The Greenland meeting in Washington on Wednesday ended without an agreement being reached: the US government is sticking to its takeover plans and Denmark's Foreign Minister, Lars Løkke Rasmussen, said at the end of the meeting: 'We therefore still have a fundamental disagreement, but we also agree to disagree.' In addition to Denmark, several other EU countries plan to show a military presence on the island. Commentators across Europe try to make sense of the new situation.
Hungary has granted asylum to Poland's former justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro. The Polish public prosecutor's office has brought numerous charges against him, including embezzlement of state funds and leading a criminal organisation. Ziobro was justice minister in the PiS government from 2015 to 2023 and is considered the architect of a controversial judicial reform. What's behind this unusual situation between EU states?
In an interview for the British podcast The Rest is Politics, Maia Sandu, President of the Republic of Moldova, said that she would vote in favour of unification with Romania if a referendum were held on the issue. She noted that for a small country like Moldova, it was becoming "increasingly difficult to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country." Is unification a realistic option?
Two former employees of singer Julio Iglesias have filed a complaint against him in Spain for human trafficking and sexual assault. The 82-year-old singer allegedly sexually harassed and humiliated employees at his villas in the Dominican Republic and the Bahamas in 2021. The complaint follows a report published by the news site eldiario.es and the television station Univision Noticias after a three-year joint investigation into the incidents.
Discussions about Greenland and the US's plans for a takeover will be held in Washington today. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet with his Danish counterpart Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Greenland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Vivian Motzfeldt. US Vice President JD Vance, who has emphasised his country's security interests and advised Europeans to take Trump seriously on the matter, also plans to attend. Europe's press points to a major conflict of interests within Nato.
The regime in Iran is reacting to the wave of protests in the country with a major crackdown and mass arrests. Amnesty International has warned that public executions of demonstrators are imminent, the Iranian ambassadors have been summoned in several European capitals, and US President Donald Trump has threatened "decisive action" if death sentences are carried out.
In France, Marine Le Pen's appeal trial against her conviction for misusing EU funds has begun. In the first instance, the judges ruled that the presidential candidate of the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is barred from standing for election for five years - which would include the 2027 presidential election. Commentators discuss whether Jordan Bardella, the current leader of the RN party and only 30 years old, could replace her as its presidential candidate.
On Monday, Russia's war in Ukraine reached day 1,418. Putin's 'special military operation' against its neighbour, which began on 24 February 2022, has now lasted longer than the ‘Great Patriotic War’ - this is how the German-Soviet War during WWII between June 1941 to May 1945 is referred to in Russia.
After more than 25 years of negotiations, the free trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur is close to being finalised after a qualified majority of EU ambassadors approved it on Friday, overruling countries like France and Poland. Now, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen can put her signature to it with the partners in South America, and then the EU Parliament must also vote on it.
Protests against the violent actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) and Donald Trump's harsh immigration policy spread across the US over the weekend. They began after an officer shot and killed a woman who was acting as an observer in her car during an ICE raid in Minneapolis on Wednesday. According to US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the government will deploy an additional 2,000 federal police to the city.
Relations between major powers and smaller neighbouring states seem to be guided less by legal norms and more by naked power politics these days. After the US captured Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, seized two shadow fleet tankers and repeated threats to take over Greenland, all within the space of a week, Europe's media voice grave concern about the decline of international law and rules.