Author: Press Room

Good morning. It’s Mared Gwyn, back penning this newsletter after a week in my native Wales during what was a pivotal week for UK politics. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT The governing Labour party has been plunged into crisis after bruising defeats in the recent Scottish, Welsh and local elections, and a tussle for the party’s leadership – and the helm of the UK government – is now well and truly underway. The former health secretary Wes Streeting, whom I understand from Labour sources has been plotting to challenge Starmer’s premiership since last year, has stepped down and is biding his time before…

Published on 18/05/2026 – 8:56 GMT+2•Updated 11:11 European Parliament and EU countries are gearing up for the final stretch of the EU-US trade deal negotiation, in crunch talks amid growing pressure from Donald Trump’s administration. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT On Tuesday at 9 pm, in the Parliament in Strasbourg, lawmakers and diplomats are set to discuss again the implementation of the deal, which would cut European tariffs on US goods to zero and set a 15% cap for American tariffs on European products. Time is running out, as the deal should be finalized before June to be approved by the Parliament’s next…

Published on 18/05/2026 – 15:29 GMT+2 A former Google executive took over as the BBC’s new director-general on Monday amid proposed job cuts and a $10-billion (€8.5 billion) lawsuit brought by US President Donald Trump, arguing that the world now “needs the BBC more than ever.” ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Matt Brittin, 57, who has no broadcasting or journalism experience, starts the job against a background of drastic shifts in the media landscape. The British-born executive was president of Google’s Europe, Middle East and Africa division for over a decade, which earns around a third of its revenue. He previously worked as…

When Angela Merkel receives the new European Order of Merit in Strasbourg this week, the ceremony will not simply celebrate a former German chancellor. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT It will render a broader European judgment about an era — and about the kind of leadership the European Union believes it needs in an age of instability. The European Parliament says the award honours individuals who made “significant contributions to European integration” and to the defence of “democracy and values.” Merkel was elevated to the highest category of “Distinguished Member,” alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Lech Wałęsa — a symbolic trio linking democratic resistance,…

Experts have so far dismissed reasons to panic over hantavirus, but the deaths caused by the aggressive Andes variant on the MV Hondius cruise ship are raising concerns. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Even though the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has classified the risk as “very low”, the Council of the European Union last week activated its crisis response mechanism in information-sharing mode to actively monitor the outbreak. Yet this is not the only measure the EU can employ: it has more tools to deal with the outbreak in case of a serious escalation. How about hantavirus quarantine and…

A series of regional votes, capped by a conservative win in Andalusia on Sunday, has cemented Spain’s rightward shift, even as Pedro Sánchez builds his international profile as the leader of the progressive left in defiance of President Donald Trump. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Successive regional votes in Aragon, Castilla y León and Andalusia this year saw Spain’s Socialist Party lose seats, with the conservative People’s Party coming out on top and the hard-right Vox emerging as kingmaker. The ballots paint a complex picture of Spanish society, where the coexistence of the mainstream right, backed by the hard right, is becoming the…

Published on 18/05/2026 – 15:31 GMT+2 The bloc’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas has criticised the overwhelmingly male nature of peace negotiation teams, linking it to contemporary diplomacy’s tendency toward short-term results. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT “This is a bigger problem we see around the world with different peace talks when we see that they don’t actually address the issues of long-standing peace,” she said at a press conference in Tallinn, Estonia on Sunday. The ceasefires many talks yield, she said, too often simply declare hostilities over without resolving the “underlying issues” that perpetuate future violence. Another problem, she said, is the…

The Hungarian ambassador said at a meeting last week that Budapest is now ready to engage on Ukraine to achieve concrete results, as Péter Magyar’s new government initiates technical discussions with Kyiv on how to address the thorny issue of the Hungarian minority. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Under Viktor Orbán, Hungary blocked the opening of the EU accession process for Ukraine on the so-called first cluster, which covers key reforms essential to the negotiation talks, including the rule of law and financial control. Budapest and Kyiv have long been at odds over the sizeable Hungarian minority living in Ukraine’s western region of…

Published on 18/05/2026 – 12:15 GMT+2•Updated 12:20 Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has urged the European Commission to relax fiscal rules for households and industries struggling with soaring energy costs, arguing that energy security should be treated with the same urgency as defence spending. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT In a letter sent on Monday to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen seen by Euronews, Meloni said the EU should show the same “political courage” on energy as it has on defence. “If we rightly consider defence to be such a strategic priority as to justify the activation of the National Escape Clause,…

Published on 18/05/2026 – 12:26 GMT+2 Russia targeted eight regions of Ukraine in its latest overnight drone and missile barrage, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, with local authorities reporting that the strikes wounded more than two dozen civilians, including three children. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Russian forces fired 524 attack drones and 22 ballistic and cruise missiles, Zelenskyy said. “Air raid alerts remain in effect across many border and frontline communities, but our services are operating wherever the security situation allows,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. “Russia relies on ballistic missiles to strike people and that is precisely…