Host: Forty drowning deaths in France. Thirty-four degrees in Surrey and the Met Office warning of worse to come. Power prices spiking through interconnected grids. And Germany's entire rail network frozen by a radio glitch. This is Europa Daily.

Host: A punishing heatwave is bearing down on western and southern Europe simultaneously, and the human cost is mounting fast. In France, forty people have drowned as the country recorded its hottest day on record. Here in the UK, temperatures hit thirty-four point six degrees at Wisley in Surrey, with the Met Office warning they could reach thirty-nine later this week. The UN secretary general said London was, quote, 'cooking.' Schools have closed across southern England and Wales. Hospitals have cancelled patient appointments. Rail services have been cut back because of speed restrictions on the tracks, and hosepipe bans are now in force in parts of the south-east. Across Italy, the health ministry has declared a red heatwave alert — the highest level — in fifteen cities including Milan and Rome, with a sixteenth to be added tomorrow. During a red alert, the advice is to eat light, stay indoors during the hottest hours, and sprinkle yourself with cool water. Parts of Spain have seen overnight temperatures stay above thirty degrees. This is a single high-pressure heat dome producing parallel crises in country after country — infrastructure buckling, health emergencies escalating, and lives being lost, all driven by the same meteorological event.

Host: The heatwave is now showing up starkly in electricity prices — and nowhere more so than here. Britain imported power through its European interconnectors at more than six times the normal price on Tuesday, as the high-pressure system killed wind speeds and hammered renewable generation. Multiple gas-fired plants have also gone down with heat-related outages. Meanwhile, millions of people reaching for fans and air-conditioning units have pushed demand sharply higher right across European markets. Britain's grid is physically connected to France, Belgium and the Netherlands through undersea cables. For anyone unfamiliar with the setup, these interconnectors are high-voltage links running along the seabed — and they mean that when supply tightens on one side, the price signal travels instantly to the other. What you're seeing is a real-time demonstration of how deeply integrated European energy infrastructure already is — and how extreme heat stress-tests that integration.

Host: To eastern Europe now, where the alliance between Poland and Ukraine — arguably the most consequential bilateral relationship in Europe's response to the war — is fracturing publicly. Polish President Karol Nawrocki has stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland's highest state honour. The dispute is rooted in historical grievances over wartime massacres in Volhynia, a subject with deep emotional resonance in Polish politics. The timing is significant: Poland faces an election next year, and the Volhynia issue is being mobilised domestically. Poland has been the logistical backbone of Western military aid to Ukraine and hosts the largest Ukrainian refugee population in Europe. A serious breach between Warsaw and Kyiv carries weight well beyond the bilateral relationship.

Host: And finally, Germany's entire railway network came to a halt on Tuesday evening after a failure in the communications system. Passengers were stranded across the country. Deutsche Bahn says the radio issue has been resolved and services have resumed, but regional and suburban operators warned of continued delays into Wednesday morning. Germany sits at the heart of European rail. When Deutsche Bahn stops, cross-border services connecting the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Denmark and the Czech Republic stop with it. Routes like Amsterdam to Berlin, Paris to Frankfurt, and Vienna to Munich all depend on German infrastructure functioning. The outage is a reminder of how much Europe's rail connectivity rests on the reliability of a single national network — and how quickly a technical failure in one country becomes a problem for passengers in half a dozen others.

Host: That's Europa Daily. A continent sweating through the same heat dome, wired into the same power grid, and riding the same rails — when they're running. Stay cool, stay informed. We're back tomorrow.

• Sky News World: Trains across Germany briefly halted after communication system issue
• BBC Europe: Temperatures hit record levels in western Europe
• DW World: Trains resume after radio issue resolved, Deutsche Bahn says
• The Guardian Europe: Europe’s heatwave drives electricity prices to new highs as demand soars
• The Guardian Europe: Searing UK heat leaves schools, hospitals and transport networks struggling to cope
• The Guardian Europe: Forty people drown in France; Met Office warns UK temperatures could reach 39C – as it happened
• DW World: Poland, Ukraine: Dispute between two close allies deepens

Host: Britain prepares for its seventh prime minister in a decade. Ukraine tells the UN its patience is running out. And a heatwave kills across western Europe. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Keir Starmer has resigned as prime minister, and the immediate cross-border consequence is already here: the planned EU-UK summit has been postponed. European Council president António Costa confirmed the delay, saying the summit is being reassessed. That means live negotiations on defence cooperation, market access, and the broader post-Brexit relationship are now on hold, with no new date set. Ursula von der Leyen, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy all paid public tribute to Starmer, each emphasising his role in strengthening European security. Zelenskyy told Starmer he would always be a welcome guest in Ukraine, saying their cooperation had helped make "our Europe and our protection of life stronger." The resignation makes Starmer the latest in a line of short-tenured occupants of Number 10. Martin Farr, a senior lecturer in contemporary British history at Newcastle University, told France 24 that the frequency of changes since the Brexit vote "is very concerning" and raises questions about "whether Britain is indeed governable." All eyes now turn to Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, who Deutsche Welle reports is seen as the favourite to succeed Starmer as Labour leader and prime minister. Until a new government is in place, the EU-UK reset — covering everything from youth mobility to fishing rights to defence procurement — remains frozen.

Host: Ukraine's UN envoy Andrii Melnyk has warned that Kyiv may withdraw or modify its ceasefire offer if the Security Council continues what he called a "wait-and-see approach." Melnyk told the council that a ceasefire along the de facto front line is already a major compromise, and that Ukraine's patience is "not endless." The warning comes from a position of growing military confidence. Ukrainian strikes have damaged some forty per cent of Russia's oil refineries, according to Melnyk. Russian-held Crimea has halted civilian petrol sales, and all summer camps on the peninsula have stopped accepting children until September for security reasons. Moscow's four airports were temporarily closed as air defences fought off a wave of Ukrainian drones. Ukraine also struck a plant in the Voronezh region producing electronics for missiles including the Iskander, and hit Russia's Dubna satellite communications centre in the Moscow region. The war's reach into international waters was underscored when a Russian drone attack hit a ship in the Black Sea, killing its Egyptian cook. Eight other sailors — including Turkish and Indian citizens — abandoned ship on a life raft after the vessel lost seaworthiness.

Host: A punishing heatwave is bearing down on western Europe, with red heat alerts active in France, Italy, and Spain, and extreme temperatures also hitting Germany and the UK. The human cost is already stark. Two children, aged four and two, were found dead in their family's car in Carpentras in south-eastern France. The local prosecutor said the causes of death are still being determined, but heat is the leading line of enquiry. Temperatures in the area were expected to exceed thirty-nine degrees Celsius. The BBC reports that conditions are forecast to intensify in the coming days across central and western Europe, with temperatures potentially reaching forty-four degrees. Deutsche Welle reports that cooler weather is not expected until the weekend. Several other deaths have been reported in France. This is the same weather system bearing down on multiple countries at once — a shared emergency testing health systems and infrastructure from Madrid to Manchester.

Host: Romania's parliament has voted down liberal prime minister-designate Adrian Vestea, extending months of political turmoil in an EU and NATO member state that borders Ukraine. France 24 reports that if a second government nominee also fails to secure lawmakers' backing, snap elections would be triggered. Romania is the EU's sixth-largest country by population, sits on the Black Sea, and hosts NATO infrastructure — making its political stability a matter well beyond its own borders. The country is a major transit route and a critical piece of Europe's eastern defence posture at a time when the war next door is intensifying. The failed nomination reflects a pattern visible in several European capitals: fragmented parliaments making coalition-building extraordinarily difficult. For now, Romania's government formation remains unresolved, and the clock towards a possible snap election is ticking.

Host: Britain awaits a new prime minister, Ukraine sharpens its ultimatum, and half the continent is being told to stay indoors. That's Europa Daily. We'll be back tomorrow — assuming the heat lets us.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: ‘Our patience is not endless’ – Kyiv signals peace offer may expire
• France 24 Europe: Romania parliament rejects liberal PM-designate Adrian Vestea
• France 24 Europe: Turnover at 10 Downing Street raises questions about 'whether Britain is indeed governable'
• DW World: Meet Andy Burnham, Britain's likely next prime minister
• France 24 Europe: Ukrainian attacks prompt Russian-held Crimea to halt civilian gasoline sales
• BBC Europe: Red heat alerts issued in France, Italy and Spain as 40C temperatures forecast
• DW World: Europe sizzles under heat wave with little relief in sight
• The Guardian Europe: Zelenskyy pledges to ‘bring war back to Russia’ after drones swarm toward Moscow – as it happened
• The Guardian Europe: Two children found dead in car in France as heatwave hits Europe
• The Guardian Europe: European leaders pay tribute to Starmer as EU-UK summit is postponed

Host: A wartime alliance under strain, a British prime minister on the brink, an Albanian revolt with EU implications, and a heat dome baking the continent. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Poland and Ukraine — two countries whose partnership underpins Europe's entire eastern security architecture — are locked in a diplomatic crisis rooted in the Second World War. Polish president Karol Nawrocki stripped Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest honour, after Zelenskyy renamed a Ukrainian army unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army — nationalists who massacred Poles during the war. The response from Kyiv was swift: three former Ukrainian presidents and other senior officials returned their Polish state awards. Prime Minister Donald Tusk is trying to contain the damage. He called the escalating dispute a strategic mistake that will harm both sides — business-wise, geopolitically, and reputationally. In his words: "In politics, a mistake is worse than a crime." Zelenskyy, in an interview posted on X, insisted Ukraine and Poland cannot be anything but partners and friends, but defended the unit's renaming, saying service members choose heroic names for their units themselves and that as president and supreme commander-in-chief, he must support them. He added bluntly: "Without Ukraine, no one will be able to defend Poland. It is simply impossible." The rift also exposes the internal Polish power struggle. Tusk, the pro-European prime minister elected in 2023 after defeating the nationalist Law and Justice party, finds himself at odds with Nawrocki, who is aligned with that nationalist camp. Meanwhile, the war itself grinds on. Officials in Russian-occupied Crimea have suspended civilian gasoline sales as Ukrainian strikes intensify against fuel infrastructure. Zelenskyy described the attacks as part of Ukraine's "long-range sanctions" against Russia's energy infrastructure. The fuel crisis in Crimea is reportedly the worst since Russia's 2014 annexation, with speculators selling petrol at double the market price. Energy Intelligence, a US-based research firm, said earlier this month that roughly a third of Russian oil refining capacity has gone offline because of Ukrainian strikes.

Host: Now to the story dominating the domestic agenda. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is reportedly expected to resign on Monday and set out a timetable for his departure, according to a report in the Observer. Starmer has publicly vowed to stay in post, but pressure is building as more and more Labour colleagues conclude his time is up. France 24 described the moment as one of mounting speculation, with support within his own party weakening and talk of a leadership contest gathering pace. If confirmed, it would mark one of the shortest-serving Labour premierships in modern history. The timing is hard to miss: this comes ten years after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Starmer's government had been negotiating a closer relationship with the EU. Any successor will inherit those talks. In Paris, Berlin, and Brussels, officials will be watching closely to see whether the next occupant of Downing Street continues the reset or pulls back.

Host: In Albania, protests that began over plans for a mega-resort on the island of Sazan have widened into something much larger. The resort is one of two luxury developments on Albania's southern coast backed by Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump. What started as opposition to that project has become what the Guardian describes as a revolt — an uprising that has convulsed the Balkan state in a spasm of disgust over the perceived excesses of what demonstrators call a rotten oligarchic class. The timing matters. Albania is hoping to complete accession talks with the EU, a process in which Brussels has consistently demanded rule-of-law and anti-corruption benchmarks. Mass protests over opaque land deals and perceived crony capitalism go directly to the heart of those conditions. For the protesters, the slogan is simple: "We want a new Albania."

Host: And finally, the weather — though calling it just weather rather undersells it. A heat dome has settled over Europe, triggering alerts and disruptions across the continent. Authorities have warned of temperatures exceeding 39 and 40 degrees Celsius. In France, more than a third of the country's 96 mainland départements are under the highest-level red heat alert — a record 35 — with another 45 under orange warning. That covers roughly 53 million people, more than three-quarters of the French population. Temperatures are forecast to peak on Monday, with some areas expected to reach 42 degrees Celsius. Authorities warn they could match historic highs. The impact is already tangible. Some outdoor sports events have been cancelled. At France's Fête de la Musique — the nationwide street music festival — authorities have restricted alcohol consumption. Germany, meanwhile, faces the threat of extreme thunderstorms on top of the heat. The same atmospheric phenomenon producing very different hazards depending on where you are, testing emergency responses in multiple countries simultaneously.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Stay cool out there — in every sense. We're back tomorrow.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Dispute over second world war army unit threatens to divide Poland and Ukraine
• The Guardian Europe: ‘We want a new Albania’: protests against Jared Kushner-backed resort turn anger on government
• France 24 Europe: The last hours of Starmer?
• DW World: Severe heat wave sweeps Europe, triggering alerts and disruptions
• BBC Europe: Half of France under red heat alert as alcohol banned at street music festival
• The Guardian Europe: France cancels events and restricts alcohol consumption amid brutal heatwave
• France 24 Europe: UK's Starmer reportedly expected to resign on Monday

Host: Poland and Ukraine's alliance — the backbone of Europe's response to Russia's invasion — is under serious strain over a Second World War history dispute. Plus, Meloni tells Trump to focus on his own popularity. And Europe's first major heatwave of the summer is testing emergency systems from Paris to Rome. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Poland has stripped Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle — the country's highest state honour — after Kyiv named a military unit after a nationalist group that massacred Polish civilians during the Second World War.

The decision was taken by Polish President Karol Nawrocki, and it has triggered a sharp diplomatic crisis between two neighbours whose partnership has been central to Europe's support for Ukraine since Russia's full-scale invasion.

Zelensky and senior Ukrainian officials have returned the Polish awards. Zelensky said Ukraine was open to engagement about what he called "difficult and painful chapters of our shared past." But the gesture has done little to defuse the tension.

The timing makes this especially consequential. A major conference on Ukraine's reconstruction is due to be held in the Polish city of Gdańsk. Poland has been one of Kyiv's key allies — a primary logistics corridor, a host to millions of Ukrainian refugees, and a leading diplomatic voice for Ukraine in European capitals. A serious fracture between Warsaw and Kyiv doesn't just affect the bilateral relationship. It complicates the wider European effort to sustain military, financial and political support for Ukraine at a moment when cohesion on Europe's eastern flank matters enormously.

Host: To Rome now, where Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has publicly told Donald Trump to "focus on your own popularity" after the US president suggested she had "begged" for a photo at the G7 summit. Trump had earlier questioned Meloni's popularity in the exchange.

This is notable because Meloni has been the European leader most willing to cultivate a working relationship with Trump. She had positioned herself as something of a bridge between Brussels and Washington. A public rupture between Rome and the White House reshuffles the calculations in other European capitals about who can — and who should — engage with the Trump administration on trade, Ukraine and defence spending.

Host: A severe heatwave is sweeping much of Europe, with temperatures set to hit 40 degrees Celsius. France has taken the unusual step of banning alcohol at Fête de la Musique events — that's the country's annual midsummer music celebration, a bit like a nationwide open-air gig night, when millions gather outdoors — as part of a broader emergency response. The French government has held emergency meetings to coordinate public health measures.

Germany has issued nationwide heat warnings. And in Italy, the extreme temperatures are straining tourist infrastructure and putting pressure on residents.

This is the first major heatwave of the summer, and it is testing emergency systems in multiple countries simultaneously — a reminder that extreme heat is now a recurring pan-European challenge, met with very different national responses.

Host: Finally, a story closer to home. A Guardian investigation marking ten years since the Brexit referendum has found that areas which voted most heavily to leave the EU have experienced faster relative growth in foreign-born workers than Remain-voting areas. The same communities have also become relatively more deprived over the same period.

The data challenges what was perhaps the core expectation of many Leave supporters: that exiting the EU would reduce immigration and boost local economies. What appears to have happened instead is a shift in the composition of migration — from EU to non-EU workers — rather than a reduction.

It's a striking illustration of how severing formal ties with European labour markets reshaped cross-border worker flows without shrinking them.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow — assuming the continent has cooled down by then.

• DW World: France bans alcohol at music festival events amid heatwave alert
• BBC Europe: Zelensky returns highest Polish honour after award stripped
• The Guardian Europe: Revealed: Brexit voting areas have seen faster growth in foreign workers since EU referendum
• BBC Europe: Meloni tells Trump to 'focus on your own popularity' as row escalates
• France 24 Europe: Zelensky returns Polish award as WWII row strains alliance
• DW World: Zelenskyy returns Poland's highest honor as row deepens
• France 24 Europe: Europe swelters in gruelling heatwave, authorities ramp up warnings
• France 24 Europe: Poland strips Zelensky of top state honour over WWII dispute

Host: Poland strips Zelensky of its highest honour — and tests the solidarity holding Europe's eastern flank together. Meloni tells Trump he made it up. A deadly train crash near Bedford. And half of France is under severe heat warnings. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Poland's President Karol Nawrocki has revoked the Order of the White Eagle — the country's highest honour — from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The trigger: Ukraine's decision to name a military unit after a Second World War insurgent militia responsible for massacres of Poles. The Volhynia massacres remain one of the most painful chapters in Polish-Ukrainian history, and Nawrocki, described as a nationalist president, moved swiftly to escalate. Ukraine has denounced the revocation, calling it a "strategic mistake" and "disrespectful." The timing could hardly be worse. Poland is Ukraine's principal logistics corridor for Western arms deliveries. Ukraine is the buffer between Poland and Russian aggression. The two countries are bound together by geography and by the war — and now they are publicly at odds over how to remember a different one. British listeners will recognise the pattern — the Second World War shaping live diplomacy eighty years on. And Britain has a direct stake here as one of Ukraine's largest military backers. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk had earlier appealed to both nations "not to waste" the solidarity built between allies during Russia's invasion. That appeal went unheeded, at least by his own president. The diplomatic crisis is likely to be severe, according to reporting from Berlin and Paris. For NATO and EU partners watching from the Baltics, Scandinavia, and beyond, the question is immediate and practical: can the eastern flank hold when its two most important members are locked in a historical-memory dispute with real strategic consequences?

Host: From a rift in the east to a very public break between supposed allies. At the G7 summit in France, Donald Trump told Italy's La7 television channel that Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had "begged" him for a photo. His words: "She wanted a picture with me so badly. I wouldn't have taken it, but I felt sorry for her." Meloni's response was swift and unsparing. She posted a video on X saying the claim was "completely made up," adding: "Neither I nor Italy ever beg." She said she was "stunned" by the remarks. This matters well beyond the personal slight. Meloni had been the European leader most willing to cultivate a close relationship with Trump. The BBC reports that the exchange indicates their earlier close ties have frayed since Trump's decision to go to war with Iran. If even Meloni is now publicly rebuking Washington, every European capital recalibrating its own approach to the White House will have taken note. Keir Starmer has been walking his own tightrope with the Trump administration — and the lesson from Rome is that even the warmest transatlantic friendships can turn brittle remarkably fast.

Host: Closer to home now, and a grim story from Bedfordshire. At least one person has been killed and dozens injured — eleven of them seriously — after two London-bound passenger trains collided near Bedford, roughly ninety kilometres north of the capital. Emergency services mounted a major response, deploying air ambulances to the scene. It is being described as one of Britain's most serious rail incidents in recent years — the kind of crash that, since Ladbroke Grove and Potters Bar, the country's safety regime was supposed to have made vanishingly rare. Investigators from the Rail Accident Investigation Branch have begun examining the cause. Details on what led to the collision remain scarce, but the pressure for answers will be intense. The UK's rail network is already the subject of fierce debate over investment and reliability, and any systemic finding could also have implications for the safety standards Britain still shares with European rail authorities through post-Brexit bilateral arrangements.

Host: And finally, western Europe is baking — again. More than half of France's population is under a severe weather warning as the continent endures its second extreme heat event of the year, with temperatures expected to exceed forty degrees Celsius. President Macron called for "extreme vigilance," urging people to "take care of our oldest and most vulnerable people" and to follow government advice. "We are going through difficult days," he said. The heat dome stretches from Spain — already battling wildfires — through France, the Low Countries, and into western Germany. Britain is catching the tail end of the same system, and anyone with travel plans to southern or western Europe this weekend should expect significant disruption. This is the second time in 2026 that the region has faced this kind of event — and it is still June, earlier than the historical norm for peak summer heat. For countries already stretched by wildfire seasons and strained energy grids, the pattern is becoming harder to treat as exceptional.

Host: History, diplomacy, infrastructure, and the weather — all testing Europe's capacity to hold things together at once. That's Europa Daily. Stay cool out there, in every sense. We'll be back tomorrow.

• DW World: Meloni 'stunned' by Trump's comment she 'begged' for photo
• BBC Europe: Zelensky stripped of highest Polish honour over WW2 name of army unit
• France 24 Europe: One dead and dozens injured after passenger trains collide north of London
• DW World: Poland's president strips Zelenskyy of top honor
• France 24 Europe: Poland strips Zelensky of country's highest honour, escalating World War II-era row
• BBC Europe: Italy's Meloni says Trump 'made up' story that she 'begged' him for photo at G7
• DW World: UK: Train collision north of London kills at least one person
• The Guardian Europe: Macron calls for vigilance as western Europe faces second heatwave of year
• The Guardian Europe: 'Neither I nor Italy ever beg': Giorgia Meloni rejects Trump's claim she begged for a photo – video

Host: G7 leaders green-light Ukraine to build Western missile designs on its own soil. A Royal Marines boarding party seizes a Russian shadow-fleet tanker — and Britain expects payback. Migration policy hardens on two fronts. And a missile destroys a museum that held a piece of the continent's shared memory. This is Europa Daily.

Host: At the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, allied leaders have taken a step that could reshape European defence-industrial relationships for years: they've given Ukraine the go-ahead to domestically reproduce Western air-defence missile designs. The proposal comes amid what sources describe as critical shortages of air-defence ammunition — the systems that protect Ukrainian cities and infrastructure from Russian bombardment. Emmanuel Macron hailed what he called a "re-synchronisation" of positions on Ukraine, welcoming what he described as a "very deep change in the US approach." Macron said Donald Trump and all leaders present recognised Ukraine's territorial integrity, and that the entire G7 understood Vladimir Putin was not interested in peace. The decision to let Kyiv manufacture allied missile systems on Ukrainian soil implicates export-control regimes and defence manufacturers across multiple allied countries. For frontline states from the Baltics to Romania, the immediate question is whether this accelerates the supply of the air-defence systems they depend on for their own security. Later at the summit, at a candlelit dinner in Versailles, Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran aimed at ending the conflict in the Middle East — a reminder that the G7 agenda extends well beyond Europe, even as the Ukraine question dominated the day.

Host: Staying with the pressure campaign on Russia — the UK has carried out the most aggressive enforcement action yet against Moscow's sanctions-busting shadow fleet. Royal Marines boarded and seized the oil tanker Smyrtos, which was carrying Russian crude worth forty million dollars bound for India. British officials now believe Russia will try to retaliate. Military sources say the UK had considered possible responses to the seizure and anticipate the Kremlin will want to hit back. No formal warning has been issued to captains or ship owners, but the UK shipping industry body says operators are exercising greater vigilance. The seizure comes against a backdrop of rising maritime tensions in European waters. Keir Starmer called it "deeply concerning and reckless" when a Russian warship fired warning shots at a British yacht sailing in the Channel. Russia's defence ministry claimed the yacht was on a dangerous course — a claim disputed by the retired couple on board. The shadow fleet — ageing, often uninsured tankers — transits the Baltic, the North Sea, and the Channel, posing environmental and navigational risks to coastlines from Finland to France.

Host: The European Parliament has approved legislation that marks a sharp turn in how the EU manages migration. Under the new rules, member states can establish "return hubs" outside the bloc and ramp up deportations of failed asylum-seekers. It's binding EU-wide legislation that every member state will need to implement. And a parallel hardening is underway between London and Paris. Under a six-hundred-and-sixty-million-pound deal, French riot police deployed in northern France are now authorised to use water cannon against people attempting small-boat crossings. Two specialist policing units, including a fifty-officer riot squad, have begun working to prevent launches in time for the summer months. The charity response has been blunt — one called the water-cannon authorisation "sickening," pointing out that water cannon are banned in Great Britain itself. What's striking is the simultaneity: EU-wide legislation toughening returns, and bilateral UK-France enforcement intensifying on the beaches, both moving in the same direction at the same moment.

Host: Finally — a story about what war destroys beyond the people it kills. The Chernobyl Museum in Kyiv had just been renovated to mark the fortieth anniversary of the disaster. It stood as a vital site of memory for an independent Ukraine. Weeks after its reopening, a massive missile strike left its halls in ruins. Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian's chief culture writer, reports that this is not an isolated incident but a focal point for a much larger crisis threatening the cultural heritage of an entire nation. Citizens are risking their lives to salvage what remains. Chernobyl, of course, is not only Ukrainian history. Its fallout reshaped environmental policy and public consciousness from Scandinavia to southern Germany. The destruction of its museum is the loss of an artefact that belongs to a wider European story — one that changed how governments thought about nuclear energy, civil protection, and cross-border risk. Higgins describes the salvage effort as part of a broader fight to protect Ukraine's cultural patrimony under bombardment, with teams working amid ongoing danger to rescue what they can.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back with more from the continent — and whatever Moscow decides to do next.

• France 24 Europe: G7 hails unity on Russia as Trump signals tougher line on Moscow
• The Guardian Europe: Culture wars: the fight to save Ukraine’s art – podcast
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Allies give nod for Kyiv to reproduce their air-defence missiles
• DW World: EU lawmakers approve new tougher migrant policy
• The Guardian Europe: UK officials expect Russia to retaliate for seizure of shadow fleet oil tanker
• The Guardian Europe: French police authorised to use water cannon on asylum seekers in £660m deal with UK
• The Guardian Europe: Macron hails US alignment with G7’s ‘shared commitment’ on Ukraine
• The Guardian Europe: Why did Russian warship fire warning shots in the Channel? – The Latest

Host: A Russian warship opens fire near a British yacht in the English Channel. G7 leaders talk tougher on Russian oil. And Europe's biggest joint defence project falls apart. This is Europa Daily.

Host: A Russian frigate fired warning shots at a UK-registered yacht in the English Channel — roughly thirty kilometres south of the Isle of Wight and just outside British territorial waters. The vessel involved was the Admiral Grigorovich. Russia's Defence Ministry said the yacht had made a dangerous approach and that it took all measures to prevent the incident. The retired couple on board — speaking to BBC Newsnight — said they had already altered course to move away from the warship before the shots were fired. They described the whole thing as surreal. The Ministry of Defence said it is investigating. The inquiry will likely include questioning the yacht's owners, but the laws of the sea sharply limit what Britain can do regarding the Russian vessel itself. Russia may have breached the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The English Channel is one of the world's most heavily trafficked waterways, jointly patrolled by Britain and France. A Russian warship behaving aggressively in these waters is not a routine transit — it is a provocation in shared maritime space.

Host: At the G7 summit in the French Alps resort of Évian, the war in Ukraine dominated the opening session. Donald Trump indicated the US could soon reinstate sanctions on Russian oil shipments — partly waived during the Iran conflict to help lower prices. With oil now flowing again through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, quote, soon we'll be able to do that. He also told reporters that Russia should make a deal, saying too many young men were dying on both sides. Volodymyr Zelenskyy secured a bilateral meeting with Trump that had been in doubt before the summit. He told Reuters that G7 leaders agreed Russia was not winning the war and discussed additional sanctions targeting Russian oil exports, its banking sector, and military production. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz struck an optimistic note, saying he found Trump very cooperative and attentive. A French diplomat said G7 leaders committed to providing Kyiv with more air defence capabilities. But two European diplomats told Reuters that Trump had been noncommittal on imposing further US sanctions on Moscow — a gap between rhetoric and commitment that European capitals are watching closely.

Host: In France, fourteen people will stand trial over the deadliest recorded small-boat disaster in the English Channel. Prosecutors say the defendants are accused of links to people-smuggling networks involved in the November 2021 sinking that killed thirty-one people and left four others missing. The case is a major judicial moment for France's anti-smuggling enforcement. The smuggling networks at the centre of the trial operate across multiple borders before reaching the French coast.

Host: And finally — Europe's flagship joint defence project has collapsed. France and Germany have abandoned their hundred-billion-pound programme to build a next-generation fighter jet as part of an updated Future Combat Air System. The project was originally launched by Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel in 2017, but irresolvable disagreements between Dassault, the French aviation company, and Airbus, whose defence unit is based in Germany, killed it. The timing could hardly be worse. European leaders are simultaneously calling for strategic autonomy and greater defence spending in response to Russian aggression and what the European Council on Foreign Relations describes as a Schrödinger's NATO moment — America formally inside the alliance while behaving as though it were not. The collapse reshapes the competitive landscape. Britain's rival programme with Italy and Japan — the Global Combat Air Programme — now stands as the main Western European next-generation fighter effort. But a fragmented European defence-industrial base, at a moment when the continent is trying to rearm, sends a signal to every capital about the distance between ambition and execution.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back tomorrow — assuming no one fires on us in the meantime.

• DW World: G7 vows new Russia sanctions amid optimism for Ukraine peace
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Moped ban in Crimea as official says noise is Kyiv plot using youth
• BBC Europe: 'It was surreal': British couple describe having warning shots fired near them by Russian warship
• Sky News World: Why Ukraine could now have fresh hope of vital US support
• France 24 Europe: France puts 14 on trial over deadliest Channel migrant crossing disaster
• France 24 Europe: Russian warship fires 'warning shots' at UK yacht in Channel
• DW World: Russian ship fires warning shots at British yacht in Channel
• France 24 Europe: Ukraine back in favour? At G7, Trump threatens return of Russia oil sanctions
• France 24 Europe: Russian warship fires warning shots at UK-flagged yacht in the English Channel
• The Guardian Europe: The Guardian view on defending Europe in a new era: collaboration is the key | Editorial
• The Guardian Europe: Why did a Russian frigate fire warning shots and what can the UK do about it?

Host: G7 leaders gather on the shores of Lake Geneva with Ukraine at the top of the agenda — and Keir Starmer arrives with new sanctions and an energy pledge for Kyiv. Brussels formally opens EU accession talks with Ukraine. Italian police shut down a clandestine bank laundering drug money through Prato. And Britain bans under-16s from social media. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The G7 summit is underway in the French spa town of Évian-les-Bains, and the central question is whether Western leaders can hold a unified line on Ukraine — and whether Donald Trump will stay on it. Trump struck an unusually optimistic note, saying he'd had a very good conversation with both Zelensky and Putin. "I think they're both open to it," he said. Germany's chancellor Friedrich Merz echoed that cautious hope, saying that for the first time a window can open for diplomacy on ending the war. But the European push is about more than mood music. Keir Starmer used the summit to announce new sanctions designed to choke off Russian revenue, targeting Moscow's financial networks and its shadow fleet — the tankers that skirt sanctions while operating in European waters. He also pledged hundreds of millions of pounds in energy support for Ukraine, including enriched uranium for its nuclear power plants. After what's been a torrid political week at home, the prime minister was clearly keen to put himself on the front foot on the international stage. He told the G7 that Britain will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. France's Emmanuel Macron, hosting the summit, framed the stakes in terms of who gets a seat at the table. The right negotiation, he said, is one in which Ukraine and Russia are present, but with Europeans and Americans as well. Between them, Britain, France, and Germany are each bringing distinct leverage — sanctions enforcement, diplomatic framing, and military-industrial weight — to what is shaping up as a coordinated European negotiating position. The diplomatic push comes against a grim backdrop. Russian drones struck Kyiv's monastery quarter overnight, setting the UNESCO-listed Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra ablaze. Zelensky said two drones deliberately targeted the site and called it one of Russia's most serious crimes against Christian culture to date. Eleven people were killed across the country. Zelensky urged G7 leaders to take decisive and substantive action — more pressure on the aggressor, he said, and more support for Ukraine's air defence. He is set to join the summit on Tuesday for talks with G7 leaders.

Host: While the diplomacy plays out at the G7, Brussels has reached its own milestone. The EU has formally opened the first stage of accession negotiations with Ukraine — a step that was supposed to happen two years ago but was blocked by former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who held up the process until his election defeat cleared the way. The timing is striking: accession talks beginning just as battlefield diplomacy intensifies. EU membership for Ukraine would carry enormous consequences for the bloc, reshaping agricultural subsidies, structural funds, and labour mobility rules. Every member state has to give unanimous consent for the process to advance, which means every capital has a veto — and the Hungarian blockade was a vivid demonstration of that power. Britain sits outside this particular process, but it's far from a bystander. The UK has its own bilateral security pact with Kyiv, and Starmer's sanctions push at the G7 is part of the same broader effort to anchor Ukraine firmly within European institutions. With Orbán gone, the first formal chapter is now open.

Host: Italian police have dismantled an underground bank in Prato, near Florence, that moved an estimated eighty to a hundred million euros a year for international drug trafficking networks. The clandestine operation was run by a Chinese national and had been active since at least 2021. Officials say several hundred million euros are believed to have passed through the system over at least three years. The bank operated through intermediaries, moving cash entirely outside the regulated financial system. Prato is already well known for its large Chinese textile manufacturing community — a place where legitimate and illicit transnational commerce have long coexisted. The case is a reminder of how criminal finance networks exploit open borders and fragmented policing. No single national force can easily follow the money when it moves through intermediaries in multiple jurisdictions. And it's a pattern that's hardly confined to Italy — London and British overseas territories have featured in similar money-laundering chains, which is precisely why European-wide cooperation on financial crime keeps climbing the agenda.

Host: And finally — Keir Starmer has announced that the UK will ban under-16s from social media, following the lead set by Australia and Indonesia. The prime minister was characteristically blunt: platforms like Instagram and TikTok, he said, make young people unhappy. It amounts to a significant intervention in how tech companies operate in Britain, and it will land in households up and down the country where parents have been wrestling with exactly this question for years. The ban will require platforms to enforce age restrictions — a technical and legal challenge that regulators elsewhere in Europe are grappling with in parallel. France has already passed its own age-verification law for social media. The EU's Digital Services Act includes provisions on protecting minors online, and member states from Spain to Sweden are working out how to enforce them. The UK is acting outside the EU's regulatory framework, but the problem is identical and the platforms are the same. Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat — they all run pan-European services. So how Britain enforces this ban, and whether it actually works, will be studied closely by regulators from Paris to Stockholm. Enforcement in one major market tends to create pressure on neighbours, because the same companies face the same questions everywhere.

Host: That's your briefing. Zelensky heads to Évian, accession talks are finally moving, and Europe's regulators have a new test case to watch. We'll see you next time. This has been Europa Daily.

• France 24 Europe: G7 leaders to meet Zelensky as Trump signals possible Ukraine breakthrough
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv’s allies push for peace at G7 summit in France
• DW World: UK announces social media ban for under-16s
• The Guardian Europe: Starmer vows new sanctions on Russia and nuclear energy support for Ukraine
• DW World: EU, Ukraine start formal accession talks after Orban delay
• The Guardian Europe: Italian police dismantle illicit bank used by drug traffickers as global broker
• France 24 Europe: Ukraine: Kyiv's historic cathedral set ablaze in Russian attack

Host: Royal Marines board a Russian-linked tanker in the English Channel. One of Eastern Christianity's most sacred sites burns after a massive air assault on Kyiv. And Swiss voters say no to a population cap — but only just. This is Europa Daily.

Host: British Royal Marines and National Crime Agency officers boarded a suspected Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in the English Channel in a six-hour overnight operation. The boarding involved military personnel and law enforcement working together through the early hours of Sunday, targeting a vessel in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes.

Host: To Ukraine, where a massive Russian missile and drone barrage struck Kyiv overnight, killing at least five people, injuring twenty, and cutting power to a hundred and forty thousand residents. The Dormition Cathedral inside the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra — a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of Eastern Christianity's most sacred complexes — caught fire during the assault. Agence France-Presse reported seeing projectiles intercepted in the sky, with glowing debris falling onto the city. Houses, cars, and a high-rise apartment building also caught fire. Ukraine's air force warned that the risk of further missile and drone attacks continued into the morning. Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko posted a picture of the monastery buildings in flames, calling it a brutal assault on Ukraine's people and heritage. She added: "This is the true face of Russia's Orthodox values." The strikes were part of a wider wave of Russian attacks. The regions of Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Sumy also came under fire, with two people killed in Sumy and a baby injured in a drone strike on Kharkiv. Ukraine, for its part, hit an oil facility in Russia's Yaroslavl region and the Azot explosives plant in the Tula region, according to President Zelensky, who described the operations as long-range sanctions against Russia.

Host: Swiss voters have rejected a right-wing initiative to cap the country's population at ten million by slashing immigration. Nearly fifty-five per cent voted against the proposal.

Host: Finally, Metropolitan Police officers stopped the far-right activist Tommy Robinson at Heathrow as he returned from a trip to Russia. Officers seized his phones under counter-terrorism provisions. Robinson — whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon — had been in Moscow, where he met Elon Musk's father.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The shadow fleet isn't going anywhere — and neither are we. See you tomorrow.

• France 24 Europe: Kyiv monastery damaged in Russian air attack as strikes intensify across Ukraine
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv decries ‘Russia’s Orthodox values’ as historic Pechersk Lavra monastery burns
• BBC Europe: Royal Marines board Russian shadow fleet oil tanker in English Channel
• BBC Europe: Swiss voters reject 10 million population cap
• The Guardian Europe: Police stop Tommy Robinson on his way back to London from Russian trip

Host: Trump sidelines Zelenskyy at the G7 — and Keir Starmer finds himself in the thick of a European scramble on Ukraine. Switzerland votes on whether to cap its population, risking its entire relationship with Brussels. And Berlin's arms fair is breaking every record. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The G7 summit in Évian opens with a conspicuous gap in Donald Trump's schedule. A senior US administration official has confirmed that Trump will take part in a G7 working session with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but will not hold a bilateral meeting with the Ukrainian president. Trump's bilateral dance card instead includes Emmanuel Macron, plus the leaders of Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, and India. The signal is hard to miss: Washington wants the war to end, in the words of one senior US official, "as quickly as possible" — but engaging Zelenskyy one-on-one is apparently not part of that urgency. One of those officials also said Russian gains in Ukraine have "more or less stopped." Meanwhile, the war's physical toll keeps accumulating. Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been reconnected to the grid after an outage lasting almost three days — the nineteenth time the plant has lost off-site power since the war began. An attack on an electrical substation disconnected a backup power line, forcing the facility to rely on emergency diesel generators to cool its six shutdown reactors. The reconnection happened under an IAEA-brokered localised ceasefire. Zelenskyy has said Ukrainian forces struck several infrastructure sites deep inside Russia, including a military factory he said supplied components for Russian drones and missiles. Ukrainian drone strikes also killed one person and injured three in Russia's Krasnodar region, where drone debris sparked a fire at a sea terminal. For the European leaders gathered at Évian — Macron, Scholz, Meloni, and Keir Starmer — the question now is how far they can push Washington on security commitments to Ukraine when the US president won't even sit down with Zelenskyy alone. For Starmer, the summit is a test of Britain's bilateral defence pledges to Kyiv and of how much weight Downing Street carries in shaping a collective European position when the Americans are stepping back.

Host: To Switzerland, where voters go to the polls on Sunday on a proposal to cap the country's population at ten million by 2050. Critics say the consequences could be Brexit-like — and anyone in Britain who lived through the years after 2016 will recognise the dilemma: a wealthy European country trying to limit migration whilst preserving market access. The measure would require restricting the free movement of people, which sits at the heart of Switzerland's bilateral agreements with Brussels. The referendum reflects growing anti-immigration sentiment seen right across Europe. A yes vote would put years of painstaking negotiations on a new institutional framework with the EU at serious risk. Switzerland's labour market is deeply enmeshed with its neighbours: hundreds of thousands of cross-border commuters from France, Germany, Italy, and Austria depend on free movement provisions. If those provisions are curtailed, the effects would ripple through regional economies on both sides of the border — from Haute-Savoie to Baden-Württemberg to Ticino. Britain's own experience offers a cautionary tale about how quickly trade friction and labour shortages can follow when movement of people is restricted. We'll know the result by Sunday evening.

Host: Two cities, one combustible issue. In Rome, tens of thousands turned out for rival demonstrations — both for and against a proposed bill seeking measures against migrants. The legislation has secured enough parliamentary support to be brought before the chamber. In Belfast, thousands rallied to denounce anti-immigrant violence that erupted earlier in the week, triggered by an alleged knife attack by a Sudanese refugee. The protesters condemned the scenes of disorder that followed. Different countries, different legal systems, but the same volatile politics of immigration and public order playing out in real time. For anyone in the UK, Belfast's unrest carries uncomfortable echoes of the disorder that swept English cities in 2024 and the riots in Dublin before that — a pattern that keeps repeating. Italy's proposed legislation is being closely watched because the policy choices Rome makes on migration feed directly into EU-wide asylum debates. And the tactics of both far-right agitators and counter-protest movements are plainly travelling between countries. What happens in one European city shapes the political temperature in the next.

Host: If you want to see what European rearmament actually looks like, go to Berlin. The ILA Berlin Air Show is breaking records this year, driven primarily by a booming defence sector that is reaping billions in contracts as wars and crises reshape spending priorities. The atmosphere has been described as a gold rush. Among the headline deals: a multibillion-dollar submarine agreement between Germany and India, reflecting both New Delhi's push for military self-reliance and Berlin's growing strategic interest in the Indo-Pacific. That deal alone signals how Germany's defence industry is expanding its ambitions well beyond Europe's borders. The timing matters. With Trump's refusal to hold a bilateral with Zelenskyy at Évian raising fresh questions about the depth of US commitment, the contracts flowing at ILA reflect a continent that is spending heavily on its own security. For British firms — BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce — the show is a crucial marketplace. Post-Brexit, winning European defence contracts requires navigating a more complicated procurement landscape, but the sheer scale of spending means the opportunities are enormous. Almost every major European weapons programme — fighter jets, tanks, naval platforms — involves multinational partnerships that bind together French, German, Spanish, Italian, and British industrial capacity. The money being committed in Berlin this week will shape those partnerships for decades.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back with the Swiss referendum results and whatever emerges from Évian. Until then — stay sharp.

• DW World: Italy: Thousands attend anti- and pro-migration rallies in Rome
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy not on Trump’s G7 bilateral meeting list, official says
• France 24 Europe: Switzerland holds Brexit-style referendum on 10 million population cap
• DW World: Belfast: Thousands denounce violence at anti-racism rally
• DW World: Gold rush atmosphere at Berlin's military air trade show
• DW World: A major submarine deal between India and Germany reflects New Delhi's push for military self-reliance — and Berlin's interest in the Indo-Pacific.