French far-right leader Marine Le Pen has signalled her interest in cooperating with former US president Donald Trump's strategist Steve Bannon ahead of European Parliament election in May 2019. Following a meeting on Friday in Paris between the two, the vice-president of Le Pen's National Rally party, Louis Aliot, told French station with regard to getting help from Bannon: "We're not going to say no".

A Macron versus Orbans styled election battle might lift turnout in next year's European Parliament elections, but under laying democratic problems would remain, warn experts.

Frans Timmermans, the deputy head of the European Union executive, launched a bid to succeed his boss Jean-Claude Juncker next year, saying on Wednesday he would seek to lead the center-left campaign for May's European Parliament elections.

U2 rockstar Bono hailed EU institutions in Brussels on Wednesday and called on artists to engage more, at a time when "people are questioning Europe". "Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling and as an artist, I'm in the service of that," he said after meeting European Parliament president Antonio Tajani. Bono added that he will be "romancing the idea of being a European".

Members of the European Parliament's environment committee agreed on Wednesday on amendments to a that would ban certain plastic items. A majority said that oxo-degradable plastics and food containers made out of polystyrene should also be banned, on top of what the European Commission proposed. The committee also agreed that makers of cigarettes and fishing gear that contain plastic should make consumers aware of their environmental effects.

Poland has added heavy coal use to the list of issues, including rule of law and migration, set to divide a new hard-right axis from the EU mainstream after next year's European Parliament elections. "The emergence of people [a hard-right grouping] who will have a different view on ... environmental protection could change EU approach to energy policy," Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Poland's deputy energy minister, told the Bloomberg news agency.

A European Parliament lawmaker dealing with Brexit, Danuta Hubner, said on Wednesday she saw a smaller risk now than before of failing to reach a divorce agreement with Britain.

French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday he would campaign to toughen European antitrust rules in European parliament elections next year, amid fears in Europe of dominating U.S. and Chinese digital giants.

Non-governmental organisations saving migrants in the Mediterranean Sea, Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian film director jailed for 20 years by a Russian court following the annexation of Crimea, and Nasser Zefzafi, a jailed Moroccan political activist leading protests in the Rif were shortlisted for the European Parliament's 2018 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on Tuesday. The parliament's president and political group leaders will select the final laureate on 25 October.

Italy's 5-Star Movement on Tuesday ruled out an alliance with far-right parties in the European Parliament after May's EU elections, but remained undecided over its future partners.