The European Union agreed on Thursday to extend its anti-migrant-smuggling mission Sophia along the Libyan coast by six months, but still without naval support, news wires reported.

Iran's atomic agency chief hit out Sunday at European powers, saying their broken promises gave the Islamic republic little choice but to scale back its commitments under a nuclear deal. Ali Akbar Salehi was speaking to reporters alongside Cornel Feruta, the acting head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who was on a one-day visit to Tehran.

The European Union will not recognise the results of Sunday's Russian local and regional elections in Crimea because the region belongs to Ukraine and not Russia, a spokeswoman for the EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini said on Monday.

Federica Mogherini, EU’s foreign policy chief, started today with a visit to Cuba her trip to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Our job as European institutions is not to teach you how to do what you are already doing so amazingly. But we can invest in people like you. We can help you make your voices heard, and show the way to others who share your passion, your ideas, your values, your experiences, said EU’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on Friday at a conference that she hosted in Brussels, dedicated to religious engagement, social inclusion and foreign policy. 

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani gave European powers another two months to save a 2015 nuclear deal on 4 September, but warned that Tehran was still preparing for further significant breaches of the pact that would have “extraordinary effects”. His statement came as Iranian officials gave mixed signals in response to a French proposal to save the agreement by offering Iran about $15bn in credit lines until year-end if Tehran comes fully back into compliance. A senior Iranian official said it would comply if it got that amount in credit lines or oil sales, while state-run Press TV said Iran had rejected a proposal for an EU loan of that amount.

The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Brussels for a two-day visit to re-establish friendlier ties with the incoming leaders of the European Union and to alleviate problems accumulated since President Donald Trump took office. Framed as a “reset” in the relationship, Pompeo's meetings with the new four top officials last Monday night and Tuesday went “extraordinarily well”, US Ambassador to the EU told reporters.

The world expects the EU to be a point of reference, a peace builder, a security provider and a voice of rationality, the High Representative Federica Mogherini said in her speech at the annual EU Ambassadors Conference, opened in Brussels on 2 September. She reflected on a number of success stories and lessons learned from the past couple of years, showcasing EU’s strong engagement in every single region of the world. “The world is asking us to be a global security provider, a cooperative one at the service of peace”, Mogherini said as she stressed the progress achieved on EU’s security and defence.

EU foreign ministers urged Serbia to stay on its EU membership path in a time when the country prepares to sign a trade agreement with a Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, news wires reported. Serbia is expected to sign the pact with the block made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan on 25 October. In order to join the EU, candidate countries such as Serbia must align their policies with their European partners, notably on trade.

The European Union is expected to conclude a free-trade agreement with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries by late 2020 in an optimistic scenario, a senior EU trade official told Reuters, adding that the timeline however, depends on Brazil’s actions.