Forward Portugal, the coalition led by Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho rallying the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the People's Party (PP) easily drew ahead in the general elections that took place on 4th October in Portugal. The two parties won 36.83% of the vote and 99 seats (-9). The Socialist Party (PS) won 32.38% of the vote and 85 seats (+11). The Left Bloc (BE) won 10.22% and 19 seats (+11). It came out ahead of the United Democratic Coalition (CDU) an alliance of the Communist Party (PCP) and the Ecologist-Green Party (PEV) which won 87.27% of the vote and 17 seats (+1). Turnout totalled 55.23%. The outgoing right-wing coalition won the ballot but did not win an absolute majority in Parliament. It now seems that there will be a minority right-wing government.

According to figures published on 5th October by the UN's High Commission for Refugees (HCR) nearly 535,000 migrants and refugees arrived in Europe passing via the Mediterranean in 2015 and around 3000 died or are reported missing. Of the half a million new arrivals nearly 400,000 travelled to Greece, and some 131,000 via Italy. 55% of them were Syrians; 14% Afghans. 69% were men and 13% women - 18% were children.

Economic sentiment clearly improved in September in the euro zone reaching its highest level in over four years in some sectors the European Commission indicated on 29th September. The Economic Sentiment Index lay at 105.6 points ie 1.5 points more than in the previous month. In Italy confidence improved the most (+3.4 in one month), followed by Germany (+1.9 points), Netherlands (+1.2 point) and to a lesser degree France (+0.9 points). It declined by 0.9 points in Spain.

On 28th September the Commission published its report on the tax reforms undertaken by the Member States. According to the latter the Member States have made progress in terms of improving their tax systems but they have to continue work towards this.

On 28th September the EU named the naval operation to counter criminal migrant smugglers' networks in the Mediterranean (EU Navfor Med), Sophia, after a baby girl born after the rescue of a sinking vessel. To date the operation, which was restricted to monitoring these networks at a distance, as they operate of the Libyan coast, will move into a more offensive phase as of 7th October said the Council. From this date on "instead of simply gathering information, we shall be able to stop the smugglers' boats, search and seize them," explained the head of European diplomacy, Federica Mogherini, during a visit of the EU Navfor Med HQ in Rome.

On 30th September UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister, Serguey Lavrov, American Secretary of State, John Kerry and the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini met in New York. After the meeting the Quartet confirmed its "commitment to succeed in terms of creating two States that match the security requirements of Israel and Palestinian aspirations for a State and sovereignty, to bring occupation that started in 1967 to an end and to settle all permanent status issues in order to bring the conflict to an end." It also condemned the violence perpetrated against civilians and encouraged both sides to rebuild confidence and to avoid an escalation in the violence.

The German Statistics Office, Destatis, published a study on 29th September on the changes that have occurred in Germany since reunification whose 25th anniversary was celebrated on 3rd October. The report analyses the main developments in the population, the labour market, the economy and housing. Whilst the Länder in the East represented 14.5 million inhabitants, 18% of the German population in 1991, around 12.5 million ie 15% live there now. The labour market has been marked by periods of high unemployment as well as by radical reform which has led to extremely low unemployment rates. Moreover the building programme "Aufbau Ost" led to an unprecedented increase in the building of housing in the years that followed reunification.

On 1st October British Prime Minister David Cameron met his Croatian counterpart Miran Milanovic in London. He said he supported the renegotiation of the ties linking the UK and the EU. The success of this negotiation is vital to avoid a Brexit he recalled. Miran Milanovic said he understood the UK's reasons on this issue but said that Croatia wanted the UK to stay in the EU. Regarding the migratory crisis the Croatian leader congratulated the work undertaken by the UK to receive refugees. They agreed on the need to settle the migratory issue at its source. Finally the two leaders said they wanted to strengthen their bilateral relations notably via trade, investment and defence cooperation.

On 30th September French Finance Minister Michel Sapin unveiled France's 2016 budget. The latter is supposed to bring the government deficit down to 3.3% in 2016 against 3.8% in 2015. Savings total 15 billion € and are shared between the State (5.1 billion), local communities (3.5 billion), social budgets (7.4 billion, of which 3.4 billion from social security). The savings notably reflect a slight refocusing of housing aid, the freezing social benefits and payments involving some State water companies and the financing of transport infrastructures. Income tax reductions will cost 2.1 billion € and will enable 500,000 households to fall outside of the taxable category or at least not to enter it.

On 4th October the Greek Parliament elected Nikos Voutsis, former Home Affairs Minister, as its new leader. He took over from Zoe Constantopoulou who left SYRIZA in opposition to the signature of the third rescue plan. Parliament returned to session on 5th October with the draft 2016 budget that will be laid out in detail by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.

On 29th September the Polish government presented the 2016 budget. As planned revenues will total 296.8 billion zlotys (70 billion euro), spending 351.4 billion zlotys (82.8 billion euro) and the deficit will not rise beyond 54.6 billion zlotys (12.8 billion euro).

The lack of qualified labour has worsened in the UK for the fourth year running said an annual survey undertaken by the recruitment agency Hays and the consultancy Oxford Economics, published on 28th September. The UK is ranked amongst one of the worst countries from this point of view in Europe. The problem weighs on productivity, a recurrent weakness in the British economy, concludes the 2015 survey. Alistair Cox, the General Manager of Hays notes that "the UK's growth perspectives are better now than they have been for a long time but employers are finding it increasingly difficult to find the skills they need." British employers are sometimes involved in a "skills war" in certain areas like engineering and technology, which increases pressure on salaries states the report.

On 2nd October the G20 Energy Ministers met in Istanbul together with the Turkish President Recep Erdogan. During their meeting they supported energy access for all but were more discreet about the subsidies granted to fossil fuels or work in support of the climate.

Russian and Ukrainian Presidents Vladimir Putin and Petro Poroshenko met on 2nd October at the Elysée with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande in the "Normandy Format" to address the Ukrainian crisis and the implementation of the Minsk agreements. The four leaders came to agreement over the next steps in the process. Firstly elections that the pro-Russian separatists had unilaterally decided to organise on 18th October in the areas under its control "could not be held" said Mr Hollande. According to the French President an electoral law had to be laid out together with the rebels and then approved in the Ukrainian parliament so that the elections could not be "challenged." The four leaders also adopted a measure to achieve the withdrawal of the armoured vehicles and light arms from the zone of conflict in order to strengthen the ceasefire whose latest version announced on 1st September has almost been respected to the full by the belligerents.

Ludmilla Alexeeva, Russian Human Rights defender has been awarded the 2015 Vaclav Havel Human Rights prize. The ceremony took place in Strasbourg on 28th September on the occasion of the inauguration of the autumn plenary session of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (PACE). Ms Alexeeva was one of the founder members of the Moscow Helsinki Group. She returned to Russia in 1989 after 12 years of forced exile in the USA. She became the President of the International Helsinki Foundation and also a member of the Human Rights Committee of the Russian presidency.

On 29th September the seven judges of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) unanimously declared that depriving foreign parents of benefits for their children who have come to France independent of the family reunification procedure was not discriminatory. The final decision was taken following requests made by Congolese families who were fighting in the French courts so that the CAF (the Agency which deals with Family Allowance matters) take into account all of their children in calculating their benefits. According to these families their case was processed differently from that of French families. This difference was acknowledged by the ECHR "as not being exclusively based on nationality, since the complainants had been refused family allowance due to the irregular nature of their children's entry into France, the result of voluntary behaviour that was against the law."

According to a report published on 29th September by Eurostat the share of people aged 80+ amongst the total population is due to more than double, rising from 5% in 2014 to more than 12%, in 2080. The EU is about to face a major challenge, notably in terms of the economic situation and the social inclusion of the elderly. In 2013 18.2% of those over 65 were threatened by poverty or social exclusion in the EU, 13.8% were likely to be exposed to monetary poverty and 6.9% to severe material deprivation.

European retirement systems can guarantee adequate pensions for the future generations of pensioners if the Member States resolutely implement policies that enable workers to remain in activity until the legal age of retirement. This is one of the main conclusions of the new report on the adequacy of retirement pensions published on 5th October.

The "Vital Art Nouveau of 1900" exhibition is running until 31st December at the Prague Municipal House. It shows Czech and European Art Nouveau of the 19th and 20th centuries. The 400 objects on show include some of the work shown at the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris.