The European Union's 27 transport ministers adopted a compromise proposal by the Belgian EU Presidency on the Eurovignette Directive on Friday (15 October).

Friday's political agreement contains no obligation to earmark revenue generated by the new tolls for projects in the transport sector, but a mere recommendation to do so.

France must stop paying for Turkey's preparations to join the EU, according to the proposed amendment, tabled by two MPs from the governing UMP party of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The PES move is largely seen as a response to the recent formation of a Dutch minority government which has the implicit backing of Geert Wilders' right-wing populist party PVV.

The PVV does not participate in the cabinet, but the liberal-conservative coalition led by Prime Minister Mark Rutte has a written agreement with the party which guarantees it a say in policy formulation.

Announcing his cooperation pact with the new government this month, Wilders said Rutte's cabinet would introduce a burqa ban and cut immigration by half.

International negotiations to establish a biodiversity vision and target post-2010 kick off today (18 October) in Nagoya, central Japan.

Ahead of the gathering, EU countries reached a consensus on their joint approach during a meeting of the 27 EU environment ministers last week (14 October).

Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, who also succeeded Sanader in his post as leader of the centre-right HDZ (Croatian Democratic Union) party, said his attempt to return to politics was a move to topple the government and create chaos at a decisive moment for the country's EU accession, the Croatian agency HINA reported.

Sanader unexpectedly resigned in July 2009 in the middle of his second term. He offered no explanation for his departure. Kosor expelled Sanader from HDZ.

The task force, made up of the EU's 27 finance ministers, will thrash out proposals on Monday (18 October) to reform the bloc's economic governance in the wake of the Greek debt crisis.

The group, chaired by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, wants tougher rules to prevent debt levels from spiralling out of control and proposes introducing sanctions for countries who fail to reduce them.

Speaking to a meeting of young members of her Christian Democrats (CDU), Merkel said allowing people of different cultural backgrounds to live side by side without integrating had not worked in a country that is home to some four million Muslims.

"This [multicultural] approach has failed, utterly failed," Merkel told the meeting in Potsdam, south of Berlin.

Merkel faces pressure from within her CDU to take a tougher line on immigrants who don't show a willingness to adapt to German society and her comments appeared intended to pacify her critics.

The Commission is expected to table a 'Blueprint for Safeguarding Europe's Water' by 2012.

"We need to make information available to journalists on how what we're doing will affect people on the ground, and we've got a bit of work to do on this," Pia Ahrenkilde Hansen, chief spokesperson at the European Commission, told the EuroPCom conference – billed as the 'First European Conference on Public Communication' and hosted at the Committee of the Regions.

France, which takes over the presidency of the Group of 20 most important economies in November, has made fighting speculation on commodities markets one of its priorities.

Its proposals have already been backed by Germany, and on Thursday Brazil and Italy threw their weight behind Paris.