Russia-Ukraine peace talks last under 2 hours; no ceasefire, POWs swap agreed
The first direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine since Moscow’s 2022 invasion concluded abruptly on May 16 after less than two hours, producing an agreement for a large-scale prisoner swap — but falling far short of progress toward a ceasefire. While both delegations hailed the planned exchange of 1,000 prisoners of war each as a positive step, the two sides remain sharply divided on the fundamental terms needed to halt the conflict that has gripped Eastern Europe for over three years. “We haven’t received a Russian ‘yes’ on this basic point,” Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhii said of Kyiv’s core demand for a ceasefire. “If you want to have serious negotiations, you have to have guns silenced.” Russian delegation head Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin, struck a more upbeat tone. “We are satisfied with the outcome,” he said, adding that Moscow was open to continued contacts and had agreed to exchange detailed ceasefire proposals with Kyiv. Click here to read...
Romania’s pro-West candidate Nicușor Dan wins presidential election in Dramatic Comeback
Pro-West independent candidate Nicusor Dan staged a dramatic comeback on Sunday to win the Romanian presidential elections with a firm 54% of the votes. His contender, hard-right candidate George Simion, with 46% of votes, at first refused to concede in an unprecedented political thriller which transfixed and polarised the country on NATO’s eastern flank, but then relented, congratulating Dan on his victory late on May 18. “It’s a bitter feeling, but this election is just the beginning," Simion said, congratulating his opponent. Romanians have chosen to continue their current pro-Western course by turning out in record numbers to vote for the unassuming mayor of Bucharest and against the nationalist doctrines represented by Simion and his ally Calin Georgescu. Click here to read...
Centrist Warsaw Mayor narrowly wins Polish Presidential Vote — but Runoff Looms
Liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski narrowly won the first round of Poland’s presidential election on May 18 against his right-wing rival Karol Nawrocki, setting the two up for a nail-biting campaign for the second round on June 1. Trzaskowski, part of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform party, won 31.36 percent of the vote while Nawrocki, supported by the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, took 29.54 percent, with all votes counted. Taken together, the candidates who oppose Tusk did better than those from parties supporting the government, meaning Trzaskowski will have a steep slope to climb to win on June 1. “The game for everything is just beginning. A hard fight for every vote. These two weeks will decide the future of our country. Therefore, not a step backward,” Tusk posted on X. Click here to read...
Centre-Right Wins Portugal’s Election — but not a Majority
Portugal’s centre-right Democratic Alliance won the most votes in the snap elections held on May 18, with the far-right Chega party surging to tie with the Socialist Party as the second-largest force in the country’s parliament. With 100 percent of votes tallied, Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s coalition was backed by 32 percent of Portuguese voters. That sets up the Democratic Alliance to control 89 seats in the country’s parliament, far fewer than the 116 needed for a governing majority. Pedro Nuno Santos’ Socialist Party appeared to be punished by voters for forcing elections that the public considered unnecessary. The centre-left group was walloped, losing 20 seats and ending up with just 58 lawmakers in the parliament. That leaves it tied with the far-right Chega party, which surged to secure the same number of seats. The ultranationalist group’s performance confirms its seemingly unstoppable growth in Portugal, where it has gone from having just one lawmaker in parliament in 2019 to becoming the third-largest party in last year’s election — to now controlling a quarter of the seats in the country’s legislative body. Click here to read...
Jaishankar’s Europe Tour: Netherlands, Denmark, Germany
The 6-day visit, from May 19-May 24, is a part of India’s ongoing efforts to deepen its strategic engagement with key European partners. Discussions are expected to cover topics such as trade, technology, renewable energy, innovation, and people-to-people ties. Jaishankar will meet with the top leadership of each country and hold discussions with his counterparts on various aspects of bilateral relations, as well as regional and global matters of mutual interest. The trip comes shortly after India achieved a significant milestone by concluding a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United Kingdom, which eliminates tariffs on 99% of Indian products entering the UK market. Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the FTA as a "historic milestone" for both countries, and Jaishankar’s statement last month that India was “geared up for a high degree of urgency" in reaching trade negotiations with several countries. Click here to read...
EU-UK Reset Relations After Almost a Decade of Brexit
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa and the EU's top diplomat Kaja Kallas met the British prime minister in London for a long-awaited U.K.-EU summit with an agenda to “reset” the UK-EU relationship post-Brexit. The UK and the EU have struck a deal that covers fishing, trade, defence, energy and strengthening ties in a number of policy areas still up for negotiation. A key part of the deal involves giving European fishing boats a further 12 years of access to British waters in exchange for easing some trade frictions. The government said the deal would make it easier for food and drink to be imported and exported by reducing paperwork and checks. Some routine checks on animal and plant products will be removed completely, the government said. In return, the UK will give the EU access to its fishing waters until 2038 - a 12-year extension of arrangements already in place. The agreement also paves the way for the UK to participate in the EU's proposed new £150bn defence fund, opening up opportunities for UK arms firms to bid for defence contracts. Click here to read...
Russia Blames Ukraine War, Europe for Delaying Arms Supply to Ally Armenia
Russia’s top diplomat has blamed the war in Ukraine for affecting the supply of arms to Armenia, and has expressed concern that Moscow’s longstanding ally would now look to the West for military support instead. Speaking in Yerevan on the second day of a two-day visit to Armenia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that some of Russia’s weapons contracts with the former Soviet republic had been delayed or reassigned due to the pressures created by the war in Ukraine. Armenia has long relied on Russian weapons in its bitter dispute with neighbouring Azerbaijan, against whom it has fought a series of conflicts since the late 1980s. “We are currently in a situation where, as has happened throughout history, we are forced to fight all of Europe,” Lavrov said, in a barbed reference to European support for Ukraine in response to the Russian invasion. “Our Armenian friends understand that in such conditions, we cannot fulfil all our obligations on time.” As Russia has failed to deliver on weapons contracts paid for by Armenia, Yerevan has increasingly turned to countries like France and India for military supplies. Click here to read...
EU Urged to Act over Hungary’s Plans to ‘Effectively Outlaw Free Press’
More than 90 editors-in-chief and publishers from across Europe have signed a statement calling on the EU to take action over proposed legislation in Hungary, warning that, if passed, it could result in “effectively outlawing the free press”. Earlier this month, Viktor Orbán’s right-wing populist party, Fidesz, put forward legislation that would allow the government to monitor, penalise and potentially ban organisations that receive any sort of foreign funding, including donations or EU grants. The proposal was immediately criticised by opposition politicians, who said it would pave the way for the government to potentially shut down all independent media and NGOs engaged in public affairs. The statement published this week, signed by leading media voices from 23 countries, described the draft bill as being in line with “the authoritarian tactics” seen in Russia under Vladimir Putin, in a reference to the country’s “foreign agent” law. Click here to read...
UK and Europe Target Russia with Major Sanctions after Putin-Trump Call
The UK and Europe have announced major sanctions against Russia as it became clear the two-hour call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin had failed to deliver any meaningful concessions from Moscow. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on May 20 accused Russia of “trying to buy time in order to continue its war and occupation” as Putin declined to support the US-proposed 30-day unconditional ceasefire already agreed to by Ukraine. The UK said its sanctions would target dozens of entities “supporting Russia’s military machine, energy exports and information war, as well as financial institutions helping to fund Putin’s invasion of Ukraine”. “Putin has so far not put in place the full, unconditional ceasefire that President Trump has called for, and which President Zelenskyy endorsed over two months ago,” the Foreign Office said. Western countries have previously imposed an embargo on Russia’s oil industry after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and banned services for ships transporting Russian crude. In response, Moscow began relying on a so-called shadow fleet - tankers with murky ownership and often without proper insurance - to continue exports. Click here to read...
MEPs call on European Commission to cut Hungary off from EU funds
A group of MEPs has called on the European Commission to freeze EU funding for Hungary with immediate effect because of alleged backsliding on rule of law by the government of Premier Viktor Orbán. The letter, published on May 20, was addressed to European Commissioner for Budget Piotr Serafin and Commissioner for Democracy and Justice Michael McGrath and signed by 26 MEPs from five different political groups. "We, 26 Members of the European Parliament, write to express our deep concern regarding recent developments in Hungary. We urge the European Commission to increase pressure on Viktor Orbán's government to cease violating EU values and EU laws by immediately suspending all EU funding for Hungary in line with the applicable legislation to protect the Union’s financial interest," the letter said. The letter recalls that the Commission is currently withholding €18 billion from Hungary through various mechanisms triggered in December 2022 primarily "due to widespread corruption" and "the government’s serious breaches of the rule of law". Click here to read...
European Parliament to stage Urgent Debate on Hungary's 'Spring Clean' Law
The European Parliament will stage an urgent debate on Hungary's proposed new transparency law, part of a self-styled "spring clean" by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, during the plenary session in Brussels. The draft law was introduced to the Hungarian Parliament last week by the ruling party Fidesz to international outcry. Once adopted, the act would see foreign-funded media and NGOs listed and facing fines where foreign interference is alleged. "At the opening of the agenda (of the plenary session) I will ask for a plenary debate and I am very confident that we will have a majority and so we will probably have a debate tomorrow at the end of the afternoon." The Dutch Green party MEP added that enough parties are behind the initiative for the debate, citing groups that went on a mission to Budapest a month ago, "because we are all very, very concerned about the current, the continuous backsliding of rule of law, and this new bill is very much adding to that." Click here to read...
Loan Scheme to Rearm Europe could be ‘Important Breakthrough’ in Ukraine Support
A €150bn (£126bn) loans programme to rearm Europe that was finalised this week could be “a very important breakthrough” in the EU’s military support for Ukraine, the bloc’s defence commissioner has said. Andrius Kubilius, a former prime minister of Lithuania who is the EU’s first defence commissioner, said he expected a lot of member states to request EU-backed loans under the €150bn Security Action for Europe (SAFE) scheme, which was approved on Wednesday. The European Commission proposed the €150bn loans alongside flexibilities in the bloc’s fiscal rules as part of a €800bn rearmament plan, which was hastily drawn up after Donald Trump’s decision to suspend all US military aid to Ukraine. Once the loans agreement is rubber-stamped next week, EU member states have six months to draw up plans for defence projects they wish to fund. “Member states will take those loans …. and will use them for joint procurement together with Ukraine and for Ukrainian needs,” said Kubilius. Click here to read...
Trump Calls Putin “Absolutely Crazy”
Donald Trump rebukes Vladimir Putin after more Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine. "I've always had a very good relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia, but something has happened to him," Trump writes. "He has gone absolutely CRAZY!" The Russian government replies by thanking Trump for his work on fostering negotiations with Ukraine, and says: "This is a very important moment which is connected to an emotional overload of everyone involved" The Kremlin's response comes after the night of May 25 when Moscow launched a record number of drones at Ukraine, its air force says, while Russia reports it intercepted 96 Ukrainian drones. Click here to read...
Western Allies lift Ukraine's Restrictions on Long-Range Weapons, says Merz
Western allies are no longer imposing any restrictions on the use of long-range weapons delivered to Ukraine for Kyiv against Russian military targets, the German chancellor said on May 26. Merz pointed out that the restrictions have been lifted not only on German weapons. "There are no longer any restrictions on the range of weapons delivered to Ukraine, neither by the UK, France, nor us. There are no restrictions by the US either," he said during a discussion forum organised by the public broadcaster, WDR. He stated that Ukraine can now "defend itself, for example, by attacking military facilities in Russia." Merz said that "Russia attacks civilian targets completely ruthlessly, bombing cities, kindergartens, hospitals and old people's homes - Ukraine doesn't do that." In the past Ukraine received long-range missiles from the US, the UK and France, but was only allowed to use them against Russian military forces in occupied Ukrainian territories. Click here to read...
EU Hopes for Quick Deal to Resolve US Trade War after Trump Delays 50% Tariffs
Trump initially announced a 20% levy on EU goods being sold into the US as part of his “liberation day” tariffs unveiled on 2 April, but a week later he reduced that to 10% to allow for time for talks. However, on Friday, he claimed negotiations were “going nowhere”, upped the rate to 50% and brought the deadline forward to 1 June. EU leaders have expressed hopes for a quick deal to resolve the trade war with the US after Donald Trump announced he was delaying his threatened 50% tariffs for the bloc until 9 July. The US president said on Sunday he would pause the border tax due to be imposed on 1 June, which he had announced two days earlier, after what he called a “very nice call” with Ursula von der Leyen. The European Commission president persuaded Trump to delay the duties by more than a month to give the two sides more time to negotiate. Her chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho, said the pair had agreed “to fast-track the trade negotiations and to stay in close contact”. Von der Leyen initiated the call, the EU spokesperson said, adding “there was, it seems, a mutual intention to speak to each other”. Click here to read...
Russia Says Ukraine, backed by Europe, is trying to wreck Peace Talks
Russia's defence ministry has said that Ukraine, backed by certain European countries, had taken several 'provocative steps' aimed at derailing Moscow-initiated direct peace talks with Kyiv. The first direct talks between Russia and Ukraine in over three years took place on May 16, but failed to produce a ceasefire agreement. "At the initiative of the Russian Federation, direct Russian-Ukrainian dialogue on a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Ukraine has been resumed," the ministry said. "At the same time, the Kyiv regime, supported by certain European countries, has taken a number of provocative steps aimed at disrupting the negotiation process." According to the Russian ministry, since May 20, Ukraine has significantly increased drone and missile attacks on Russian territory, using Western-supplied munitions and targeting civilian areas. Click here to read...
EU Approves 150-billion-euro Loan Scheme to Rearm
On May 27, European countries have formally approved a new 150-billion-euro loan programme to help rearm in the face of Russia and worries over U.S. reliability, according to the Polish presidency of the bloc. The SAFE borrowing scheme backed by the EU's central budget was proposed by Brussels in March as the bloc rushes to boost its defences. Finalised by Member States earlier this month, the text received final approval at a meeting of Europe Ministers in Brussels, with 26 countries voting for and one abstention, the Presidency said. EU countries had haggled at length over what the money could be spent on and how countries outside the bloc can access the funds. In the end, the agreement stuck to the original proposal, allowing 35% of the value of the weapons to come from manufacturers beyond the bloc and Ukraine. Click here to read...
Germany agrees €5bn in aid to Ukraine and Joint Production of Long-Range Weapons
Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that Berlin would seek to help Kyiv jointly develop new long-range weapons that can strike deeper inside Russia as Germany agreed on a new €5 billion aid package. Heralding the beginning of a "new form of military industrial cooperation between our two countries," Merz said that Germany and Ukraine would seek to "enable joint production" of weapons. "This will be a cooperation on an industrial level, which can take place both in Ukraine and here in Germany," Merz said. Following Merz's statement, the defence ministers of Ukraine and Germany signed a memorandum which also includes direct German investment in Ukraine's defence industry and a broader agreement between Ukraine and German arms manufacturers. "This is the beginning of a new form of military-industrial cooperation between our countries, which has significant potential," Merz said at a joint press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Berlin. The German Defence Ministry said a "significant" number of these systems are expected to be manufactured by the end of 2025, with the first batch ready for deployment in the coming weeks. Click here to read...
EU Threatens Countermeasures Over Trump's Steel Tariffs Hike
The European Commission said on May 31 that Europe was prepared to retaliate against President Donald Trump's plan to double tariffs on imported steel and aluminium, raising the prospect of an escalating trade fight between two of the world's largest economic powers. Trump's announcement on May 30 that he would increase tariffs on imported steel and aluminium to 50% from 25%, intensifies his global trade war and came just hours after he accused China of violating an agreement with the U.S. to mutually roll back levies and trade restrictions for critical minerals. The European Commission said it "strongly" regrets Trump's plan to increase tariffs, adding it "undermines ongoing efforts to reach a negotiated solution." "This decision adds further uncertainty to the global economy and increases costs for consumers and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic," a European Commission spokesperson said, adding that "the (European Union) is prepared to impose countermeasures." Click here to read...
Macron Warns Israel to Lift Gaza Aid Blockade or Face Tougher French Stance
French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that France could take a harder line on Israel if it continues to block humanitarian aid to Gaza, by hinting at possible sanctions on Israeli settlers. Speaking during a visit to Singapore, Macron described the situation in Gaza as “untenable” and said that a meaningful response was needed within days. According to experts, France is seriously considering recognizing a Palestinian state since Macron also called the creation and recognition of a Palestinian state both a moral obligation and a political necessity., which could strain ties with Israel and expose deeper rifts among Western allies. The decision may come ahead of a major UN conference in June, co-hosted by France and Saudi Arabia, that is aimed at outlining a path toward Palestinian statehood while addressing Israeli security concerns. Macron’s comments come amid growing global pressure on Israel as the conflict in Gaza continues, with Palestinian health officials reporting over 54,000 deaths since the war began in response to the Hamas attacks last October. Click here to read...
EU Lifts Most Sanctions on Syria
The European Union has agreed to lift nearly all economic sanctions on Syria but excluding those which are tied to security and human rights violations, in a move which is perceived to be aimed at accelerating the country’s reconstruction. The decision, which reopens access to European financial markets for the Syrian Central Bank and other lenders, follows a political agreement by EU foreign ministers. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called it a necessary step toward supporting Syria’s recovery and political transition. Sanctions targeting individuals linked to the Assad regime and restrictions on weapons and surveillance tech remain in place. The EU hopes this shift will help stabilize Syria and eventually enable Syrian refugees in Europe to return home. Click here to read...
UK Signals More Help for Injured Gaza Children Amid Mounting Humanitarian Crisis
UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has pledged to do more to help injured children in Gaza, following distressing reports from British doctors on the ground and growing calls for the UK to offer life-saving treatment to them. Speaking during a visit to the Arctic, Lammy acknowledged the dire medical crisis in Gaza, calling it “horrendous”; and also reiterated support for increased aid and a lasting ceasefire. While hopeful about a potential breakthrough in ceasefire negotiations, he stressed that an end to the conflict is essential to stop the suffering. However, Lammy refrained from directly criticising Israel, saying that the judgment lies with international courts. Meanwhile, The UK has also paused trade talks with Israel in response to its intensified military campaign and restrictions on humanitarian aid. Click here to read...
