Euobserver.com

Russian warfare is currently focused on east Ukraine, but if it conquers Odessa in southwest Ukraine in future, then Moldova might fall next.

Hungary is further delaying EU sanctions on Russia, now saying Europe must not blacklist Russian Orthodox Church head patriarch Kirill.

A large majority (67%) voted in a referendum on Wednesday (1 June) to reverse Denmark's three decades-long policy of staying out of the European Union's common defence policy. One third (33%) voted to keep the defence opt-out. The vote was called by the Danish Social Democrat government after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Prime minister Mette Frederiksen said the result was "a clear message to [Russian president Vladimir] Putin".

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen is expected to travel to Warsaw on Thursday to announce the move — which comes after a year-long debate over the release of Covid-19 recovery financing.

German MEP Manfred Weber was elected president of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest political family in Europe, at their congress in Rotterdam on Tuesday. Weber has been leading the party's group in the European Parliament and he has received 447 votes out of a possible 502. He succeeds former Polish prime minister and ex-president of the European Council, Donald Tusk.

German liberal MEP Jan-Christoph Oetjen and Romanian centre-right MEP Marian-Jean Marinescu have organised a dinner in Strasbourg with Airlines for Europe (A4E). The dinner takes place on the eve of a crucial vote on climate change laws.

The reforms of EU's Emissions Trading System might be one of the important steps to make EU more resilient and less dependent on fossil fuels imported from Russia.

The long-running controversy over the herbicide ingredient glyphosate was reignited this week when the EU chemicals agency (ECHA) said classifying it as carcinogenic was "not justified".

At what point will Catalonia's Republican Left decide enough is enough? The separatists have kept Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez in power for two-and-a-half years, but they have little to show for it.

The EU's first chief prosecutor's office opened 929 investigations, handed down 28 indictments, secured four convictions and froze €259m in assets — over four times the size of its annual budget — in its first year of operation.

Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyak, who was forced to flee Russia at the onset of Putin's invasion of Ukraine, says Europe must double down with a ban on Russian nuclear fuel.

Germany has said it will deliver armoured vehicles to Greece, enabling Greece to send Soviet-era ones to Ukraine. "We will provide Greece with German infantry fighting vehicles," German chancellor Olaf Scholz said at the summit in Brussels Tuesday, Reuters reports. "The defence ministries will work out the details and quickly implement this agreement," he added. Germany has faced criticism for stalling on its own weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Putin's army must lose in Ukraine to break his tough-guy image, Russian émigré Zhana Nemtsova says, but the EU should also be helping those striving for a new Russia.

The EU's GDP would shrink by 2.5 to 4.2 percent, and inflation would rise by 1.6 to 2.7 percentage points overall, if Europe were to stop buying all energy products from Russia, the Bank of Spain said in a study out Tuesday. At the same time, Russia's economy is to shrink by 7.6 percent and inflation to almost double to 16.4 percent this year, 18 analysts polled by Reuters said.

A joint-investigation team set up by Eurojust has expanded and now includes prosecutors from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Ukraine and the International Criminal Court.

Europe could face energy shortages in summer, the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, warned German magazine Der Spiegel on Tuesday. "When the main holiday season starts in Europe and the US, fuel demand will rise. Then we could see shortages: for example with diesel, petrol or kerosene, particularly in Europe," he said. "We have an oil crisis, a gas crisis and an electricity crisis simultaneously," he said.

The French foreign ministry is to go on strike against internal cost-cutting on Thursday, for the first time in 20 years, in an embarrassment for the French EU presidency, who diplomats are currently responsible for shepherding through EU legislation. "The reform of the senior civil service is the latest attack on our professions, our expertise, our future," a strike notice for 2 June sent by trade unions said, Reuters reports.

Disruption in exports of grain and fertilisers as a consequence of the Ukraine war is triggering a "worrying" situation for the continent hosting 282 million undernourished people, African Union president Macky Sall told EU leaders at the summit.

EU leaders agreed on Tuesday that filling of European gas storage facilities should be accelerated after Russia cut supplies to five member states. Under the REPowerEU, the bloc committed to filling gas storage facilities up to at least 80 percent of their capacity before next winter. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said current storage is at 41-percent capacity — five percent higher than at this time last year.

Russia's Gazprom turned off supply to major Dutch trader GasTerra on Tuesday, escalating the economic battle between Moscow and Europe, Reuters reported. The move comes a day after Denmark flagged a potential end to its Russian gas supply. GasTerra, which buys gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said it had contracted elsewhere for the 2 billion cubic metres (bcm) it had expected to receive from Gazprom until October.