European Union

Weekly schedule of President António Costa, 25-31 May 2026.

Main agenda items, approximate timing, public sessions and press opportunities.

Remarks by Eurogroup President Kyriakos Pierrakakis on the situation in the Middle East, economic outlook, housing and the digital euro.

The Council decided to extend the scope of existing EU’s restrictive measures in view of Iran’s military support to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and to armed groups and entities in the Middle East and the Red Sea region, to target individuals and entities threatening the freedom of navigation in the Middle East.

The Council formally adopts rules to strengthen the welfare and traceability of cats and dogs.

Trade: Council signs off reinforced rules on trade preferences for developing countries

The EU suspends tariffs for one year on nitrogen-based fertiliser products used in agriculture to help lower costs for industry and consumers and diversify supply chains.

Die Westschweizer Konsumentenschutzorganisation FRC und 26 europäische Partner starten eine Kampagne gegen betrügerische Finanzwerbung. Grünen-Nationalrätin Sophie Michaud Gigon kritisiert auch die ungenügenden Gesetze in der Schweiz.

Ab Juni hebt die neue Airline Vini vom Flughafen Bern-Belp ab. Gründer Tomislav Lang, einst Chef von der Berner Pleite-Airline Skywork, setzt auf regionale Flüge nach München. Er träumt von einem «Uber der Lüfte» mit Kleinflugzeugen.

The head of the UN health agency says the risk in the wider region is "high", but it remains "low" at the global level.

The rare species of Ebola involved - known as Bundibugyo - kills around a third of those infected and has no proven vaccine yet.

Iliman Ndiaye affirme que le Sénégal est champion d'Afrique aux yeux de « beaucoup de monde » malgré une querelle juridique sur la destination ultime du titre de la CAN 2025.

Plymouth Argyle striker Owen Oseni says he was in "disbelief" after being called up to the Nigeria squad.

International donors commit substantial resources to GovTech projects (the application of information and communication technologies to government functions). World Bank GovTech investments alone have exceeded $118 billion over the last three decades. Donor strategy documents consistently frame digital transformation not only as a vehicle for improved effectiveness but also for strengthening democracy.
Autocrats are equally invested in these tools. Globally, at least 88 authoritarian regimes currently operate GovTech projects, and electoral autocracies receive the largest share of GovTech aid (48.6 per cent of commitments). Beyond well-known surveillance applications, autocracies deploy GovTech for service delivery, grievance redress and even citizen engagement. These platforms are deployed to project an image of responsiveness and legitimacy. Our experimental evidence from Turkey shows how efficiency-enhancing GovTech tools, when paired with sophisticated regime communication, can durably entrench autocratic rule. We designed a survey experiment focused on CIMER, Turkey’s widely used citizen petition platform, to examine how citizens respond to the government propaganda surrounding it. The results show that the government’s framing of CIMER as an effective tool that “gets things done” significantly increased trust in authoritarian institutions, even among regime opponents. The effect extended beyond attitudes to behaviour: Asked to allocate a hypothetical donation of money among state institutions, independent non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or themselves, anti-government respondents exposed to messages on the platform were significantly more likely to give the money to state institutions. Our recommendations are as follows:
• Donors must take the second-order effects of GovTech initiatives seriously and develop mechanisms to carefully evaluate the risks of unintended consequences. In many cases, support for GovTech projects is overly optimistic regarding their effects on political openness. Adopting a more context-sensitive and realistic approach demands detailed political economy assessments before supporting GovTech projects and developing monitoring metrics that capture potential regime-legitimation effects.
• Donors need to build stronger safety guardrails into these projects. Depending on the political economy assessments, such measures could include the institutional involvement of international organisations or, if feasible, local NGOs (as conditionality) in platform oversight, mandatory independent audits and open data standards by design, among others.
• Finally, donors need to consider actively participating in public communication on these platforms, with visible donor branding, to counter government-controlled propaganda, claim credit for service delivery and strengthen trust in donor countries and organisations.

Depuis la création de la Coupe du monde en 1930, seules huit nations ont réussi à inscrire leur nom au palmarès de la compétition la plus prestigieuse du football. Du premier sacre de l’Uruguay à Montevideo jusqu’au triomphe récent de l’Argentine au Qatar, l’histoire du Mondial est dominée par un cercle très fermé de pays champions du monde.

Written by Györgyi Mácsai

Rising EU imports of goods from Mexico compensated for a slight decrease in exports, and reversed the trend of a growing trade surplus, which still amounts to €19.1 billion in favour of the EU. Mexico ranks as the EU’s 11th most important trade partner, with a share of 1.7 % of total EU trade with the world, while the EU ranks third on the list of Mexico’s main trade partners, with a share of 6.7 %, slightly lower than in 2024.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘EU-Mexico trade and investment relations‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Iliman Ndiaye insists Senegal are African champions in "many people's eyes" despite a legal wrangle over the ultimate destination of the 2025 Afcon title.

Delegations

Source : © European Union, 2026 - EP

Incursions by large drones are causing concern in the three Baltic states: on Tuesday, for the first time, Nato fighter jets shot down a drone over a lake in Estonia. On Wednesday, there was an official air raid alert in Lithuania's capital, Vilnius. A row over drone strikes in Latvia in the early May even led to the collapse of the country's coalition government.