Topics
The threads we keep following, each one gathering every story and every debate we have published on it.
Europe funds Ukraine with the interest on Russian reserves it has chosen not to confiscate, and polices Russian oil by checking a tanker's flag rather than its cargo. Both instruments were built narrow on purpose, and how far each may be stretched is disputed.
The war began on 28 February 2026 with American and Israeli strikes that killed Iran's supreme leader, and the deals since have stopped the shooting without settling the two questions the war is about: the nuclear programme and the Strait of Hormuz.
Three separate crises have given Türkiye something to offer, and so far Ankara has signed a one-year oil transit deal and a 15 percent stake in Kirkuk, while the F-35, Cyprus and the customs union remain other people's decisions.
The strait carries oil equal to about a fifth of world petroleum liquids consumption and about a fifth of traded liquefied natural gas, and the pipelines around it hold only some 2.6 million barrels a day of spare capacity, which makes control of passage a lever long before the strait is fully closed.
Spain has checked identity and documents on the sea and air links out of Ceuta since joining Schengen, and the Commission says nobody who forced their way in reached mainland Spain or another member state: what Italy did was a month of checks on non-EU travellers from Spain, an ordinary power eight states were already using.
Europe's firm capacity turns out to be weather-dependent: river-cooled nuclear and hydropower fail in exactly the weeks a heatwave pushes demand to its peak. Hungary and Romania held the grid together with imports and with large users asked to switch off, and the wind Denmark is buying instead arrives in 2032.
Europe fights its fires with borrowed aircraft: a country asks one centre in Brussels, other countries offer what they can spare, the EU pays up to three quarters of the cost, and the Union's own planes do not arrive until 2028, while the same heat is emptying the rivers the continent ships on.
In Turkey's municipal corruption cases the jailed mayor is suspended, and the seat stays with their own council rather than passing to a state trustee; the automatic trustee route belongs to terrorism charges, and Istanbul's districts have changed hands through council votes and defections instead.
The bill filed in Turkey's parliament on 5 August 2026 would suspend the sentences of PKK members rather than erase them, would take effect only once the National Security Council confirms that the group has dissolved and handed over its weapons, and says nothing about Öcalan's own status.
Sweden elects 349 members of the Riksdag on 13 September. In the June readings the opposition led by 9.6 points at Novus and 9.4 at Verian, but the seats turn just as much on the four percent threshold: the Liberals have polled below it in every Novus reading published in 2026.
The ceasefire rests on a text that ties Israeli withdrawal to a disarmament the text itself leaves to monitors it never names, and after the July 2026 agreement the two sides still disagree about which comes first.
Official inflation fell for a second month in July, to 31.75 percent, but it is still above the central bank's own forecast for the end of 2026, the policy rate has not moved since January, and the net minimum wage has been frozen all year while prices rose almost 20 percent.
A court ousted the CHP's elected leader, 91 of its 135 lawmakers walked out to found the New Party, and the state money stayed with the 44 who remained.