spring meetings of the World Bank Group and the International Monetary Fund that he attended.

Over 300 million farmed animals suffer in cages across Europe and this is cruel and unnecessary, say the organisers of citizens’ initiative (ECI), calling for banning caged farming in the EU. The initiative gathered about 1.4 million signatures from 18 EU countries. On Thursday, MEPs debated this ECI, together with its organisers, EU Commissioners and people from other EU bodies.

The European Union said on Friday that Britain should not change trading rules in Northern Ireland on its own and that the bloc would continue its legal case over unilateral British action in the province for as long as necessary.

Denmark said on Friday it would reopen the economy sooner than expected as COVID-19 infections decrease, allowing indoor service at restaurants and cafes and football fans to cheer from the stands from April 21, weeks earlier than originally planned.