Euobserver.com

Latvian prime minister Krisjanis Karins said Tuesday he does not see the point of talking to Russian president Vladimir Putin after French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz held another phone call with the Russian leader. "I don't see the point of talking with someone who is committing genocide in a neighbouring country. Putin will talk when he feels that he is losing," Karins told Bloomberg.

If the international community cannot fulfil its promises in Bosnia — given it's in the very heart of Europe, the leverage the EU and Nato possess, and the massive money invested — prospects for international state-building elsewhere are extremely grim.

The EU flag is nowhere to be seen, when Danish voters head to the polls on Wednesday — in the ninth referendum on the country's relationship to the European Union since 1972.

Political parties are polarising, but society is not. Many citizens, in fact, remain where they once were — right in the middle of the political spectrum. Polarisation has, in short, become a political strategy.

The partial oil embargo agreed by EU leaders is "not enough," Ihor Zhovkva, deputy head of president Volodymyr Zelensky's office, said in Madrid on Tuesday, according to Reuters. "We are definitely not satisfied," he said, arguing that the deal has been "far too slow, far too late and definitely not enough". EU countries have been struggling to agree on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia for almost a month.

EU leaders agreed on a partial Russian oil embargo late on Monday (30 May) at the summit in Brussels, after weeks of negotiations and pushing back from the Hungarian government.

Aija Kalnaja took over Frontex as a caretaker after its executive director Fabrice Leggeri resigned last month. On Monday, she promised more transparency and better management of the Warsaw-based agency.

Experts and MEPs criticised EU commission plans to classify gas and nuclear as a green investment ahead of a crucial vote in July.

Russia's Gazprom is expected to halt gas supplies to Dutch partly state-owned firm GasTerra on Tuesday, after the company refused to pay for gas in roubles. This means that approximately two billion cubic meters of contracted gas will not be delivered. "Opening accounts in Moscow under Russian law and their control by the Russian regime pose too great a risk for the … company," they said in a statement.

European Parliament president Roberta Metsola said there can be no ceasefire in Ukraine without liberty and justice. "If it means that we declare peace at the cost of Ukraine and its territory then I don't think that is something that we as the European Union should accept," she told reporters in Brussels at the EU summit. Cyprus, Hungary, and Italy are pressing for a ceasefire in the EU summit conclusions.

Health and environmental organisations on Monday raised concerns over the EU chemical agency's decision to keep the current classification of glyphosate, used in pesticides. The agency found that the available scientific evidence did not meet the criteria to classify glyphosate as "carcinogenic". "This ... shows the urgent need to address the systemic deficiencies of the process to classify hazardous chemicals in the EU," said Dolores Romano from the European Environmental Bureau.

EU officials have been discussing the option of temporarily exempting oil transported through pipelines from the sixth sanctions package — leaving more breathing space for central European countries.

The European Commission overestimated its climate spending by at least €72bn for the period 2014-2020, EU auditors found.

Hungary's prime minister Viktor Orbán said Monday he wants guarantees on the proposed Russian oil embargo, beyond pipelines being exempted from the ban. "In the event something happens to the Russian oil coming through the pipelines, as Ukrainians and others have said, then we need to have the right to get it at sea," Orbán said, arriving at the EU summit. Hungary has been holding up the sixth sanctions package.

EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said ahead of Monday's summit that outstanding issues on the sixth package of sanctions against Russia are unlikely to be agreed upon within the next 48 hours. "We are not there yet," she said, adding that discussions over the oil embargo via pipeline are still ongoing. "The key to success is solidarity with Ukraine and unity in the EU".

Denmark could join Finland, Romania and Bulgaria in having its gas supplies turned off by Russia, as its biggest utility refuses to pay for gas in roubles. "We have no legal obligation under the contract to [pay in roubles], and we have repeatedly informed Gazprom Export that we will not do so," Ørsted wrote, adding that there was "a risk" that gas would be cut. The payment deadline is Tuesday.

Squeezing out lawful forms of protest has pushed Russians into undertaking more radical actions as part of a growing underground movement— one form has been graffiti or destruction of the 'Z' symbol, another is arson attacks against military conscription centres.

Author Rafia Zakaria turned the feminist world upside down with her bestselling book Against White Feminism. She talks with the Brussels-based journalist Shada Islam about the prevalence of white feminist thinking in Europe — particularly France.

Polish MPs last Thursday dissolved a new judicial Disciplinary Chamber which the EU Court and EU Commission had said undermined judicial independence. The move is meant to see Commission president Ursula von der Leyen approve the disbursement of EU recovery funds when she visits Warsaw 2 June, Polish media reported. But critics say the Polish change was superficial and did not address wider problems of abuse of rule of law.

The EU is in talks with Danish firm Bavarian Nordic and US company SIGA Technologies for joint purchases of monkeypox vaccines and antiviral drugs, according to a report in Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter Friday. "It will go quickly. We should have a contract ready in a week or so and maybe some limited deliveries in June," Sweden's vaccine coordinator Richard Bergstrom said. The virus normally causes fever and skin lesions.