Author: staff

Published on 25/06/2025 – 8:08 GMT+2Investors kept an eye on the Middle East on Wednesday as a fragile ceasefire between Iran and Israel appeared to hold after initial shakiness.Both sides claimed victory; Iran’s president said Israel had suffered a “historic punishment”, while Israel’s prime minister argued the offensive had removed “the Iranian nuclear threat”.A new US intelligence report nonetheless found that Tehran’s nuclear programme had only been set back by a few months by US strikes. Washington denied the findings of the leaked report.Early in Europe, Brent crude had risen around 1.15% to $67.91 a barrel, while WTI was 1.21%…

SORGE VOR SCHLECHTEM DEAL: Friedrich Merz hoffte gestern in seiner Regierungserklärung noch, „dass wir bis Anfang Juli mit den USA zu einer Lösung kommen“. Auf dem Nato-Girpfel in Den Haag will Merz mit Donald Trump das Gespräch suchen, hört Gordon Repinski vor Ort. In Brüssel und Berlin wächst die Sorge, von der schlussendlichen Einigung enttäuscht zu werden. Washington und Brüssel haben in den letzten Wochen mehrfach Papiere mit Vorschlägen ausgetauscht, berichtet Hans von der Burchard unter Berufung auf drei diplomatische Quellen aus unterschiedlichen Hauptstädten. Die Trump-Regierung will darin Zölle nur für Quoten senken — also für ein Kontingent von europäischen…

Am zweiten Tag des NATO-Gipfels in Den Haag geht es um die zentralen Streitpunkte: Die Finanzierung der europäischen Sicherheit, das auch von Kanzler Friedrich Merz vorangetriebene 5-Prozent-Ziel, eine gemeinsame Haltung gegenüber den USA und wie die Ukraine bei diesem Gipfel teils zurückstehen muss. Gordon Repinski und Rixa Fürsen analysieren aus Den Haag die Debatten vor Ort und die Machtverhältnisse.Im 200-Sekunden-Interview verteidigt Österreichs Kanzler Christian Stocker die Neutralität seines Landes. Er erklärt, warum sie aus seiner Sicht auch in einem sicherheitspolitisch veränderten Europa nicht zur Disposition steht – und wie Österreich trotzdem Teil der europäischen Verteidigungspolitik ist. Außerdem: Der Abschlussbericht zur…

While CISAF is the latest of these frameworks, it may not be the last. The Commission can expand its state aid policy objectives virtually indefinitely as long as they serve the Union’s interest, said Adina Claici, an economist at Berkeley research Group and a former official at the competition directorate’s chief economist team.  But the Commission’s latest framework is, as always, a careful balancing act between the desperate need for a Union-wide industrial policy and the rules that form the very basis of its single market.  While the framework aims to simplify and accelerate the approval of support for clean…

Meanwhile, one of the biggest obstacles to Israel’s efforts to thwart the regime’s nuclear ambitions — its air defenses — was lifted too. Israel’s airstrikes on Iran in October 2024 and the current conflict have given it air dominance over Tehran.Altogether, this is what led to the Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iran, which have badly damaged the country’s nuclear facilities, ballistic missile program and air defenses. They’ve also shown the Iranian people that the regime’s costly projects could be challenged, potentially laying the groundwork for other forces in Iran to overthrow the ayatollahs. | Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA The Iranian nuclear…

Published on 25/06/2025 – 3:38 GMT+2102 French citizens arrived in Cyprus on Tuesday aboard a French military aircraft after evacuation from Israel. The French Ambassador to Cyprus, Clélia Chevrier Kolačko said the plane flew from Tel Aviv to Larnaca.“I really need to thank them very much (Cypriot authorities), we are offering them shelter here in Larnaca. And tomorrow they will go back to Paris,” said Kolačko.France’s Foreign Ministry arranged the flight out and more are expected to arrive to Cyprus on Wednesday, according to the ambassador.Jeremie Khiat said he arrived in Israel 15 days ago for a vacation with friends…

Festlicher Empfang in Den Haag – doch hinter den Kulissen herrscht Nervosität: Beim NATO-Gipfel wird um nichts Geringeres gerungen als um ein gemeinsames Verteidigungsversprechen von 5 Prozent BIP. Friedrich Merz will liefern, Donald Trump könnte alles zum Kippen bringen, Spanien stört – und Wolodymyr Selenskyj gerät zur Randfigur. Im Gespräch: Benedikt Franke, CEO und Stellvertretender Vorsitzender der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz über die neue Rolle Deutschlands, den Zwiespalt zwischen strategischer Eigenständigkeit und Trump-Beschwichtigung – und warum „kreative Verteidigungsausgaben“ nicht ausreichen, um echte Resilienz zu erreichen. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen…

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen told the NATO Public Forum that it wasn’t “fair” for leaders whose country is further from Russia to seek exemptions. “It’s a question of being united, of defending Europe, not Poland or the Czech Republic. I disagree with the idea of an opt-out for a country,” she said, without specifically naming Spain Poland, which this year aims to spend 4.7 percent of GDP on defense, the highest in NATO, also isn’t thrilled with Spain trying to get out of the alliance’s spending boost. “We believe that any deviation from this principle by any member country…

However, the most obvious single step that would instantly make the euro more attractive to world investors is one that leaders have fallen out over many times before and are likely to again: large-scale joint borrowing. “If Europe is going to offer investors an alternative, it needs to increase the size of the Eurobond market dramatically,” former International Monetary Fund Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard and Ángel Ubide, economist at Citadel, wrote last month in a joint paper, which has drawn much admiring commentary, including from senior figures at the ECB. The paper revives a proposal first made in 2010 to divide…

The public outcry from the Socialists and the liberals, who accused von der Leyen of yielding to the political demands of her own European People’s Party, as well as, crucially, forces from the far right who have always hated the law, triggered a frenzy of phone calls over the weekend. Those twists and turns ultimately led to the Commission’s officially backtracking on Monday. “If microenterprises are exempted from the scope of the directive, we will not withdraw it,” Berestecki said. On Tuesday officials also let it be known that von der Leyen never wanted the law canceled in the first…