Portugal's conservative government has proposed a new law tightening the family reunification regulations and raising the hurdles for acquiring citizenship. However at the behest of President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the Constitutional Court reviewed the draft, which the government had planned to push through with support of the right-wing populist Chega party, and has now declared it unconstitutional.

Five Al Jazeera journalists, including 28-year-old correspondent Anas Al-Sharif, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. In their statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) described Al-Sharif as a "terrorist posing as a journalist for Al Jazeera". For commentators, the attack on journalists marks the crossing of another red line in the Gaza war.

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, have signed a US-brokered peace deal in Washington. US President Donald Trump announced that under the agreement they committed to ending all fighting, initiating trade, travel and diplomatic relations and respecting each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity. A fresh start for the region?

In Poland, media reports on the use of EU funds from the country's National Recovery Plan (NRP) have sparked a scandal. Evidence has emerged that in the hospitality sector NRP funds were used to purchase yachts, saunas and solariums. Critics see this as a misuse of the programme, which was put in place to bolster the country's economy after the pandemic. The NRP was considered the greatest success of Tusk's coalition government.

The Israeli security cabinet has approved an expansion of military operations in the Gaza Strip and the plan to take over Gaza City. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the aim was not to occupy Gaza but to demilitarise the area and place it under a non-Israeli civil administration. European commentators voice numerous objections.

Plans for a gigantic suspension bridge connecting Sicily with the Italian mainland as of 2032 were approved by an inter-ministerial committee last week. With a total length of 3.3 kilometres, the bridge, the cost of which has been estimated at 13.5 billion euros, would be the longest suspension bridge in the world and designed to withstand major earthquakes (a devastating earthquake destroyed the Sicilian city of Messina in 1908).