Eurotopics.net

A hard landing for the former posterboy of the European conservatives: Austria's ex-Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has announced his resignation as leader of the ÖVP and withdrawal from politics. In October he was forced to step down as chancellor due to corruption investigations. Since then the 35-year-old has come under growing pressure also from within his own party. Europe's press takes stock of an era that ended when it was still young.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov exchanged views on the situation in Ukraine on Thursday. Talks between the leaders of the two countries are to follow soon. Putin is demanding guarantees that no further states in the east of Europe will be admitted to Nato. Commentators reject the idea.

EU Commission President von der Leyen has called for a swift response to the Omicron variant and said EU member states should debate mandatory vaccination, stressing that one-third of EU citizens are not vaccinated. While some see her advice as a step in the right direction, others believe it will backfire.

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) has cancelled all tennis tournaments in China and Hong Kong as a result of the Peng Shuai case. "In good conscience, I don't see how I can ask our athletes to compete there when Peng Shuai is not allowed to communicate freely and has seemingly been pressured to contradict her allegation of sexual assault," WTA chief executive Steve Simon said, explaining the move. Europe's press hopes other organisations will take similar action.

NATO's tone towards Russia is getting harsher: at the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Riga on Tuesday and Wednesday, Secretary General Stoltenberg warned that Russian aggression against Ukraine would "come at a high price". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke of evidence of Russia having such plans and threatened economic sanctions. Europe's press interprets the signals from the conference.