Host: The EU overhauls its migration policy with more deportations and plans for detention centres abroad. Germany courts Hungary's new leader. A horrific arson attack kills migrant farm workers in Italy. And Kyiv counts its dead as the scramble for air-defence missiles intensifies. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The European Union has pressed ahead with a vast overhaul of its migration policy. The deal ramps up deportations and — most controversially — aims to strike deals for detention centres outside Europe's borders. Rights groups have been quick to criticise, drawing comparisons with the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement in the United States. Camille Le Coz, Director of the Migration Policy Institute of Europe, told France 24 that the policy has been framed in EU law so as to remain compatible with international law. That framing will now face intense scrutiny.

Host: To Berlin and Budapest now. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has met Hungary's new Prime Minister Peter Magyar and signalled what he expects to be a positive reset in EU relations. Magyar's arrival has been welcomed as a potential turning point. But Budapest has so far signalled only a partial shift on support for Ukraine, leaving a key fault line unresolved.

Host: In Italy, two people have been arrested after four migrant farm workers were killed in a minivan fire. CCTV images showed the suspects blocking the van's doors from the outside and throwing liquid inside to start the blaze.

Host: Finally, to Kyiv, where residents emerged from underground shelters to scenes of devastation after another massive Russian drone and missile attack. At least twenty-three people were killed. One resident told the BBC: "They'll fix the building, but not our souls." Ukrainian tennis star Marta Kostyuk, freshly into the French Open semi-finals after defeating compatriot Elina Svitolina, dedicated her win to the Ukrainian people and their resilience. She called out Russian players for their silence: "They know what's going on. They have phones. They have Instagram. They have news. I wish there was some more clear stance on what's going on, especially when your country is killing other people." Beyond the human toll, the attacks expose a hard strategic reality. The MIM-104 Patriot system has been widely relied on by US allies — in the Gulf as well as in Ukraine. The US-Israeli campaign against Iran, combined with Ukraine's needs, has triggered a scramble for a dwindling supply of interceptor missiles. President Zelenskyy has repeated his plea to the United States for more stocks.

Host: That is your Europa Daily. Migration deals, diplomatic resets, and missile maths — a full continental agenda. We'll see you next time.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: ‘Your country is killing other people’ – tennis star blasts Russian rivals
• France 24 Europe: EU strikes migration deal for more deportations and detention centers abroad
• BBC Europe: 'They'll fix the building, but not our souls': Sleepy Kyiv neighbourhood hit in Russian strike
• BBC Europe: Two arrested after four migrant farm workers killed in Italy minivan fire
• DW World: Germany's Merz backs Hungary's new pro-EU course

Host: Britain asks to rejoin the single market for goods — and gets a no. NATO debates how hard to push back on Russia. And the EU locks in a trade deal with Mexico. This is Europa Daily.

Host: A Guardian exclusive reveals that the UK government pitched the creation of a single market for goods with the EU as the centrepiece of an ambitious attempt to reintegrate British trade back into Europe. Michael Ellam, the Cabinet Office's top official on EU relations, presented the idea during recent visits to Brussels. Sources say it was rebuffed. The proposal would have represented a dramatic shift in London's post-Brexit ambitions — effectively seeking to restore the free movement of goods between the UK and the EU's twenty-seven member states, with all the regulatory alignment that implies. For manufacturers on both sides, from automotive plants in the Midlands to component suppliers in Germany and eastern Europe, a goods single market would have reshaped supply chains and competitive dynamics. But Brussels said no. And the rejection tells us something about where EU red lines now sit. The bloc has consistently insisted that the four freedoms — goods, services, capital, and people — are indivisible. A goods-only arrangement would break that principle. What comes next in this negotiation remains to be seen, but the fact that London floated the idea at all marks a significant evolution in the UK's posture toward Europe.

Host: At the NATO foreign ministers' meeting in Helsingborg, Sweden, Czech President Petr Pavel urged the alliance to, in his words, 'show its teeth' over Russia's repeated provocations on NATO's eastern flank. Pavel is worth listening to here — he's a former general and ex-chair of NATO's military committee. Speaking to the Guardian in Prague, he called for 'decisive enough, potentially even asymmetric' responses. He floated options including switching off Russia's internet access, cutting its banks from global financial systems, and shooting down jets that violate allied airspace. His warning was blunt: if NATO doesn't respond firmly, the Kremlin will only intensify. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington is monitoring what he described as a Russian campaign against the Baltics that could 'spark into something bigger.' But Rubio also confirmed that US troop numbers in Europe — currently around eighty thousand — are expected to drop following a review reflecting wider American commitments in the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East, and the western hemisphere. Rubio called the upcoming NATO leaders' summit in Ankara 'one of the more important' in the alliance's history, saying leaders will have to address Trump's 'disappointment' with NATO's response to US operations in the Middle East.

Host: The EU and Mexico have signed an updated trade agreement that removes most remaining barriers to trade and investment between the two. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said the deal was 'not contradictory' with Mexico's trade relationship with the United States — a pointed bit of diplomatic positioning as both the EU and Mexico navigate an era of American protectionism. For Brussels, this is trade diversification strategy made concrete. The deal matters for European car manufacturers, agri-food exporters, and pharmaceutical firms with operations in Mexico. It's also worth noting that the UK, outside the EU, lacks an equivalent agreement with Mexico — another gap in its post-Brexit trade architecture.

Host: Two developments from the Ukraine war with direct implications for the rest of Europe. The UN's nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, reported that a fire broke out at the Dniprovska 750-kilovolt electrical substation due to military activity, causing a nuclear power plant to be partially disconnected from off-site power. Firefighters were tackling the blaze, but the partial disconnection of an operating nuclear plant from its external power supplies is precisely the kind of safety threshold the IAEA has been monitoring with alarm. Nuclear safety in Ukraine is not an abstract concern for the rest of Europe — it is a live one. Separately, a bipartisan group of US senators sent a letter to Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth pushing back on delays in disbursing roughly six hundred million dollars in security aid. That money includes four hundred million for Ukraine and two hundred million specifically for defence programmes in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — all allocated by Congress last year. Friction has been growing between Congress and the Trump administration as lawmakers demand updates on where the funding stands. For the three Baltic states, this is a direct test of whether American legislative commitments to their security will actually be honoured.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We'll be back with more when the dust settles — or, more likely, when it kicks up again.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Putin promises revenge after blaming Kyiv for Luhansk attack he says killed six
• DW World: EU, Mexico sign expanded trade deal
• The Guardian Europe: UK pitched single market for goods with EU in pursuit of deeper trade ties
• BBC Europe: Russia's Putin vows retaliation after accusing Ukraine of hitting student dormitory
• The Guardian Europe: Czech president urges Nato to ‘show its teeth’ over Russia’s provocations
• France 24 Europe: Trump disappointed in NATO: Plan B?
• The Guardian Europe: US concerned Russian campaign against Baltics could ‘spark into something bigger’, says Rubio – as it happened

Host: Russian jets within six metres of a British spy plane. A new offensive threat from Belarus. And a Nordic court tells Greece: no, you can't have him. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The Ministry of Defence has released footage showing Russian fighter jets flying dangerously close to an unarmed RAF Rivet Joint reconnaissance aircraft over the Black Sea last month. In one incident, a Russian Su-27 conducted six passes in front of the aircraft, coming within six metres of its nose at roughly 500 miles per hour. In a separate encounter, an Su-35 flew close enough to trigger the plane's emergency systems. Defence Secretary John Healey called both incidents dangerous and unacceptable. The Rivet Joint is an intelligence-gathering aircraft. Its missions feed into NATO's collective defence picture, the kind of data that matters to frontline allies from Romania and Bulgaria on the Black Sea to the Baltic states in the north. A collision at those speeds and distances would not just endanger the crew — it would risk a diplomatic crisis between London and Moscow. The BBC's Frank Gardner noted the incidents highlight just how tense relations between Russia and NATO have become. For now, the footage speaks for itself: fighter jets manoeuvring within metres of an unarmed plane, over contested waters, in the middle of a European war.

Host: Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Ukrainian intelligence has identified five Russian scenarios for launching a new offensive from Belarus toward the Chernihiv-Kyiv direction. Ukraine's top army commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, confirmed that the Russian general staff is actively planning operations from the north. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces in the sector will be increased, and he warned Belarus there would be significant consequences if it allowed itself to be dragged into an expansion of the war. Ukraine's border guards say they haven't yet detected equipment or personnel moving directly to the border, but they can see the pressure Russia is putting on Belarus. Meanwhile, Britain's latest sanctions package on Russian oil has turned into a diplomatic headache. Kyiv expressed open disappointment after learning that diesel and jet fuel refined from Russian crude in third countries would be temporarily exempted. A British minister conceded the announcement had been handled clumsily. Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke to Zelenskyy by phone, insisting sanctions on those products would be phased in to keep the market stable. Zelenskyy thanked Starmer for support but said the sanctions issue was always very sensitive, adding that Ukraine had conveyed its signals to London. One former senior government figure was blunter, describing Western sanctions policy against Russia as too little, too late. Separately, the EU confirmed it will disburse three point two billion euros to Ukraine next month — the first payment under a major loan approved in April.

Host: A Norwegian appeals court in Tromsø has unanimously refused to extradite Tommy Olsen to Greece. Olsen is the Norwegian founder of the Aegean Boat Report, an NGO that monitors migrant crossings in the Aegean Sea. Greek authorities charged him with facilitating illegal entry. The court ruled that his actions were not only lawful but protected under international treaties to which both Norway and Greece are signatories. Lawyers representing Olsen described the judgment as unprecedented. It has been hailed by supporters as a rare victory for human rights. The case exposes a sharp divide in how European states treat humanitarian work around migration. Greece has pursued criminal cases against people involved in rescue-adjacent activity in the Aegean. Norway's judiciary has now said, in effect, that the same acts are protected rights under shared international obligations. For NGO workers operating along the Mediterranean migration route, this ruling matters.

Host: In Vienna, a former Austrian intelligence officer has been found guilty of spying for Russia. The conviction has revived fears that Austria remains a hotbed of Russian espionage activity. Austria's neutral status and its role as host to major international organisations — the IAEA, the OSCE, OPEC — have long made Vienna an attractive operating ground for foreign intelligence services. A compromised officer inside Austrian intelligence is not just an Austrian problem. Austria interfaces with European security structures, and any penetration of its agencies raises questions about the integrity of information shared through those channels. Russian espionage operations have been uncovered in recent years in Germany, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and the UK. Each case chips away at the trust that underpins intelligence cooperation across the continent. The conviction in Vienna is a reminder that Europe's espionage problem with Moscow is not confined to its eastern flank — it runs right through the centre.

Host: That's your briefing. Russian jets too close for comfort, sanctions too clumsy for Kyiv, and a spy too compromised for Vienna. Europa Daily is back tomorrow.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Fresh threat of attack from Belarus front, warns Zelenskyy
• BBC Europe: Why Russian jets intercepting an RAF spy plane is 'serious incident'
• BBC Europe: Austrian ex-intelligence officer found guilty of Russia spying charges
• The Guardian Europe: Russian jet filmed flying within metres of RAF spy plane – video
• The Guardian Europe: UK struggles to reassure Ukraine after easing new sanctions on Russian oil
• The Guardian Europe: Norwegian court blocks extradition to Greece of migrant rights activist
• The Guardian Europe: Russian jet causes ‘dangerous’ near miss after flying close to RAF spy plane

Host: A Chinese ship hit entering Odesa. Nuclear drills on NATO's doorstep. And former EU negotiators tell Britain: if you want back in, forget the old terms. From London, this is Europa Daily.

Host: Two developments on Europe's eastern flank are demanding attention at once. President Zelenskyy says a Chinese-flagged civilian vessel was struck by Russia on its way into Odesa port — part of a broader pattern of Russian attacks on civilian shipping in the Black Sea. Meanwhile, Belarus has launched military drills involving Russian tactical nuclear weapons. The Belarusian Defence Ministry said the exercises would test its readiness to deploy nuclear weapons. Ukraine condemned the drills, saying Russia is de facto legitimising the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide.

Host: To the question of Britain's relationship with the EU — and a blunt message from the people who negotiated Brexit the first time round. Veterans of the EU's Brexit negotiating team say Britain would not be able to rejoin the bloc on the special terms it once enjoyed. They describe what the UK would face as a warm and welcoming stance, but also a hard-headed one, with no tailor-made deal on offer. This matters now because senior Labour figures jostling for the party leadership are talking openly about wanting to return. Wes Streeting has called Brexit a catastrophic mistake and said the UK should rejoin. His rival Andy Burnham has previously advocated for rejoining but is fighting a by-election in the leave-voting Makerfield constituency.

Host: Belfast Harbour is planning to spend one point three billion pounds over the next twenty-five years — one of the largest non-governmental investments in Northern Ireland's history. The Belfast Harbour Commissioners say the money will go towards expanding quays, ferry terminals, and cruise ship services. The harbour has already upgraded its offshore wind facilities. On top of the core investment, there is the possibility of residential property developments adding another seven hundred and fifty million pounds. The Commissioners say the plan is driven by strong economic growth in Northern Ireland.

Host: Finally — a ground-level report from Suifenhe, a small city on China's north-eastern border with Russia, reveals a booming trade in cars and consumer goods flowing into Russia. Wang Runguo, a forty-five-year-old manager at a car export company founded just last August, says his salary has more than doubled thanks to a well-timed pivot — from corn to cars, from China to Russia. His company, Xingyun International Automobile Export, was set up specifically to cater to the new car export industry. As Wang puts it: China and Russia have been moving closer together, and more and more cars are going there. Suifenhe, once part of China's economically depressed rust belt, has become a microcosm of the evolving Chinese-Russian trading relationship — one that includes everything from sanctioned cars to beauty clinics, with Russian roubles flowing freely into Chinese border towns.

Host: That is Europa Daily. Black Sea shipping under fire, Brexit terms being set before negotiations even start, and a booming trade on the China-Russia border. We'll see you next time.

• The Guardian Europe: Belfast harbour operator to invest £1.3bn as NI economy grows
• The Guardian Europe: From sanctioned cars to beauty clinics, Russian rubles have flowed into China’s border towns since Ukraine war
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Chinese ship hit on way in to Odesa port, says Zelenskyy
• The Guardian Europe: No ‘tailor-made’ deal for UK if it wants to rejoin bloc, say former EU Brexit officials
• DW World: Belarus launches drills involving Russian nuclear weapons
• The Guardian Europe: Could the UK really rejoin the EU? - The Latest

Host: Nearly 600 Ukrainian drones hit Russia overnight — and one turned up in Lithuania. A plague ship docks in Rotterdam, with contacts heading back to Britain. And at Cannes, France's biggest film financier draws up a blacklist. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Ukraine has carried out one of its largest-ever drone strikes against Russia, launching a wave of almost 600 drones overnight across 14 Russian regions, the Crimean peninsula, and the Black and Azov seas. The Moscow region was among the worst hit. Ukraine's general staff listed an array of aerial weaponry used in the operation, including the RS-1 Bars jet-powered UAV, the Firepoint FP-1 winged drone, and a previously unknown variant dubbed the Bars-SM Gladiator. Agence France-Presse journalists were granted access to an undisclosed launch site, where they described battalion members preparing plane-like drones that took off towards Russia, leaving trails of sparks and flames from their rocket boosters. Ukraine's SBU security service highlighted a strike on the Angstrom plant in Zelenograd, in the Moscow region, which it said specialises in producing microcircuits for high-precision weapons — calling it an important component of the Russian military-industrial complex involved in microelectronics, radio electronics, optical systems, and robotics for military use. A fire was recorded at the facility. The SBU also said the Solnechnogorskaya pumping station was hit — a critical part of the ring oil pipeline around Moscow used for pumping, storing, and shipping fuel, including for the Russian army. A fire was reported there as well. Russian authorities said at least four people were killed and a dozen more wounded, attributing several hits to drone debris — language they routinely use to imply drones were intercepted rather than striking their targets. The Russian defence ministry claimed 3,124 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the past week. Britain, of course, is one of the leading suppliers of military aid to Kyiv, and the expanding range and sophistication of Ukraine's drone capability feeds directly into the ongoing Westminster debate about long-range strike policy. But the story doesn't end in Russia. A suspected Ukrainian military drone was found crashed in Lithuania, as Baltic NATO members face growing concern over stray munitions crossing into their airspace. The Lithuanian incident is a sharp reminder that the physical footprint of this war now extends into EU and NATO territory — and that air-defence coordination along the eastern flank, from the Baltics down to Romania, is very much back on the agenda.

Host: To Rotterdam, where the hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius was due to dock on Monday morning for disinfection. The outbreak aboard the vessel has killed three people and triggered global monitoring. Dutch authorities have been preparing quarantine arrangements for remaining crew and medical staff. This is now a live cross-border public-health operation — and it has a direct British dimension. The UK Health Security Agency confirmed that nine asymptomatic hantavirus contacts from St Helena and Ascension Island were expected to arrive in the UK on Monday evening. UKHSA is monitoring them, though none has shown symptoms so far. The ship's Dutch registration, its docking in Rotterdam, and the dispersal of passengers and crew to multiple countries mean several national health systems are handling this simultaneously — a practical test of how disease-surveillance cooperation works when an outbreak demands it.

Host: At the Cannes film festival, a remarkable standoff between money and creative freedom. The head of Canal+, France's biggest film producer, has announced the group will no longer work with the hundreds of cinema figures who signed an open letter voicing concern over the growing political influence of its billionaire owner, Vincent Bolloré. The letter, published to coincide with the opening of Cannes, was signed by more than 600 figures, including the actor-director Juliette Binoche, the director and photographer Raymond Depardon, the French-Iranian filmmaker Sepideh Farsi, and the director Arthur Harari — who co-wrote the Oscar-winning Anatomy of a Fall and is premiering his film The Unknown in the main competition at Cannes. Canal+ is not just any production house. It is France's dominant film financier, and through Bolloré's wider Vivendi empire — which includes a significant London footprint — it co-produces and distributes well beyond France. A blacklist from this single conglomerate could reshape which films get made and who gets to make them right across European cinema. That concentration of power is, of course, precisely what the signatories were raising in the first place. The row echoes broader debates — from Italy to Hungary — about media ownership and its effect on democratic discourse.

Host: And finally — a homecoming. Eurovision winner Dara arrived back in Bulgaria to screaming fans in Sofia, marking the country's first-ever title in the song contest. The twenty-seven-year-old's tune Bangaranga took the crown, and the reception made clear what it meant. Eurovision remains one of the very few pan-European cultural events that genuinely commands mass attention from one end of the continent to the other — roughly 160 million viewers, give or take. The BBC, as a core member of the European Broadcasting Union, remains central to the whole enterprise, even if British results of late have been, shall we say, mixed. Bulgaria's first win shifts the spotlight to southeastern Europe — a part of the continent that doesn't always feature in the headlines but clearly knows how to throw a welcome-home party.

Host: That's Europa Daily. We're back tomorrow morning. Until then — keep watching the skies, and the scoreboard.

• France 24 Europe: Hantavirus-hit cruise ship MV Hondius arrives in Rotterdam for disinfection
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: The drones that bombarded Moscow region
• The Guardian Europe: At least four people killed in Russia as Ukraine launches retaliatory strikes
• France 24 Europe: Suspected Ukrainian military drone discovered after crashing in Lithuania
• The Guardian Europe: France’s top film producer says it will blacklist figures who petitioned against rightwing billionaire
• BBC Europe: Eurovision winner Dara arrives to screaming fans in Bulgaria
• Sky News World: Update on hantavirus contacts returning to UK

Host: A drone launched in one country's war brings down a government in another. Latvia's prime minister is out, Romania finds another projectile on its soil, and Washington tightens the screws on Russian oil. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Latvia's Prime Minister Evika Silina has resigned, triggering the collapse of her coalition — and the cause traces directly back to the war in Ukraine. Ukrainian drones strayed into Latvian territory and exploded at an oil facility. The Latvian army admitted it failed to detect the drones as they crossed from Russia. Silina blamed her defence minister, Andris Spruds, for not developing anti-drone systems quickly enough, and sacked him. In response, Spruds' Progressives party withdrew support from the government, leaving Silina without a parliamentary majority. President Edgars Rinkevics has now put forward opposition lawmaker Andris Kulbergs as the next prime minister. Several Russian and Ukrainian drones have come down in Latvia since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, fuelling public anxiety in the small former Soviet republic. Britain, of course, has troops deployed in the Baltic states as part of NATO's enhanced forward presence — so the question of how the alliance plugs these air-defence gaps is not an abstract one for the UK. Latvia is far from alone in facing them. In south-eastern Romania, an unexploded projectile was discovered in the yard of an uninhabited house in the village of Pardina, in Tulcea county. Romania's defence ministry confirmed the find but did not say where it came from. Romania shares a 650-kilometre land border with Ukraine, and Russian drones attacking Ukrainian ports on the Danube have repeatedly breached Romanian airspace. Fragments have fallen on Romanian soil as Ukrainian forces shoot them down. Last month, an explosive drone landed in a back garden in the city of Galati — the first time since the war began that such an incident damaged property in Romania. The leaders of NATO's fourteen eastern flank nations said this week that Russia's repeated violations of their airspace underline the urgent need to consolidate the alliance's air defences against missiles and drones. Meanwhile, the Trump administration allowed a sanctions waiver to lapse that had permitted countries including India to buy Russian seaborne oil. The waiver had been extended for a month to ease supply shortages linked to Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had previously said he would not renew the general licence. Two senior Democratic senators, Jeanne Shaheen and Elizabeth Warren, had urged against renewal, arguing the waiver was providing revenue to Russia for its war in Ukraine with no evidence it was lowering fuel costs for American consumers. As of Saturday afternoon Washington time, no renewal notice had appeared on the Treasury website.

Host: From drones crossing borders to borders themselves being redrawn — at least in theory. Moldovan President Maia Sandu and Romania's Nicusor Dan want to reunite their countries. The two leaders are openly discussing the prospect, which would merge a non-EU state with an EU member. DW asks whether this is a realistic scenario. A Romania-Moldova merger would raise immediate questions about EU treaty law, since it would effectively bring Moldova into the union without a formal accession process. Then there is Transnistria, the breakaway region where Russian troops are stationed — a frozen conflict that any reunification would have to confront. Britain has backed Moldova's westward orientation and has security interests in Black Sea stability, so the implications reach well beyond Bucharest and Chișinău. The two countries share a language and deep historical ties; they were separated when the Soviet Union annexed what was then eastern Romania. But turning presidential ambition into political reality would require navigating not just domestic opinion in both countries, but the legal architecture of the European Union itself.

Host: In Italy, a man in his thirties drove a car into pedestrians in central Modena on Saturday, injuring eight people — four of them seriously. According to the BBC, passers-by gave chase and stopped the man. Investigators are still working out whether the driver acted deliberately. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the incident "extremely serious." Details remain thin at this stage, and authorities have not confirmed a motive. What is clear is that the incident will sharpen attention on public-space security in European cities — a concern that has grown after vehicle-ramming attacks in Berlin, Nice, Barcelona, and indeed London. Counter-terrorism cooperation between British and European police forces has deepened precisely because of this shared vulnerability.

Host: And finally — Eurovision. Bulgaria's Dara has won the 70th Eurovision Song Contest, hosted in Vienna. It is Bulgaria's first victory in the competition. But as has become something of a pattern, the music was not the only story. The contest was again overshadowed by protests and a boycott over Israel's participation — a debate that played out prominently in British media too, given the BBC's role as the UK's broadcaster in the competition. DW described the event as the world's biggest live music contest — and one where the politics now rival the pop for attention. Eurovision remains one of the few cultural events that commands mass attention in more than forty countries simultaneously. Bulgaria's win shifts the spotlight towards south-eastern Europe, a region that has been at the centre of several of today's stories — from Romanian airspace violations to reunification talks with Moldova. But in Vienna, the sharpest divisions were not about eastern borders. The boycott debate cut across European broadcasters and audiences, turning what is determinedly billed as an apolitical Saturday night out into a mirror of the continent's most charged geopolitical arguments.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Governments fall, borders blur, and Eurovision still manages to be the most political thing on telly. See you next time.

• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: US allows Russian oil sanctions waiver to lapse; unexploded projectile lands in Romania
• DW World: Bulgaria's Dara wins Eurovision Song Contest 2026 in Vienna
• DW World: Eight injured after car ploughs into crowd in Italy's Modena
• BBC Europe: Man drives car into pedestrians in Italy, injuring eight
• DW World: Could Romania and Moldova reunite?

Host: Washington pulls troops from Germany and cancels a deployment to Poland. Forty-six European countries endorse third-country asylum hubs. And Eurovision comes to Vienna, but not everyone's celebrating. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The Trump administration has stopped a planned troop deployment to Poland, coming directly after an order to pull five thousand US troops out of Germany. Both moves have drawn criticism from Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Washington — a rare point of bipartisan agreement. The Poland cancellation compounds the shock of the Germany withdrawal. These are not abstract force-posture reviews. They represent a tangible reduction in American military presence on NATO's eastern flank — the stretch of allied territory closest to Russia. For Poland, which has spent years lobbying for a permanent US garrison, the reversal is stark. For Germany, the pullout order raises immediate questions about the future of American bases that have been fixtures of the country's security landscape for decades. Baltic states that depend on NATO's forward presence, and allies like the UK that contribute troops to the alliance's eastern deployments, now face a changed calculation about what the American commitment to European defence actually looks like in practice. In London, as in Berlin, Paris, and Warsaw, debates about defence spending and strategic self-reliance have just become considerably more urgent.

Host: In a move that would have been unthinkable a few years ago, all forty-six members of the Council of Europe — the body that oversees the European Convention on Human Rights — have signed a political declaration endorsing the right to send rejected asylum seekers to third-country processing hubs. The declaration states that countries have an, quote, "undeniable sovereign right" to control their borders. That language is significant. The Council of Europe's membership stretches from Iceland to Turkey, and very much includes the UK. For Britain, this effectively places the Rwanda-style offshore processing model within a broader European consensus rather than treating it as a national outlier. Human rights organisations have deplored the agreement. The tension is hard to miss: the institution built to safeguard the European Convention on Human Rights is now collectively endorsing a policy framework that rights groups say undermines the asylum protections that convention was designed to guarantee.

Host: Two significant Ukraine developments landed almost simultaneously. First, Andriy Yermak — President Zelenskyy's former chief of staff and long considered his right-hand man — has been arrested on corruption charges. Yermak is accused of laundering four hundred and sixty million hryvnia, more than ten million dollars, through an elite real estate project outside Kyiv. The allegations also include — and this is a detail — using a secret phone to consult an astrologer on key government appointments. The arrest is being described as a major test for Ukraine's independent anti-corruption agencies, institutions built with significant European support. It poses a dilemma for Zelenskyy himself, and it matters directly to European governments that are asking their publics to sustain financial and military support for Kyiv. Separately, thirty-four European states along with Australia and Costa Rica have formally agreed to create a special tribunal that would allow Ukraine to prosecute Russia for the crime of aggression over its invasion. That's a new multinational legal body, backed overwhelmingly by European countries, designed to hold Moscow accountable in a way existing international courts cannot.

Host: And finally — Eurovision. The grand final takes place this weekend in Vienna, and the contest that was designed to knit post-war Europe together is having something of an identity crisis. Dave Keating, a Brussels-based journalist and Eurovision superfan, writes in the Guardian that he won't be tuning in this year. For the past two years, he says, fans stuck by the contest despite intensifying controversy over Israel's participation. But now, he writes, superfans are bonding not over common joy but over a shared sense of sadness about the politicisation of the event. He's careful to note that this sadness pales beside the trauma of those affected by the wars fuelling the controversy — but it is there nonetheless. The usual collection of power ballads and jokey songs is competing in Vienna, but the backdrop is boycott campaigns and political rows that have overshadowed the music. Meanwhile, Britain has gone for broke. The UK entry is Look Mum No Computer — described by Sky News as an electro Frankenstein — a gloriously leftfield act hoping to end a twenty-nine-year Eurovision drought. Whether it's brave or foolhardy, it at least offers a lighter thread in a contest weighed down by geopolitics.

Host: That's Europa Daily. The grand final is Saturday night — enjoy it, argue about it, or switch it off entirely. We'll be back on Monday.

• The Guardian Europe: I’m a Eurovision superfan, but this year’s contest brings only sadness. I won’t be tuning in
• DW World: US stops Poland troop deployment after Germany pullout order
• The Guardian Europe: UK joins European deal to send rejected asylum seekers to third-country hubs
• Sky News World: Who's behind bizarre Eurovision song hoping to end UK's 29-year drought?
• France 24 Europe: A test for Ukraine, a dilemma for Zelensky: What's at stake in the Andriy Yermak corruption probe
• France 24 Europe: 36 countries approve creation of special Ukraine tribunal to prosecute Russia

Host: This is Europa Daily — your briefing on the stories shaping the continent. Here's what you need to know today.

Host: We begin in Kyiv, which endured one of the heaviest combined attacks in months overnight. Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at the Ukrainian capital for several hours, killing at least ten people and injuring many more. There are also fresh warnings about military drones operating dangerously close to Ukrainian nuclear plants. Germany's chancellor, Friedrich Merz, responded with some of his sharpest language yet, saying President Putin is escalating the war, not looking for a way to end it. That framing matters — it signals a hardening line in Berlin that will carry weight in NATO and EU discussions about the next phase of military and financial support. For Britain, which remains one of Ukraine's foremost military backers, the attack renews questions about further Storm Shadow missile supplies and the broader commitment to Ukrainian air defence. The barrage also lands as European capitals digest the unblocking of a seventy-eight-billion-pound loan to Kyiv — a breakthrough we'll come to in a moment. Ukrainian security is now a shared European undertaking: arms production in France and Germany, refugee hosting in Poland and the Baltics, energy reconfiguration continent-wide, and British intelligence and missile contributions all woven into the same effort.

Host: That Ukraine loan breakthrough is directly linked to a remarkable change of government in Budapest. Within forty-eight hours of being sworn in as Hungary's new prime minister, Péter Magyar lifted the vetoes that his predecessor Viktor Orbán had used to paralyse EU decision-making for over a year. First, Magyar's government unblocked EU sanctions on violent Israeli settlers — measures that align with Britain's own sanctions policy. Then came the green light for the long-delayed seventy-eight-billion-pound Ukraine loan. It is the fastest tangible shift in EU foreign policy triggered by a single national election in years. Magyar inherits an economy hobbled by cronyism, and he'll be hoping the goodwill cuts both ways: roughly ten billion pounds in frozen EU development funds for Hungary could be released if Budapest meets reform benchmarks by the end of August. It's a textbook case of how a government change in one member state can unblock collective action for twenty-six others — and, through sanctions coordination, ripple outward to partners like the UK as well.

Host: Next, to the car industry, where a striking role reversal is under way. The Chinese electric-vehicle maker Xpeng is actively shopping for a factory site in Europe, just as Volkswagen is trying to slim down its own plant network. You might think that would make for a neat deal, but Xpeng's managing director for north-eastern Europe, Elvis Cheng, inspected one of the available VW facilities and found it, as he put it, "a little bit old." EU tariffs on Chinese EVs were meant to shield domestic manufacturers, but if Chinese firms set up production inside Europe they sidestep those tariffs entirely — creating local jobs while intensifying the competitive pressure on established brands. Britain faces the same dynamics. The government's own EV sales mandate and the future of plants like Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port sit squarely in this story. European automotive supply chains span dozens of countries; a Chinese factory in Belgium or Spain would reshape parts sourcing, employment, and trade policy right across the continent.

Host: Finally, a story that sits right at the intersection of British domestic politics and European legal architecture. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper is expected to sign a political declaration today alongside ministers from forty-five other Council of Europe member states — reinterpreting parts of the European Convention on Human Rights to make it easier to deport refused asylum seekers and foreign criminals. Critics say the declaration weakens protections for torture victims, and the Starmer government is already facing accusations of watering down fundamental safeguards. It's worth remembering that although Britain left the EU, it remains a full member of the Council of Europe and a signatory to the Convention. This declaration shows London actively shaping — and being shaped by — the continent's legal framework on migration and human rights, alongside Turkey, France, Germany, and others. Any shift in how the Convention is interpreted could influence case law at the Strasbourg court for years to come, affecting all forty-six signatory states.

Host: That's the Europa Daily briefing.

• The Guardian Europe: EU carmakers pave way for Chinese rivals as balance in market shifts
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Putin escalating war, not seeking an end – Merz
• The Guardian Europe: UK ministers accused of weakening legal protections for torture victims
• France 24 Europe: Russia pummels Kyiv, killing at least 10 as advance in the east slows
• The Guardian Europe: The Guardian view on life after Orbán: Péter Magyar’s fast start bodes well for Hungary and for Europe | Editorial

Host: Eight hundred drones over Ukraine, fighter jets scrambled in Poland, a border crossing shut in Slovakia — and in Budapest, a new prime minister picks up the phone to summon the Russian ambassador. This is Europa Daily.

Host: Russia launched what President Zelenskyy called one of the longest and largest attacks of the war — more than 800 drones in a massive daytime barrage hitting roughly 20 regions of Ukraine, including western areas bordering NATO allies. At least six people were killed and dozens wounded. Ukrainian monitors detected at least eight salvoes, some entering from Belarus, with Kyiv's critical infrastructure the apparent target. Moscow then doubled down with a fresh wave of missile strikes on the capital overnight, with loud explosions reported right across the city.

The attack's reach triggered immediate military responses beyond Ukraine's borders. Poland scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure. Slovakia closed a border crossing with Ukraine amid warnings of further Russian strikes.

But the political shockwave may prove just as significant. Hungary's new prime minister Péter Magyar summoned the Russian ambassador — a sharp break from his predecessor Viktor Orbán's friendly relations with Moscow. "The Hungarian government strongly condemns the Russian attack on Transcarpathia," Magyar told journalists, adding that his foreign minister would ask the ambassador "when Russia and Vladimir Putin plan to finally end this bloody war." Zelenskyy responded on X: "Thank you for your compassion and strong position." Under the outgoing Hungarian government, Budapest had blocked aid for Ukraine and tried to slow its efforts to join the EU.

Meanwhile, leaders of 14 eastern-flank NATO allies meeting in Bucharest, hosted by Romania's president and Poland's president, issued a joint statement saying Russia's repeated airspace violations underline the urgent need to consolidate the alliance's air defences against missiles and drones. Romania, Poland, and Baltic states have all had their airspace breached. The leaders also called for greater cooperation in building up defence industry capacity.

Zelenskyy accused Russia of timing the barrage to coincide with President Trump's visit to China. In Washington, supporters of a bill to aid Ukraine and sanction Russia reached the 218 signatures needed to bypass Republican leadership and force a House vote, though the measure is unlikely to become law.

Host: And that Trump visit to China is now underway. Presidents Xi Jinping and Trump have kicked off their highly anticipated summit in Beijing, with both leaders stressing the importance of US-China ties amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Details of the agenda remain sparse, but the meeting comes at a moment when trade tariffs, technology restrictions, and security alignments are all live issues between the world's two largest economies. For European capitals, this is a summit where their interests are very much on the table — but they are not in the room. The outcome of any bargain or escalation between Washington and Beijing will shape the competitive landscape for European exporters and the parameters of Europe's own China strategy.

Host: Now to something that will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to book a train from, say, Amsterdam to Barcelona. The European Commission has proposed new rules that would require rail operators to enable single-ticket bookings for multi-country journeys. As one MEP put it, booking cross-border rail currently requires "five tabs, three apps and a prayer." The proposal would also clarify passenger rights when connections are missed between different operators.

The problem exists precisely because national rail systems never integrated with each other — you can fly between European cities on a single booking with ease, but doing the same by train has remained stubbornly difficult. The Commission's fix would impose the solution at EU level, which is the only level where it can realistically work. It also matters for climate targets: rail is the low-carbon alternative to intra-European flights, but only if people can actually book the journeys.

Host: Finally — vindication for anyone who has ever felt short-changed by their chocolate bar. A German regional court has ruled that Mondelēz, the US owner of Milka, deceived consumers by cutting the weight of its classic Alpine Milk bar from a hundred grams to ninety without significantly altering the distinctive purple packaging. The three-week case was brought by Hamburg's consumer protection office, which accused the company of shrinkflation by stealth — same wrapper, less chocolate.

Milka is sold in virtually every European country, which means this ruling from a single German court could set a marker for consumer-protection bodies elsewhere. For now, the court has sided firmly with the chocolate lovers.

Host: That's Europa Daily. Back with you tomorrow — assuming our cross-border train booking goes through.

• DW World: Presidents Xi and Trump stress importance of China-US ties at highly anticipated summit in Beijing. Follow live at DW
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: New Hungary PM signals shift away from Kremlin after massive drone attack on Ukraine
• The Guardian Europe: Milka maker milked shoppers over size of chocolate bars, German court rules
• France 24 Europe: Russia unleashes deadly daylight drone blitz across Ukraine
• BBC Europe: Deadly Russian drone attacks on Ukraine resume after ceasefire expires
• DW World: Russia unleashes fatal barrage of drones at Ukraine
• The Guardian Europe: EU proposes end to ‘five tabs, three apps and a prayer’ for cross-border train bookings
• The Guardian Europe: Slovakia closes border crossing with Ukraine amid warnings of further Russian strikes – as it happened

Host: Russia's ceasefire is over and the bombs are falling again. A cruise ship quarantine stretches from Spain to Paris. Romania's judges go public about rot at the top. And a sunken Russian ship off the Spanish coast may have been carrying nuclear cargo to Pyongyang. This is Europa Daily.

Host: The three-day ceasefire in Ukraine ended on Monday, and Russia wasted no time. Ukrainian officials say more than two hundred drones were launched overnight, striking apartment buildings, energy infrastructure, a kindergarten, and a civilian locomotive across multiple regions. In Kryvyi Rih — President Zelenskyy's home city — a drone hit an apartment building, killing two people and injuring four, including the dead couple's nine-month-old granddaughter, whose leg was severed. North-east of there, an aerial bomb strike killed four more and injured three. In Kyiv, debris from a downed drone set fire to the roof of a sixteen-storey residential building. Blackouts hit the Mykolaiv region after drones struck energy infrastructure. Damage was also recorded in the Zhytomyr, Chernihiv, and Cherkasy regions, with injuries reported in Dnipro and Kherson. Zelenskyy said pressure on Russia must in no way be weakened, and noted that Ukraine had struck gas facilities in Russia's Orenburg region, more than fifteen hundred kilometres from the border. He described Ukraine's frontline position and long-range strike results as at their highest level in years. On the diplomatic side, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was working with European allies on ballistic-missile defence technology, with thirteen countries and NATO representatives participating in talks on Tuesday. And from Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas offered a pointed reading of Putin's weekend suggestion that the war was heading to an end. His statement, she said after meeting EU defence ministers, really shows he is not in a strong position. So I think there's an opportunity for ending this war.

Host: A hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius is now a live cross-border health emergency. The WHO's director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has urged all countries to prepare for more cases, while cautioning there is currently no sign of a larger outbreak — though he warned the situation could still change. A French woman who contracted the virus on board is now on a ventilator in intensive care in Paris, diagnosed with the most severe form of the disease. Spain took in the stricken ship, and Tedros publicly thanked Spanish authorities for their compassion and solidarity. The WHO is recommending a forty-two-day quarantine and constant monitoring of high-risk contacts. Passengers from multiple countries were aboard, meaning health authorities across Europe may need to track and monitor returnees. It is a real-time test of the disease surveillance networks built up since COVID.

Host: Romania's justice system is, in the words of those inside it, in deep crisis. Six months after a documentary alleged that the top of the country's judiciary was riddled with corruption — used, it claimed, to delay graft convictions — the president of the Bucharest court of appeal, Liana Arsenie, called an extraordinary press conference. She was flanked by her two vice-presidents, with about thirty judges standing behind them in support. The courtroom was packed with journalists. Romania only recently exited the EU's Cooperation and Verification Mechanism, the long-running oversight tool designed to ensure judicial independence and anti-corruption standards. Systemic allegations at this level go to the heart of whether those hard-won reforms are holding — and because EU member states rely on mutual recognition of each other's court rulings, the integrity of Romania's judiciary is not a purely domestic matter.

Host: And finally, a story that reads like a thriller but is sourced to new reports now surfacing seventeen months after the event. The Ursa Major, a hundred-and-forty-two-metre Russian-flagged cargo ship owned by the state-linked company Oboronlogistics, sank sixty-two nautical miles off the coast of Murcia in south-east Spain just before midnight on the twenty-third of December 2024. The ship had suffered a series of mysterious explosions. It was purportedly sailing from St Petersburg to Vladivostok. But according to reports, it may have been carrying nuclear submarine reactors destined for North Korea — and Western military forces may have targeted the vessel. If accurate, that means a sanctioned Russian state-linked ship transited European Atlantic waters carrying nuclear cargo, and may have been intercepted by allied forces in European maritime space. The full picture remains unclear, but the implications for maritime surveillance and sanctions policing in European waters are hard to overstate.

Host: That is your briefing for today. Europa Daily is back tomorrow morning. Until then, stay informed.

• The Guardian Europe: ‘It’s toxic’: Romania reeling over claims of high-level justice system corruption
• The Guardian Europe: Ukraine war briefing: Deadly Russian bombing spree marks end of ceasefire
• The Guardian Europe: WHO head tells countries to prepare for more hantavirus cases
• BBC Europe: No sign of larger hantavirus outbreak, says UN health agency
• The Guardian Europe: Russian ship that sank near Spain may have been carrying nuclear reactors to North Korea