Eurotopics.net

In Austria, a parliamentary committee of inquiry has been set up to investigate the Ibiza affair, which led to the fall of the government of the conservative ÖVP and the far-right FPÖ in 2019. On Wednesday Sebastian Kurz, who was chancellor at the time and is chancellor now, faced questions about his party's role in the affair. What light do his answers shed on his politics?

Russia celebrated the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany 75 years ago with the largest military parade to date on the weekend - a few weeks later than originally planned due to the pandemic, and without many of the expected guests. Despite the still critical situation with coronavirus in Russia, some 13,000 soldiers marched across Red Square without masks. What did Russia gain from the spectacle?

In the context of anti-racism protests in the US and Europe, demonstrators are also targeting monuments. Statues of Christopher Columbus have been overturned in the US, and in the city of Bristol in the UK the statue of a slave trader was thrown into the harbour. What does our attitude to the past mean for the present and future?

In Turkey, lawyers from several provinces began marching towards Ankara on Friday in protest against a bill put forward by the government which would give President Erdoğan the power to appoint bar association members. In the capital police blocked the lawyers' access to the city centre. Turkish commentators are impressed by the action.

After months of isolation, Italy, which was hit hard by the coronavirus crisis and depends heavily on tourism, reopened its borders on June 3. But so far few holidaymakers have ventured into the country. Is the crisis also an opportunity to reform the tourism industry?