Katharina von Schnurbein caused controversy in May 2025 when she briefed EU ambassadors in Tel Aviv that proposed EU trade sanctions on Israel were based on “rumours about Jews, as opposed to facts”.
In defence, the bigger the order, the longer the production line and the lower the cost of each unit. That is a big reason why Europe has long bought American, for price as much as for technology. Europe could match it by buying together and sharing out the work along the value chain.
Friedrich Merz wanted more time for combustion-engine cars. Emmanuel Macron wanted tougher rules on what qualifies as “Made in Europe.” Now, the two countries have traded one for the other. Both can claim victory at home, and both say they want the same thing: to strengthen Europe’s auto industry against Chinese competition. But the trade-off undermines that very goal.
France and Germany want the rules for cars carved out of the EU’s Industrial Accelerator Act and moved into a separate automotive package. Their joint paper also spells out how emissions targets will be weakened.
Drone attacks on commercial ships in the Black Sea point to a 360-degree threat of Russian hybrid attacks, covering also the EU’s southern and eastern flanks.
Germany’s former spy chief now stands accused of selling thousands of ultra-sensitive intelligence files to foreign clients, in a scandal insiders warn could cripple Berlin’s trust with allied services.
Germany shut down its last nuclear power plants in 2023 but as the pro-atom far-right Alternative for Germany gains broader support, the country might change course.
Gender now splits the youngest voters more than class or education. Many young men feel sidelined by a shifting balance and vote far-right while young women vote far-left.
Swedish defence minister Pål Jonson also said on Monday: “We should increase the price for Russian aggression, and it is only then that Russia will understand that they will not win this war”.
Irregular arrivals to the EU are falling, but the infrastructure of its militarised borders is only getting started. Interior ministers from various member states met in Munich to advance plans to offshore migration processing to third countries.
The EU imposed tariffs on Chinese electric cars in 2024. Today, Beijing’s hybrid cars are making record sales in Europe amid fresh German calls to extend the tariffs.
Over the last decade, Berlin rent has spiked 75 percent to €15.78 per square metre. Economist Alexander Kritikos breaks down the bureaucratic nightmare of building housing in the German capital and warned how the Left’s plans to purchase flats from corporate landlords may not yield the desired results.
Mainstream parties might assume that this new age of insecurity will work in their favour. But If Europe’s security environment continues to deteriorate as voters head to the polls in 2027, mainstream leaders should not assume that geopolitics will do the political work of containing the far-right for them.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke to press just minutes after polls revealed massive CDU losses. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the party failed to make the five-percent threshold. In Berlin, where the party had held power, it was thrashed by the Left.
THIS WEEK: Next budget and protectionist industrial policy on EU agenda as EPP chief visits CeutaAs EU ministers clash over how protectionist Europe’s new industrial push should be, EPP chief Manfred Weber is flying to Spain’s north African enclave. Meanwhile, Trump’s wars, tariffs and tensions with allies are also set to dominate the UN General Assembly, with Ukraine, Gaza and Iran high on the agenda.
Just as European courts and regulators are beginning to expose the consequences of a system of algorithmic social scoring, Brussels, with its Digital Omnibus, is considering weakening key safeguards against such automated decision-making on citizens.
With far-right and far-left forces poised to take votes from the Christian Democrats, pressure is building on German chancellor Friedrich Merz. Sunday’s state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania could make or break the leader’s prospects of political survival.
After the poison of Saxony-Anhalt, Berlin election could be the antidoteWe hear a lot about extremism in Germany, after the breakthrough of the AfD earlier this month. Yet a far-left government may be about to take power in Berlin on Sunday, and is attracting almost no attention. Why is that?
After Saxony-Anhalt, will Germany now consider banning the AfD?It is a question that comes up a lot in German society. But so far, Friedrich Merz and his CDU have remained largely silent on the subject. That changed on Monday, when Hendrik Wüst, minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia, whom many see as a favourite to replace Merz as chancellor, said the government should make serious work of examining whether to ban the AfD.
A rights expert on Roma in Germany says the AfD win is a clear sign that anti-Roma hatred has been normalised and legitimised.
