Eurotopics.net

Portugal's armed forces are suffering from serious personnel shortages. A growing number of military staff and soldiers are quitting due to poor working conditions. The ruling Socialist Party PS has now proposed opening up the army to foreign citizens to combat the shortage of new recruits. Commentators are divided over whether this is a good idea.

Czech opposition leader and former prime minister Andrej Babiš is withdrawing from the media industry. His Agrofert holding company will sell the Mafra media group, which publishes the newspapers Mladá fronta Dnes and Lidové noviny, to the investment group Kaprain, owned by multimillionaire Karel Pražák. With this move Babiš is also reacting to a recent tightening of the law against politicians having conflicts of interest. Commentators look behind the scenes.

The summer holidays are over and most pupils in Europe are back at school this week. For others, the school year already kicked off a few weeks ago. The press takes a critical look at the education systems and points to structural deficiencies.

For a long time, the Ukrainian counter-offensive launched on 4 June didn't seem to be making much progress. Now the Ukrainian forces say they have broken through the first of two Russian lines of defence near Zaporizhzhia - just a few days after reporting the recapture of the nearby village of Robotyne. Is this a major turning point in the war? Commentators are divided.