"Hungary faces no financial loss if the European crisis management budget does not come together ... that concerns member states where the public indebtedness is above 100 percent." 

Those were the bullish words of Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban this week, as his country, along with Poland, vowed to harden its stance on plans to tie EU funding to standards on the rule of law. 

Faced with the possible scuppering of its seven-year budget proposals, officials in Brussels are understood to be seeking an alternative. Commission spokespeople say they are "exploring options" for a deal that would replicate the effects of the original, while possibly excluding the two Eastern European states completely. With signs that Warsaw, faced with a loss in funding, is having second thoughts, it may be a question of who blinks first. 

Meanwhile, France has warned it will veto any UK/EU trade deal that fails to meet requirements on fishing, state aid and labor rights, as talks intensify ahead of a European Council meeting next week. France, along with Italy, Spain and the Netherlands, is insisting on seeing the terms of any UK proposals before they are submitted to the EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier.

How often do you swipe your phone to make a contactless smart payment these days? Now, this simple gesture has come to the attention of regulators in the Netherlands. It's examining whether Apple Pay has used software inappropriately to lever a preferential place in the smart payments market. 

And this year's annual Web Summit, normally held in Lisbon, may have become a virtual event due to the pandemic, but the worlds great and good are still attending online to discuss our digital future. This week, CGTN Europe is joined by Peter Koerte and Aymeric Sarrazin from Siemens Advanta to discuss how AI and the Internet of Things is set to transform our homes and workplaces.     

And finally the sale of electric cars in Germany will outstrip those in California for the first time ever this year. Demand for electric vehicles is accelerating at an unprecedented rate – so belt up and plug in! 

Happy reading, 

Louise Greenwood

Digital news producer 

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EU leaders are debating plans to cut Hungary and Poland out of the bloc's $908 billion coronavirus-rescue fund, as the refusenik states harden their stance to the terms of the package. On Thursday, the two nations, which have clashed with Brussels over issues including abortion and minority rights, repeated calls to separate ratification of the $2.18 trillion EU budget and the relief package from demands over the rule of law. Senior EU officials are now discussing a "Plan B," which could mean the bloc proceeding without a functioning regular budget that would nonetheless exclude the two states from critical COVID-19 funding. 

Brexit trade talks with the EU have hit another obstacle with France insisting any deal must preserve the bulk of existing fishing rights for its own ships in British waters. Paris is also opposing any potential UK state-aid in key industries such as financial services, which it claims would give Britain an unfair advantage. France, which has the backing of other member states, wants safeguards that the UK will create an independent regulator to police use of state aid and ensure environmental and labor regulations post Brexit.

The cartel of oil producers, OPEC+, has agreed to start easing output cuts in the new year, amid hopes the roll-out of mass COVID-19 vaccination programs could kick-start activity in developed economies sooner than expected. Brent crude prices rose to their highest point in March after a deal was announced to add half a million barrels a day to the markets from January. 

German factory orders are back above pre-pandemic levels for the first time, rising 2.9 percent in October on the previous month. The figures show that core manufacturing has remained relatively untouched by the second wave of the coronavirus with strong demand reported in the car market.

Meanwhile, new car registrations in the UK have had their worst November in more than a decade, according to new figures. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders says registrations were down by more than a quarter on the same month last year at 113,781, a level not seen since 2008. Similarly, the new car market suffered a $1.74 billion fall in revenues last month as more than 40,000 fewer new vehicles took to the road.

Apple's phones are being investigated by antitrust regulators in the Netherlands over the use of its software on contactless payment platforms. Regulators are investigating whether the Apple Pay app on Apple mobile phones and watches has an unfair advantage in the contactless payments market. Competitors are lobbying for the same functionality on their own devices as that currently enjoyed by Apple. 

Switzerland has said it will not bow to EU pressure to close ski resorts over the festive holiday period. France, Italy and Germany are to keep winter sports destinations closed to contain COVID-19 over the holidays. The Swiss government  says it will discuss a "middle path" approach to fighting the pandemic, which has kept the country relatively open and relied on the public to comply with hygiene measures as an alternative to lockdown. Austria has also indicated it will keep ski resorts open this year. 

Movie studio Warner Brothers says it plans to make its next two big-budget movies available to stream online upon release. In a move that looks set to escalate already tense relations between the Hollywood studios and the big cinema chains, the forthcoming remake of the sci-fi classic Dune and the fourth Matrix movie will be shown on HBO Max at the same time as their cinematic release. The U.S. group AMC Theaters is reported to be in negotiations with Warner after the announcement, with cinemas keen to recoup substantial losses after months of lockdown. 

Norway is to use all three commercially developed vaccines to begin inoculation programs in the new year. The country's health ministry says it expects to receive a total of 2.5 million doses of the Moderna, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and BioNTech products, covering more than a fifth of the population in the first quarter of 2021, through a purchase arrangement with neighboring Sweden.

And English football's Premier League has finalized plans for a $336 million rescue package for clubs struggling with falling revenue as a result of the pandemic. Shareholders in the most lucrative domestic league have agreed to provide $67 million in grants for those in the lower Leagues One and League Two.

WATCH: Portuguese restaurateurs are taking radical action to highlight their plight as the latest two-week curfew comes to an end. Surviving on just tea, coffee and water, nine restaurant, bar and nightclub owners are on the sixth day of a hunger strike outside Portugal's parliament in protest against coronavirus restrictions. "We need support ... to keep our heads above water," said Alberto Cabral, who runs a nightclub.

Big names in business, politics, entertainment and even sport are setting out their vision for a smarter world at the annual Web Summit, which this year, because of the pandemic, has turned virtual. Siemens, the giant manufacturing firm, is always one of the main sponsors of the event and this year has led discussions on tech resilience. 

CGTN Europe was joined by Peter Koerte and Aymeric Sarrazin from Siemens Advanta to discuss AI, the internet of things (IOT) and business transformation.

(Aymeric) A lot of people see digital transformation as the technology, but that transformation is as much the technology as it is people transformation. And the way to make it real is to make sure that you engage the people around the technology to make sure from the beginning they are boarding into the concept. Also to train and to properly use the tools that really get that transformation to the finish line. 

I'm sure that you've had clients who've spent the money, who have implemented it, you've had these conversations at the top, how do you then make it work? 

(Peter) The tough part about digitalization is you have to put all the groundwork into it. It's a major investment, but you have to digitize the analog assets into the digital one. And many, many companies are actually shying away. Once they've done that, however, they very easily can put together a lot of different data, data sets in order to create additional value. We've done that in many industries, for example, in trains and to buildings and factories, and it really comes through. But that initial invest is really the critical hurdle. And as I said at the very end, it's the key is bringing people together. 

You've had some clients, haven't you, where they've spent the money, they've got the tech in place and they couldn't get the people to use it. 

(Aymeric) We had a client that digitized completely the way orders get to the factory directly.  But they had a person at the head of the factory who believed the AI was not better than his own experience, to deliver this order or that order to the manufacturing line. So what we had to do is work together and understand that person, what is the value of that person? That experience is extremely high value and is not replacing or the AI is not replacing that person, but enhancing that person. 

How can cities really embrace the IOT, how can it help them thrive? 

(Peter) I can tell you that today from a technology perspective and we have this lack of mobility operating system that we developed for cities, the hard part is to combine all the different stakeholders and to bring them together. A [city] mayor usually can set that impetus and start the initiative. But at the very end, all the stakeholders need to start to collaborate, start that data and then optimize. And that's it. Turns out there's not so much of a technology problem, its really a problem of people working together. 

Let's talk about sustainability. As a driver of innovation, can Iot make the world a better place? 

(Aymeric) Absolutely, yes. And it can do it actually interestingly directly so, for example, you can have energy optimizing, energy consumption. In a building. You can decide when and how to turn the heater on, when you can optimize the use of the building. It can also be in a very indirect way. And, for example, I'm driving an electric car and you need in order to be efficient in driving, you need to have the infrastructure. So if I go if I go a thousand kilometers away, I need to understand where the charger is free. I can actually stop there.  And this is through IOT. So this is the indirect way where it needs an enabler of all these different and much more sustainable way to live and to change the world for sure. 

The sale of electric vehicles in Germany will surpass those in California for the first time this year, with 98,370 fully electric cars in the first nine months, according to a report from Berlin-based Schmidt Automotive Research. In the UK, sales of new diesel and petrol vehicles is set to end from 2030. CGTN looks at how electric is powering ahead on Europe's roads.