Eurotopics.net

US President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin met yesterday in Geneva. While they agreed on the return of diplomats to their respective embassies, in other respects their discussion went no further than staking out their interests. In view of the tense relations between the two countries expectations were already rather low in the run-up to the meeting, and commentators also give a mixed assessment of its results.

The EU and the US have agreed on a compromise in the dispute over subsidies for Boeing and Airbus: in an initial step they will suspend the mutual punitive tariffs for five years, thus defusing one of their MAIN trade conflicts. Some commentators see this as a major step forward. Others warn that nothing has been gained yet.

After causing a lot of damage recently in relations with the West, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tried his hand at bridge-building at the Nato summit. US President Joe Biden describe his meeting with Erdoğan as positive and productive - just weeks after calling the Turkish leader an "autocrat" and recognising the Armenian genocide. Commentators are sceptical.

Estonia's government wants to pay the country's state-owned energy company Eesti Energia 10 million euros in subsidies over two years to burn wood in old power plants. The goal is to keep energy costs low in the structurally weak north-east region. Estonia has an abundance of forests, but since Tallinn gave permission for the clear-cutting of trees even in nature reserves in 2015, its forested areas have shrunken. The national press is nonplussed.