Armenia will hold parliamentary elections on 7 June. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is hoping that the vote will bolster his pro-Western course. At the summit of the Eurasian Economic Union in Kazakhstan, which Pashinyan did not attend, Vladimir Putin threatened to suspend economic cooperation with the country. Russia has already imposed import bans on certain Armenian goods.
While the US and Iran are engaged in negotiations for a peaceful solution, the confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah continues to escalate. On Monday the Iranian regime threatened to suspend negotiations with Washington if Israel continues its military operations in Lebanon. In response, US President Donald Trump spoke to both sides and then announced that there would be no further fighting.
The Partit Laburista (Labour Party) has won Saturday's general election in Malta for the fourth time in a row. Prime Minister Robert Abela had brought the election forward by a year in order to secure a new mandate in the context of the ongoing geopolitical crises. Although the EU's smallest member state recorded an economic growth rate of four percent last year, the consequences of the war in Iran and inflation have fuelled fears of an economic downturn.
Two people were injured on Thursday night when a drone struck a block of flats in Galați, Romania. According to official reports the drone was Russian and carrying an explosive payload. At the same time, the Ukrainian Danube port of Reni, 20 kilometres away, was attacked. Romania ordered the closure of the Russian Consulate General in Constanța. Commentators see this response as insufficient.
Despite a series of corruption scandals, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is clinging to his post: at a congress of his party's youth organisation on Sunday, he ruled out new elections. Police raided the headquarters of his Socialist Party (PSOE) in Madrid last week, and former socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has been placed under investigation over alleged influence-peddling.
In its fight against the Hezbollah militia the Israeli army has advanced further into southern Lebanon, capturing the strategically and symbolically important Beaufort Castle and raising the Israeli flag there for the first time in 26 years. The foreign ministers of Germany, France and the UK have criticised the advance and called on both Israel and Hezbollah to cease hostilities.
Scenes of violence have overshadowed Paris Saint-Germain's (PSG) victory over Arsenal in the Champions League final on Saturday: clashes broke out between masked individuals and the police in 15 French cities, mostly in the Paris region. French Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said 416 people were arrested across the country.
According to a media report, the US is planning a major reduction of its military contributions to NATO. German magazine Der Spiegel reports that Washington intends to provide far fewer key resources such as fighter jets, warships, drones and refuelling aircraft. Commentators are alarmed, and try to gauge how well prepared Europe is to defend itself right now.
On 14 June, Switzerland will hold a referendum on an initiative by the national-conservative Swiss People's Party to cap the country's population at 10 million. Under the terms of the proposal, Switzerland would be obliged to introduce measures at various levels to restrict the right of residence if the population exceeds 9.5 million before 2050. The country currently has 9.1 million inhabitants.
In Slovenia, a centre-right government has replaced the left-liberal coalition led by Prime Minister Robert Golob. The new head of government, national conservative Janez Janša, has already held this office three times in the past. Slovenia's media discuss the new minority government's coalition agreement, which is supported in parliament by the right-wing populist party Resni.ca.
The Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority (FCCA) has accused leading companies in the berry industry of illegal price-fixing. The authority classified this practice as a very serious breach of competition law and has proposed a 9.4-million-euro fine, which the Market Court has yet to approve. A few years ago, several Finnish berry companies were found guilty of human trafficking.