Weekly report
Euro area annual inflation rises to 2.9% in July · Construction output falls 1.3% in the euro area · State of play: no EPSO competition is open for applications this week · Next competition: ICT experts (AD 8) — planned for 8 September
Eurostat's release of 19 August put euro area annual inflation at 2.9% in July 2026, up from 2.8% in June and well above the 2.0% of July 2025; the EU rate rose to 3.0%. Services contributed the most, at +1.55 percentage points, followed by energy at +0.94. The spread across member states remains wide: Sweden lowest at 0.3% and Czechia at 1.3%, against Romania at 8.2% and Lithuania at 5.4%.
EurostatProduction in construction fell 1.3% in the euro area and 1.0% in the EU in June 2026, Eurostat reported on 20 August. The decline sits alongside industrial production, which was flat in the euro area and up 0.2% in the EU in the same month — a soft reading for the sector that most directly transmits interest-rate changes into the real economy.
EurostatAlbania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Norway and Ukraine are adopting the restrictive measures the Council decided on 23 July over Belarus's support for Russia's war against Ukraine. The package widens the ban on goods and technology that could strengthen Belarusian military, defence or security capabilities, restricts imports that generate alternative revenue, and tightens limits on Belarusian involvement in EU crypto-asset services, with carve-outs for what is needed to keep public internet infrastructure running.
Council of the EU / EuronewsWashington sanctioned ICC President Tomoko Akane and senior lawyer Abdoulaye Seye, who investigates alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling the court 'corrupt and fatally politicised'. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Council President António Costa replied in a joint statement that the court's judges and officials 'must be able to act independently'. All 27 member states are ICC signatories; the Dutch government voiced disapproval, Berlin restated its backing, and MEP Iratxe García called for activating the EU Blocking Statute, which would bar EU companies and banks from complying.
EuronewsA Commission spokesperson confirmed on 20 August that €190 million in additional support is foreseen up to the end of the current budget cycle in 2027, on top of the €222 million committed between 2021 and 2024. The move follows the late-July crisis in which roughly 72,000 people crossed irregularly into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and around 100 died. It forms part of a wider EU–Morocco strategic and comprehensive partnership expected to be closed by the end of the year.
European Commission / EuronewsCommission spokesperson Markus Lammert said on 18 August that everyone illegally remaining in Ceuta would be returned and that returns are covered by EU law — the return directive and the forthcoming return regulation, which includes provisions on minors. Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska put the number of irregular migrants still in the enclave at about 5,000, of whom 1,898 are minors. Commissioner Magnus Brunner praised Spain's work on the external border and offered Frontex and Europol deployments.
European Commission / EuronewsThe Commission's proposed revision of the Tobacco Taxation Directive would lift minimum excise duties on cigarettes by 139% and, for the first time, set EU-wide minimum taxes on vapes, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches, extending the tracking system against illegal trade. Roughly 24% of Europeans smoke, some 300 billion cigarettes are sold in the EU each year, and smoking-related illness causes around 700,000 deaths and an estimated €25 billion in healthcare costs annually. Tax files need unanimity, so all 27 member states must agree.
EuronewsThe €1.9 billion, roughly 1,200 km subsea cable meant to link the Greek, Cypriot and Israeli grids — with €657 million committed by the Commission — is now delayed indefinitely, having originally been due to operate from 2024. Turkey disputes Greek maritime claims along the route and deployed naval vessels near survey areas in 2024, while Athens and Nicosia have not settled the cost split, provisionally 63% for Cyprus (€786 million) and 37% for Greece (€460 million). The European Investment Bank was asked in April to reassess the project's viability.
EuronewsBulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia have written to the Commission seeking support from the proposed €2 trillion Multiannual Financial Framework for tourism in regions bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The ministers say tourist flows have fallen considerably and that small firms face reduced investor confidence and limited access to finance. A Latgale Tourism Association survey of 94 Latvian businesses found 72% with lower turnover and visitor numbers in June 2026 than a year earlier, and a fifth losing at least half their earnings.
EuronewsWith winter approaching, the Commission has already let member states fill storage to below the 90% target — flexibility that can go as low as 75% — to avoid panic buying and price spikes. Germany is the acute case, with storage only 46% full at the end of July. The pull is coming from Asia: US LNG deliveries to China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and India tripled between March and July to record levels, because Northeast Asian buyers have been offering better returns than north-western Europe.
EuronewsEPSO's application portal shows no open competitions as of 21 August 2026, and eu-careers.europa.eu published no news item between 14 and 21 August — the most recent remains the Taxation reserve lists of 13 August. The next application window opens with the ICT experts competition, planned for 8 September. This is a state-of-play note, not an announcement.
EPSO / EU CareersEPSO/AD/430/26 covers artificial intelligence and cybersecurity at grade AD 8, with publication planned for 8 September and the application deadline for 13 October. It is the first of five competitions on EPSO's 2026 planner and the only one opening within the next month. Dates on the planner are marked 'to be confirmed'.
EPSO / EU Careers (planner)EPSO/AST/158/26 is planned for publication on 6 October with a deadline of 11 November, covering data processing, analytics and statistics; librarianship and information science; and records and archives management. It is the only AST-grade competition on the 2026 planner. Dates to be confirmed.
EPSO / EU Careers (planner)EPSO/AD/431/26 is planned for 21 October with a deadline of 25 November, for Bulgarian, German, Greek, Spanish, Irish, Maltese, Dutch and Romanian. Language-profile competitions are language-specific, so candidates outside those eight are looking at the companion procedure below. Dates to be confirmed.
EPSO / EU Careers (planner)EPSO/AD/432/26 is planned for 4 November with a deadline of 8 December, covering Spanish, Finnish, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Maltese, Portuguese and Swedish. Together with EPSO/AD/431/26 it means sixteen language profiles open for lawyer-linguists this autumn. Dates to be confirmed.
EPSO / EU Careers (planner)EPSO/AD/433/26 closes the 2026 planner: publication on 9 December, deadline 20 January, in AI law, criminal law, procurement law and litigation. The AI-law field is new to the EPSO catalogue and reflects the institutions' staffing of the AI Act workload. Dates to be confirmed.
EPSO / EU Careers (planner)EPSO's own 2026 stocktake counts reserve lists published for 1,221 successful candidates so far this year: eight translator competitions (Danish, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Italian, Maltese, Spanish), eight lawyer-linguist and legal-reviser procedures, six further lawyer-linguist profiles, and the two taxation competitions. EPSO says more reserve lists are expected in the coming months — a reminder that a reserve list is the start of recruitment, not the end of it.
EPSO / EU CareersFive governments issued a joint condemnation on 20 August of Israel's plans to expand settlements in the strategically vital E1 area of the occupied West Bank, a corridor whose development would cut the territory in two. European capitals have escalated from statements of concern to coordinated pressure over the project.
BBC NewsScientists at the UK Met Office described the growing El Niño pattern on 21 August as an 'unprecedented event', and said it makes 2027 likely to be the hottest year ever recorded. The forecast has immediate operational consequences worldwide, from water supply to shipping.
BBC WeatherThe Panama Canal Authority announced on 21 August that the daily transit cap falls to 34 ships from 4 September and to 32 from 15 September, against a normal capacity of about 40 and a running average of 35 since June. The cuts anticipate low rainfall from a strong El Niño, which would reduce Gatun Lake — the freshwater source for both the locks and Panama City's drinking water. The 2023 drought cut canal traffic by roughly 36% and disrupted global supply chains.
Al JazeeraOvernight strikes on the Ukrainian capital killed at least 17 people, and Mayor Vitali Klitschko said hot water supply had been disrupted, accusing Russia of purposefully hitting critical infrastructure. The attack came as the war's pressure on Ukrainian energy and water systems intensified ahead of winter.
BBC NewsLee Cheuk-yan, 69, and Chow Hang-tung, 41, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were found guilty on 21 August of incitement to subversion for organising the annual candlelit vigils marking the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Both pleaded not guilty and face up to ten years in prison. The vigils were the only large-scale public commemoration of Tiananmen for three decades before being banned in 2020.
Al JazeeraThe US Treasury on 20 August sanctioned nine state-owned mining, metals and construction firms, Cuba's Ministry of Construction, government-controlled import companies, the mining group GEOMINSAL and three leaders of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the companies sustain the government's repressive apparatus and accused ICAP of running a subversive international network.
Al JazeeraHui Ka Yan, founder of the collapsed Chinese property giant Evergrande, was sentenced to life imprisonment on 20 August. The sentencing marks a key moment in the fallout from a collapse that shook China's property sector and, with it, a pillar of the country's growth model.
BBC NewsJapan executed a man convicted of killing five people in a pachinko parlour fire, the country's first use of capital punishment since June 2025. Japan and the United States remain the only G7 states that retain the death penalty.
BBC NewsA boat capsized in Sokoto state in Nigeria's north-west on 20 August, with dozens killed and many of the victims feared to be children. Overcrowded river transport remains one of the country's most persistent causes of mass-casualty accidents.
BBC NewsLebanon handed over former General Adel Issa on 20 August — the first extradition of an officer of the former Syrian regime back to Syria on war crimes charges. Damascus is stepping up its pursuit of wanted members of the Assad government, and the case sets a precedent for how neighbouring states handle them.
BBC NewsDestatis reported on 20 August that producer prices for industrial products rose 3.0% against July 2025 and 1.1% against June 2026. Intermediate goods led the annual increase at +5.4% and energy rose 3.8%; excluding energy the annual rate was +2.7%. The extremes of the basket were mineral oil products, up 31.4% year on year, and butter, down 41.4%.
DestatisExports reached €817.8 billion in January–June 2026, €31.0 billion more than a year earlier, while imports rose 4.7% to €712.1 billion. The trade surplus narrowed slightly to €105.7 billion. China was again the largest trading partner at €125.5 billion, ahead of the United States at €123.7 billion and the Netherlands at €109.3 billion — with exports to the US falling 6.1% and imports from China up 8.8%.
DestatisThe real stock of unfilled orders in German manufacturing rose 0.8% month on month in June 2026 and was 9.3% above June 2025, Destatis said on 19 August. Domestic orders were up 1.2% and foreign orders 0.6%; the range of orders held steady at 8.9 months of production. The strongest contribution came from computer, electronic and optical products, up 4.6% on the month.
DestatisRobert Koch Institute figures reported on 20 August put heat-related deaths in Germany at roughly 14,000 this summer — far above the previous record of 8,900 in 2018. Around 9,600 of them fell in a single week in late June, when temperatures passed 40°C, and the over-75s account for the largest share. The institute cautions that heat deaths usually combine heat exposure with pre-existing conditions and are likely undercounted.
Robert Koch Institute / EuronewsCroatian police detained Volodymyr Z., a qualified diver, in Pula on 19 August under a European arrest warrant issued by Germany's Federal Public Prosecutor. Prosecutors say he was part of the group that placed explosives on Nord Stream 1 and 2 in September 2022, with the aim of permanently cutting the gas supplies financing Russia's war. He had been detained in Poland in 2025 but released when extradition was refused; Serhii K. was extradited to Germany in November 2025.
EuronewsSpeaking on 20 August after the arrest in Croatia, Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said German judicial authorities have full rein in the investigation and that legal consequences apply 'without distinction of person', to Germans and foreigners alike. He offered to explain the independence of the German judiciary to Ukrainian counterparts, and said the case would not affect Berlin's support for Kyiv.
Federal Foreign Office / deutschland.deInterior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, Research Minister Dorothee Bär and State Premier Sven Schulze opened the Drone Security Technology Centre at Cochstedt, about 40 km south of Magdeburg, on 18 August. It sits inside the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) site at the former Cochstedt airport and will develop and field-test ways of detecting and countering unauthorised drones over airports, large events and critical infrastructure. The trigger was an explosives-carrying drone found near Leipzig airport — a NATO logistics hub — in early August; Dobrindt called drone threats part of the 'shadow war of the 21st century'.
EuronewsOn 18 August the Stuttgart Regional Court sentenced a 30-year-old Ukrainian, most recently resident in Switzerland, to one year and three months for spying for the purposes of sabotage. The scheme involved posting test parcels containing GPS trackers to Ukraine, which the court found was aimed at disrupting transport and infrastructure. Two co-defendants were acquitted, and time already served in pre-trial detention means the convicted man will be released.
EuronewsItaly's interior ministry is asking Berlin to pay towards the cost of migrants brought to Italian ports by German-run rescue vessels — about 22,500 people since October 2022, out of some 42,300 landed by private rescue ships, plus 4,500 more on German-flagged vessels operated by other groups. Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi said Italy will not discuss taking anyone back from Germany until the question of financial responsibility is settled. The dispute runs against the EU rules in force since June 2026, under which the country of first entry is responsible for asylum claims.
EuronewsA 'Taktisch Wählen' initiative is urging voters to lend votes to the SPD and Greens so that neither falls below the 5% threshold, arguing that lost democratic votes could hand the AfD an absolute majority. Polling reported on 19 August puts the AfD at 43%, the CDU at 23%, the Left at 13%, the SPD at 6–7% and the Greens at 4–5%. Only the Greens back the campaign; the SPD, CDU, Left, FDP and BSW criticise it, and the AfD calls it a scandal for democracy.
EuronewsAnunciado na quinta-feira, 20 de agosto: o Parque Científico e Tecnológico Augusto Severo, ligado à UFRN, em Macaíba (região metropolitana de Natal), vai receber um supercomputador de IA de cerca de R$ 1 bilhão, financiado pelo FNDCT. A máquina terá 7.200 petaflops — o que a colocaria entre as dez mais potentes do mundo — e deve entrar em operação em julho de 2027. O edital prevê transferência de tecnologia e a formação de 5 mil brasileiros em cinco anos.
MCTI / Agência BrasilNa quarta-feira, 19 de agosto, o dólar fechou a R$ 5,177, queda de 0,86% — o primeiro fechamento abaixo de R$ 5,20 em três sessões. O Ibovespa subiu 0,90%, aos 167.830,27 pontos, interrompendo a maior sequência de perdas desde 2023 (11 pregões, 6,55% acumulados). O gatilho foi o anúncio do Tesouro dos EUA de ampliar a recompra de títulos longos, dobrando o volume para pelo menos US$ 4 bilhões por operação.
Agência BrasilO Comando Nacional dos Bancários parou por 24 horas na quinta-feira, 20 de agosto, na campanha salarial de 2026. A pauta central é 5% de aumento real, além de reajuste do piso, do vale-refeição e do vale-alimentação e melhoria da PLR. Segundo o Comando, até a véspera da paralisação os bancos não haviam apresentado proposta; as federações patronais afirmam que a negociação segue o calendário aberto em 24 de junho.
Agência BrasilEntre janeiro e julho de 2026, 59 milhões de passageiros voaram em rotas domésticas, alta de 4,04% sobre os 57 milhões do mesmo período de 2025 — o maior volume desde o início da série histórica, em 2000. Só em julho foram 9,1 milhões (+1,85%). Nos voos internacionais foram 17,7 milhões de passageiros no acumulado (+8,2%), com 2,7 milhões em julho (+4,2%). Dados da Anac compilados pelo Ministério do Turismo.
Anac / Agência BrasilA Conab estima a safra 2026/27 em 705,2 milhões de toneladas de cana, 4,7% acima da anterior, com área colhida de 9,1 milhões de hectares (+1,1%) e produtividade de 77,9 t/ha (+3,6%). O Sudeste responde por 451,4 milhões de toneladas. A produção de açúcar recua 2,9%, para 42,89 milhões de toneladas, enquanto o etanol atinge o recorde de 41,88 bilhões de litros — 29,98 bilhões de cana (+9,7%) e 4,86 bilhões de milho (+22,4%).
Conab / Agência BrasilDivulgado em 20 de agosto: no horário eleitoral gratuito, Lula (coligação do PT) terá 5 minutos e 31 segundos diários, Flávio Bolsonaro (PL) 4 minutos e 20 segundos, Ronaldo Caiado (PSD) 2 minutos e 2 segundos e Augusto Cury (Avante) 35 segundos. A distribuição segue o tamanho das bancadas na Câmara. A propaganda vai ao ar de 28 de agosto a 1º de outubro, com ordem de exibição por rodízio.
TSE / Agência BrasilO FPSO Alexandre de Gusmão alcançou sua capacidade máxima de 180 mil barris de petróleo por dia no campo de Mero, a 180 km da costa do Rio de Janeiro, em lâmina d'água de 2.100 metros. Mero é o terceiro maior campo produtor do país e operou com média de 740 mil barris/dia no segundo trimestre de 2026, somando cinco plataformas: Alexandre de Gusmão, Pioneiro de Libra, Guanabara, Sepetiba e Marechal Duque de Caxias.
Petrobras / Agência BrasilPortaria conjunta do MDIC e da Fazenda, publicada em edição extraordinária do Diário Oficial, elevou de R$ 150 mil para R$ 200 mil o teto de nota fiscal do programa Move Brasil, Táxi e Aplicativos, e incluiu híbridos que combinam motor elétrico com álcool e/ou gasolina. Pelos dados de emplacamentos de 2025 da Fenabrave, a cobertura do programa sobe de cerca de 63% para 88% das vendas. O programa tem R$ 30 bilhões em crédito e opera desde 27 de julho, com adesão abaixo do esperado.
MDIC / Agência BrasilPesquisa do Laboratório de Estudos Socioantropológicos em Política, Arte e Religião (LePar/UFF), apresentada em 19 de agosto num congresso na UFRJ: 81% consideram fundamental que um candidato acredite em Deus — 89% entre quem ganha até um salário mínimo e 57% entre quem ganha de 10 a 20 salários. Além disso, 82% apoiam que as escolas ensinem as crianças sobre Deus, 56% confiam na Igreja Católica e 51% nas igrejas evangélicas.
LePar/UFF / Agência BrasilEm 19 de agosto a Enel entregou suas alegações finais no processo de caducidade aberto pela Aneel em abril de 2026, motivado pela demora em restabelecer o fornecimento após eventos climáticos extremos entre 2023 e 2025, que atingiram milhões de consumidores em 24 municípios. A empresa alega melhora de 90% nas interrupções acima de 24 horas até junho de 2026, aumento de 73% nos investimentos e 31% mais equipes, e aponta vício processual. A diretoria da Aneel decide em seguida; a extinção do contrato cabe ao Ministério de Minas e Energia.
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