Maricarmen Abascal, the 87-year-old Madrid pensioner whose eviction from the home where she had lived for more than 70 years triggered demonstrations across Spain, has died in hospital. Her case has pushed the country’s housing crisis to the centre of a general election campaign that will culminate in a vote on 29 November.

María del Carmen Abascal, widely known as Maricarmen, died on Wednesday at Madrid’s Gregorio Marañón hospital, where she had been receiving treatment since being evicted from her flat in the Retiro district on 23 September. The Madrid Tenants’ Union, which had supported her during the long-running dispute with the property owner, announced her death. The cause has not been disclosed.

Abascal had lived in the property since 1956, when her father first rented it. The tenancy later passed to her mother and subsequently to Abascal under Spain’s old protected-rent system. A legal dispute began after the property changed hands and Urbagestión Desarrollo e Inversión challenged her right to remain under the inherited tenancy. The courts eventually sided with the owner after a dispute over the rules governing successive transfers of old rental contracts.

She had been paying about €500 a month. Urbagestión sought a new rent of €2,650 before subsequently proposing €1,650, still above Abascal’s pension of about €1,350 a month. Three earlier attempts to remove her from the property had failed before the eviction was finally carried out on 23 September. Abascal left the building on a stretcher and was taken to hospital.

Her removal quickly became a focus for wider anger over housing costs. Thousands demonstrated in Madrid and other Spanish cities, while protesters established an encampment in Puerta del Sol under slogans including “Ni una Maricarmen más” — “Not one more Maricarmen”. Speaking from hospital after the eviction, Abascal urged demonstrators to continue campaigning and “defend what is yours”.

After negotiations involving Abascal’s representatives, Urbagestión and Madrid’s municipal housing company, an agreement was eventually reached that would have allowed her to return to the flat under a new eight-year tenancy at an affordable rent. She remained in hospital, however, and was never able to return home.

The tenants’ union said the agreement had arrived too late and described the events surrounding the eviction as a turning point in Spain’s housing debate. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez offered condolences to Abascal’s family and those affected by her death. The government had previously described her eviction as the type of case that new housing legislation was intended to prevent.

The political consequences have extended well beyond Madrid. On 29 September, Sánchez’s government approved two emergency housing decrees covering eviction protection, rental contracts and speculative property purchases. One measure would have extended protections for vulnerable households facing eviction until 2030, while the package also proposed restrictions on certain property acquisitions and additional safeguards for tenants.

Congress rejected both decrees on 2 October, with the PP, Vox and Junts voting against the measures. Opponents argued that tighter intervention in the rental market would discourage landlords from offering properties for rent and further restrict supply. Supporters of the measures said stronger tenant protection was necessary amid rapidly rising housing costs.

Three days later Sánchez announced a general election for 29 November, saying he needed a broader parliamentary majority to pursue further reforms. As EU Today reported following the announcement, the election brings an early end to a parliament in which the minority coalition had become increasingly dependent on shifting alliances to pass legislation.

The dispute comes against a substantial housing shortage. The Bank of Spain estimates that the gap between new homes and household formation accumulated to around 750,000 properties between 2021 and 2025. Official data cited in the government’s housing legislation also show that 26.8 per cent of Spanish households renting at market prices spent more than 40 per cent of their income on rent in 2025, compared with an EU average of 18.6 per cent.

Pressure is likely to continue during the campaign. Spain’s main trade union confederations, CCOO and UGT, have backed a nationwide general strike for 11 November over the housing crisis, less than three weeks before polling day. It will be the first general strike jointly backed by the two organisations in 14 years.

Abascal’s death therefore comes as a personal case that began with a dispute over one Madrid flat has become inseparable from a much larger argument over rents, property rights, housing supply and the degree to which the Spanish state should intervene in the market. Those questions are now set to form one of the principal dividing lines of Spain’s November election.

France’s schools are burning, police officers are being injured, barricades are appearing outside classrooms and teenagers are being drawn into confrontations that have travelled a very considerable distance from complaints about absent teachers and dilapidated buildings.

Hovering over this combustible mixture is Jean-Luc Mélenchon. The leader of La France Insoumise (LFI) insists that his movement neither controls nor directs France’s extraordinary wave of student protest. He has now explicitly advocated non-violent methods. That defence deserves to be recorded.

But it does not dispose of an uncomfortable political question: who benefits when legitimate teenage frustration is transformed into a wider revolt against the French state?

For Mélenchon, the answer is potentially obvious. The disturbances began with genuine grievances. Pupils complained about teacher shortages, overcrowding, poor facilities and the pressures of the French education system. The original protests in Créteil appear to have been spontaneous rather than the creation of a political party. That distinction matters. France’s teenagers should not collectively be caricatured as revolutionaries simply because some demonstrations subsequently descended into violence.

But what followed was something quite different. Schools were attacked and fires started. Cars were torched. Explosive fireworks and other projectiles were directed at police. By October 1st, Reuters reported hundreds of arrests and incidents of arson in several French cities. French intelligence agencies, according to a source close to the prime minister cited by Reuters, told a government crisis meeting that hard-left politicians had played a role in initiating the spreading protests. LFI emphatically denied the allegation.

That dispute should not obscure what is visible. LFI politicians have been remarkably eager to place themselves alongside the protesters. MPs Clémence Guetté and Louis Boyard appeared at the original Créteil mobilisation; Boyard turned his intervention into a TikTok video reportedly watched 1.5 million times. Other LFI representatives have similarly appeared around demonstrations. Le Monde describes the party as closely following protests and notes that this proximity simultaneously strengthens LFI’s relationship with young voters and leaves it associated with the movement when violence erupts.

Where Mélenchon’s political opportunism deserves scrutiny.

France is heading towards the 2027 presidential election. Younger voters are potentially one of Mélenchon’s greatest political assets, but also one of his greatest organisational problems: sympathy does not automatically become votes when younger citizens disproportionately abstain.

Recent polling reported by Le Monde put Mélenchon above 40 per cent among 18-to-24-year-olds in some presidential scenarios. LFI coordinator Manuel Bompard has openly acknowledged the opportunity, saying the movement has enormous room for growth among young people.

One hardly requires Machiavelli to understand the calculation. A generation of teenagers that believes itself ignored by government is politically interesting. A generation persuaded that it is being oppressed by government is considerably more useful.

The transformation is crucial. The original argument concerned teachers, classrooms and school buildings. The developing political narrative encompasses police violence, racism, inequality, Palestine, the far right and hostility towards the political establishment.

Mélenchon did not invent all these causes, nor is there evidence that he commands the young protesters like troops. But LFI understands political insurgency extremely well. Its political vocabulary depends upon conflict between ordinary citizens and an allegedly discredited establishment.

A spontaneous youth rebellion therefore offers almost perfect terrain. Mélenchon initially called upon supporters to “interpose” themselves against what he described as police savagery. Only as images of burning schools, vandalism and violent confrontation became increasingly politically toxic did he place greater emphasis upon non-violence, telling supporters that setting things on fire undermined their cause.

Perhaps that was sincere. But it also illustrates the danger of playing political games with youthful anger. It is relatively easy to tell teenagers that authority is their enemy, the far-left have sung this tune since the 1960’s. It is considerably harder, however, to regain control when confrontation develops its own momentum.

For years, public discussion of “political violence” has often been dominated by the threat from the extreme right. That threat is real and should never be minimised. Indeed, British Prevent statistics for the year ending September 2025 provide an important corrective to anyone claiming that extremism as a whole is overwhelmingly left-wing: 2,103 referrals concerned extreme-right ideology, compared with only 32 categorised as left-wing extremism.

But terrorism statistics and street politics are not the same thing. Europe also has a long-established tradition of violence emerging from anarchist, autonomist and revolutionary-left protest cultures: black-bloc tactics, attacks on police, destruction of property, arson and attempts to turn demonstrations into confrontations with the state. The current French disturbances make it legitimate to ask whether this form of political violence receives the same sustained political scrutiny as violence associated with the extreme right.

In Britain, too, claims of ideological double standards should be examined rather than assumed. Violence and intimidation occurring around demonstrations should be judged according to conduct, not according to whether those responsible march beneath banners fashionable on the Left or Right.

The correct principle is remarkably uncomplicated: political violence is political violence.

Throwing an explosive firework at a policeman does not become morally superior because the person throwing it considers himself anti-fascist. Burning a school does not become progressive because the person holding the match claims to oppose inequality. Intimidation does not become activism merely because its perpetrator believes his politics virtuous.

Nor, conversely, should peaceful demonstrators be branded extremists because violent individuals attach themselves to their cause.

This is a particularly important point in France because there is evidence that radical groups have attached themselves to genuine student grievances. Education Minister Édouard Geffray has distinguished protesting pupils from violent “ultra-left” elements. Former environment minister Delphine Batho, herself once a school-student union leader, has warned of the movement being taken over by the far left and urged pupils to preserve their independence.

Those pupils would do well to heed the warning. Their complaints may be legitimate. They have every democratic right to demonstrate. And allegations of disproportionate police violence must themselves be investigated: teenagers have suffered serious injuries and France has opened internal investigations into police actions.

Young people should ask themselves who is standing behind them — and why?

Mélenchon wants political change. He wants young voters mobilised. LFI wants to convert social discontent into an electoral force capable of reshaping France.

There is nothing inherently illegitimate about that ambition. Every political party attempts to convert public dissatisfaction into votes. The troubling point comes when politicians discover that confrontation itself is electorally useful.

The French government undoubtedly has incentives of its own to emphasise LFI involvement. By presenting the crisis primarily as an extremist public-order problem, ministers can divert attention from the failings in schools that produced the original demonstrations.

But that does not absolve Mélenchon. A responsible politician confronted by angry teenagers should attempt to reduce the temperature while addressing their grievances. An opportunist sees an emerging political constituency.

The danger for France is that its young people cease being participants in a legitimate argument about education and become raw material in somebody else’s struggle for power.

Once that happens, the classroom has ceased to be the issue, and barricades become the political objective.

Paris Attack: Europe Must Not Allow Ideological Violence to Become the New Normal

 

For years, the European Union has struggled with a peculiar contradiction in its dealings with China. The EU is one of the largest and wealthiest trading blocs on earth, capable of determining access to a market of some 450 million relatively affluent consumers, yet it frequently conducts foreign policy as though it were the supplicant.

Hilde Vautmans, the Belgian Renew Europe MEP and European Parliament rapporteur on EU-China political relations, is right to challenge this timidity.

Her report, debated this week in Strasbourg, does not advocate severing relations with Beijing. Nor should it. China is too economically important and too influential on questions ranging from climate change to international security for Europe simply to close the door.

But dialogue must not become an alternative to action.

“Europe has economic power. It’s time to use it,” Vautmans told Parliament ahead of the vote. That sentence ought to be pinned above every desk in the European Commission dealing with China.

The figures make the case brutally clear. In 2025 the EU imported €559.4 billion of goods from China while exporting just €199.6 billion in the opposite direction. The resulting deficit was €359.8 billion — almost €1 billion every day.

As EU Today reported recently, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has herself warned of a potential “second China shock”, with subsidised Chinese industrial production threatening European manufacturers.

Fine words. But Beijing has heard fine words before.

The Commission’s preferred formulation remains “de-risking, not decoupling”. There is sense in that distinction. Nobody seriously proposes shutting down trade with the world’s second-largest economy. But de-risking becomes meaningless if every risk identified is followed by another dialogue, another working group and another opportunity to postpone difficult decisions.

Indeed, the Commission acknowledges that European companies operating in China face regulatory obstacles, inadequate intellectual-property protection, restrictions on data flows and pressures associated with technology transfer.

Europe possesses formidable weapons with which to respond: anti-dumping duties, anti-subsidy measures, foreign-investment screening, the Foreign Subsidies Regulation, the Anti-Coercion Instrument, procurement restrictions and controls on strategically sensitive technologies.

These instruments should not be deployed indiscriminately. But neither should they sit polished in the armoury while Beijing exploits European openness.

Vautmans is particularly right to connect economics with security and values. China cannot reasonably expect privileged access to European markets while helping sustain the Russian war machine. The European Parliament’s own research service describes Beijing as a “decisive enabler and dual-use provider”, including through goods entering Russian weapons and drone supply chains.

If Chinese companies materially assist Russia’s ability to wage war against Ukraine, Europe should be prepared to impose a direct economic price. The same principle should apply to human rights.

EU Today has warned repeatedly that Brussels’ ritualised engagement with Beijing risks becoming precisely that: ritual.

We reported earlier that the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue risks losing credibility, pointing to the continuing imprisonment of Swedish citizen Gui Minhai and Uyghur academic and Sakharov Prize laureate Ilham Tohti. After round upon round of discussions, Beijing has learnt that European expressions of “deep concern” are inexpensive things to endure.

The problem is hardly new. Years ago, EU Today highlighted calls for concrete EU action over goods associated with forced labour in China, including demands for tougher restrictions on entities implicated in abuses against Uyghurs.

Yet repression continues. In March this year China adopted its new Law on the Promotion of Ethnic Unity and Progress. The European Parliament subsequently condemned what it described as intensified repression and assimilation affecting Tibetans, Uyghurs and other minorities, by the overwhelming margin of 439 votes to 52.

Europe therefore faces a straightforward question. What is the purpose of economic power if it is never translated into political influence?

The EU should not attempt to bully China. Nor should it abandon diplomacy. Vautmans is correct that channels of communication must remain open. But reciprocity must become something more than a word appearing in communiqués.

Where China closes markets to European companies, Europe should be prepared to restrict equivalent access. Where state subsidies distort competition, Brussels should respond rapidly with trade-defence measures. Where strategic dependencies expose Europe to political coercion, alternative supply chains must be built. Where Chinese entities support Russia’s military-industrial complex, sanctions should follow. And where companies benefit from forced labour or serious human-rights abuses, access to the European marketplace should carry consequences.

That is not protectionism. It is leverage.

Totalitarian states understand leverage perfectly well. China routinely uses access to its enormous market as an instrument of statecraft. Europe, by contrast, too often behaves as though exploiting its own commercial strength would somehow represent a failure of diplomacy. It represents precisely the opposite.

The European Commission has spent years discovering that China is simultaneously a partner, competitor and “systemic rival”. It is time to move beyond discovering the obvious.

Vautmans has identified the essential point. Europe already possesses economic power on a scale few countries can ignore. What it appears to lack is the political confidence to use it.

Main Image: by Valentine ZELER, © European Union 2026 – Source : EP

Pedro Sánchez has turned a parliamentary defeat over housing into a general election on 29th November.

The calculation is clear: force Spain’s political argument onto territory more favourable to the left before migration, corruption allegations and parliamentary paralysis return to the foreground. But the polls suggest that the gamble could still deliver power to the centre-right People’s Party and Vox.

Pedro Sánchez’s decision to dissolve Spain’s parliament nine months ahead of schedule is more than an admission that his minority government had reached the limits of what it could achieve in the Congress of Deputies. It is an attempt to choose the terms on which his government will be judged.

The immediate trigger was the defeat of two emergency housing decrees after the conservative People’s Party (PP), Vox and Catalan separatist Junts voted against them. Housing had already moved rapidly to the centre of Spanish politics following the eviction of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from the Madrid flat where she had lived for 71 years, followed by large demonstrations across the country. EU Today has previously reported on both the housing protests across Spain and Sánchez’s subsequent decision to call the election.

The prime minister is now attempting to convert legislative weakness into electoral advantage.

In his announcement on 5 October, Sánchez presented the election as a choice between a broader progressive majority capable of advancing social legislation and an opposition that had obstructed measures on housing and other domestic priorities. The government reinforced that strategy a day later by approving revised versions of the two housing decrees, containing 21 measures including tax incentives, assistance for first-time buyers and measures intended to increase supply. They will require validation by the Diputación Permanente, the standing parliamentary body that remains after dissolution.

The political calculation is straightforward. Housing offers Sánchez an issue on which anger is directed not only at government but at landlords, property investors, regional authorities and political parties opposing stronger regulation. The eviction of Abascal gave that argument a human symbol and transformed a long-running affordability problem into an immediate political confrontation.

That does not mean the strategy will work.

Most polling continues to place the PSOE behind the PP. Surveys put the Socialists at roughly 28 per cent, while Vox has risen to around 18 per cent. A PP-Vox combination is currently the only bloc consistently projected to command an outright parliamentary majority. One Sigma Dos survey published after the election announcement projected the two parties winning 203 of the Congress’s 350 seats.

Sánchez therefore appears to be playing less for immediate dominance than for mobilisation.

His problem before the housing protests was not simply the strength of the right. The broader left had become fragmented, while the government was being damaged by disputes over migration, particularly following the crisis in Ceuta, as well as corruption investigations involving figures associated with the PSOE. At the same time, Junts had become an increasingly unreliable parliamentary partner, leaving the government unable to guarantee major legislation or a new budget.

Housing changes the subject.

It allows Sánchez to argue that the central question is not whether his coalition has governed smoothly, but whether voters want a parliament prepared to intervene more aggressively in the housing market. The PP, however, is contesting precisely that framing. Alberto Núñez Feijóo argues that the housing shortage is itself a product of Sánchez’s eight years in government and has promised to raise annual construction towards 200,000 homes while reducing taxes.

The election may therefore develop into a dispute over responsibility rather than diagnosis. Both sides accept that housing has become a major national problem; they differ sharply over whether regulation or additional supply should dominate the response.

There is also a wider European dimension. Housing affordability is increasingly politically disruptive across the EU, including in major cities where construction has failed to keep pace with household formation, migration and demand for short-term accommodation. EU Today has examined similar pressures in Berlin’s housing market. Spain could now provide a test of whether housing can become powerful enough as an electoral issue to reverse the wider European movement towards the right.

For Ukraine, however, the consequences are likely to be less dramatic than Spain’s domestic political contest might suggest.

Sánchez committed €1 billion in bilateral military support to Ukraine for 2026, with Spain putting its cumulative bilateral military assistance since Russia’s full-scale invasion at almost €4 billion. Madrid has also trained more than 9,000 Ukrainian military personnel.

Spain is also home to a considerably larger Ukrainian community than the roughly 300,000 figure frequently cited. Government data showed 353,009 Ukrainian nationals holding valid residence documentation at the end of June, including 262,782 under temporary protection.

A PP-led government would alter Madrid’s domestic priorities and potentially its approach to defence spending and migration, particularly if Vox were required to sustain a parliamentary majority. Yet there is little basis at present for assuming that a change of government would produce a reversal of Spain’s fundamental position on Russia’s invasion or membership of the European and Atlantic security structures supporting Ukraine.

The more immediate question is whether Sánchez can make housing important enough to overcome the electoral arithmetic confronting him.

Calling the election has allowed him to escape a parliament in which his legislative coalition was steadily disintegrating and to enter a campaign around an issue capable of mobilising his electorate. It has not changed the fact that the PP and Vox begin that campaign with the stronger numbers.

Sánchez has chosen the battlefield. On 29th November, Spain will decide whether that was enough.

Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight into 7 October, killing at least 11 people and injuring more than 30. Kyiv, Pryluky, Kremenchuk and several other cities were struck as Moscow used ballistic and cruise missiles alongside 130 attack drones, with energy infrastructure among the principal targets.

Russia fired 70 missiles and 130 drones at Ukraine during one of the largest combined aerial attacks of recent months, striking Kyiv and at least a dozen regions between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 11 people had been killed and 34 wounded in the attacks. He said energy infrastructure was among Russia’s principal targets and described ballistic missiles as the most difficult element of the assault for Ukrainian air defences. Reuters reported the remarks and casualty figures.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force’s preliminary assessment, the attack began at about 6pm on 6 October and involved a mixture of ballistic, anti-ship and cruise missiles launched from Russian territory, aircraft and the Caspian Sea. Russia also deployed 130 Shahed-type, Gerbera and decoy drones, including 46 jet-powered attack drones.

By 9am, Ukrainian forces said they had destroyed or electronically suppressed 161 aerial targets: 117 drones, 39 cruise missiles and five ballistic or other high-speed missiles. Six additional cruise missiles were still being assessed. Missile and drone impacts were recorded at 18 locations, while debris from intercepted weapons fell at another five.

The main directions of attack were the Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Residential buildings hit in Pryluky and Kyiv

Some of the heaviest civilian casualties were reported in Pryluky, in Chernihiv region, where a missile struck a multi-storey residential building. Emergency officials initially reported four people killed and 20 injured, including three children. Rescue teams continued searching the damaged structure on Wednesday morning. Associated Press reported on the rescue operation and casualties.

In Kyiv, ballistic missiles reached the capital during the night, with explosions reported shortly after 3am. Two people were killed. A non-residential building in the Podilskyi district was hit and caught fire, while garages burned in Darnytskyi district. The wider Kyiv region was simultaneously attacked by missiles and drones, damaging three production and warehouse facilities in the Obukhiv district.

Two people were also killed and seven wounded in Kremenchuk, in Poltava region, where missiles and drones struck the city and surrounding district. Damage was reported to residential buildings and an industrial facility. Further strikes were recorded in Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Oleksandriia.

Zelenskyy said Russia had deliberately sought to inflict serious damage on Ukraine’s energy system. “One of the key targets was our energy infrastructure,” he said, adding that further air-defence supplies had become an immediate requirement.

The attack came only hours after the Ukrainian president said intelligence services had obtained information indicating that Russia was preparing another major aerial operation. In his address on Tuesday evening, he urged Ukrainians to respond to air-raid warnings and said the country’s ability to withstand the expected attack would depend partly on the availability of Western-supplied defensive systems. His latest statements are available through the official presidential website.

The scale and composition of Wednesday’s barrage again exposed the pressure being placed on Ukraine’s layered air-defence network. EU Today has previously examined the shortage of Patriot interceptors capable of engaging ballistic missiles, which travel considerably faster than cruise missiles and drones and leave defence crews much less time to respond.

Russia’s use of different weapons within the same attack also forces Ukraine to employ several types of interception simultaneously. Cheap drones can be engaged by mobile fire groups, electronic warfare and interceptor drones, while ballistic missiles generally require more sophisticated systems such as Patriot.

Moscow’s Defence Ministry said its forces had carried out a “massive strike” using long-range precision weapons and drones against Ukrainian military-industrial facilities. It claimed that missile and drone production and storage sites, as well as port and ship-repair infrastructure, had been targeted. Those claims could not independently establish the nature of individual sites hit. Ukrainian authorities meanwhile documented damage to homes, businesses, energy facilities and other civilian infrastructure.

The overnight assault follows several weeks of intensified strikes as Ukraine approaches another winter under pressure on its power network. During German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to Kyiv at the weekend, Berlin announced a new assistance package of more than €1.3 billion, including military support and funding intended to help protect and repair the country’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

Wednesday’s attack demonstrated why those two areas — air defence and the resilience of the electricity system — have become increasingly closely connected. Even with more than 160 incoming weapons intercepted or suppressed, missiles and drones reached targets across several regions, leaving casualties and damage hundreds of kilometres apart.

Three armed men accompanying at least 20 migrants from Belarus threatened Latvian soldiers and attempted to force the group across the frontier, according to Latvia’s National Armed Forces.

Hours later, masked intruders crossed into Latvia, damaged an electrical distribution unit and stole surveillance cameras before retreating into Belarus.

Latvia has reported an unusually aggressive incident on its border with Belarus in which armed, masked men threatened Latvian troops during an attempted migrant crossing, followed several hours later by an incursion targeting surveillance infrastructure.

The confrontation began on Monday evening when at least 20 people approached the Latvian border from Belarus accompanied by three masked men. Latvia’s National Armed Forces said the escorts were armed, issued threats to Latvian soldiers and actively drove the migrants towards the frontier. Latvian troops prevented the group from entering the country.

Several hours later, masked individuals crossed from Belarus into Latvian territory and targeted equipment used to monitor the border. Interior Minister Jānis Dombrava said they damaged an electrical distribution cabinet and removed surveillance cameras before returning across the frontier ahead of the arrival of a Latvian border-guard unit. Latvian authorities have not publicly identified the intruders or established whether all of those involved in the second incident were the same men who had earlier accompanied the migrants.

Dombrava described the events as markedly more aggressive than previous episodes on the frontier. He warned that Belarus should understand that incidents of this kind could have “more serious consequences” for the country.

The episode comes amid sustained pressure on Latvia’s 172km border with Belarus. According to the Latvian State Border Guard’s latest figures, 21 people were prevented from crossing illegally from Belarus on Tuesday, taking the total number stopped at that frontier since the beginning of 2026 to 11,946.

Latvia has for several years treated irregular migration from Belarus not simply as an immigration issue but as a security operation. Riga accuses the Belarusian authorities of deliberately facilitating migrant movements towards the EU border as a means of exerting political pressure.

In January, the Latvian National Armed Forces published what it described as evidence of Belarusian state involvement in organising illegal crossings. The military said documented cases included migrants being transported in Belarusian military vehicles and Belarusian officials participating in operations to direct people towards Latvia. That earlier material does not, however, establish the identities or affiliation of those involved in this week’s armed confrontation.

Pressure on the frontier intensified during the summer. In July, Latvian soldiers used tear gas and fired a warning shot when a group attempting to enter from Belarus refused orders to withdraw and, according to Latvian authorities, threw logs towards security personnel.

The methods used to circumvent the fortified border have also become more elaborate. In August, border guards found Latvia’s first known tunnel used for an illegal crossing from Belarus after intercepting 15 people near Skrudaliena. A second tunnel was discovered nine days later near Krāslava after another 28 people crossed the frontier. The State Border Guard said both incidents formed part of the continuing pressure on Latvia’s eastern border.

Riga responded in August by launching Operation VILKATIS, bringing together border guards, police and the armed forces under a co-ordinated security operation. Surveillance drones and other military capabilities have been deployed to reinforce monitoring of the frontier.

On Tuesday, the same day Latvian authorities disclosed the latest confrontation, the government extended Operation VILKATIS until 31 December. The Cabinet described the instrumentalisation of migration by Belarus as a hybrid threat and said additional resources would continue to be used along the eastern border.

The involvement of armed escorts changes the immediate security calculation for Latvian personnel. Previous incidents have largely centred on migrants, smugglers and attempts to bypass physical barriers. This week’s episode included direct threats against serving soldiers, followed by an unauthorised crossing and deliberate interference with border-monitoring equipment.

Latvia has not publicly attributed the operation to a particular Belarusian military, security or border agency. The account released by Riga therefore establishes an armed incident originating from Belarusian territory, but not yet who ordered or organised it. For Latvia, however, it adds another element to a border that is already being managed as part of the country’s wider response to hybrid threats on NATO and the EU’s eastern flank.

Main Image: By Saeima – https://www.flickr.com/photos/saeima/53117747287/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=136391897

Growth potential across Central and Eastern Europe has fallen sharply from the levels seen around EU accession, with ageing populations, weak productivity, Chinese competition and slower German industry increasingly testing the region’s economic convergence.

The economic model that transformed Central and Eastern Europe after EU accession is losing momentum, according to the International Monetary Fund, which is warning governments that structural reforms are needed if the region is to continue narrowing the income gap with Western Europe.

Carlos Mulas-Granados, the IMF’s regional representative, said on Tuesday that medium-term growth potential across Central and Eastern Europe had declined to around 2.5 per cent, compared with roughly 5 per cent before countries in the region joined the European Union.

The slowdown does not mean that every economy is stagnating. Poland continues to grow faster than much of Western Europe, while the Czech economy has recovered from recent shocks. The concern is instead about the underlying rate at which these economies can expand once temporary fiscal stimulus, EU funding and post-crisis recoveries are stripped out.

Several of the forces behind the region’s earlier success are becoming weaker.

EU accession opened access to the single market, attracted foreign investment and integrated Poland, Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary deeply into European industrial supply chains. German manufacturers in particular moved production eastwards, taking advantage of lower labour costs, skilled workforces and geographic proximity.

That process generated rapid gains in productivity and incomes. It cannot simply be repeated.

Demographics are one of the most immediate constraints. Working-age populations are shrinking across much of the region while ageing increases spending requirements for pensions, health care and social support.

The IMF’s country assessments illustrate the problem. Its assessment of Poland says demographic pressures are mounting even as labour productivity remains comparatively strong, and calls for higher labour participation, better skills and deeper capital markets.

In Slovakia, the Fund expects growth of only 0.9 per cent this year and says adverse demographics and weaker productivity are weighing on the medium-term outlook. The economy remains particularly exposed to manufacturing and the automotive industry.

The Czech Republic faces a similar structural constraint. The IMF estimates its medium-term potential growth at around 1.8 per cent, with population ageing and modest productivity gains limiting further convergence.

External conditions have also changed.

Germany, the region’s principal industrial partner, has experienced prolonged weakness in manufacturing. Central European producers therefore face softer demand from the market around which many of their supply chains were originally built.

At the same time, China has moved from being primarily a source of imports and components to a direct competitor in sectors where Central Europe has substantial industrial exposure, including cars, batteries, machinery and electrical equipment.

That combination is particularly difficult for economies built around export-oriented manufacturing.

The problem overlaps with the wider European competitiveness debate. EU Today reported in July that only 15.7 per cent of the reforms recommended in Mario Draghi’s competitiveness report had been fully implemented at that stage, with important work still outstanding on capital markets, energy and investment.

For Central Europe, progress on those issues has a direct bearing on growth. Smaller national capital markets make it harder for companies to finance expansion. Fragmented energy systems add to industrial costs, while limited access to venture capital can restrict the development of businesses outside established manufacturing sectors.

There are significant differences between countries. Poland’s larger domestic market gives it more insulation from industrial weakness elsewhere and the IMF expects relatively strong growth. Hungary has faced a different combination of weak investment and fiscal constraints, while Slovakia’s dependence on car production leaves it particularly exposed to changes in the European automotive sector.

EU funding remains an important source of investment across the region, particularly for infrastructure and modernisation. But EU transfers cannot by themselves replace improvements in productivity.

The IMF’s argument is therefore less about an immediate recession than about the end of an unusually favourable period of convergence.

Central Europe entered the EU with lower wages, substantial scope to import Western technology and a powerful incentive for Western European manufacturers to move production eastwards. As those gaps narrow, future growth depends more heavily on innovation, skills, investment and domestic productivity.

The region is still converging with Western Europe. The question raised by the latest IMF warning is how quickly that process can continue once the economic advantages that powered its first two decades of EU membership become less powerful.

France will maintain controls on all its internal Schengen borders for another six months, adding to a growing network of national checks that has made temporary border control an increasingly persistent feature of Europe’s passport-free area.

France has notified the European Commission that it will extend controls at its internal Schengen borders from 1 November 2026 until 30 April 2027, maintaining checks with Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Spain and Italy as well as at relevant air and sea borders.

The notification, published in the Commission’s official register of temporary internal border controls, means the restrictions currently due to expire on 31 October will continue for another six months.

Paris cites a combination of security and migration concerns, including persistent jihadist threats, antisemitic attacks, organised migrant-smuggling networks and risks associated with irregular movements towards the Channel coast.

The French notification also refers to instability in the Middle East, Afghanistan and Somalia, Russia’s continuing war against Ukraine and security considerations surrounding the Paris Peace Forum on 10–11 November.

France is not alone.

Germany has extended controls on all of its land borders until 15 March 2027, citing irregular migration, migrant smuggling and pressure on its asylum system. Austria is maintaining controls on borders with Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia until the same date, while Poland has notified Brussels of checks on its borders with Germany and Lithuania through 30 March.

Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Italy also have temporary internal controls in force.

The expansion has created an increasingly complicated map inside an area established around the principle that people should normally be able to cross internal borders without routine checks.

EU Today has been following that change closely. In September, EU Today reported that Germany had extended checks on all nine of its land frontiers, while a subsequent examination found that temporary controls were spreading across the Schengen area.

The French extension takes that trend into spring 2027.

Under the Schengen Borders Code, governments retain the right to restore controls when they identify a serious threat to public policy or internal security. The Commission stresses that such action must remain exceptional, proportionate and limited to what is necessary.

The revised rules permit controls responding to a foreseeable threat for an initial period of up to six months, with extensions possible under defined conditions. Governments maintaining controls for extended periods must provide additional risk assessments and reporting.

There is therefore no legal contradiction between Schengen membership and temporary border checks. The political question concerns their frequency and duration.

In June, the European Commission had called for a gradual reduction in internal controls where conditions allowed. EU Today reported at the time that Brussels regarded the restoration of normal passport-free movement as possible in several countries.

The direction since then has largely been the opposite.

Migration remains one factor, but national notifications increasingly cite several threats simultaneously: terrorism, organised crime, Russian sabotage, war in Ukraine, Middle Eastern instability and pressure on asylum systems.

That makes it harder to identify a single event after which controls could simply be removed.

The system also creates practical consequences for cross-border regions. Millions of Europeans live in one Schengen state and work, study or conduct business in another. Selective checks can therefore cause delays even when passports are not examined systematically.

France’s controls are especially significant because of the number and economic importance of its neighbours. The extension covers land connections with six countries and internal air and sea routes.

It also comes as the EU operates new systems intended to strengthen the external Schengen frontier. Europe’s Entry/Exit System has introduced biometric registration for many non-EU travellers, while the migration and asylum pact has changed procedures for handling irregular arrivals.

The original political bargain behind Schengen was that stronger management of the common external frontier would support open internal borders.

The growing use of national internal controls shows that several governments remain unwilling to rely on that external system alone when confronted with migration, terrorism and wider security risks.

France’s latest notification is formally temporary. But by the time the new period expires on 30 April 2027, internal checks will have become a long-running feature of travel across several of Europe’s most important borders.

The European Commission is preparing to give fossil-fuel exporters another year of flexibility under the EU’s methane regime as Brussels responds to high energy prices, pressure on European refineries and concerns over security of supply.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced an additional year of flexibility for energy exporters facing new EU methane requirements, marking the latest adjustment to climate legislation as Brussels attempts to contain rising energy costs.

Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, von der Leyen said Europe remained exposed to high energy prices and volatile international fossil-fuel markets and confirmed that exporters would receive “one more year” to prepare for the methane rules.

She also announced a strategic dialogue with the European refining sector aimed at reducing costs and protecting supplies, according to the Commission’s published remarks.

The announcement affects a regulation that has increasingly become an energy-security issue rather than solely an emissions policy.

The EU’s Methane Regulation, adopted in 2024, introduced progressively stricter requirements for companies supplying oil, natural gas and coal to the European market. Importers have already been required to provide information about the origin of fuel and the systems used to measure and reduce methane emissions.

A more demanding stage was due from January 2027. Importers would have to demonstrate that fuel supplied under contracts concluded or renewed since August 2024 came from producers operating monitoring, reporting and verification systems equivalent to EU standards.

The rules are technically complex because European importers do not always buy directly from producers. Gas and oil may pass through traders, hubs, blending systems and several contractual relationships before reaching Europe.

The Commission’s own guidance for importers acknowledges those difficulties, particularly where companies must trace production information through complicated supply chains.

EU Today highlighted the problem in July, when an International Energy Agency assessment raised concerns that the rules could restrict Europe’s available oil supply. The dispute has since intensified because European fuel markets have become considerably tighter.

That pressure can also be seen in the cost of imported energy. EU Today reported last month that the value of EU petroleum imports had risen by 55.8 per cent in the second quarter of 2026 even though the physical volume purchased increased by only 1.2 per cent.

Von der Leyen’s intervention therefore comes against a different market background from the one in which the methane legislation was originally adopted.

The Commission has not abandoned its objective of reducing methane emissions from fossil-fuel production. Methane remains one of the most powerful greenhouse gases, and the regulation is intended to use the size of the European energy market to influence production standards outside the EU.

Instead, Brussels is attempting to adjust implementation so that regulatory requirements do not further restrict supply at a time of elevated energy prices.

The precise legal form of the additional year of flexibility has not yet been detailed in von der Leyen’s announcement. Existing requirements remain contained in Regulation (EU) 2024/1787, meaning that changes to deadlines or enforcement will have to be translated into the appropriate legal or administrative measures.

The Commission had already moved towards greater flexibility earlier this year. In July it issued recommendations designed to clarify contractual arrangements and advised national authorities on the application of penalties to importers while security-of-supply concerns persisted.

The broader problem is European energy competitiveness.

Von der Leyen told Parliament that Brussels intends to begin a strategic dialogue with refineries. European refining capacity has contracted over the longer term, leaving the continent more dependent on imported diesel and other finished petroleum products when individual plants close or external supply routes are disrupted.

The Commission is also expected to propose measures aimed at increasing electricity’s share of European energy consumption as part of its attempt to reduce dependence on imported fossil fuels.

The latest methane adjustment therefore fits a wider shift in Brussels. Climate targets remain formally intact, but implementation is increasingly being examined alongside energy prices, industrial competitiveness and the security of physical supplies.

The extra year gives exporters additional time. It also gives the Commission another year to resolve a question that has become much more urgent in 2026: how far Europe can tighten conditions on imported energy while remaining heavily dependent on those imports.

The European Commission has proposed new safeguards allowing voting rights and funding to be restricted if future EU members breach fundamental European rules after accession, as Brussels prepares for possible membership of Ukraine, Moldova, Albania and Montenegro.

The European Commission has set out a new framework for enlargement that would allow the European Union to impose restrictions on recently admitted countries for up to 15 years after accession if they retreat from commitments on democracy, the rule of law or other fundamental EU principles.

The measures form part of the Commission’s new pre-enlargement policy review, published on Tuesday, which examines how the EU’s institutions, budget and policies would have to change before another round of expansion. Brussels says the Union could accommodate additional members without rewriting its treaties, but would need stronger safeguards to prevent enlargement from making decision-making more difficult.

Under the proposals, accession treaties could contain an institutional safeguard allowing action against a new member that seriously breaches the values contained in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union or the principle of sincere cooperation. In the most serious cases, Council voting rights could be suspended.

The Commission’s public summary describes those arrangements as temporary, targeted and reversible. Reporting on the underlying proposal indicates that the enhanced safeguard could remain available during the first 15 years of membership.

The proposal addresses a problem that has moved steadily up the enlargement agenda: how to ensure that a country continues to meet membership conditions after it has entered the EU.

Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had already raised the issue earlier this year. As EU Today reported in June, the five governments called for mechanisms capable of restricting some rights of new members if democratic standards deteriorated after accession.

The Commission has now turned that political argument into a wider institutional proposal.

The change is particularly relevant to Ukraine, Moldova, Montenegro and Albania, which Brussels identifies as the four candidates currently furthest advanced. The Commission says it will prepare indicative roadmaps for each country provided reform momentum continues.

Ukraine and Moldova may also make further progress within days. EU Today reported earlier on Tuesday that two more negotiating clusters could potentially be opened next week if Ukraine’s parliament passes legislation dealing with minority-language education.

Alongside stronger rule-of-law safeguards, the Commission wants candidate states to be integrated gradually into parts of the EU before full membership. Energy, transport, digital policy and defence are among the sectors identified for deeper participation.

Brussels is also proposing greater use of qualified-majority voting during the accession process, including for decisions to open negotiating clusters. At present, individual governments can delay progress at several stages because unanimity is required.

Another proposed safeguard would require a newly admitted state, for a limited period, not to block subsequent enlargements because of bilateral disputes. The measure reflects long-standing difficulties in the Western Balkans, where disputes between neighbouring states have repeatedly entered accession negotiations.

Ukraine’s agricultural sector presents a separate challenge. The Commission says transitional arrangements could be used for agriculture, sensitive products, EU funding, the movement of workers and participation in common systems. Reporting on the package indicates that unrestricted access by Ukraine to existing Common Agricultural Policy support is unlikely immediately upon accession because of the scale of Ukrainian farming.

That question is politically important for existing agricultural beneficiaries, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, where Ukrainian grain and food imports have already caused disputes.

The institutional proposals do not guarantee membership for any candidate. Accession remains dependent on meeting the EU acquis, completing negotiations and obtaining the agreement of existing member states.

Nor has the 15-year safeguard yet become EU law. The Commission has asked the European Council and European Parliament to take forward discussions, and the eventual provisions would have to be reflected in future accession arrangements.

What has changed is the shape of the enlargement debate. Brussels is no longer concentrating solely on what candidate countries must do before joining. It is also designing mechanisms governing what happens after they enter.

For Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans, that could produce a more credible path towards membership, but one accompanied by conditions extending well beyond accession itself.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs has been given the political mandate to begin forming the country’s next government after his United List alliance secured 41 of the 100 seats in the Saeima. President Edgars Rinkēvičs backed Kulbergs to lead coalition negotiations on Tuesday following consultations with all six political forces elected to parliament.

Kulbergs will now negotiate the composition of the coalition, the division of ministerial responsibilities and the programme of the next government. The formal constitutional nomination cannot take place until the newly elected Saeima convenes on 3 November and the present government relinquishes its mandate.

Announcing the decision on 6 October, Rinkēvičs said consultations with the incoming parliamentary parties had shown broad support for United List and Kulbergs taking the initiative. The President described the party’s 41-seat showing as an unusually strong mandate and said he expected substantial progress in coalition negotiations before the beginning of November. The President’s full statement following the consultations.

Rinkēvičs said he would like to see a new Cabinet formed by Latvia’s national day on 18 November, although he stressed that there was no formal deadline. The government will also need to begin work rapidly on the 2027 budget.

United List almost triples its representation

According to the provisional results published by Latvia’s Central Election Commission, United List received 283,892 votes, or 35.29 per cent, giving it 41 seats.

Latvia First finished second with 13.08 per cent and 17 seats, while Sovereign Power/Alliance of Young Latvians took 11.71 per cent and 15 seats. The National Alliance won 10 seats with 8.90 per cent, the Progressives also secured 10 with 7.88 per cent, and New Unity took seven seats on 6.36 per cent.

The result represents a substantial change from the 2022 parliamentary election, when United List won 11.14 per cent and 15 seats. New Unity was then the largest party with 26 seats; it has now fallen to seven. The Union of Greens and Farmers, which won 16 seats in 2022 and joined Kulbergs’s government earlier this year, received just 4.40 per cent this time and failed to cross the five per cent threshold.

United List has indicated that its first choice is to negotiate with the National Alliance and New Unity. Together, the three parties would command 58 seats, providing Kulbergs with a clear parliamentary majority. A narrower United List–National Alliance coalition would have 51 seats.

The choice of prospective partners points towards continuity rather than a major change in Latvia’s foreign or security policy. United List, the National Alliance and New Unity have all backed continued support for Ukraine, membership of NATO and higher defence expenditure.

Kulbergs became prime minister only in May following the collapse of Evika Siliņa’s government during a political crisis over Latvia’s response to repeated drone incursions. The government he subsequently formed brought together United List, New Unity, the National Alliance and the Union of Greens and Farmers.

The October election campaign was consequently dominated by national security, drone threats and the war in Ukraine, alongside domestic concerns over household finances and the economy. Kulbergs entered the election seeking his own mandate after only several months in office.

Security policy set for continuity

Latvia’s position on NATO’s north-eastern flank has given defence policy an unusually prominent place in domestic politics. The country borders both Russia and Belarus and has faced a series of drone incidents, border pressure and Russian information operations.

Earlier this year, Latvia’s intelligence service warned that Russia was increasingly viewing Latvia in terms similar to those it applied to Ukraine before the full-scale invasion. At the same time, Latvia has had to respond to unmanned aircraft crossing its territory from Russian airspace, incidents which contributed directly to the collapse of the previous government.

Russia subsequently alleged that Ukraine was preparing attacks from Latvian territory, an accusation rejected by Riga. The dispute further sharpened concern that drone incidents could be used to generate a wider confrontation involving a NATO member state.

Defence spending is therefore unlikely to be substantially altered by the coalition negotiations. Latvia’s 2026 defence budget stands at €2.16 billion, currently calculated at 4.73 per cent of projected GDP, with the government moving towards expenditure equivalent to five per cent. Rinkēvičs said after Tuesday’s consultations that he had heard a clear commitment among the parliamentary parties to maintaining the country’s security, defence and foreign-policy course.

Turnout reaches record low

The size of United List’s parliamentary victory contrasts with a marked decline in electoral participation. The Central Election Commission recorded 806,641 voters from an electorate of 1.56 million, producing turnout of 51.79 per cent. Detailed election figures show that 793,846 valid ballots were ultimately counted.

Turnout in the 2022 parliamentary election was 59.41 per cent, meaning participation fell by more than seven percentage points.

The immediate question in Riga is therefore no longer who will lead the government-building process, but what form Kulbergs’s second administration will take. With 41 seats of his own and potential partners able to provide a comfortable majority, the election winner enters the negotiations from a considerably stronger position than any Latvian prime minister in recent years.

Marine Le Pen has set out plans to cut French public spending by €140 billion by 2032, reduce the deficit and impose a constitutional constraint on future borrowing, placing France’s deteriorating public finances at the centre of the campaign for the 2027 presidential election.

Marine Le Pen has presented a five-year fiscal programme under which a National Rally administration would seek €140 billion in net savings by 2032, restore France’s primary budget balance within 18 months and bring the headline deficit back below the European Union’s three per cent threshold by 2030.

The proposals, presented on Tuesday as Le Pen outlined the financial trajectory she would pursue during a presidential term, come as France faces rising borrowing costs and a public debt ratio approaching 120 per cent of GDP.

The scale of the problem was underlined on the same day by France’s Directorate-General of the Treasury. Its latest report on public debt projects the debt ratio at 119.3 per cent of GDP this year before rising to 121.7 per cent in 2027. Debt stood at 115.7 per cent at the end of 2025.

EU Today has already reported that French borrowing costs and concerns over the sustainability of the country’s finances have begun to weigh on the euro and widen the gap between French and German government bond yields.

Le Pen’s programme is therefore aimed not only at French voters but at financial markets increasingly focused on whether Paris can prevent debt from continuing to rise.

According to the proposals outlined on Tuesday, spending reductions would be concentrated heavily in the first three years of a Le Pen presidency. She would also seek to introduce what she calls a constitutional “golden rule”, requiring successive governments to reduce the budget deficit each year.

The measure would be put to a referendum and is intended to make deficit reduction binding beyond an individual government’s annual budget decisions.

Le Pen has also proposed reducing France’s public debt to around 112 per cent of GDP by 2032. That would reverse the trajectory currently expected by the French government, although the National Rally’s assumptions would depend on its ability to deliver the proposed savings and on economic growth during the next presidential term.

Among the most politically significant proposals is a plan to restrict France’s net contribution to the EU budget to €5 billion. The party argues that some European spending should instead be financed through harmonised taxes on products such as tobacco and alcohol.

Le Pen also expects substantial savings from tighter immigration controls and the introduction of the National Rally’s proposed “national preference” rules for access to parts of the welfare system. Her programme estimates that measures connected with immigration could eventually produce savings of as much as €29 billion annually.

Other elements include changes to pension policy, reductions in corporate and energy taxation, measures against VAT fraud, the abolition of more than 120 taxes and a reduction in the number of state agencies.

The programme marks an attempt by Le Pen to make fiscal policy a central part of a campaign that has until now been dominated largely by immigration, security and questions surrounding France’s political fragmentation.

The timing is significant. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s government has itself introduced a difficult fiscal consolidation programme. The 2027 budget presented by the Finance Ministry envisages €54 billion in measures to improve the public finances, including €43 billion contained directly in the state and social-security budgets.

The government expects the deficit to fall from 5.4 per cent of GDP in 2026 to five per cent next year. It forecasts growth of only 0.5 per cent this year before a recovery to one per cent in 2027.

The debt burden is becoming increasingly costly. Interest payments are expected to reach €91.2 billion in 2027, up from €79.2 billion this year, according to the Finance Ministry. By 2030, total public-sector interest costs are projected to reach 3.7 per cent of GDP.

That gives the presidential campaign an economic dimension that is difficult to separate from France’s relationship with Brussels. Paris remains subject to EU fiscal rules requiring a gradual reduction in its deficit, while any attempt to reduce the French contribution to the EU budget would require negotiations with the other member states.

Le Pen enters that debate from a strong electoral position. Recent polling examined by EU Today has placed her ahead in first-round scenarios for 2027, although the final field remains unsettled. EU Today reported in September that Le Pen was polling between 33 and 36 per cent depending on her opponents.

Her latest intervention shifts part of the campaign onto terrain traditionally associated with the centre-right: public spending, debt and the credibility of France’s finances.

With the government attempting to secure parliamentary support for its own austerity measures and French borrowing costs under closer scrutiny, the question of how the country pays for the state is now moving towards the centre of the contest to succeed Emmanuel Macron.

 

It was poor old Greece who drew the short straw. It chairs the UN Security Council this month and it’s fallen to them to chair the Council’s extra-sticky deliberations this coming Thursday on whether—as the United States is proposing—to extend the arms embargo on Sudan to the whole of the country. 

If the current embargo, currently covering Darfur, is of any practical effect, that would be in favour the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF); their supply lines are easier. That would change under a countrywide embargo, and the regime led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan naturally argue that the proposed extension would deny a ‘sovereign government’ a right to defend its people, its borders, and its own existence. 

But the issue isn’t whether Sudan has a right to exist or to protect civilians. It is whether the combatants who have made Sudan ungovernable should continue to receive external military support without meaningful restraints. The answer, say the United States, the United Kingdom and France, must be no. However, fortunately for Burhan, it’s a da from Russia and a semi-da and a raised eyebrow from China, neither of whom are especially squeamish about aggressive population control measures. 

So if the pro-extensionists are to make any headway on a countrywide UN arms embargo, they are going to have to make, and carry the day on, some fine distinctions. 

To begin with, a countrywide embargo would not settle the question of who represents Sudan at the United Nations. But it would recognise that neither the SAF nor the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) should enjoy an unlimited licence to import the means to continue a ruinous civil war.

There is an important distinction between a state’s standing in the UN and the rights claimed by those who temporarily wield power within that state. Sudan remains a member state. It has a seat in the General Assembly. Burhan and his minions continue turning up and claiming to speak in Sudan’s name. 

None of that would necessarily change in the face of an arms embargo extending across the whole of Sudan. The Security Council would not be making a determination regarding Burhan’s or the SAF’s legitimacy. Recognition, credentials, representation—these are all distinct matters decided elsewhere and by other means. 

The Council’s job is something else. It’s not dealing with constitutional niceties; it’s dealing with the life and death issues of international peace and security. If weapons are feeding a conflict and threatening civilians in a territory or state, it can restrict the transfer of arms to that state or territory without stripping it of its international legal personality. Sanctions are not derecognition. What they do recognise is that in some circumstances, stopping the bloodshed take precedence over any right to buy arms. 

A nationwide embargo would establish at least this much: that the SAF and the RSF are both belligerents. The SAF may be commanded by General Burhan and presently in control of the state’s formal institutions; the RSF may be a paramilitary force with its own commercial interests, territorial ambitions and record of atrocities. But neither distinction entitles either side to decide Sudan’s future at gunpoint. According to the UN Charter we are not supposed to be living in a world where political legitimacy is determined by the military power at your disposal.

The SAF’s claim to sovereignty cannot mean an unconstrained right to acquire weapons while the country is being torn apart. The RSF’s local control, meanwhile, cannot be converted into international entitlement by force, atrocity or the occupation of territory. Both forces are armed parties to a conflict. Both draw sustenance from external supplies. Both have strong incentives to believe that, if they can secure the next shipment, the next drone or the next patron, a military decision remains possible.

It’s this kind of calculation that the Security Council has to disrupt.

All that said, an embargo alone can’t bring peace. Sudan needs a ceasefire now, with humanitarian access protected, credible monitoring of violations and a civilian-led political process that gives Sudanese people — not rival generals — the authority to determine their country’s future.

But if both sides believe more arms may tilt the balance then a ceasefire becomes harder to achieve. An embargo changes that calculation. It increases the cost and risk of resupply, makes foreign sponsors more visible, and tells commanders that time is no longer automatically on the side of whichever force can secure a fresh consignment.

That is why this measure matters. It’s nowhere near a magic bullet but it would at least narrow the military options of the SAF and RSF alike, improve the prospects for a ceasefire, and more create political space for civilians to reclaim their state. 

Two merchant vessels have been attacked by aerial and maritime drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea, sinking one ship and forcing the evacuation of another. The incident follows a deadly attack on a grain carrier off Romania a day earlier and has prompted concern over the growing risks to civilian shipping close to EU and NATO territory.

Two commercial vessels were struck by drones in Bulgaria’s exclusive economic zone early on Tuesday, 6 October, in the first known attack of its kind on merchant shipping in Bulgarian waters.

The Togo-flagged ALFA WATAN suffered severe structural damage and sank, while the Palau-flagged ABLE caught fire. Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the vessels were attacked at around 3am by both aerial and maritime drones about 70 nautical miles east of the coastal town of Byala. The Bulgarian government said a search-and-rescue operation was continuing for the crew of the ALFA WATAN, whose fate remained unknown.

All 18 people aboard the ABLE were rescued after abandoning the burning vessel. The Bulgarian-flagged passenger and freight ferry DIOSCURIA was diverted to the area and initially took the crew on board before Bulgarian Navy and Border Police vessels transferred them towards Varna.

The crew comprised 11 Turkish and seven Indian nationals. Two sailors were taken to hospital, including an Indian crew member suffering from burns and the Turkish captain, who sustained a head injury. Bulgarian public broadcaster BNT reported that the remaining 16 sailors subsequently arrived safely in Varna for medical checks.

The ABLE was reportedly carrying grain towards Istanbul. The cargo aboard the ALFA WATAN, which had been heading north towards Romania, has not been officially established.

Radev convened an emergency meeting involving the ministries of defence, interior, transport and environment, alongside the presidency and Bulgaria’s security services. He described the attack as an unacceptable violation of international and maritime law and warned of its effect on commercial navigation in the Black Sea.

Bulgarian authorities have not publicly identified who launched the drones. Investigations are examining both the weapons used and the circumstances surrounding the attack. One rescued Turkish sailor told Bulgarian television that he believed the ABLE had been hit by a Russian underwater drone, but that account has not been independently established and Sofia has made no formal attribution.

Foreign Minister Velislava Petrova said Bulgaria was in contact with its European and NATO partners and described Black Sea security as inseparable from wider European security. She said civilian crews and freedom of navigation must be protected and that Bulgaria would work with its allies to assess the wider consequences for maritime security.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also condemned attacks against civilian shipping, saying the situation in the Black Sea was becoming increasingly concerning. She said commercial vessels and their crews were being targeted as investigations continued into the latest incidents.

Tuesday’s attack came less than 24 hours after another commercial vessel caught fire and sank in Romania’s exclusive economic zone. The Turkish-owned Royad Mammadov, sailing under the flag of Saint Kitts and Nevis, had left the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail carrying corn for Ravenna in Italy.

Romanian authorities confirmed that two people died and 11 crew members were rescued. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the vessel had been struck by two Russian drones, although Romanian authorities did not themselves publicly attribute the incident to Russia.

The two incidents in consecutive days mark a further geographical expansion of the risks facing commercial shipping in the western Black Sea. EU Today has previously reported how strikes near Romania have moved maritime war risks closer to NATO territory, while a separate maritime drone explosion at Constanța raised questions over the ability of coastal states to detect and respond to unmanned systems approaching commercial infrastructure.

The distinction between territorial waters and an exclusive economic zone remains important. The attacks occurred outside Bulgaria’s territorial sea and therefore do not amount simply to an attack on Bulgarian territory. They nevertheless took place in an area where Bulgaria has internationally recognised economic rights and responsibilities, including search-and-rescue and environmental obligations.

The immediate concern for Sofia is the search for the missing crew of the ALFA WATAN and the possibility of pollution from the wreck. The wider concern for the EU is the increasingly exposed position of civilian shipping routes linking Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Ukraine’s maritime export routes remain particularly important for agricultural trade. Repeated attacks on merchant vessels can increase insurance premiums, discourage shipowners from entering the region and raise transport costs even when ports themselves remain operational. Russian attacks on Odesa and its export infrastructure have already placed Ukraine’s Black Sea grain corridor under sustained pressure.

With merchant ships now struck in the economic zones of both Romania and Bulgaria on consecutive days, Black Sea maritime security has moved further onto the agenda of EU and NATO governments along the western coast.

A large fire has broken out at the Volodarskaya petroleum-products station outside Moscow following an extensive overnight drone attack. The facility occupies an important position in the pipeline network supplying petrol, diesel and aviation fuel to the Russian capital and its principal airports.

A major fire was reported at the Volodarskaya linear production and dispatch station in Moscow region early on Tuesday, bringing Ukraine’s campaign against Russian fuel infrastructure to another important point in the capital’s supply network.

Footage published from the area around Konstantinovo showed a substantial blaze at the facility, with reports from local residents that storage tanks were burning. The material identified the site as the Volodarskaya station, operated by Transneft-Upper Volga and connected to the petroleum-products network serving the Moscow region.

The extent of the damage was not immediately clear. There had been no detailed assessment from Transneft by Tuesday morning establishing whether pumping equipment, pipelines or only storage facilities had been affected. This distinction will determine whether the attack produces a temporary disruption or a more significant problem for Moscow’s fuel distribution system.

The strike formed part of a large overnight drone attack on Moscow and surrounding districts. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported repeated interceptions of drones approaching the capital, while air-defence activity continued across Moscow region. Russian aviation authorities temporarily restricted operations at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky airports for flight-safety reasons.

There is no evidence at this stage that the airport restrictions resulted from fuel shortages. They were imposed during the drone attack itself. The longer-term significance of Volodarskaya lies instead in the station’s role within the pipeline and storage infrastructure serving the Russian capital.

A major link in Moscow’s fuel network

Volodarskaya is connected to Moscow’s ring petroleum-products pipeline, through which petrol, diesel and aviation kerosene can be moved between refineries, storage facilities and major consumers.

Its importance is documented by Transneft itself. In 2024, the company said it had returned a 32-kilometre petroleum-products pipeline between the Moscow refinery and Volodarskaya to operation as part of a project to increase fuel deliveries across Moscow region.

According to the company’s figures, the project allowed aviation-fuel deliveries to Moscow’s airports to rise almost twofold, to as much as three million tonnes a year. Potential diesel deliveries to Moscow region consumers increased to 2.8 million tonnes annually, while petrol volumes reached 1.6 million tonnes. Transneft specifically identified Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo as airports supplied through the expanded system.

Transneft has also expanded storage at Volodarskaya. The company previously said it had commissioned additional petroleum-product tanks at the station to support fuel supplies to Moscow and aviation-fuel transportation to the capital’s airports.

Those figures do not mean that every litre of fuel consumed by Moscow depends on Volodarskaya. Russia can move petroleum products by rail and road, and the Moscow region has other storage and distribution facilities. But replacing pipeline volumes on the scale handled by the Moscow system would place additional demands on those alternatives, particularly if disruption were prolonged.

The attack also follows repeated Ukrainian strikes against refining infrastructure supplying European Russia. On 20 September, EU Today reported that a mass drone attack had hit the Moscow Oil Refinery at Kapotnya, one of the main fuel-processing plants serving the capital. The strike reportedly affected its ELOU-AVT-6 primary processing unit, increasing pressure on a refinery that had already been targeted earlier in the year.

The broader campaign has moved beyond individual refineries. Ukraine has increasingly targeted different stages of Russia’s energy system, including storage depots, pumping infrastructure, ports and export terminals. Earlier attacks on the Omsk refinery and Baltic export infrastructure illustrated Kyiv’s effort to put pressure on both domestic fuel processing and the logistics through which Russian oil reaches international markets.

That approach is intended to force Russia to repair several parts of the system simultaneously rather than simply compensate for the temporary loss of production at one refinery. EU Today has previously examined how sustained strikes can put physical pressure on Russia’s oil economy where sanctions alone have limits.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on 3 October that Ukraine intended to intensify attacks on Russian oil refineries in response to Moscow’s continuing strikes against Ukrainian cities, while maintaining that Ukrainian operations would not deliberately target civilians.

Volodarskaya adds another element to that campaign. A refinery converts crude oil into usable fuels; a pumping and storage station determines how those products reach consumers. Damaging one without the other may create disruption that can be bypassed. Sustained damage to both processing and distribution infrastructure is more difficult to compensate for.

Much therefore depends on what happened inside Volodarskaya overnight. If the damage is confined to several storage tanks, the Moscow fuel network may be able to absorb the loss. Damage to pumping installations or pipeline connections would have wider consequences, particularly if the facility is attacked repeatedly.

The strike nevertheless demonstrates that a fuel installation closely connected to Moscow’s aviation and transport system can be reached despite the dense air-defence network surrounding the capital. The scale of its effect will become clearer once satellite imagery and operational information show which parts of the Volodarskaya complex were actually damaged.

Britain has vowed that Russia will be held accountable for alleged war crimes committed during its invasion of Ukraine, as evidence continues to accumulate of torture, disappearances, executions and the deportation of Ukrainian children.

Speaking at the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, James Ford, the UK’s Deputy Ambassador to the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), warned that more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, the suffering of Ukrainian civilians showed little sign of abating.

The British intervention was notable not simply for its condemnation of Moscow, but for its emphasis on ensuring that evidence is preserved for future prosecutions.

According to the UK Government, more than 260,000 alleged war crimes have now been recorded. Britain says it will continue working with Ukraine to document violations and support international mechanisms intended to pursue those responsible.

Evidence gathered by the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the United Nations and expert missions operating under the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism paints a grim picture.

Investigators have recorded accounts of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment, conflict-related sexual violence and what Britain described as fabricated prosecutions of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.

Particularly disturbing is the fate of Ukrainian children. International investigators have documented the unlawful transfer and deportation of children from Ukraine, together with attempts to alter their identities and subject them to programmes of militarisation and indoctrination. Reports have also detailed alleged executions, sexual violence and widespread mistreatment of Ukrainian prisoners of war.

These are allegations that reach considerably further than the brutality inevitable in any major war. Taken collectively, they raise fundamental questions about the systematic conduct of Russian forces and authorities in occupied Ukrainian territory.

Bucha and Irpin remain synonymous with the horrors uncovered following Russia’s withdrawal from areas around Kyiv in 2022. As Mr Ford told the conference, the international community has not forgotten either city — nor the countless other Ukrainian communities affected since.

Nor is this merely a reckoning with crimes of the past. Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities intensified sharply during the summer. The British Government said August witnessed record numbers of jet-powered drone attacks and near-record numbers of ballistic missile strikes. July and August produced the two highest monthly civilian casualty totals of 2026.

During the first eight months of this year, civilian casualties were 55 per cent higher than during the equivalent period in 2025.

The approaching winter brings another threat. Moscow has signalled its intention to step up large-scale attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, raising the prospect that millions could again face disruption to electricity, heating and essential services as temperatures fall.

Britain’s message in Warsaw was therefore that accountability cannot wait until the fighting is over.

London is supporting several mechanisms intended to transform the collection of evidence into eventual justice. These include the International Criminal Court, the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine and the Register of Damage, which records claims arising from Russia’s invasion.

Wars are inevitably followed by political pressure to move on, negotiate compromises and rebuild relations. But a lasting settlement in Ukraine will have to confront the uncomfortable question of whether peace can genuinely be durable if those responsible for the gravest alleged crimes believe they will never face consequences.

Britain argues that Moscow itself holds the key to ending the bloodshed. Ukraine, it says, has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to pursue peace, while Russia has intensified its attacks.

The UK is consequently demanding that Russia accept a full and unconditional ceasefire, enter serious negotiations in good faith and commit itself to a just and lasting settlement.

That demand carries a wider significance. The war in Ukraine is not merely a struggle over territory. It has become a test of whether borders may be redrawn by military force and whether the laws governing armed conflict retain meaning when confronted by a major power prepared to disregard them.

The documentation now taking place may therefore prove almost as important as events on the battlefield. For Moscow, the calculation may once have been that time would eventually encourage the West to forget. Britain’s message was unmistakable: it will not.

EU Sanctions Russian and North Korean Organisations Over Deportation of Ukrainian Children

Moscow has again told foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv before further Russian strikes. The embassies have stayed. The episode exposes a broader Russian objective: turning military pressure on Ukraine’s capital into political and diplomatic retreat by its Western partners.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry renewed its warning to foreign diplomats and other foreign nationals on 3 October, urging them to leave Kyiv and saying Russian forces would continue large-scale strikes against targets in the Ukrainian capital and elsewhere. The warning said those who remained were exposing themselves to “mortal danger”, while Moscow sought to place responsibility for any consequences on the individuals and governments choosing to remain.

The military threat behind that warning is not theoretical. Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv have intensified, striking transport infrastructure, energy facilities and residential districts. EU Today has documented a succession of such attacks, including a September missile and drone barrage that killed three people and damaged residential and public buildings and a later jet-powered drone strike on the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv. Air alerts and attacks on the capital are now a routine part of the security environment in which foreign missions operate.

The significance of Moscow’s latest statement, however, goes beyond the question of physical safety. By telling foreign governments that their diplomats should leave and suggesting that those who stay must accept the consequences, Russia is attempting to change the political calculation surrounding Kyiv. If Western states began moving their embassies to Lviv or across the border into Poland, Moscow would have achieved something that continued military pressure has so far failed to deliver: a visible reduction in the international diplomatic presence in the Ukrainian capital.

That has not happened. Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry says it has received no request or notification from a foreign diplomatic mission indicating that it intends to relocate. Reports that some Western governments have considered contingency arrangements appear to concern emergency planning rather than decisions to withdraw, which is hardly surprising for embassies operating in a capital subjected to repeated missile and drone attacks. The distinction is important because preparing evacuation options is standard risk management; implementing them would be a political signal.

The European Union has gone further than simply denying evacuation plans. EU Ambassador Katarína Mathernová said that the EU Delegation, the EU Advisory Mission and all 25 EU member states maintaining embassies in Kyiv would remain in the capital. Her response was deliberately public, making clear that the Russian warning would not alter the diplomatic footprint of the EU or its member states in Ukraine.

Moscow has tried this before. In May, Russia issued a similar warning to diplomats and foreign nationals, prompting Brussels to summon the Russian chargé d’affaires. EU Today reported at the time that European officials viewed the warning as a threat against the foreign diplomatic community in Kyiv. Mathernová subsequently said that the EU would remain in Kyiv despite Russia’s renewed warnings, describing the pressure as an attempt to generate fear and isolate Ukraine.

The October warning has produced much the same result. One day later, Chancellor Friedrich Merz travelled to Kyiv, accompanied by Economy Minister Katherina Reiche and a German business delegation. His arrival was particularly difficult to reconcile with suggestions that European governments were preparing to abandon the capital. EU Today reported that the visit brought more than €1.3 billion in new German defence and energy commitments, while the German government presented the trip as a demonstration of continuing support for Ukraine.

Washington has taken a similar position. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States would make its own assessment of whether it was safe for American diplomats to remain in Kyiv and noted that Russia had been issuing such warnings for months. The US embassy has continued operating, while the State Department has maintained its highest-level travel warning for American citizens because of the continuing war. That distinction — between advising private citizens not to travel and maintaining an official diplomatic presence — reflects the different responsibilities involved.

There is also a legal dimension to Moscow’s attempt to shift responsibility. Russian statements create the impression that once diplomats have been warned, the consequences of any subsequent attack fall on those who chose to stay. International law does not support such an interpretation. The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations establishes the inviolability of diplomatic premises and personnel, although the immediate obligation to protect foreign missions rests principally with Ukraine as the receiving state.

Russia’s conduct of military operations is governed primarily by international humanitarian law. Diplomats remain civilians, while diplomatic buildings remain civilian objects unless they are being used in circumstances that would make them military objectives. Warnings can form part of an attacker’s obligation to take precautions, but they do not transfer legal responsibility to civilians who remain in place. The International Committee of the Red Cross makes clear that civilians who stay after an advance warning continue to enjoy protection, and an attacking force must still comply with the rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions.

That legal point is relevant because the wording used by Moscow appears designed to establish a different political narrative. Russia can warn foreign governments that further strikes are coming, but such warnings cannot provide advance immunity for the way those attacks are conducted. Nor do they relieve Russia of responsibility if attacks unlawfully damage civilian or diplomatic property.

The continued presence of embassies in Kyiv also has practical significance for Ukraine. Foreign missions give governments direct access to Ukrainian institutions and their own assessment of political, military and economic conditions on the ground. Their diplomats meet ministers, military officials, civil society representatives and businesses, reducing governments’ dependence on second-hand reporting and allowing them to judge developments for themselves.

Relocating those missions would therefore have consequences beyond symbolism. Diplomatic relations could continue from Lviv, Warsaw or elsewhere, but Moscow would inevitably portray any large-scale withdrawal from Kyiv as evidence that foreign governments no longer regarded the Ukrainian capital as sustainable as a diplomatic centre. That helps explain why European governments have answered the latest warning so publicly and why maintaining a visible presence has itself become part of the political response.

Russia has increasingly sought to combine physical attacks with wider political effects. Its missile and drone campaign places pressure on Ukraine’s electricity system, transport network, air defences and civilian population. The warnings to foreign missions extend the same logic to Ukraine’s international relationships: increase the perceived cost of remaining in Kyiv and encourage foreign governments to reduce their presence.

So far, that strategy has not produced the intended result. The EU says all of its embassies are staying, Germany’s Chancellor travelled to Kyiv immediately after the warning and Washington has made clear that it will take its own decisions about the security of its mission. Russia can make the Ukrainian capital more dangerous, but it has not persuaded Ukraine’s principal partners to treat Kyiv as a city they must leave.

The euro fell to its lowest level against the dollar since May 2025 on Monday as investors reacted to rising French borrowing costs, political uncertainty and doubts over Paris’s ability to stabilise its public finances before next year’s presidential election.

The euro fell to a 17-month low against the US dollar on Monday as renewed pressure on French government debt raised concern over the fiscal position of the eurozone’s second-largest economy.

The single currency dropped as far as $1.116 during trading, its weakest level since May 2025, before recovering part of the fall. By late Monday it was trading at around $1.121, still lower on the day.

The move followed a sharp sell-off in French government bonds and a widening gap between French and German borrowing costs.

According to market data published on Monday, the spread between French government debt and equivalent German Bunds had approached 160 basis points on Friday, its widest level since the eurozone sovereign-debt crisis in 2011.

The gap subsequently narrowed, but the scale of the movement has drawn attention back to France’s public finances.

French debt is already close to 120 per cent of gross domestic product and is expected to continue rising.

Investors are now assessing whether Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s minority government can secure sufficient parliamentary support for measures intended to put the budget on a more sustainable path.

That challenge is becoming more difficult as France approaches its 2027 presidential election.

Spending cuts and tax increases are politically sensitive even under stable parliamentary conditions. Lecornu’s administration does not have an outright majority in the National Assembly, while opposition parties have challenged several elements of the government’s fiscal programme.

The French economy itself is providing little additional room.

Revised national accounts examined by EU Today showed that the economy failed to grow during the second quarter, while household purchasing power weakened and investment declined.

Slower growth makes deficit reduction harder because tax revenues tend to grow more slowly while welfare and debt-servicing costs remain high.

Bond markets have also changed the calculation.

For much of the period following the eurozone debt crisis, France was able to borrow at historically low rates. Higher interest rates now mean maturing debt has to be refinanced at greater cost.

France’s debt burden is therefore rising at the same time as the price of servicing it increases.

The euro’s fall on Monday shows that those concerns are no longer confined to the French bond market.

Currency traders are also assessing whether fiscal pressure in France could affect confidence in the wider euro area.

The comparison with the sovereign-debt crisis of 2010–12 should nevertheless be treated cautiously.

France remains one of Europe’s largest and most diversified economies, and the eurozone now has institutional mechanisms and European Central Bank instruments that did not exist at the beginning of the earlier crisis.

There is also no indication that France is unable to finance itself.

What markets are pricing is an increase in the risk attached to holding French debt and growing uncertainty over the country’s medium-term fiscal trajectory.

The euro has now fallen for four successive weeks against the dollar and has lost more than three per cent over that period.

US monetary policy is contributing to the movement. Persistent inflation indicators have supported the dollar even as expectations of an immediate Federal Reserve interest-rate increase have declined.

For Europe, however, Monday’s trading was dominated by France.

French fiscal policy has been a domestic political dispute for much of the past year. The widening bond spread and the euro’s fall show that it is increasingly becoming a eurozone market issue.

Ukraine and Moldova could advance to two further stages of their European Union accession negotiations as early as next week, Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos has said, provided Ukraine approves legislation addressing minority-language education.

The European Union could open two additional negotiating clusters with Ukraine and Moldova next week if the Ukrainian parliament passes legislation intended to address concerns over education rights for national minorities.

EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos confirmed the possible timetable on Monday following a meeting of the EU-Moldova Association Council in Brussels.

Asked whether further intergovernmental conferences could take place this month, Kos said the next two clusters could potentially be opened during meetings in Luxembourg next week.

The condition is passage by the Verkhovna Rada of legislation dealing with educational rights for national minorities, an issue that has been central to Hungary’s objections to further progress in Ukraine’s accession negotiations.

Kos said during the Commission’s recorded press conference that Brussels was aware of the Ukrainian parliament’s procedures and hoped the legislation would be approved. Member states would then have to complete their own procedures quickly.

A draft law covering education rights for indigenous peoples and national minorities was registered in the Verkhovna Rada on 1 October.

The legislation is intended in part to address Hungarian demands concerning the use of minority languages in Ukrainian schools, particularly by the ethnic Hungarian community in Zakarpattia.

Hungary has repeatedly linked support for Ukraine’s EU accession process to those issues.

Ukraine and Moldova formally opened accession negotiations in 2024 and have since moved into the detailed cluster-based process used to organise negotiations over the EU acquis.

EU Today reported in June that the two countries had moved into the first substantive stage after political agreement allowed negotiations on the “fundamentals” cluster to proceed.

That cluster covers areas including the judiciary, fundamental rights, public administration, democratic institutions, public procurement and financial control.

Unlike most negotiating areas, the fundamentals cluster remains open throughout the accession process and is normally closed last.

The possible opening of two additional clusters would therefore mark another practical step in a process that remains dependent on unanimous support among EU governments at key stages.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha has said he hopes adoption of the minority-education amendments will remove the remaining basis for Hungary to block the next steps.

The negotiations have also become linked increasingly closely to the wider security relationship between the EU and Ukraine.

EU Today has followed the accession process as Kyiv and Chișinău seek to keep negotiations moving despite political resistance within the bloc.

Brussels continues to stress that accession remains merit-based and conditional on reforms.

Kos said on Monday that both Ukraine and Moldova were delivering reforms in difficult circumstances and described them as being among the four front-running candidate states.

The Commission is due to publish its annual enlargement reports on 28 October, providing a detailed assessment of progress across individual negotiating chapters.

Moldova has set itself a target of being ready to complete negotiations by early 2028, although any final accession date would depend on the member states.

The country has also been moving closer to EU structures outside the formal accession negotiations.

Kallas said on Monday that the EU had committed €1.9 billion under its Growth Plan for Moldova and was releasing another €157 million tranche. Moldova has joined the Single Euro Payments Area and is moving towards inclusion in the EU’s mobile roaming area.

Ukraine’s path is more politically complicated because of both the war and recurring disputes with individual EU members.

The next immediate test is parliamentary: whether Kyiv can pass the education amendments quickly enough to allow EU governments to approve the next negotiating stages in Luxembourg.

France and Germany have proposed giving the European Commission powers to respond within days to serious trade distortions, including the possibility of restricting access to the EU single market. The initiative comes as European concern grows over Chinese subsidies, industrial overcapacity and dependence on critical imports.

French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have called for a new European Union trade instrument capable of acting rapidly against countries whose economic practices cause serious disruption to the European market.

In a joint initiative sent to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday, the two governments proposed strengthening the EU’s ability to respond to what they describe as systemic market distortions, including dumping, widespread subsidies and restrictions affecting access to critical supplies.

The Franco-German proposal does not formally identify China as its target. However, many of the practices it describes correspond directly to long-standing European concerns over Chinese industrial policy, including excess manufacturing capacity, state support and restrictions on exports of critical minerals.

The initiative represents a further development in a harder European approach towards Beijing. EU Today reported last week that China had warned it would respond if the EU introduced new restrictions against Chinese companies or products.

Macron and Merz are proposing two additional instruments.

The first would be intended to reduce European companies’ dependence on single suppliers for strategically important products and raw materials. The second would allow the EU to restrict access to its internal market when a third country uses political or economic measures that seriously undermine fair competition.

Under the proposal, the Commission could initiate countermeasures unless a qualified majority of EU governments voted to block them. That would reverse the normal political dynamic in which Brussels must first secure sufficient support before acting.

German officials have argued that the EU needs powers comparable in effect to the United States’ Section 301 trade measures or China’s ability to restrict exports of critical raw materials.

The Commission has welcomed the Franco-German intervention as a contribution to its work on economic security and global trade imbalances. Any new instrument would, however, require legislation and approval by both EU governments and the European Parliament before it could be used.

The proposal comes amid growing concern in both Paris and Berlin over the effect of subsidised Chinese production on European manufacturers.

Germany’s position is particularly significant. Berlin has traditionally been more cautious than Paris about measures that could restrict trade with China, reflecting the importance of the Chinese market to German carmakers, engineering companies and chemical producers.

That position has shifted as German industry faces increased competition from Chinese electric vehicles, machinery and other manufactured goods.

EU Today has previously examined the emerging Franco-German alignment on tougher China trade defences and demands from German manufacturers for broader European action rather than product-by-product investigations.

The new proposals go considerably further by seeking a mechanism capable of dealing with entire sectors and acting much more quickly than conventional anti-dumping proceedings.

Chemicals, PET plastics and hybrid vehicles are among sectors identified in the Franco-German document as areas where additional action may be required.

The timing is also significant. EU leaders are due to discuss trade relations with China at their summit in Brussels on 15–16 October, while Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič is expected to hold talks with Chinese officials beforehand.

The Commission is already attempting to balance two objectives: maintaining Europe’s access to the Chinese market while reducing strategic dependencies that could be used as political leverage.

The Franco-German plan would give Brussels another instrument at the more coercive end of that policy. Its eventual importance will depend on whether governments agree to create it and how readily they would permit the Commission to use it against a major trading partner.