Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy team may feel nervous about briefing the boss this week. Among recent bad news, the Chinese Communist Party has delivered a double snub to the Kremlin, writes Edward Lucas.
Residents of a Copenhagen housing estate, Mjølnerparken, are highly critical of plans to ‘upgrade’ it – arguing it was only the Danish government’s ‘Ghetto Law’ that turned it into a ‘parallel society’ in the first place.
Ukrainians can do as they please in the Sea of Azov—and they’re turning it into a graveyard for Russian ships (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,609)Ukraine’s drone war at sea is already driving up wheat and fuel prices, choking Russian exports through the Azov and Black Seas and raising the prospect of a new global food crisis if the blockade holds.
Amid burning refineries, grinding Ukraine warfare is eroding Putin’s power faster than Western sanctions, but it is not easy to foresee when or where a breaking point might come.
A fight over one Kharkiv developer and 143 dirt‑cheap apartments has escalated into a showdown between Ukraine’s embattled anti‑corruption reporters and the law‑enforcement hierarchy tied to President Zelensky’s circle.
All Europeans should read a speech Koen Lenaerts, president of the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, delivered to law students in Leiden in mid-June, writes Caroline de Gruyter. It is a speech about European values and the fundamental place they occupy in Europe’s legal system.
Behind the friendly “pizza comunista” and open-door consultations lies a party that still hails Marx, Engels and Lenin and wants Austria out of the EU, raising awkward questions for voters who back its housing fixes but ignore its revolutionary long game.
The EU has left the door open to age-estimation by behavioural profiling, and the EU’s own data protection authorities have warned that this can be more intrusive than the verification it replaces, inferring age from a user’s activity at scale, with weaker accuracy for the children it is meant to protect.
With almost the entire government on the chopping block, Ukrainians could soon feel the impact in everything from frontline energy security to schooling in minority regions and already‑strained relations with Poland and Hungary.
Budget negotiations for the EU’s 2028-2034 framework hope to win over member states with increased agency on border and security funding – which could leave room for human rights abuses to continue far from Brussels’ scrutiny
EU companies have largely escaped any downfall from Trump’s tariffs. “The people who pay US tariffs are the importers,” said one EU official.
Growing revolt against Ukraine’s top commander sees soldiers shredding his awards (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,608)Kyiv’s real strategic gamble may be whether replacing Syrsky reshapes the entire conduct of the war.
Sacked Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov warns about exhausted soldiers, chaotic command and lies to the public.
Addressing the situation in the Western Balkan countries as an enlargement issue rather than a foreign policy issue has allowed European institutions and EU member states to reduce ambiguities and divergent preferences
This SUMMER: EU leaders on the beach, Putin blocked by Ukrainian dronesSome EU leaders are jetting to hotels and mansions as Europe slows down for summer, but Putin is not expected at his favourite palace in Sochi due to Ukrainian drones.
Kyiv dismissed the reformer who was making the concept of speed its defence ministry’s organising principle – just as Russia begins to copy the model, and days after Europe signed up to build on it. So what now?
International flights arriving in Europe from destinations within 5,000 km will be required to pay for their CO2 emissions from 2029 as part of a major overhaul of the EU’s emissions trading system announced on Friday.
The announcement on Friday follows the publication of reports that attempt to decrypt rule-of-law issues in each of the 27 member states. It will include a boost to the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
Ukraine’s new French and Swedish jets will pose threat to Russia’s top warplanes (Ukraine Battlefield update: Day 1,605)Kyiv’s pilots prepare to fly cutting-edge Rafales against Russian jets, amid a bruising power struggle in Ukraine’s defence leadership.
The EU has probably missed the boat in imposing trade measures against solar panels or electric vehicles (EVs) without China viewing this as a direct, offensive measure (and in turn, incurring harsh retaliation)