Sergei Ryabkov reiterated Moscow’s demand for legally binding guarantees that U.S. and NATO missiles will not be aimed at Russia, warning that otherwise unspecified “compensatory” countermeasures would follow.

Speaking at a book presentation event in Rome on 27 September, he called the euro a "big swindle" and said that it would be no "tragedy" if Germany - which has displayed "hegemony, not solidarity" in the crisis - left the common currency.

Outbursts of violence in both Greece and Spain are not preventing the respective governments from pushing ahead with the further austerity measures asked for by international lenders.

Russia President Vladimir Putin is well on his way to reestablishing Russia as a regional hegemon and the West has been too slow to recognize and deal with Putin's strategy, according to the foreign minister of the Czech Republic.

Spain's debt crisis has returned with a vengeance after Germany, Holland and Finland reneged on a crucial summit deal and scuppered hopes of direct eurozone help for Spanish banks.

De Gucht regretted the announcement by Ukraine that the country intended to raise the limit on the tariffs it can legally impose on more than 350 goods.

Protesters clashed with police in Spain's capital on Tuesday as the government prepared a new round of unpopular austerity measures for the 2013 budget to be announced on Thursday.

The rating agency said that it now expects a 0.8pc contraction in the eurozone in 2012 and zero growth in 2013. This compares with previous projections for growth of -0.7pc and 0.3pc respectively.

State control and European-based jobs are the main sticking points in a planned merger of Eads, the Franco-German company producing Airbus planes and BAE Systems, Britain's biggest defence contractor.

Germany's central bank has launched a blistering attack on the International Monetary Fund, accusing officials of spraying around money like confetti and overstepping their legal mandate.

While Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have shelved plans to join the common European currency anytime soon, Latvia announced that it wants to become the 18th eurozone member in early 2014.

Ukraine has told its trading partners it wants to raise tariffs on hundreds of imported goods. EU sources told EurActiv that this could raise “systemic questions” over the country’s relations with the Union.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen is slated to discuss a West vs. Russia dispute on missile defence with Moscow's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, next week in New York City.

Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski has called on Britain to abandon its "false consciousness" of euroscepticism and take the lead in EU decision-making.

Spanish banks may need a cash injection of more than ?100bn (£80bn), the results of an official stress test are expected to show this week, placing more financial pressure on to an already explosive political crisis in Madrid.

Cyprus tabled a ‘negotiating box’ for the European Union budget for 2014-2020, to be discussed by European affairs ministers on Monday. According to the paper, ministers are requested to limit their presentations to three minutes.

Chinese leader Wen Jiabao has bluntly told the EU to drop its ban on arms sales.

Over 1 million people took to the streets of Portuguese cities on Saturday in protest at moves to boost social contributions from 11 percent to 18 percent for workers and to lower them from 25 percent to 18 percent for companies.

Russia will reactivate mothballed ballistic missile silos around Moscow as part of deep modernization of a missile defense network protecting the Russian capital, Viktor Yesin said on Monday.

The head of Germany’s Bundesbank has raised eyebrows across Europe after he appeared to compare Mario Draghi’s bond buying programme with the "devil’s work".

Turkey has been a proud ally of the U.S. and a strong and committed member of NATO. To us, the trans-Atlantic alliance continues to be the cornerstone of our security and defense, and that of all allies.

The Chiefs of Defence of the 28 NATO nations elected Air Marshal Sir Christopher Harper of the United Kingdom as the new Director General of the International Military Staff (DGIMS) at NATO Headquarters.

Spain told euro zone finance ministers on Friday it will set clear deadlines for structural reforms by the end of the month, in a move European diplomats said would pave the way for an aid request before long to help it tackle its debt pile.

Spain is digging in its heels against further austerity as protests sweep the country and mounting tensions with Catalan nationalists threaten to split the country.

The European Parliament is fighting for a bigger say in shaping the eurozone banking supervisor in a move which could hurt Spain.

In the biggest shake-up in Europe's aerospace and defence sector in more than a decade, Britain's BAE Systems and Airbus-owner EADS said they are in advanced talks to create an industry giant that would overtake rival Boeing.

Pro-European parties swept to victory in Dutch elections despite concerns that eurosceptics would increase their influence on future decision-making powers.

EU Council chief Van Rompuy on 12 September tabled an 'issues paper' on how to further integrate the eurozone, including a common budget, limited debt mutualisation and a parliamentary assembly.

The Secretary General then responded to a number of questions from journalists. Here is a summary of key points.

Plans for stronger banking supervision in the eurozone are putting non-euro members in a difficult position: they want the euro-crisis to end, but they do not want to endorse a two-speed Europe.

Safeguards proposed by Brussels to stop a newly beefed-up European Central Bank from calling the shots on banks beyond the eurozone are unlikely to satisfy Britain and other EU countries that do not use the common currency.

This is not just an issue for the history books. The situation in the Caucasus remains fraught, and Western leaders need to make sure they do not again misread Russia's intentions.

Greece's foreign lenders have rejected parts of a ?12bn (£9bn) austerity package prepared by the government, Greek officials said on Sunday as the two sides resumed talks after a month-long hiatus.

Members of the delegations discussed key aspects of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reform, prospects of military cooperation within the Ukraine-NATO Military Committee Working Plan, as well as Ukrainian troops’ participation in NATO’s multinational operations

China and Russia sounded the alarm about the state of the global economy at a summit on Saturday and urged Asian-Pacific countries to protect themselves by forging deeper regional economic ties.

The European Central Bank on 6 September announced an "unlimited" bond-buying programme once governments apply for eurozone financial assistance with strict conditions and supervision.

Plans being developed by Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Commission President José Manuel Barroso, Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker, and ECB President Mario Draghi, would see the creation of a new ‘eurozone parliament’.

Plans to buy government bonds from ailing eurozone countries in return for a stricter supervision of their reforms are likely to be endorsed by the European Central Bank's (ECB) governing council on Thursday.

Mario Draghi has delivered his radical bond buying plan to the European Central Bank’s Governing Council in a move designed to equip the eurozone with a powerful new weapon to curb its debt crisis.

The EU has said Russia's Gazprom might be guilty of price-fixing in Europe in a move set to test political relations.

European Commission Vice President Viviane Reding has called for the current Commission President José Manuel Barroso to stay on for an unprecedented third term, following a row with the Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta.

The Defense Ministers of Bulgaria and Romania, Gen. Anyu Angelov and Gen. Corneliu Dobritoiu, met in Sofia Tuesday for the singing of a Bulgarian-Romanian agreement under NATO's Air Policing program.

Exercise Ramstein Rover 2012, a two-week training mission for NATO’s close air support providers, begins Wednesday and runs to Sept. 21 in the Czech Republic.

NATO underlined that Skopje was making a substantial contribution as a partner in NATO-led operations in Afghanistan and in support of KFOR and he welcomed President Ivanov's firm commitment to the NATO accession process.

Moody's has lowered the European Union's long-term issuer rating outlook from stable to negative, saying the move reflected credit risks of the bloc's key budget contributors.

French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was due to meet European Union and NATO senior officials in a first visit to Brussels as part of France’s drive to relaunch a European defense initiative.

On 1 September, Poland handed over command of NATO’s air policing mission in the Baltics to the Czech Republic.

The European Central Bank will have the "ultimate decision-making authority" on supervising 6,000 euro-area banks, with some day-to-day tasks delegated to national bodies, a commission spokesman has said.

Within hours of the pardon, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian told an emergency meeting of that country's National Security Council that Hungary had made a "grave mistake," and soon after he announced the interruption in diplomatic ties.

Other than leaving monetary union and defaulting on its euro debts, which for the moment even the rebellious Catalans don’t seem to want, is there any way out for Spain? The answer looks ever more likely to be no.

Read his responses on a range of topics covering NATO’s post-summit agenda, including Afghanistan, the conflict in Syria, relations with Russia, the operation in Libya, Smart Defense, missile defense, and NATO’s role in the Caucasus.

It is eerily familiar to the escalating spat between Wilhelmine Germany and the Franco-British Entente in the lead-up to the First World War. The rise of a new global power is always fraught with risk, and usually mishandled by both sides.

Defence and foreign ministry officials from NATO’s 28 member nations are meeting in the capital of Slovakia this week to quietly explore how they will pursue nuclear deterrence policies embraced last May at an alliance summit in Chicago.

Achieving security in the 21st century must be a truly cooperative endeavour. We need partners – here, in this region, and across the world – partners who share our values and our desire for security.

Is this a sign of permanent decline in the sense of “Atlantic community,” or is it a temporary blip on the Euro-Atlantic radar screen, perhaps a case of Euro-fatigue?

Republicans are leaving little doubt that the U.S. government’s ballistic missile defense priorities would be revamped again if Mitt Romney is elected president.

China’s industrial output is contracting at the fastest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis, with knock-on effects spreading across the Far East.

Despite some setbacks, NATO’s extra-regional campaigns can serve as convincing evidence that the Alliance is the only multinational security institution capable of conducting sustained, high-intensity combat operations worldwide.

General Paloméros, we are all grateful that, once again, France has nominated an exceptional officer to lead this important command.

In short, the Euro-Aristocracy are creating is a political Frankenstein, something Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski rather forgot in an anti-British speech he made in Oxford last week. We, the citizens?

We are moving from the financial phase of this crisis to the full-blown political phase. It really is playing out like the 1930s.

Excerpts from Atlantic Community sponsored Q&A with Deputy Secretary General of NATO Ambassador Alexander Vershbow.

The ruling parties of Catalonia have sought guidance from Brussels on the legality of secession from Spain, requesting a “route map” for membership of the European Union and the euro as an independent state.

The group - containing ministers from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and Spain - published its communique on the "Future of Europe" after a meeting in Warsaw.

Germany's highest court has cleared the way for ratification of the eurozone bail-out fund but capped German contributions and fired a cannon shot across the bows of the European Central Bank.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso used his third annual state of the union speech on Wednesday (12 September) to call for a "federation of nation states."

In Chicago, the Alliance followed through on its promise to deploy capable defenses against the most dangerous twenty-first century threats. We announced that NATO had achieved an Interim BMD Capability.

We all know by now about the simmering leadership crisis in China. The Bo Xilai affair has lifted the lid on a hornet's nest.

Europe's debt crisis is undermining the common values that once united the continent and the single currency risks opening up new rifts across the European Union, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said.

The cold douche begins. Markets will now learn that the European Central Bank's bond plan is a devout wish, not a done deal. Europe's political minefield lies ahead.

The European Central Bank's ground-breaking plan for mass purchases of Spanish and Italian bonds is fraught with political risk and may soon be overwhelmed by nationalist anger in the crisis states.

Mario Draghi has defied German opposition and launched an “unlimited” bond buying programme by the European Central Bank that he said would provide a “fully effective backstop” to the stricken eurozone economies.

Spain has issued a veiled warning that it will not accept a full bail-out from Europe if the terms are too harsh, a move that would paralyse the European Central Bank and call the euro’s survival into question.

Pressure is mounting on the European Central Bank to water down emergency measures to prop up Spain and Italy, after reports that the chief of Germany’s Bundesbank threatened to quit in protest at the plan.