Euractiv.com

Defying all expectations, the loose left coalition Nouveau Front Populaire came out on top of the second and final round of France’s snap elections on Sunday (7 July), well ahead of the far-right Rassemblement national (RN) but without an absolute majority, according to exit polls.

In this week's edition: Your ultimate cheat-sheet for the Washington NATO Summit.

While NATO leaders this week are expected to reassure Ukraine of their continued support, they are likely to fall short of clearly addressing the possibility of Ukraine’s future membership in the Western military alliance.

Newly installed UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Saturday (6 July) announced his first trip overseas in the job will be to the NATO Summit in Washington on Tuesday (9 July), in a speech otherwise dedicated to domestic politics.

Britain's new Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Saturday (6 July) he would scrap a controversial plan to fly thousands of asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda in his first major policy announcement since winning a landslide election victory.

France votes in legislative elections Sunday (7 July) that will be decisive in determining its political future and could see the far right become the largest party in parliament for the first time.

Hungarian premier Viktor Orbán's fledgling political movement attracted enough parties Saturday to achieve recognition from the European Parliament in a boost for his latest ploy to shift Brussels rightwards.

With no French party likely to secure a majority in the National Assembly after Sunday's votes, making coalition-building difficult, French President Emmanuel Macron's next option - forming an 'Italy-style' technocrat-led government - may be too difficult to achieve.

The European Commission has sent a request for information to Amazon on measures taken to comply with a landmark law on content moderation, the Digital Services Act.

The low-profile moderate Masoud Pezeshkian, who has pledged to open Iran to the world and deliver freedoms its people have yearned for, has won the country's run-off presidential vote, the interior ministry said on Saturday (6 July).

Russian President Vladimir Putin told Viktor Orbán on Friday that Ukraine must effectively capitulate if it wants peace, in a visit to Moscow by the Hungarian leader that angered the EU, US and Kyiv.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico appeared in public on Friday (5 July) for the first time since a May assassination attempt, railing in a speech against progressive ideologies and backing Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán's visit to Moscow.

Keir Starmer set to work as Britain's new leader Friday (5 July), speaking with world leaders and appointing his ministerial team after his Labour party's landslide general election victory ended 14 years of Conservative rule.

The new Patriots for Europe grouping looks set to become the third largest political force in the European Parliament with Spain’s VOX party leaving the Conservatives and Marine Le Pen’s party likely to join too.

For industries that work with raw materials, the EU Parliament’s shift to the right is being interpreted as a signal from voters that they want more attention paid to the economy.

The mighty bee is increasingly deployed as a key player in maintaining biodiversity through pollination. Bee vectoring technology is just one innovation boosting crop and seed protection, but many alternative pest control methods are getting stuck in research labs.

The Western military alliance has a lot on its plate: Its members have to figure out how to secure defence aid to Ukraine, deal with the impact of China’s relations with Russia, when to use their mutual defence assistance clause Article 5… and how to name new things. 

Germany’s government coalition reached a political agreement on its budget on Friday (5 July), working around a self-imposed borrowing limit with “quite a few tricks”.

The influential Brussels think-tank, Bruegel, has sent a ‘memo’ to Commission President-designate, Ursula von der Leyen, warning her of over-burdening consumers during her likely second term.

On Sunday evening, after the second round of legislative elections, France will have a new National Assembly. If the Rassemblement national and its right-wing allies win an absolute majority - which is unlikely but not impossible - it will be up to the probable new prime minister, Jordan Bardella, to propose a new minister of agriculture.