Host: A ceasefire fraying in real time. A new prime minister in Budapest echoing 1989. An armed drone washing up in a Greek cave. And cheap weapons being 3D-printed in the East Midlands. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The three-day US-brokered ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine is holding — just about. Both sides traded accusations of violations on Saturday, though no major strikes were reported. Ukraine's military general staff counted 51 attacks by Russia since the start of the day. A soldier from the 33rd mechanised brigade in the Kharkiv region told Agence France-Presse that the ceasefire was ongoing but that Russians were still attacking with drones and artillery. His words: "We're responding in kind." Russian drones killed two civilians and wounded three in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. In Russia's Belgorod region, three people were wounded by Ukrainian drone strikes. Moscow said Ukrainian forces launched attacks using drones and artillery but didn't give an exact number of violations. So — lower intensity, but not silence. Britain, as Ukraine's leading European arms supplier, has as much riding on this ceasefire as anyone.

Host: Then came Putin's remarks. Hours after vowing to defeat Ukraine at Moscow's most scaled-back Victory Day parade in years, he told reporters: "I think that the matter is coming to an end." He said he'd be willing to negotiate new security arrangements for Europe — and named Germany's former chancellor Gerhard Schröder as his preferred negotiating partner. That name will land like a hand grenade in European capitals. Schröder is a close personal friend and business ally of Putin. After the war broke out in 2022, Ukraine's President Zelenskyy called Schröder "disgusting" for meeting with Putin and speaking in his favour. The choice is plainly designed to divide: Berlin now has to decide whether to disown or engage its controversial former chancellor, whilst Kyiv and its closest allies — Britain very much among them — will resist any framework that sidelines Ukraine. The Victory Day parade itself was stripped of its usual pageantry. The customary display of missiles and armoured vehicles was absent entirely. Instead, guests were shown a video showcasing Russian drones and nuclear weapons. The audience included only a small delegation of foreign leaders from Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. A column of North Korean soldiers also marched across Red Square. Putin added that Russia had not received any proposals from Ukraine on a prisoner swap announced as part of the ceasefire.

Host: To Budapest now, where Péter Magyar has been sworn in as Hungary's prime minister, officially ending Viktor Orbán's 16 years in power. The ceremony came a month after Magyar's opposition Tisza party won a landslide in parliamentary elections. Magyar, a pro-European centre-right leader, invited Hungarians to join him to "write Hungarian history" together and to "step through the gate of regime change" — language that consciously echoes 1989. This is the most significant political shift inside the EU in years. Orbán's Hungary was the bloc's most persistent internal disrupter — blocking Ukraine aid, courting Moscow, and vetoing rule-of-law mechanisms. During the Brexit debates, Hungary under Orbán was often cited as evidence the EU couldn't enforce its own values. Magyar's rise rather complicates that argument. What a cooperative Budapest means for EU decision-making on sanctions, enlargement, and frozen funds is now a live question — and one that matters well beyond the EU's own membership, given how many of those decisions touch British security and trade interests directly.

Host: The Ukraine war's footprint is no longer confined to the east. Greek authorities have conducted a controlled detonation of explosives from an unmanned naval vessel found by fishermen in a cave off the island of Lefkada. A Greek minister confirmed the drone came from a "foreign state." A Greek military source said it may have been Ukrainian. Kyiv has acknowledged using sea drones to target Russian oil tankers in the Mediterranean. The BBC reports the vessel was found on Thursday. This matters for Britain too — the Royal Navy patrols the eastern Mediterranean, and British bases in Cyprus sit squarely in the neighbourhood. The discovery forces an uncomfortable reality onto southern Europe: armed, uncontrolled weapons from the Ukraine conflict are now appearing in Greek waters, raising immediate questions about maritime safety and sovereignty in a part of Europe that has, until now, felt distant from the front lines.

Host: And finally — to a small workshop in the East Midlands, where engineers at a British startup called Skycutter are designing weapons for Ukraine. A row of 3D printers produces fuselages for interceptor drones. Parts like motors and navigation chips are slotted together by hand. The same process happens hundreds of thousands of times a month in partner Ukrainian factories. The Guardian reports that the swarms of cheap, deadly, and often autonomous drones deployed in Ukraine have already changed combat completely. Troops far behind the front line must move constantly to avoid aerial attack, travelling along netted tunnels and landscapes crisscrossed by fibre optic cables used to steer drones past radio jamming. Cities are terrorised by guided missiles that are cheaper and therefore more widely used than those that came before. With Trump wavering on NATO commitments, European governments are scrambling to spend billions on weapons like these. What Skycutter illustrates is that defence production is already a cross-border European project by necessity — designed in England, mass-produced in Ukraine, potentially procured with EU defence funds. No single country has the full supply chain. It's a practical test of whether British expertise and European procurement can build shared defence-industrial capacity, even without shared institutions.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The ceasefire clock is still ticking — we'll be back when there's more to tell. Thanks for listening.

• The Guardian Europe: Defence sovereignty: Europe races to build the low-cost weapons of future
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Moscow and Kyiv trade accusations of violating ceasefire
• The Guardian Europe: Vladimir Putin suggests Ukraine war is ‘coming to an end’
• DW World: Greek minister says mystery drone from a 'foreign state'
• France 24 Europe: Putin says Ukraine war 'heading to an end' despite ceasefire violations
• BBC Europe: Greece conducts controlled blast of mystery naval drone explosives
• The Guardian Europe: Péter Magyar sworn in as Hungary’s prime minister ending 16-year Orbán era

Host: A ceasefire in Ukraine on the most symbolic day of the calendar. A new prime minister in Budapest. A quarantine ship heading for the Canaries. And American diplomacy doing damage control in Rome. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Russia and Ukraine have confirmed a three-day ceasefire running from the ninth to the eleventh of May — the most significant pause in fighting since the full-scale invasion began. Donald Trump announced the deal on social media, saying it would include a suspension of all kinetic activity and a swap of a thousand prisoners from each side. Both Kyiv and Moscow confirmed the terms. The timing is loaded. The ceasefire begins on Victory Day, the anniversary of the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany — a date that carries enormous weight in Moscow. Volodymyr Zelenskyy leaned into that symbolism, issuing what he called a decree that Red Square shall be excluded from any Ukrainian attacks, pointedly granting Moscow permission to hold its annual military parade undisturbed. It was a piece of political theatre, but the underlying reality is serious. This is day one thousand five hundred and thirty-six of the war. The two sides had previously accused each other of violating separate, smaller ceasefires arranged to cover Victory Day celebrations. Whether this broader halt holds will be watched intently in every European capital. Washington brokered this pause. The question now is what comes after it.

Host: To Budapest, where Péter Magyar is being sworn in as Hungary's new prime minister. Nearly a month ago, his Tisza party won a landslide, sweeping away sixteen years of rule by Viktor Orbán. The inauguration is being framed domestically as a regime change moment — that's the language Magyar's own party is using. Orbán's Hungary was the EU's most persistent internal disrupter, blocking Ukraine aid and clashing repeatedly with the European Commission on judicial independence. A change of government in Budapest resets Hungary's relationships with Brussels straight away. Frozen EU funds, rule-of-law disputes, the balance of power inside the European Council — all of it is now in play. For Hungary's Visegrád partners, particularly Poland, the recalibration is already underway.

Host: In the Canary Islands, the MV Hondius — a cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak — is approaching Tenerife, and the response is playing out across multiple jurisdictions at once. On the island, residents are alarmed. The BBC reports a mix of anger and resignation about the ship's imminent arrival and the potential health risk it poses. Meanwhile, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reportedly sending personnel to the Canary Islands to meet the ship, with plans to fly American passengers on a chartered flight back to the United States. They would be placed into quarantine in Nebraska, home to both the National Quarantine Unit and the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. An additional CDC team is already headed there. So you have Spanish port-health authorities managing a multinational incident on their territory, American federal agencies operating on European soil to extract their own citizens, and passengers from multiple countries caught in the middle. It's a rare pathogen, a European port, and a logistical puzzle that no single country can solve on its own.

Host: Finally, to Rome, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been on what is widely regarded as a fence-mending visit. On Thursday, Rubio was received by Pope Leo at the Apostolic Palace, followed by a series of meetings with Vatican officials. The Vatican said it raised the need to work tirelessly in favour of peace. Rubio called the meeting cordial and important, and said he had explained the US position on Iran. The backdrop is an unprecedented strain between Washington and the Holy See, driven by Trump's repeated public criticisms of the pontiff. Rubio also met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Friday, at a moment of unusual tension between the US and Italy over the war with Iran. Rubio described that meeting as positive. But the friction is real. Italy is a NATO ally and a major Mediterranean power, and it finds itself caught between Washington's war posture and the Vatican's peace diplomacy — both headquartered on Italian soil. The sharp disagreements over the US-Israel war in Iran have put Rome in an uncomfortable position.

Host: A ceasefire to test, a new government to watch, a ship to quarantine, and a pope to placate. Plenty to keep track of. That's Europa Daily. We'll be back when the ceasefire clock runs out.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy ‘hereby decrees’ Moscow can hold Victory Day parade
• The Guardian Europe: Russia and Ukraine confirm three-day ceasefire from 9 May
• BBC Europe: Hungary's new PM to be sworn in during 'regime change' party
• BBC Europe: Anger and resignation in Tenerife as hantavirus ship approaches
• BBC Europe: Trump says Russia and Ukraine to observe three-day ceasefire
• The Guardian Europe: Vatican stresses need for peace as Rubio meets pope amid strained relations
• DW World: Trump announces 3-day ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia
• The Guardian Europe: Americans on hantavirus cruise ship reportedly to be quarantined in US
• The Guardian Europe: Rubio cites 'positive' meeting with pope after meeting Giorgia Meloni – video

Host: Russia tells foreign diplomats to get out of Kyiv — the British embassy among them — while raining missiles on Ukrainian cities during a ceasefire. Norway drills for gas it shut down thirty years ago, and British energy bills hang in the balance. And punk rock meets geopolitics at the Venice Biennale. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Russia has warned foreign diplomats in Kyiv to evacuate the city, threatening retaliatory strikes if Ukraine disrupts Moscow's Victory Day celebrations tied to the May 9 military parade in Red Square. The British embassy is among those facing that threat directly, alongside diplomatic missions from France, Germany, Poland, and the Baltic states — making this a security decision for governments right across Europe. Meanwhile, Russia has already shown what its version of restraint looks like. Despite a unilateral 24-hour ceasefire announced by President Zelenskyy, Moscow attacked several Ukrainian cities overnight with more than 100 combat drones and three missiles, killing dozens. Zelenskyy had offered the truce after the Kremlin itself said it wanted a ceasefire on Saturday for its annual military parade. He said he would reciprocate if Putin broke Ukraine's ceasefire. The Kremlin's response was to keep firing. As one headline put it: Putin only cares about parades. And there is an intra-European dimension too. The departing Orbán has reportedly surrendered Ukrainian cash and gold — a detail flagged in the Guardian's war briefing, adding another layer of tension within the EU over solidarity with Kyiv.

Host: To energy now, and Norway is going back to the wells — which matters a great deal here in Britain, given that Norway is our single largest gas supplier. The Norwegian government has approved plans to reopen three North Sea gasfields that were closed nearly three decades ago, and has given the green light for oil and gas companies to explore in 70 new locations across the North Sea, the Barents Sea, and the Norwegian Sea. The trigger is the sharp rise in oil and gas prices since the US and Israeli attack on Iran in February. Oslo says it wants to help fill the gap in energy supplies created by the Middle East war. Norwegian gas flows through pipelines directly into the UK, Germany, Belgium, and beyond — so price signals from these fields will ripple through energy bills from Edinburgh to Munich. The decision has drawn fierce criticism from fossil fuel opponents inside Norway, reopening the tension between climate commitments and wartime energy realities that European governments have been wrestling with ever since Russian gas was cut off.

Host: The Venice Biennale — the world's largest contemporary art event — has become a geopolitical battleground. Russia's national pavilion opened for press previews for the first time since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, pumping out techno music. It's a decision the biennale president, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, appears to have made against the wishes of the Italian government that appointed him. The response was swift. Pussy Riot, wearing pink balaclavas, stormed the Russian pavilion, lit pink, blue, and yellow flares, played punk music, and shouted slogans including "Blood is Russia's Art" and "Curated by Putin, dead bodies included." Members of a Ukrainian feminist group joined them. The pavilion was forced to temporarily close. The fallout goes well beyond protest. The biennale's jury resigned en masse in April, objecting to entries from countries whose leaders are subject to international arrest warrants. The EU has threatened to pull two million euros in funding over a breach of ethical standards. A Ukrainian official told the Guardian that the pavilion's doors being closed to the public when the biennale opens fully on May 9 was a "meaningful step." Russia had not participated in the past two editions. And this is not an isolated case. Eurovision and Cannes face parallel dilemmas — the same question British audiences will recognise from the boycott debates around sporting and cultural events. European cultural institutions are being forced to navigate a war that divides the continent, with national pavilions and national entries becoming proxies for political legitimacy.

Host: Finally, a new front in transatlantic relations. The Trump administration has accused Europe of being an "incubator" for terrorism fuelled by mass migration, in a new counter-terrorism strategy unveiled this week. The 16-page report was led by Sebastian Gorka, a Trump ally, and places drug cartels in the Americas at the centre of US counter-terrorism efforts. The strategy also targets what it calls "violent left-wing extremists," including what it describes as "radically pro-transgender" groups, as the administration steps up political attacks on opponents. For Britain, this lands awkwardly. The UK sits inside the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing framework with Washington, but faces precisely the same migration criticisms the report levels at European governments more broadly. Washington is treating European migration as a single continental phenomenon, which forces governments to respond collectively even when their national policies diverge sharply — a classic case where an external challenge exposes internal fault lines.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back tomorrow morning — assuming the embassies are still open.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Putin threat to foreign embassies in Kyiv
• The Guardian Europe: US says migration has made Europe an ‘incubator’ for terrorism in new counter-terrorism strategy
• France 24 Europe: Russia warns foreign diplomats to leave Kyiv in case of strike
• Sky News World: Pussy Riot stage protest at Venice art festival over Russian involvement
• The Guardian Europe: Pussy Riot protest at Venice Biennale forces Russian pavilion to briefly close
• The Guardian Europe: ‘Putin only cares about parades’: fury as Russia rains missiles on Ukraine during 24-hour truce
• The Guardian Europe: Norwegian government attacked over decision to reopen North Sea gasfields
• The Guardian Europe: From Eurovision to the Venice Biennale, culture contests are being overshadowed by politics

Host: Dozens dead in Russian strikes just as two rival ceasefires loom. Germany's chancellor hits rock bottom after a year in office. Romania's government collapses on NATO's eastern flank. And a deadly virus on a cruise ship tests Europe's health coordination. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Russian strikes have killed more than twenty people in Ukraine, just hours before a unilaterally proposed Ukrainian ceasefire was set to begin. President Zelenskyy condemned what he called "cynical, vile" attacks by Russia. Kyiv said it would begin a truce and then, in its own words, "act symmetrically" — a pointed formulation that leaves open the possibility of resuming fire if Moscow does not reciprocate. The timing is loaded. Russia itself has declared a separate pause around its Victory Day parade, creating a strange spectacle of duelling ceasefires proposed by two sides still actively killing each other's citizens. Neither proposal has been agreed to by the other party. The deadly strikes undercut any suggestion that the diplomatic manoeuvring reflects genuine momentum towards peace. This war is now well into its fourth year, and the pattern is grimly familiar: gestures towards de-escalation punctuated by violence on the ground. Britain has been one of the leading suppliers of weapons and intelligence to Kyiv throughout this conflict, and for the UK — as for every European NATO member — the credibility of these ceasefire proposals matters enormously. Whether either truce holds, or whether both collapse, will shape defence calculations and alliance planning from the Baltic states to the Black Sea, and directly affect the spending commitments being debated in Westminster as much as in any other European capital.

Host: Friedrich Merz took office as German chancellor a year ago — and it has been rough going ever since. Just nineteen per cent of Germans now approve of his leadership, a historic low. The conservative Christian Democrat stumbled from the start, suffering a humiliating loss in the first round of parliamentary voting before finally securing the chancellorship. That early wobble raised immediate doubts about the stability of his coalition with the Social Democrats, and those doubts have never really gone away. Merz has been dogged by comments that caused offence and by spats with the White House, all while the far-right Alternative for Germany stands poised to capitalise. For the rest of Europe, a weakened chancellor in Berlin is not an abstraction. Germany remains the continent's largest economy and most populous country. It is also Britain's biggest single-country goods trading partner within the EU — so when Berlin is stuck, the effects are felt in boardrooms from Birmingham to Bavaria. Observers are describing Merz as "stuck in the mud," and the consequences radiate outward through eurozone demand, EU decision-making, and NATO burden-sharing at a moment when no European government can afford drift at the centre.

Host: Romania's parliament has voted to oust Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan in a motion of no confidence, plunging an EU and NATO frontline state into deeper political turmoil. The motion was initiated by the Social Democrats and backed by the far right — an unusual alignment that toppled the liberal, pro-EU coalition government. Romania borders Ukraine and hosts allied troop rotations, so instability there draws immediate attention from NATO partners, Britain included. That said, analysts urge caution before reading too much into the vote. Laurențiu Pleșca, a policy fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told France 24 that the collapse of the government "does not alter Romania's foreign policy or security trajectory." Still, the pattern is hard to ignore: a pro-EU governing coalition brought down with far-right support, in a country sitting squarely on the alliance's eastern flank, at a moment when the Ukraine war is entering a delicate ceasefire phase. It echoes dynamics seen in France, the Netherlands, and Austria — a reminder that the political ground beneath mainstream European coalitions remains distinctly unsteady.

Host: Finally, a public-health story that reads like a jurisdictional puzzle. The MV Hondius, a cruise ship hit by a hantavirus outbreak that has killed three passengers, has been quarantined off the coast of Cape Verde. Two critically ill crew members are being evacuated via Cape Verde to the Netherlands. Once those evacuations are complete, the vessel is expected to resume its journey to Spain's Canary Islands, arriving in an estimated three to four days. So count the jurisdictions involved: the ship is Dutch-flagged, making the Netherlands the flag state with responsibility for the vessel and its crew. Spain will be the port state, receiving the ship and managing quarantine on arrival. Cape Verde is the transit point handling the medical evacuations. The passengers are international. The Canaries, of course, are a hugely popular destination for British holidaymakers, and ports there handle cruise traffic year-round — so this is not some distant concern. It is precisely the kind of cross-border health emergency that tests whether Europe's maritime health protocols and disease-surveillance systems actually work under real pressure — a live exercise, with lives at stake, spanning multiple countries and at least two continents.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow morning — assuming nobody calls another no-confidence vote overnight.

• The Guardian Europe: ‘Stuck in the mud’: one year on, Friedrich Merz struggles to find his footing
• DW World: Ukraine: Dozens killed hours before Kyiv-proposed ceasefire
• France 24 Europe: Hantavirus-hit cruise ship to arrive in Canary Islands in 'three to four days'
• DW World: Spain to receive hantavirus-hit ship in Canary Islands
• BBC Europe: Russian attacks kill more than 20 ahead of rival ceasefires proposed by Kyiv and Moscow
• France 24 Europe: Romania’s pro-EU coalition collapse 'does not alter the country's foreign policy', analyst says

Host: Competing ceasefires, a drone over Moscow, and European leaders gathering in Yerevan without Washington at the table. Plus, a deadly car attack in Leipzig and the hidden cost of the Norwegian salmon in your supermarket trolley. This is Europa Daily.

Host: On day one thousand five hundred and thirty-two of the war, Russia and Ukraine are offering the world two different ceasefires — and neither side trusts the other's. Vladimir Putin has unilaterally declared a two-day truce covering Friday and Saturday to mark the anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Volodymyr Zelenskyy responded with his own proposal: a ceasefire between the fifth and sixth of May, if Russia reciprocates. The two timelines don't align, and the mood around them is anything but conciliatory. Russia has explicitly threatened a massive missile strike on central Kyiv if Ukraine breaches Putin's truce window. That threat came in the same breath as the ceasefire offer — a combination that tells you a good deal about how Moscow views the exercise. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone struck an upmarket Moscow high-rise ahead of the Victory Day celebrations, a pointed reminder that the war now reaches both capitals.

Host: In Yerevan, the European Political Community summit has drawn leaders from across the continent — and for the first time, a non-European one. Canada's Mark Carney is attending, a signal of how the conversation about defence and economic self-reliance is widening as the United States signals troop drawdowns from Germany. Keir Starmer used the summit to begin negotiations for Britain to join the EU's seventy-eight-billion-pound loan scheme for Ukraine. The prime minister said the benefit outweighs the cost and argued the continent must move at pace to bolster its own defence. He acknowledged that tensions between Donald Trump and Europe are high, particularly over military matters. The host country itself is part of the story. Emmanuel Macron said Armenia has chosen a path towards Europe, highlighting the country's gradual shift away from Russia's influence.

Host: In Leipzig, at least two people are dead and around twenty injured after a driver in an SUV ploughed into a crowd in the city centre. The attack happened at about quarter to five in the afternoon in a pedestrian zone full of shoppers and café-goers on a warm spring day. The suspect — a thirty-three-year-old German national — was detained at the scene. Leipzig's mayor, Burkhard Jung, said he was deeply shocked. He confirmed police had apprehended the suspected assailant but added: we still don't really know the motivation — we don't know anything about the perpetrator. Three of the injured are in a serious condition. Germany has been shaken by a series of car-ramming attacks in recent years — the Christmas market in Magdeburg in twenty twenty-four, and others in Berlin and Munich. The investigation is in its earliest stages.

Host: Finally, to the fjords — and a pollution story with a reach far beyond Scandinavia. A new report from the Sunstone Institute has found that Norwegian fish farms released seventy-five thousand tonnes of nitrogen, thirteen thousand tonnes of phosphorus, and three hundred and sixty thousand tonnes of organic carbon into coastal waters in twenty twenty-five. The nutrient levels are likened to the untreated sewage of tens of millions of people. Norway is the world's largest farmed-salmon producer, and the nutrients in fish feed are excreted directly into fjords and other coastal waters. The report describes the result as fish sludge — pollution on an industrial scale.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow morning — assuming the ceasefires hold, or don't.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Duelling ceasefires as Zelenskyy floats open-ended truce
• France 24 Europe: Armenia turns 'towards Europe' as Macron highlights shift from Russia
• The Guardian Europe: Norwegian fish farms polluting fjords with waste likened to ‘raw sewage of millions of people’
• DW World: Russia offers Ukraine May 8-9 ceasefire amid WWII anniversary, but threatens major reprisals in same breath
• BBC Europe: Ukrainian drone hits upmarket Moscow high-rise ahead of Victory Day celebrations
• France 24 Europe: Putin and Zelensky both unilaterally declare conflicting 2-day truces
• The Guardian Europe: Starmer lauds £78bn EU loan for Ukraine amid increased Trump tensions
• France 24 Europe: Two dead as car ploughs into crowd in Germany's Leipzig
• The Guardian Europe: 'Deeply shocked': Leipzig mayor reacts after car rams crowd in Germany – video
• France 24 Europe: Europe, Canada pull together in Yerevan in Trump's shadow
• France 24 Europe: Poking the bear? Armenia welcomes European leaders in Russia's backyard
• DW World: Leipzig: 2 killed after car drives into crowd
• The Guardian Europe: Two killed and several hurt after car ploughs into crowds in German city of Leipzig

Host: Forty-five leaders in Yerevan, drones over the Baltic, and Britain edging back into an EU financial instrument. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The European Political Community summit opens in Yerevan today with roughly 45 leaders attending — and for the first time, a non-European guest. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will join the gathering, part of what Ottawa describes as an effort to build new trade and diplomatic alliances after the loss of US markets under Donald Trump. Canadian diplomats have batted away suggestions that Ottawa might seek EU membership, but Carney's presence is being read as a show of western support for Armenia as it works to distance itself from Russia.

Armenia's role as host is itself significant. The EU is sending a team of specialists in combating Russian propaganda and interference to the country, and EU leaders will hold their first-ever summit with Armenia on Tuesday, directly after the broader EPC gathering.

The Starmer government has a full delegation in Yerevan, and the summit feeds directly into the wider UK-EU reset talks. The agenda is dominated by security: the US troop drawdown from Germany, the Iran conflict, and the war in Ukraine. These are problems that cut across the EU–non-EU divide, which is precisely why the EPC format exists — it pulls in the UK, Turkey, the South Caucasus states, and others who sit outside Brussels' institutional machinery but inside Europe's security perimeter.

One footnote worth mentioning: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's plane made an emergency landing in Ankara on Sunday evening due to a technical fault. His delegation is expected to continue on to Yerevan this morning.

Host: Ukraine launched a wave of strikes against Russian oil targets on Sunday, hitting the key port of Primorsk on the Baltic Sea. A night-time drone strike started a fire at the port, which is operated by Russia's state oil firm Transneft and is capable of handling hundreds of thousands of barrels per day. Primorsk sits between the Russian-Finnish border and St Petersburg — more than a thousand kilometres from Ukraine.

President Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces also hit a guided missile corvette, a patrol boat, and a tanker belonging to Russia's so-called shadow oil fleet — vessels used to evade western sanctions and price caps. Two more shadow-fleet tankers were struck near the entrance to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

The Kremlin's response was pointed. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that global oil prices may rise further if Ukraine continues to hit Russian oil infrastructure. That matters here: Britain imports no Russian crude directly, but Brent pricing — still the global benchmark, still set in London — is directly affected by anything that disrupts supply from the Baltic. Zelenskyy framed the strikes as limiting Russia's war potential.

Meanwhile, Russia attacked Ukraine overnight with 269 drones and ballistic missiles. Ten people were killed across Ukraine, including in the Odesa, Kherson, and Dnipropetrovsk regions. A passenger bus carrying 40 children was damaged in Dnipropetrovsk, though no one inside was injured.

Host: Donald Trump is threatening to go well beyond the 5,000-soldier withdrawal from Germany announced last week. "We are going to cut way down, and we're cutting a lot further than 5,000," he told reporters on Saturday. That initial announcement left 30,000 US troops still in the country, according to CNN. The withdrawal followed Chancellor Merz's public comment that the US was being "humiliated" by Iran.

Merz went on ARD on Sunday night to try to hold the line. "I am not giving up on working on the transatlantic relationship," he said. "Nor am I giving up on working with Donald Trump." He insisted there was no connection between disagreements over the Iran war and the troop pullout, and said he shared Trump's goal of ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon.

The troop threat has unsettled some senior Republicans as well. And it lands directly on the table in Yerevan, where European leaders are gathering with US policy uncertainty as the backdrop to virtually every conversation. For Britain, the calculus is specific: British forces in Germany were largely withdrawn by 2020, but a deeper American drawdown increases pressure on the UK to help fill gaps on NATO's eastern flank — a commitment that sits squarely within the defence review Whitehall is already conducting.

Host: Now to a story that's had less attention but may matter more in the long run. Britain is on the verge of joining the EU's €90 billion — that's roughly £78 billion — loan scheme for Ukraine. That's according to Sky News, which reports the move is part of Starmer's effort to shore up support for Kyiv and deepen defence ties with the bloc.

If it goes through, this would make the UK a co-funder alongside the 27 EU member states, binding British and European financial commitments to Ukraine together for years. It is, quite simply, the most significant institutional linkage between Britain and the EU since Brexit — not a trade deal or a regulatory alignment, but a shared financial instrument for a shared security problem.

For the EU side, having Britain inside the loan scheme strengthens the package and spreads the financial risk. For Downing Street, it's a concrete demonstration that the post-Brexit reset is producing more than communiqués. The details — governance, terms, the UK's precise role — will matter enormously, and they're still being finalised. But the direction of travel is clear: on Ukraine at least, Britain is choosing to operate inside European structures rather than alongside them. It deserves proper scrutiny when the terms emerge, but as a signal of intent, it's hard to overstate.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The Yerevan summit gets underway shortly — we'll be back tomorrow with what came out of it.

• The Guardian Europe: EU forging closer ties with Armenia as it sends experts to help counter Russian interference
• Sky News World: UK on verge of joining EU's £78bn loan for Ukraine as Starmer seeks reset with Brussels
• France 24 Europe: Europe, Canada leaders meet in Armenia amid uncertainty over US policy
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Strikes on Russia’s Primorsk oil port and ships
• France 24 Europe: Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez’s plane makes emergency landing in Turkey
• DW World: Merz 'not giving up' on Germany's relationship with US
• The Guardian Europe: Merz ‘not giving up on working with Trump’ despite Iran war spat
• The Guardian Europe: Canada to be first non-European nation at EPC summit as Carney seeks allies
• France 24 Europe: Ukrainian drones strike Russia's Primorsk oil port
• BBC Europe: Russian strikes kill 10 as Zelensky says Ukraine hits oil tankers and terminal
• The Guardian Europe: Republicans ‘concerned’ after Trump threatens to withdraw more US troops from Germany

Host: Five thousand US troops ordered out of Germany. A tariff hike on European cars. And on the front line in Donetsk, Russian forces testing Ukraine's fortress belt. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Donald Trump has ordered the withdrawal of five thousand US troops from Germany — a redeployment the Pentagon says will take six to twelve months. The move follows a public dispute between Trump and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who criticised Washington's strategy in its war with Iran. Crucially, the drawdown scraps a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion armed with long-range Tomahawk missiles on German soil — a deployment Berlin had championed as a powerful deterrent against Russia. NATO says it is working with Washington to understand the details. The German government sought to play down the severity, calling the withdrawal 'anticipated' and framing it as a reminder that Europe needs to invest in its own defence. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the US decision should spur Europeans to strengthen their own capabilities. But not everyone is so sanguine. Two senior US Republicans — Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers — have voiced concern, warning the move risks undermining deterrence and sends the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin. The loss of forward-positioned US firepower matters well beyond Germany. Those troops and the scrapped Tomahawk deployment were part of NATO's broader posture along its eastern flank. And in German communities near bases like Ramstein, the reaction is more visceral. As one Guardian report put it: 'We love our Americans' — the sentiment from a town now rocked by Trump's plan.

Host: On the ground in eastern Ukraine, Russian troops are inching toward the city of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region, trying to establish a foothold near what Ukraine calls its fortress belt — a heavily fortified defensive line. Ukraine's army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said counter-sabotage measures were underway. Battlefield mapping shows Russian forces roughly one kilometre from the city's southern outskirts. Meanwhile, advanced Ukrainian drones — dubbed 'Martian drones' — are creating what analysts describe as killing zones, complicating Russian advances and redefining how the front line operates. The human cost remains relentless. Two civilians were killed and seven wounded when a Russian drone struck a minibus in the southern city of Kherson. Hours later, another minibus was hit in the same city. In Odesa, a Russian strike damaged port infrastructure. And the war's international dimensions keep expanding. North Korea's ruling party has explicitly linked youth loyalty to Pyongyang's involvement in the conflict, telling a party congress that young soldiers sent on overseas operations had 'become bombs and flames.' An estimated fourteen thousand North Korean troops have been sent to fight alongside Russian forces in the Kursk region.

Host: As if the troop withdrawal weren't enough pressure on Berlin, Trump is also escalating on trade. He has announced that tariffs on European cars and trucks will rise to twenty-five percent — ten percentage points above the rate agreed in a trade deal last July. Trump says the EU is not complying with that deal. The automotive sector is especially important to the EU, with car manufacturing making up a significant part of Europe's economy. France 24 reports the hike could cost Germany alone eighteen billion dollars. European car production is deeply integrated — finished vehicles assembled in one country rely on component suppliers scattered across the continent. The tariff targets the EU as a bloc but lands unevenly, hitting major auto-exporting economies hardest. For the wider European industrial base, it is another jolt in a week already full of them.

Host: Finally, a story that touches something more intimate than missiles or tariffs — what parents feed their children. Austrian police have arrested a thirty-nine-year-old man for his alleged involvement in an attempt to blackmail HiPP, the German baby-food manufacturer. The case involves poisoned products and an extortion scheme that spans at least two countries. HiPP is one of Europe's best-known baby-food brands, its products widely available across the continent. The arrest required Austrian and German authorities to cooperate across their shared border. It is a sharp reminder that Europe's interconnected food market means a consumer-safety threat originating in one country can reach families everywhere the product is sold.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Washington is pulling back on two fronts — troops and trade — and the bills are landing on desks from Berlin to Bratislava to Whitehall. We'll be tracking who picks them up. See you next time.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Russia tries for a foothold in Ukraine’s eastern ‘fortress belt’, continues attacks on civilians
• BBC Europe: Germany says US troop withdrawal 'foreseeable' as Nato seeks clarification
• France 24 Europe: Ukraine battlefield: Advanced Ukrainian drones raise concerns among Russian forces
• DW World: Austria: Police arrest suspect over poisoned HiPP baby food
• The Guardian Europe: Top Republicans express concern over withdrawal of US troops from Germany – as it happened
• The Guardian Europe: Nato seeks to ‘understand the details’ of US decision to withdraw troops from Germany
• France 24 Europe: New tariff hike could cost Germany $18BN
• France 24 Europe: Berlin urges stronger European defence

Host: Car tariffs torn up, troops pulled out of Germany, and a question no bill-payer wants to hear. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Donald Trump has ripped up part of the tariff deal he struck with EU leaders at his Scottish golf course last summer. Late on Friday — a bank holiday across much of Europe — he announced that tariffs on cars and lorries imported into the US from the EU would jump from fifteen percent to twenty-five percent, effective next week. Trump accused Brussels of dragging its feet on ratification and of non-compliance with the agreement's terms. The EU's trade chair called the move 'unacceptable.' The timing was pointed: blindsiding European capitals when most officials were off for May Day. The European car industry is one of the continent's most deeply integrated manufacturing sectors. A single vehicle can cross multiple borders during production — components made in one country, engines assembled in another, final vehicles rolling off lines in a third. Germany's BMW, Mercedes and Volkswagen have the most obvious US exposure, but Stellantis plants in Italy and Spain are also in the blast radius, as are Jaguar Land Rover in the UK and parts suppliers scattered across central Europe. The tariff increase doesn't just hit the country of final assembly. It ripples through supply chains that stretch across the continent. The industry was already navigating the shift to electric vehicles and weakening demand. This adds a significant new cost on top. How the EU responds collectively will be closely watched — Brussels must hold together export-heavy northern members and southern states that Trump is simultaneously pressuring on other fronts.

Host: And those other fronts are military. The Pentagon confirmed on Friday that it is withdrawing five thousand of the thirty-six thousand four hundred US personnel stationed in Germany. The trigger: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suggesting that Washington was being 'humiliated' by Iran. Trump said a further 'determination' on the US military presence in Germany would be made 'over the next short period of time.' Simultaneously, Trump threatened Italy and Spain for refusing to support US naval operations in the Strait of Hormuz, calling European countries 'absolutely horrible' for their stance. US bases in Germany are not just a bilateral arrangement. They are seen as a key part of NATO's defences and are vital for the projection of US power in other parts of the world. A drawdown reshapes the security picture not only for Germany but for the alliance as a whole. Trump is using military presence as leverage across multiple European capitals at once — and the pressure is landing on defence budgets that were already under strain.

Host: To Ukraine, where drones struck Russia's Black Sea port of Tuapse on Friday for the fourth time in sixteen days. Ukraine's SBU security service said the attacks hit the seaport and refinery that make Tuapse an important hub for Russian oil exports. The refinery has been set ablaze at least twice since mid-April, halting production and throwing up dense black clouds over the town. Oil slicks have fouled the coastline of what is normally a popular resort. Russian authorities say they have cleared more than thirteen thousand cubic metres of fuel oil and contaminated soil so far. Meanwhile, Russia launched nearly four hundred and ten drones at Ukraine in a daytime attack. Ten people were injured in the western city of Ternopil — roughly a hundred and fifty to two hundred kilometres from the Polish border. Damage was reported to schools, nurseries, homes and infrastructure across central and southern Ukraine. President Zelenskyy announced plans for sweeping army reforms this summer to address infantry shortages and the discharge of the longest-serving soldiers, four years into the war. He promised higher pay for infantry and said key details would be finalised in May, with reforms beginning in June. Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov described the changes as a 'systemic' transformation. Manpower shortages have become more pressing as enthusiasm for service has waned amid reports of poor training and heavy-handed draft officers.

Host: Finally — a year on from Europe's largest power outage, which left tens of millions of people in Spain and Portugal without trains, metros, traffic lights, cash machines, phone connections and internet access, a provocative question from the boss of Britain's biggest energy supplier. Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus Energy, has argued against costly investments in the UK's power grid that he says are inflating household bills. His suggestion: some customers would accept an occasional electricity blackout in exchange for much lower bills. It is a striking argument to make in the shadow of the Iberian blackout, which demonstrated just how much modern life depends on uninterrupted power. European electricity grids are physically linked through interconnectors — the cables running between Britain and France, France and Spain, the Nordic systems and the Baltics. Investment decisions in one country's grid affect how much power it can import from or export to its neighbours. The question of how much grid reliability costs, and who pays for it, is the same question being asked in different national accents right across the continent.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Markets reopen after the bank holiday — and so does the argument. We'll be back with you next episode.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Russian oil hub of Tuapse hit for fourth time as environmental disaster mounts
• The Guardian Europe: Why does the US have military bases in Germany?
• The Guardian Europe: US withdrawing 5,000 troops from Germany after Merz says US ‘humiliated’ by Iran
• DW World: US to withdraw thousands of troops from Germany
• BBC Europe: Trump says he will hike tariffs on EU cars to 25%
• The Guardian Europe: Trump tears up part of EU tariff deal to raise import duties on cars and lorries
• Sky News World: EU hits back at 'unacceptable' Donald Trump over plans to increase tariffs
• DW World: Ukraine plans army pay hikes, phased discharge — Zelenskyy
• DW World: Trump to raise tariffs on cars, trucks from EU to 25%
• The Guardian Europe: Octopus Energy boss: some people would accept blackouts if bills cut

Host: A transatlantic troop threat rattles NATO. A flotilla is seized near Crete. Belgium bets on nuclear. And Venice's art jury walks out. This is Europa Daily.

Host: President Trump says Washington is studying a redeployment of some of the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in Germany. The threat comes amid an intensifying personal feud with Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has criticised the American approach to the war in Iran. Berlin's response was notably measured: Germany said it is "prepared" for any reduction. But the implications stretch well beyond one bilateral relationship — and they land squarely in the British defence-spending debate too. Dafydd Townley, a teaching fellow in US politics and international security at the University of Portsmouth, told France 24 that a withdrawal would be "foolish," explaining that Germany is "exceptionally important as a logistical and refuelling hub for American air force operations." That logistical role is the crux of it. US bases in Germany don't just serve Germany — they are the staging infrastructure through which American forces rotate into NATO's eastern flank: Poland, Romania, the Baltics. A drawdown would force a Europe-wide reckoning with who fills the gap and at what cost. Britain, which maintained its own training presence in Germany for decades, knows the value of that infrastructure as well as anyone. Trump, for his part, has kept up what France 24 described as a "barrage of attacks" on Merz. The chancellor's willingness to publicly challenge Washington on Iran has clearly sharpened the confrontation. For now, Berlin is projecting calm. But the question of whether European armies — British forces very much included — can compensate for a reduced American footprint is one no single capital can answer alone.

Host: Israeli naval forces have intercepted a flotilla of twenty-two boats carrying pro-Palestinian activists and aid bound for Gaza. The operation took place in international waters near the Greek island of Crete, and a hundred and seventy-five activists were detained. The activists say the interception was illegal. The BBC reports the boats were seized in international waters, which puts the incident squarely in a European maritime zone and raises awkward questions for Athens. Greece now faces diplomatic pressure over an operation conducted close to its sovereign territory. Several of the detained activists hold multiple nationalities. British listeners may recall the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid, which also involved UK nationals aboard a Gaza-bound vessel. This time the geography — the eastern Mediterranean, near EU territory — makes it harder for any European government to treat it as a distant affair. Freedom of navigation in waters patrolled by European coastguards is a principle that matters to every coastal state, and the legal precedents set here will ripple well beyond Greece.

Host: Belgium is planning to nationalise its nuclear power plants. Prime Minister Bart De Wever announced the move, saying it would mean "less dependence on fossil fuel imports and more control over our own supply." It is a sharp reversal for a country that had previously committed to phasing out nuclear energy. Belgium sits at a critical node in Europe's interconnected electricity grid. Its reactors supply baseload power not just domestically but to the Netherlands, Germany and France. The nationalisation will have to navigate EU state-aid and energy-market rules, and it feeds into a broader continental reassessment of nuclear power — from France's reactor-building programme to newer ambitions in Poland. Anyone following the long-running saga of Sizewell C will recognise the underlying tension: how much state involvement does it take to get new nuclear capacity built, and who ultimately bears the risk? Belgium has decided the answer is the state. Others are still working it out.

Host: The entire five-member international jury of the Venice Biennale has resigned. The walkout came just days before the world's most prestigious art exhibition is due to open, and it was triggered by a row over the decision to allow Russia to keep its pavilion. The resignations were announced in a brief statement by the Biennale organisers. They followed a day of escalation: Italy's culture ministry had sent inspectors to Venice to investigate the decision to let Russia participate. The European Commission had also objected. What makes this more than an art-world spat is the collision it exposes — between European cultural institutions, EU sanctions policy, Italian domestic politics, and the unresolved question of how Europe treats Russian state-linked culture while the war in Ukraine continues. The Italian government's decision to send inspectors into an independent institution is itself significant, signalling political muscle being flexed over curatorial autonomy. Similar arguments have played out at the Edinburgh Festival and in London galleries over Russian-funded programming. The Biennale now opens without a jury, and with a question that concert halls, universities and festivals right across the continent are each answering differently: where does cultural engagement with Russia end and complicity begin?

Host: That's Europa Daily. The Biennale opens in days — without a jury. We'll be watching. See you tomorrow.

• BBC Europe: Israel intercepts Gaza flotilla near Crete and detains 175 activists
• BBC Europe: Trump says US studying troop cuts in Germany, as spat with Merz intensifies
• BBC Europe: Belgium plans to nationalise nuclear power plants
• France 24 Europe: Germany says 'prepared' for any US troop reduction
• France 24 Europe: US troop withdrawal from Germany would be 'foolish', expert says
• The Guardian Europe: Venice Biennale jury quits amid row over participation of Russia

Host: The US says it's studying a troop reduction in Germany — a move that would reshape European defence and put fresh pressure on British military planning. Hungary's new leader arrives in Brussels promising a fresh start. Experts say Europe needs to tax alcohol and junk food much harder to stop hundreds of thousands of liver-disease deaths — and the UK's own alcohol duty review is caught up in the same debate. And a Swedish court case shows what happens when a city hands school admissions to an algorithm. From London, this is Europa Daily. I'm [HOST].

Host: We begin with a threat that, if carried out, would force a fundamental rethink of European security — Britain's included. Donald Trump has announced that his administration is, in his words, 'studying and reviewing the possible reduction of troops in Germany, with a determination to be made over the next short period of time.' He made the announcement on his Truth Social platform.

Correspondent: What's striking here is how a disagreement over Iran diplomacy escalated into a concrete security threat aimed at the core of the transatlantic alliance. Chancellor Merz's comment — that the US was being 'humiliated' by Iran — was unusually direct for a German leader. Trump's response moved the confrontation into entirely different territory: not a war of words, but a stated review of military deployments. The language — 'studying and reviewing' with a determination in 'the next short period of time' — leaves deliberate ambiguity about whether this is leverage or genuine intent.

Host: Germany hosts roughly 35,000 US troops — the backbone of NATO's European deterrence. This is a row between Washington and Berlin, but any reduction in those forces would have consequences well beyond the two countries. British defence planning assumes that US forward-basing in Germany underpins the whole of NATO's eastern flank. If those numbers fall, the burden-sharing conversation that London is already having with Berlin and Paris becomes considerably more urgent. Poland, the Baltic states, and Romania depend on those troops as a rapid-reaction reserve. This isn't a bilateral spat — it's a question for every European defence ministry, Whitehall very much included.

Host: To Brussels now, where Hungary's incoming prime minister Péter Magyar has arrived for his first meetings with EU leaders since his Tisza party won a landslide election. And he came with a confident message: the frozen EU funds earmarked for Hungary will be paid out soon. That is a bold claim. Roughly thirty billion euros in EU money have been held back from Budapest under the bloc's rule-of-law conditionality mechanism — the sharpest test yet of whether that tool actually bites. Magyar's visit is an attempt to reset the relationship. He's meeting EU leaders for the first time as the incoming head of government, and his pitch is that a new political reality in Budapest should unlock the money. Whether Brussels agrees will set a precedent that matters well beyond Hungary — not least as negotiations over the EU's next long-term budget get under way, with net contributors like Germany and the Netherlands watching closely.

Host: Now to a report that puts a stark number on a continent-wide health crisis. Liver disease kills 284,000 people a year across Europe, and a new expert report says governments should impose much higher taxes on alcohol and unhealthy food to bring that number down. The report calls for tough action to combat what it describes as an 'escalating and unsustainable burden' of liver-related illness. Its central recommendation is blunt: taxes on alcohol and junk food should rise sharply enough that the revenue raised covers the full costs these products impose on health services, the criminal justice system, and social services. For anyone following the UK's own alcohol duty review — still very much live domestic politics — the report's recommendations map directly onto that debate. But there's a catch that makes this inherently a coordination problem: unilateral tax rises are undercut when consumers simply buy cheaper elsewhere. The Calais booze run is the obvious British example; Danes buying in Germany is another. Piecemeal national action, the report argues, isn't enough.

Host: Finally, a story from Sweden that should be required reading for any European city thinking about handing public decisions to a computer — and that includes plenty of councils in Britain. In 2020, the city of Gothenburg used an algorithm for the first time to allocate places in its schools. The idea was straightforward: working out geographical catchment areas and admissions is an administrative headache for any local authority. A machine could optimise distances, preferences, and capacity — neutral, streamlined, objective. That was the promise. The reality, according to Charlotta Kronblad, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg who has written about the case, was chaos. The system was designed to serve public efficiency, but the resulting allocations disrupted families and communities. Kronblad took the algorithm to court. She lost. Her account is a striking illustration of how unaccountable these systems can be. As she puts it, we like to imagine that injustice announces itself loudly — that when something goes wrong in a public system, alarms go off and someone takes responsibility. In Gothenburg, injustice arrived quietly, disguised as efficiency. The timing matters. The EU's AI Act, which classifies public-sector algorithms affecting education as 'high risk,' is now entering its enforcement phase. Britain is developing its own AI governance framework outside those rules — a divergent path that makes Sweden's experience a particularly pointed comparison. Municipal algorithms for school places, benefits, and housing are proliferating everywhere. What happened in Gothenburg could just as easily happen in Manchester or Birmingham next.

Host: That is Europa Daily for today. Troop numbers, frozen billions, liver disease, and an algorithm that beat a citizen in court — a full morning. We're back tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening.

• The Guardian Europe: I took an algorithm to court in Sweden. The algorithm won | Charlotta Kronblad
• Sky News World: Trump threatens to withdraw troops from Germany
• The Guardian Europe: Trump threatens to reduce troop numbers in Germany amid growing row with Nato allies
• DW World: Trump threatens US troop cuts in Germany
• The Guardian Europe: Raise tax on alcohol and junk food to cut deaths from liver disease, experts say
• BBC Europe: Hungary's next PM says frozen EU funds will be paid out soon