Eurotopics.net

Around 8,000 migrants have arrived in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta on the Moroccan coast in recent days, most of them by swimming there. Morocco had apparently reacted to a diplomatic crisis in its relations with Spain by reducing its controls on migration flows headed towards Ceuta. But simply pointing fingers at the North African country is too easy, observers believe.

The UN Security Council held its fourth emergency meeting in eight days on Tuesday in view of the escalating violence in the Middle East, but it once again ended without a joint resolution. Commentators focus on the question of whether external actors can resolve the conflict, and if so, which ones.

The Israel-Palestine conflict has taken on new levels of violence in recent days, and yet much of what is happening appears to follow a familiar pattern. The radical Hamas fires rockets at Israeli cities, and Israel's army responds with counterattacks on Gaza, invoking the right to self-defence. Europe's press discusses ways out of the deadlock.

The tenth Brdo-Brijuni summit on the Western Balkans, also known as the Brdo-Brijuni Process, took place in Slovenia on Monday. Slovenia and Croatia launched the initiative for the event in 2013 in order to promote the European integration of the region through regional cooperation. But after the meeting Slovenian media conclude with resignation that the EU has little interest in the issue.

In the regional and local elections in Croatia on Sunday, the major parties did worse than expected, especially in the big cities. In the capital Zagreb, the green-left candidate Tomislav Tomašević of the Možemo alliance won 45.15 percent of the vote. He will now compete in a run-off election on 30 May against the singer Miroslav Škoro, founder of the right-wing populist Homeland Movement DPMŠ.