Author: staff
Listen on Spotify Apple Music Amazon Music An energy shock that once felt distant is starting to look very real as the war in Iran spirals … and the EU is considering a Covid-style crisis response. From emergency meetings to talk of jointly purchasing energy — host Zoya Sheftalovich and Senior EU Politics Editor Ian Wishart explain how some of the strategies being floated are straight out of the pandemic-era playbook. Also on the pod, Péter Magyar is ahead in the polls in the lead-up to the Hungarian general election, but it’s by no means a slam dunk. According to some experts, years of gerrymandering and media capture by…
By Doloresz Katanich with AP Published on 01/04/2026 – 7:31 GMT+2•Updated 7:37 Soaring oil and gas prices in Europe resulting from the ongoing war involving Iran will not return to normal levels any time soon, even if peace is declared tomorrow, the European Union’s energy commissioner warned on Tuesday. Commissioner Dan Jørgensen said that although there are no immediate shortages of oil and gas supplies across the 27-member bloc, there is pressure on diesel and jet fuel supplies, as well as “increasing constraints” in global gas markets, which are driving up electricity prices. “What I find extremely important is to state as clearly…
By Roselyne Min with AP Published on 01/04/2026 – 6:46 GMT+2 Excitement is building as NASA’s new Moon mission approaches, with the Artemis II mission scheduled to launch on Wednesday, April 1. If successful, the mission will mark humans’ return to the natural satellite in more than half a century. NASA sent 24 astronauts to the Moon, and twelve of them walked on the surface between 1968 and 1972. Ahead of the Artemis II mission, Charlie Duke, who was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 16 is cheering on NASA’s new lunar exploration programme. Now 90 years old, Duke was the youngest person…
Venice is seeing a wave of new hotel openings and reopenings in 2026, with major luxury brands and restored historic properties adding to the city’s already crowded hospitality scene. As tourism grows in Veneto, the northern Italian region that includes Venice, the area recorded more than 22 million arrivals and more than 74 million overnight stays in 2025. From restored palaces to private island retreats and new coastal resorts, the latest openings show how Venice is expanding beyond its traditional city-centre stays. Travellers now have a wider mix of options, including quieter locations and more experience-led hotels. Here are the…
Der Ton aus Washington gegenüber den NATO-Partnern wird immer harscher. „Keine Einbahnstraße“ sei das Bündnis, sagt US-Außenminister Marco Rubio und will die Allianz in Gänze auf den Prüfstand stellen. Nicht nur Italien und Spanien gehen beim Iran-Krieg auf deutliche Distanz zu Trump, sondern auch der Kanzler – wenngleich Friedrich Merz gleichzeitig versucht, die Wogen zu glätten. Rixa Fürsen analysiert diesen Spagat und bespricht mit POLITICO White House Correspondent Dasha Burns, warum alles auf einen ungemütlichen NATO-Gipfel im Juni hinausläuft. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview ist dazu der Koordinator der Bundesregierung für die transatlantische Zusammenarbeit, Metin Hakverdi (SPD), zu Gast. Mit ihm geht es…
Going it alone At the heart of that resistance in Europe is the lack of consultation with allies before the U.S. launched the war, confusion about American war aims, and Trump’s demands mixed with his rage and insults at allies. “The fact that there is no full clarity on U.S. war aims and that there was little to no consultation before the war matter,” said a second senior European defense official. “For countries in the eastern flank, it is also a matter of ensuring their own territorial defense first,” the official added, referring to Russia as the dominant European security…
US President Donald Trump said the war in Iran would end “very soon”, giving a timeline of two to three weeks, as the White House announced that Trump will be giving an address to the nation on Wednesday night “to provide an important update on Iran.” Trump claimed the US will be done with the conflict “within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job. But we want to knock out every single thing they have.” “When we feel that they are, for a long period of time, put into the stone ages and they…
“Markets are now grappling with a scenario long discussed in theory but rarely thought of as a legitimate possibility — the effective shutdown of the world’s most critical energy chokepoint,” said Ana Maria Jaller-Makarewicz, lead energy analyst for the Europe team at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. While the 1970s crises knocked out 7 percent of global supplies, she said, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affects 20 percent. U.S. President Donald Trump exits Air Force One on March 29 at Joint Air Base Andrews, Maryland. | Nathan Howard/Getty Images When the war first broke out,…
But the Hungarian Helsinki Committee, a nongovernmental organization working on human rights, warned that the voter tourism law “created a risk that multiple voters will reregister in single constituencies where a very close race is expected, with the intention to tilt the election outcome.” The Warsaw-based European Platform for Democratic Elections, an alliance of a dozen independent European citizen election observation organizations, has also signaled the danger of this practice, saying it “may not only distort election results but could potentially decide ‘battleground districts.’” Extra Hungarian voters next door On the hunt for additional votes and seats ahead of the 2014…
“The more you can do to save oil, especially diesel, especially jet fuel, the better we are off,” Jørgensen said, confirming an earlier report by POLITICO that Brussels wanted Europeans to travel less. He urged member countries to follow the advice of the International Energy Agency, which he said included “work from home where possible, reduce highway speed limits by ten kilometers [an hour], encourage public transport, alternate private car access … increase car sharing and adopt efficient driving practices.” Longer term, he urged EU countries to double down on building more renewables, saying “this must be the time we…