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“We will not allow Ukrainian grain into Poland after 15 September even if the EU is against this. The interests of the Polish farmer are of the highest importance to us,” stated Robert Telus, the Polish Minister of Agriculture.

The EU ban on imports of Polish grain will expire in mid-September and the Polish government should lift all barriers from this moment. But the ruling Law and Justice (PiS)-led government is not planning to do so.

One reason for this refusal is that the Polish market was flooded with Ukrainian grain last May. Polish farmers could not sell their homegrown grain, which lay unwanted in warehouses.

At that time, Ukrainian grain was only supposed to transit Poland, but most likely some Polish companies decided to bring it to the local market. Inspections showed the grain was low quality, and the Polish prosecutor’s office is now investigating what happened.

But the whole case has a strong political background due to the upcoming parliamentary election in October. The issue of grain imports has caused discontent among farmers, without whose support the ruling Law and Justice party will not win the crucial vote.

PiS also has to compete with the far-right Confederation party, which is in third place in the polls, and adopts an anti-Ukrainian stance. This is why the Law and Justice politicians are determined to block the import of Ukrainian grain.

The government is willing to maintain this ban, even if it turns out to be in contravention of EU law. It is likely that the European Commission will then impose financial penalties on Poland. The cost of this challenge will likely be borne by the citizens.

After all, for reasons of political wrangling with Brussels, Poland has still not received funds from the Recovery Fund.

In France, a Sunday lunch of a roast chicken is a time-honoured tradition. The dish, the French people’s favourite, is available to just about everyone. You can find organic free-range chickens for 20 euros, as well as poultry for less than ten euros, often sold in halal butchers’ shops, where broke students can only afford a bag of potatoes. It is also a symbol of French agriculture, which continues to raise alongside battery chickens.

But since 2022, the French chicken market has been in crisis. The lifting of restrictions on the entry of Ukrainian poultry into the European Union’s market has left the industry facing unexpected competition. In the first half of 2022, Ukrainian chicken imports into France rose sharply by 120 percent, and have since grown at a more moderate rate. With the Russian blockade of the Black Sea, Ukraine can “no longer export to the Middle East [by ship], which was one of its main customers,” explains Yann Nédélec, director of the poultry producers’ association.“It has switched to Europe, via lorry.” 

French poultry farmers see the massive arrival of chickens up to four times cheaper than their own as unfair competition. 

Ukraine does not have to comply with the same quality standards as countries of the European Union, and has huge farms with over a million head of poultry, whereas the largest French farms number only a few tens of thousands. In addition, massive exports to the EU mainly benefit one man, the oligarch Yuriy Kosiuk, who controls 80 percent of the Ukrainian poultry market via his company MHP. This mega-business is based in Cyprus and listed on the London Stock Exchange. 

In June, the industry asked the Minister for Agriculture to “activate the European safeguard clause to halt the asphyxiation of the sector” and suspend imports.

Unexpectedly, this request met with little response from the political class, even on the far right.

Hungary, the rogue child of the European Union, is ready to break more of the bloc’s rules. The Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, has vowed to fight against the import of cheap Ukrainian grain to his country, even if this risks another infringement procedure with the EU.

In a radio interview, he claimed that if the EU does not extend the ban on grain imports from its war-ravaged eastern neighbour, Hungary will continue this prohibition unilaterally on four of the 24 listed goods. Nagy admitted this would “obviously” lead to a fight with Brussels. In that case, Budapest would not relent, but would go further, and introduce the ban on all products concerned.

Threats from the Hungarian government often sound empty, but it may be different this time. Budapest has already started negotiating with Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania on the issue of cheap Ukrainian imports, which is making central Europe a force to be reckoned with.

Of all Ukrainian agricultural companies, Nibulon probably reveals the most about the impact of the current war. Simply because of its scale and scope of activities: it processed millions of tons of crops, bought from smaller farmers, built granaries, and developed a trade and passenger fleet in the Dnipro River and the Black Sea. Before the late 1990s, the cities of Kyiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolayiv and Odesa were connected by ship routes, and travel was fast and cheap. Nibulon was on the way to revitalising this supply corridor.

The large-scale war hit Nibulon from many sides. Many of its fields were occupied by Russia, others were mined or heavily shelled by the invaders. The company lost 40 percent of its workforce: some left the country, some joined the army. As Russia tried to push Ukraine out of the world grains market, it targeted granaries. Now the river fleet is again a dream: about 50 passenger ships cannot move and use of the lower Dnipro River is not an option. Also, last July Russia hit the house of the company’s owner and CEO, Oleksiy Vadatursky. He refused to leave his native city of Mykolayiv. A missile killed him and his wife.

Vadatursky’s son Andriy took over the business. As the situation stabilised, it became clear that the company’s biggest challenge was maintaining its export routes. Taking the grain to the EU ports by train turned out to be slow and complicated, and made several countries worried. Poland and Slovakia’s hostility towards grain transit left another option: bringing the grain to the Romanian sea port of Constanta via the Danube River, and then shipping it elsewhere. It proves effective, as long as Romania remains onside. That’s why Russians now attack Nibulon and other companies’ granaries around the Ukrainian stretch of the Danube. Mostly to no avail ― for now.

Romania has come to Ukraine’s aid after Russia broke a wartime shipping agreement that allowed the safe passage of grain via the Black Sea. 60 percent of Ukraine’s grain exports will now access the world markets through Romania.

In August, Kyiv and Bucharest reached an agreement to increase the war-torn country’s grain exports and improve river, rail, road and maritime transit infrastructure, including border crossings.

At the same time, Ukraine’s neighbour is acting as a transit country, because it has been protecting Romanian markets from Ukrainian grain imports, along with Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. Last year before this ban, Romania bought 13 percent of Ukraine’s grain exports, worth $1.2 billion.

“In the last week of every month, my family makes a survival plan. If I manage to sell a few pictures, I am out of trouble. If not, I can go grape-picking,” says László, a teacher and part-time cartoonist from the Hungarian town of Dabas.

With only three-and-a-half years until retirement, he expects a monthly pension of 160,000 forints (416 euros). “My colleagues and I are worth more than what this government is offering,” he adds.

Éva, a special needs teacher from Budapest, tells a similar story. “I ran out of energy. At a certain point, I couldn’t keep it together and I started crying in front of the whole staff.”

László and Éva are no longer teachers. They are two among hundreds who have quit their jobs in recent months, due to persistently low salaries and the introduction of the so-called ‘status law’, which restricts the rights of teachers.

Without doubt, Hungarian teachers are off to a grim start this school year. Despite almost a year of protests and strikes, and countless promises from the government, their situation has not changed. Some have been sacked for their actions, and salaries remain among the lowest in the European Union. Meanwhile the government is blaming the EU for freezing the funds needed for a pay rise.

Moreover, the new status law limits their right to protest, raises their maximum number of daily working hours from eight to 12, and obliges them to be transferred to schools with a shortage of teachers.

This may happen soon, as schools are listing vacancies for teachers specialised in “maths and everything else”. According to the Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for education, the country only has a shortage of 460 teachers, but this figure will rise as many have pledged to resign soon.

That’s how many times Macedonian schools were evacuated during the last year. Why? The police had to intervene following almost a thousand fake bomb threats.

The frightening phenomenon began last autumn, when the country, like several others in the Balkans, started receiving dozens of bomb threats daily.

This mostly affected countries who are helping Ukraine’s defence against Russia. Experts have pointed the finger at a possible Russian hybrid attack designed to stretch security resources and cause disturbance for a country of only two million people.

As the children go back to school, the fear returns that the threats may resume.

Anna Novosad used to be Ukraine’s minister of education. Now she runs the NGO SavED, which brings schooling back to war-torn communities in Ukraine.

Last September, Ukrainians didn’t know how to teach children during a full-scale war. Now we have educated ourselves. What are the challenges that Ukrainian teachers and school children are facing?

First of all, it’s access to education. In many regions close to the frontline, kids will start learning online, because it is still too dangerous to gather together. Secondly, the Russian occupiers often fire at schools. About 1,500 school buildings have already been destroyed ― and the number is growing.

For example, we work in many settlements in the Mykolayiv region, where 80% of schools were destroyed. But people are returning, and kids are back ― without places to learn. So we set up temporary schools in culture centres, medical units, basements or shelters.

There used to be a lot of hope for online learning tools. Are they ineffective?

Education isn’t just about knowledge ― it’s also about socialising. You can’t teach interaction, teamwork and empathy via Zoom. Especially with young children. And often what they want most is to get offline, not to receive a new laptop or tablet.

It’s also clear now that online learning doesn’t provide the same quality of knowledge. PISA test results are not in yet, but from what I know so far, they are disastrous.

You probably have some kind of medium-term action plan. How do you see the situation in a year or two?

This depends very much on the region, but temporary schools seem to be a widespread solution. Rebuilding school buildings that have been destroyed will take many years.

Recently, we’ve turned a village cultural centre into a school near Kyiv. It feels like this will be the only proper educational facility there for at least five years. The school building will be rebuilt with the help of the European Investment Bank, and, as I am told, the bureaucracy process there is painfully slow.

“You say things have become so bad in schools. But nothing has collapsed!”

– Minister for Education and Science Przemyslaw Czarnek at a press conference ahead of the new school year.

If you ask the Polish minister for education, there is no such thing as a shortage of teachers.

Headteachers tell a different story: they cannot find maths, physics, chemistry, English, Polish or preschool teachers. In order for lessons to start, they have been pleading with retired teachers to stay at least for a semester, and offered overtime to others.

But Polish teachers are already overloaded. They are in charge of too many classes, often with 30 pupils, so it is difficult for them even to remember students’ names.

Parents and pupils react by running away. A recent survey, “Barometer of Non-Public Education”, shows that waiting lists for private schools are getting longer. This year, an average of more than four candidates for just one place applied for private schools in the largest Polish cities.

As a result, the privatisation of education in Poland is progressing. That would mean a growing inequality in access to education: those who can afford it, win from the start.

When I was a child, I remember my father jokingly asking me: “Can you list the Twelve Gothic Kings of Spain?” Of course, I couldn’t, as I’d never had to learn them in school. However, he could still recall their names.

This list of Gothic Kings has come to encapsulate how Spaniards view their education system. Many believe that the traditional methods of education, based around the teacher and focusing on memory and content, is better than the modern system, centred on students and creativity, with an emphasis on processes rather than results.

Of course, our idiosyncrasies and our history don’t help. We look at the Spanish PISA results, and at those of Nordic countries and think, ‘Why can’t we be like them?’ But we have a different education system in every region, as well as different regional languages, and regulatory changes occur almost as often as changes of government.

But while I may have been educated in a system that no longer prioritises memory as much as my father’s, we tend to ignore the broader picture. The past is no better, and we have made a huge leap forward: before, education was mandatory only until the age of 14, and only 6% reached university level. Now, it is compulsory to stay in school until the age of 16 and the number of university students continues to grow.

In fact, the two models shouldn’t be mutually exclusive, as each has its benefits. Contrary to the narrative that the younger generations are reading less, data show that the reading rate among Spaniards has increased by 5.7 points in the last ten years, with a particular increase among adolescents.

Despite the narrative that teachers are now too lenient with students, allowing them to pass courses with ease, Spain’s dropout and grade repetition rates are still among the highest in Europe. This is the biggest problem the country has to solve in education.

Another issue is that more teenagers want to go to university and study in their home country, but then leave to work abroad. Maybe the education system is functioning well, but there are few opportunities afterwards.

Despite the heat and wildfires, Greece is still one of the most popular holiday destinations in Europe. But Greeks themselves can barely afford a holiday in their own country.

“I chose to have a vacation in my city, taking a few days off work in August,” says Katerina, a freelancer who lives and works in Athens.

According to the Greek Institute of Retail Consumer Goods, one in two Greeks will not holiday this summer, while four in ten who intend to go will cut their spending by more than 50 per cent.

They decide to stay in friends’ or family’s summer houses (26 per cent) and, according to the Business and Retail Association of Greece, save money on essential goods and services. 45 per cent of Greek consumers prefer to save money by cooking during their holidays, and only 16 per cent buy souvenirs or other products such as clothes or jewellery.

“To go to a Greek island is an elusive dream,” says Marita Meleti, a private employee.

In popular destinations such as Mykonos, Santorini, Sifnos, Paros and Milos prices start at 120 euros for a double room. The costs of a ferry ticket to island destinations can often exceed the accommodation cost.

MEGA TV channel reports that a family of four travelling to the island of Paros in July has to spend around 400 euros for economy class tickets. By car, the amount will exceed 600 euros. The cheapest accommodation will cost around 900 euros for six nights. Add to that the costs for food, entertainment, and entry to the beaches, and the total amount will reach 3,000 euros. With an average salary of 1,176 euro per month in Greece this means a significant burden on a family budget.

This year, the figures for domestic tourism are at the same level as in 2022. After almost two years of the pandemic and health restrictions, Greeks hugely needed to vacation, but three in four Greeks said that they would reduce their holidays due to financial constraints. One in four in 2022 said that they would not go on holiday at all.

“We are experiencing one of the strongest tourist seasons of all time.”

– Kiril Pecakov, mayor of the lake town of Ohrid.

Failing to be by the sea is the biggest weakness of North Macedonia’s landmark Lake Ohrid, compared to other Balkan hotspots. But this season, scared off by the astronomical price hikes in coastal resorts, many have given Ohrid a try.

According to local mayor Kiril Pecakov most of the guests have come from the Netherlands, UK, Poland, Turkey and Serbia.

An ancient town, breathtaking scenery and one of the oldest and clearest lakes in the world, known as ‘The Macedonian Sea’, does not sound so bad after all.

It’s a few minutes after noon on the beach at Hungary’s holiday destination Lake Balaton and some families are already packing their stuff to return to their small rented houses. Although there are many food stalls and restaurants, they opt for a home-cooked lunch to save money.

The beach – lined with towels and colourful inflatable unicorns in the grass – becomes deserted for a few hours. The noise of children playing, adults gossiping under the willow trees and waves hitting the rocks disappears. When families return in the afternoon, many walk with cooler bags in hand, bringing sandwiches and cans of beer.

“We are a family of four. Even with a family discount, the daily entrance fee to the official beach is eight euros. One lángos (deep-fried dough with cheese and sour cream) costs five euros. I would probably have to spend 50 euros there every day,”  explains a beachgoing dad who is staying at the free beach of Siófok, a bit further away from town.

In a country where the average salary is 972 euro per month and inflation in June was still above 20 per cent, that is a lot of money.

“For the same price, I can go and swim in the sea,” explains 39-year-old Anna on why she chose Croatia this summer. Such costs leave the future uncertain for Lake Balaton.

Should Spain consider a degrowth in tourism? This is the view of many people who are angry about drunken holidaymakers taking over cities and their attractions, as this bitter tweet from a Barcelonian shows.

Spain, once a country where tourism meant money and development, is reaching a tipping point. It’s not that it doesn’t want tourists any more, but some places have reached a limit.

In certain locations the government is now calling for ‘quality tourism’ instead of ‘drunken tourism’, which activists say is a euphemism for ‘rich people tourism’ and won’t solve the problems that the tourism industry causes to nature, cities and rising house prices.

The blame lies not with the tourists (according to one report, even the tourists in Barcelona think there are too many of themselves), but with the local administrations: they opt for ever-increasing numbers of tourists, instead of the less popular measures of restricting business.

What can they do? Control the time visitors can spend at monuments and sights, refuse to grant new licences for rental accommodation and, in extreme cases, limit the number of tourists.

Lviv in the summer of 2023 has the vibe of a holiday resort. Here, air-raid alarms are rare, and I have this feeling of stability and safety that most Ukrainians have forgotten. This is the place where I sleep well.

When I was there two weeks ago, I was struck by the bustling restaurants, bright souvenir shops, street performers and market stalls. This was in stark contrast to Kyiv, Dnipro, Odesa, not to mention Kharkiv, which is shelled almost daily by the Russians.

In wartime, west Ukraine has become a safe haven for many from regions closer to Russian troops or falling rockets. People go there to recover, and to get some rest from stress and threats. Some establishments near the precious mineral water springs are booked out well into October. This has never happened before. And that is a blessing.

Not only do civilians recover in Lviv, but also military personnel. Several clinics in the region have been converted into rehabilitation centres, and the biggest prosthetics facility called Unbroken is also here. The land forces academy and army units are located in the city, and the military often observe the jubilant civilian life without fascination.

“Here are so many wounded people and soldiers, who are spending a free day before they are sent to the frontline. If a soldier visits a bar, he sees many tourists, men of his age, resting, having fun, and drinking alcohol. They won’t risk their lives tomorrow, but he will,” my former colleague who was mobilised and had training in Lviv, desperately said.

But many comrades at the frontline see this situation as natural and even positive. As MP-turned-soldier Yehor Firsov said: “When I see a full restaurant, it feels so good. We maintain the front so that they can continue to live a life.”

In the general elections on 23 July the Spanish right party won the most seats in the Parliament, but without a majority to form a government. This leads to a deadlock or the re-launch of a left-wing-led government with the support of a myriad of regional parties. Jaime Coulbois, Spanish political analyst, explains why.

So the results in the Spanish elections surprised many, including the pollsters. What happened?

Before I start, a parenthesis: on Sunday, I was positive about an absolute majority for the [right-wing] People’s Party (PP) and [far-right] Vox. But it seems that the Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) government has been able to resist: the PSOE’s management has borne fruit, and the fear of political pacts with the far-right Vox helped the PSOE to get the “tactical vote”.

If the nationalists parties like Bildu (País Vasco independence supporters, far left) or the Catalan nationalists had made strong statements during the campaign, it would have made things more difficult for PM Pedro Sánchez. Without that, and with the nationalists seeming more rational than Vox, it’s more complicated for the right to get its narrative about the nationalists across.

When Pedro Sánchez won in 2019, he heralded a ‘red wave’ in Spain and in Europe. But after his defeat in the local elections in May, analysts talked of a ‘change of cycle’ to the right that didn’t materialise.

There is no contradiction in the fact that there is a social tendency towards the right, even the far right, but it’s still not enough to win a majority to form a government, especially in a polarised society like Spain. We are seeing attitudes that we would never have seen a few years ago: from Spanish nationalism to Francoist remembrance.

How was this avoided in Spain, when we see it all around Europe?

This discourse that previously was hidden has increased in public. But that’s not incompatible with the general public opinion. Spain is an exceptionally tolerant country regarding LGBT rights, and the immigration problem is very different from the rest of Europe: our migration does not have the strong cultural, linguistic and religious barriers that are in other European countries, and tensions with immigration may not have surfaced yet.

Nine political parties with the words ‘communist’, ‘socialist’ and ‘left’ in their names have been banned in Ukraine since its independence in 1991. Six of them were forced to suspend their activities after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began.

In a post-Soviet state, Ukraine’s leftists often have ties to Russia and even promote a pro-Moscow agenda. Now this position has backfired on them.

The ricochet has also hit Ukrainian society: now there are no political parties with well-established leftist policies. Centrist and right-wing parties don’t tend to pay enough attention to issues such as social equality or workers’ rights. Therefore, quality discussions on these topics are currently not on Ukraine’s political agenda.

Now that the 2024 EU elections are getting closer, one question haunts me: has a progressive alternative to the rampant right-wing really been tried? This further obsesses me due to the place from which I write, Meloniland.

Even before she became Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni negotiated a tactical alliance with the European People’s Party; this so-called moderate right has broken the cordon sanitaire and normalised the extreme wing. Europe could shift to the right in 2024. Faced with this scenario, one would expect an effective and united response from the left.

When the left joins forces, it works. In Spain, the Sanchez-Diaz duo counterbalanced the surge toward the right. At the European Parliament, the Socialists, the Greens, the Left and part of the Liberals managed to form a majority to defend the Green Deal against right-wing attacks. The French left-wing “Nupes” alliance had a good debut in last summer’s legislative elections. The struggle for social and climate justice is mobilising voters.

But political leaders are reluctant to act accordingly. At an EU level, the Socialist group’s president Iratxe García Pérez is still hoping for a grand coalition with the EPP, even though its leader, Manfred Weber, is the normaliser of Meloni and the extreme right in Europe.

Even at the epicentre of the far right, in Italy, the alternative appears weak and disorganised. Were it not for the internal divisions in her opposition, Meloni would not have won the government so easily.

But now that we are witnessing the Orbanisation of Italy, the country’s Democratic Party has been forced to change: the open race for the leadership was won by Elly Schlein, who promised to give the left a new boost. The proposal for a minimum wage, supported by all opposition forces, is a first positive signal in the Spanish style.

It remains to be seen to what extent the left will be able to generate new momentum.

“Pedro Sánchez is not just a friend or a partner, he is someone with whom I have worked very closely in recent years, in the ‘Iberian exception’ for energy prices, or the battle we’ve fought together to create a programme for the structural transformation of our economies.”

– António Costa

In contrast to many countries in Europe, the far right will remain out of government in the Iberian Peninsula – at least for now.

In Portugal’s last election in 2022, António Costa’s Socialist Party won a majority to form the government, but over the past year it has been criticised from both the left and the right. Cases of corruption, inflation and a lack of vigour in tackling a housing crisis have left 52% of Portuguese saying the government has performed “bad or very badly”.

Could this mean that Portugal will move to the right in the next elections? If so, how far? 63% of Portuguese people don’t want an electoral pact between the centre right party PSD and the far-right Chega. Luís Montenegro, leader of the PSD, confirmed this weekend that such a pact is not his intention.

At the moment, the Iberian exception stands.

Will an eco-activist save Germany’s left? On 17 July, the leadership of “Die Linke” announced that Carola Rackete would be one of the party’s four top candidates for the 2024 European Parliament elections. This was nothing short of a coup.

Rackete rose to international fame in 2019, when she captained the Mediterranean rescue boat “Sea Watch 3” into the port of Lampedusa, carrying 53 migrants, although Italy’s authorities had forbidden her to dock. Furthermore, Rackete is a climate researcher and activist.

For years, “Die Linke” has been struggling, mainly because of internal conflicts. On the one hand, it includes young academic leftists from the cities, for whom climate change, LGBTIQ rights and the support of refugees are important. On the other hand, the party contains the older generation of leftists, who want to see more focus on workers’ rights.

Many of the latter are attracted to the rather controversial former leader of the party’s faction, Sahra Wagenknecht, who has polemicised against the younger generation for being “lifestyle-leftists” and strongly criticised Angela Merkel for her 2015 decision to allow refugees into Germany. Wagenknecht’s public statements often openly contradict her party’s policy. These conflicts have caused a loss of voters and members. In recent months, Wagenknecht has openly flirted with the idea of forming her own party.

For a long time it looked as if the party’s top brass wouldn’t be able to resolve these conflicts. However, on 10 June, the leadership asked Wagenknecht to resign from Bundestag. This marked a turning point.

The nomination of Carola Rackete is another milestone in this new direction. With a focus on topics such as climate protection and open borders, Rackete stands for exactly the opposite of Sahra Wagenknecht.

It was about 4am in 2010 when our infantry squad of ten soldiers was preparing to ambush the passing “enemy” – another set of Estonian conscripts on the country’s military service which is mandatory for men.

Everyone hiding in that damp and dark forest was dead tired due to intense training. We all suffered from sleep deprivation and most of us felt cold. I was assigned with a Ksp 58 machine gun. I teamed up with Andres, a mate who was responsible for feeding ammunition to the 1.2 metre, 12 kilogramme beast of a weapon that fires up to 16 hellishly loud rounds per second.

We had to stay alert, but I was barely awake. Andres, who was next to the gun barrel, had fallen asleep. Then a soundless signal was given to us: open fire! Alas, Andres was shaken by the sound of the machine gun firing (blanks, of course) right next to him. Poor Andres. He woke up to an ambush.

Thankfully it wasn’t real, in the same way a war in our part of the world did not seem real in 2010.

I thought of experiences like this when I was in Vilnius last week covering the NATO summit. One of the key topics for our readers at Estonia’s leading news portal Delfi were the defence plans for our region. These are the same ones I will follow as an infantry platoon commander, if it should become necessary for reserve units to fight for the defence of Estonia. New reserve units have been assembled in light of the enhanced aggressiveness from Russia.

It’s been thirteen years since my service, but I will go back to the woods in September for a ten-day mandatory training period. Thousands of others will be there. We’ll have to stay more alert this time, because the threat feels much more real.

When NATO leaders gathered for their “family photo” at the recent summit in Vilnius, the cameras captured a surprising moment. Walking onto the stage, United States president Joe Biden shook hands with just one leader: Viktor Orbán, prime minister of Hungary.

Given the not-so-amicable relationship between the two countries, most commentators speculated that the gesture was to thank Hungary for its willingness to finally support Sweden’s NATO accession.

However, as the summit ended, it became clear that the handshake was not enough to change Budapest’s position. As senior government officials admit Hungary is waiting for Turkey to lift its veto, there is still no date set for the final vote in Parliament, which would be necessary to fulfil Orbán’s promise.

Orbán also made it clear in an interview his views on Washington were unaltered: that if America wanted peace, it could happen by the next morning. But that the conflict in Ukraine would drag on because people in the West wanted the war to continue.

For French soldiers and officers, their deployment in Romania since 2022 has been a practical apprenticeship in NATO. This might be a surprise given that the French army is the third largest in NATO, but France has had a complicated relationship with the Alliance over the decades.

In 1966 Charles de Gaulle withdrew the country from the integrated command, while more recently, Emmanuel Macron said the organisation was experiencing “brain death” in 2019. Since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Paris has become more involved, sending troops to Romania to “reinforce NATO’s defensive and deterrent posture” and “consolidate the protection of Europe’s eastern flank”, according to the ministry of defence.

The Aigle mission, part of the Rapid Reaction Force, now includes around 1,000 French troops. They work with Belgian, Dutch, Romanian and US soldiers in Constanța, on the Romanian Black Sea coast. For the French army, more accustomed in recent years to operating in a desert environment and facing terrorist groups, this is a major change. In Romania, it is working in coalition to act as a deterrent against Russia. 

For an incoming enemy missile, the Romanian airbase of Mihail Kogalniceanu is only seven minutes’ flight from occupied Crimea. If Moscow pushed its invasion further west, this Aigle Mission would form the first line of defence. Now French soldiers have to learn how to make different equipment work together, learn the doctrines and tactics of their allies and improve interoperability.

The French army is also getting used to different deployment conditions. Its Leclerc tanks had to be brought in by rail, as Germany does not allow such huge tanks to cross its territory. This military hardware also needs warming up with hot air during the winter to protect its electronic systems. The Aigle mission is set to grow: it is expected to have 6,000 soldiers by 2025, making it France’s largest deployment abroad.

What is the value of an alliance if one party cannot fulfill its agreement? German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has raised expectations regarding Germany’s contribution to NATO, stating last year that Germany will have the largest conventional European army in the alliance.

However, just a few months ago, experts estimated that Germany’s ammunition would last for only two days in a full-scale war. Now our Estonian colleagues report a disheartening figure: four. With the current stock of ammunition, Germany can defend itself for only four days, which falls 26 days short of NATO’s demands.

Meanwhile, the German government continues to reassure its partners that it can top up its supplies. And simultaneously providing support to Ukraine.

If all sounds but human voices ceased to exist, what was heard in Ukraine in the wake of the NATO Vilnius summit would be a deep sigh. Those of the older generation probably said: “We’ve been here before.”

In 2008 at another NATO summit Ukraine received a vague reply to its membership aspirations, which can be summarised as: “You are definitely welcome some time in the future.” This position infuriated and empowered one person wanting to conquer Ukraine and other former Soviet and Eastern Bloc states ― Vladimir Putin. He understood that he could lose influence over these countries “some time in the future”. 

Logically, the Russian president realised the time to act was sooner rather than later ― and started testing the West. Four months and four days after the 2008 summit, Russia invaded Georgia. This short war showed that invasions are still possible in Europe, as well as impunity for waging them. “It’s horrible if you think about this,” my then-editor at the Ukrainian daily newspaper told me. “And who’s next, if not us?”

He was right. Putin unleashed war against Ukraine six years later.

Now the story seems to be the same: NATO is still irresolute. But I feel optimistic.

It’s understandable that if NATO accepted Ukraine now, it would have to compromise its principle of defending a member who is under attack. Too many NATO states oppose sending troops to Ukraine, and to compromise on this issue would erode the alliance’s future. If NATO introduced a concrete plan for Ukraine membership, Putin would know how to make its achievement impossible. 

So that is why this slight disappointment makes me optimistic: if there is no plan, Ukraine can theoretically join NATO anytime. Also, this messes up Putin’s plans. Once he’s weak enough ― we will probably get in. And he’s getting weaker.

Three decades after the Bosnian war in the 1990s, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains sharply divided along ethnic lines, with much of its population still suffering from war trauma.

Before ending in December 1995 with the Dayton Peace Accord, the war between Bosnia’s Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats claimed over 101,000 lives.

Some scars are obvious, such as the dilapidated, bullet hole-ridden buildings, while others, like the trauma suffered by the people, are hard to spot at first sight.

Bosnia has yet to make a centralised database of all the victims of war or those suffering from PTSD. According to a 2020 study by the country’s Health Ministry, more than 60 percent of the population in the capital of Sarajevo alone ― a city that spent much of the war under siege, grenades and sniper fire ― suffer from symptoms of PTSD.

According to the authorities, the country still has about 8,000 people living in collective houses as well.

The Peace Accord ended the war, but society remains sharply divided along ethnic lines.

The country is organised into a multiethnic national government, with many powers devolved to a majority Bosniak and Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina that’s further divided into ten cantons, a Serb-dominated entity of Republika Srpska, and a tiny self-governed district called Brcko.

Efforts to introduce alternatives to the Dayton Agreement have never taken hold. Thus, Bosnia’s government on all levels has been rendered largely ineffective, as each of the three ethnicities have resumed their gripes and blocked each other from realising their aims to help the country progress.

Meanwhile, Bosnian Serbs have pressed on with their secessionist efforts for Republika Srpska.

The frustration has fueled an exodus of youth and estimates are that tens of thousands leave the country each year. And for the young people who remain, the OSCE reported that segregated schools, where pupils learn to vilify those of another ethnicity, is still a pressing issue.

“This country is a great tomb. When you hear political leaders saying that our great national poet was Federico García Lorca, they forget to say that he is a forced disappeared. This is significant. If the wounds are not cauterised, it is impossible to heal them. Generating truth, justice and reparation are basic elements for the country to move forward.

One of the great causes of the extreme polarisation we are experiencing in Spain is that these wounds have never been closed. And the problem is not only silence, but the lack of memory, or the false memory of what happened. Because to generate transparency is not to generate revenge.”

Miguel Martínez del Arco is the son of the woman who spent the longest time in jail during Franco’s dictatorship, a sentence of almost two decades. Against the voices that say the war is a ‘closed chapter’ of Spanish history and the country should ‘move on’, the victims claim that this is not possible without memory.

People from abroad keep telling me that Germany is exemplary in coming to terms with its fascist past — including at the editorial meeting for this newsletter. Every time, this makes me freeze, and I cannot find the words to express my unease. Here’s an attempt to overcome this speechlessness.

Have “we Germans” learned the lessons of our history? Have we faced up to our responsibility for the murder of millions of people and the suffering as a result of war and persecution? Is our democracy immune to nationalist and totalitarian ideologies? With the current rise of the right-wing Alternative for Germany party, and racist murders and attacks on minorities in Germany, this is hard to believe.

We must not forget that it took decades — in West Germany — for the Nazi crimes and German responsibility to be discussed among the general population. And this was mainly due to pressure from civil society. Until then, high-ranking positions in the judiciary, administration and politics had been occupied by perpetrators and accomplices of the Nazi regime. Crimes were played down and criminals rehabilitated.

Countries such as Poland and Greece have still not received reparations. And there is no sign that the German government is even considering whether such claims are justified.

From the outside, it may seem that Germany is a model in coming to terms with its own history. Every child learns about the crimes of National Socialism in school. Public remembrance is firmly anchored by memorials in central locations and commemorative events attract the most senior representatives.

But there is a great danger that this commemoration will become a cliché, a shallow routine. Too many people claim that “enough is enough” when it comes to remembrance. This will never be the case as long as the suffering caused by persecution and war continues and the trauma is passed on to future generations. It takes a lot to heal the scars.

Le Havre has long been nicknamed “Stalingrad-on-Sea”. To the eyes of many, its straight avenues lined with identical grey concrete buildings, built after the Second World War, were depressing and the city was considered one of the ugliest in France.

Towns on the Normandy coast paid the highest toll to the war: they were massively bombed, and Le Havre suffered the most destruction. 82% of the buildings were razed.

In the place of the ruins, architect Auguste Perret created a giant experiment. This was long criticised, but the inhabitants have since managed to change the way the city is seen, and obtained a UNESCO World Heritage listing in 2005.

On 6 June, the Ukrainian Kakhovka Hydropower Plant was destroyed ― according to several reports, by Russian occupying forces. This caused the largest ecological disaster in Europe in decades, which will result in many long-term effects. Engineer and ecologist Serhiy Porovsky details the impact.

What is the situation in south Ukraine now, a month after the Kakhovka HPP was destroyed?

There are problems with water supply in several settlements around the Kakhovka Reservoir. Groundwater level has lowered significantly, agricultural produce suffers. The prospects of using the Dnipro river for shipping are ruined. Vast territories are contaminated, as the flood water reached industrial facilities, fields and cemeteries ― where there are many toxic substances. There is a high chance of outbreaks of gastrointestinal diseases and cholera because of dead fish, animals and people in the affected area.

Romania and Bulgaria will also be impacted. I think that in the next weeks they will start registering increased pollution in the seawater. There are already reports about dead dolphins found on their seashores.

How will the situation change in the mid-term?

This will only be revealed after the water fully recedes and the work on other dams on the Dnipro river stabilises. Also, it depends on whether the Ukrainian state will have access to the remains of the Kakhovka HPP. If yes, it will be possible to build the bulkhead and partially restore the groundwater level. If this won’t be done until next summer, it will be a completely different story.

Is there anything that can be done to mitigate these effects?

Now it’s important to record all damage caused by the dam destruction. Preliminary data, gathered by Ukraine’s Ministry of Ecology, estimates losses at $6 billion. Other countries also need to record the losses they may now be suffering. If Russia is recognised as the guilty party for this catastrophe, it should pay reparations according to the findings. This money should be spent on restoring the dam to its former status.

It’s evening rush hour and time to pick up the kids from the kindergarten. So I climb into my cargo bike, which I bought last autumn with my wife.

Tallinn has never been a bike-friendly city, but the concept of three-wheeled cargo bikes is completely new. There were probably no more than a dozen of these bikes in the Estonian capital, when we joined the peloton. 

Our way home takes us through streets where bike and car lanes are not physically separate. Every day I feel how car drivers do not notice us on the road. 

Situations vary from trucks and delivery vehicles stopping on the bike lane to drop off goods at nearby shops and cafés to cars queuing in a traffic jam, and leaning to the right side of the road, where they steal space from bikers. While small bikes and electric scooters can ease past, a larger bike like ours must sit and wait. 

Often, drivers don’t look into the wing mirror to see if a bike is coming. This is where it gets dangerous for us.

On the narrow bike lane, I have developed my own kind of passive-aggressive reaction to help drivers learn and get used to paying attention to us. Sometimes I knock on their window when driving past. Then I give a long, cold glance straight into the eyes of the driver. I even ask the kids to wave to the driver.

It is not the drivers’ fault that they are not accustomed to sharing the road with vehicles such as ours. The real problem lies in the municipality, which hasn’t developed adequate biking lanes.

But I take it as my small task to nudge for change. Day by day. Step by step. Eventually the drivers will accept us as a natural part of the traffic.

The video lasts fewer than 30 seconds, but has made the rounds on social networks. In Paris on Sunday 11 June, French Green MP Sandrine Rousseau did not hesitate to intervene in a scuffle between a cyclist and a cab driver on her way to the market.

These quarrels have become far too frequent in the French capital, where the number of bike journeys has increased by 79% between 2019 and 2022. The number of cycle paths has also boomed, but not at the same rate, and many drivers still have trouble sharing the road with cyclists, who sometimes risk their lives on the streets. The number of cyclists involved in accidents reached 1,611 in 2022, compared with 676 three years earlier.

In a couple of months, Paris’s roads should be less overcrowded. In a local referendum in early April, inhabitants voted in favour of banning self-service scooters, which Parisians have heavily criticized since their introduction in 2018.

Cycling is deeply ingrained in Dutch culture, with over 23.4 million bicycles out of a population of 17.5 million. This has evolved over decades, starting in the 1890s when the flat terrain and compact urban areas made cycling a convenient choice of transport. Following World War II, the Netherlands prioritised cycle networks to connect cities, towns and rural areas.
 
In the 1970s, cycling advocacy groups emerged, and the government responded with significant investment in cycling infrastructure, and focusing on “slow traffic”. Cities and towns were designed with separated bike lanes, bike-friendly intersections, and traffic-calming measures.

In big Dutch cities, car-free areas and pedestrian zones are becoming more common. Amsterdam’s city centre has restricted car access with no major opposition. Generally, locals like it this way: at the end of last century, when cars threatened to take over, thousands protested against giving more space to four-wheels. 
 
Nowadays, all train stations have huge bike parks for those who bike to take the train. Bike-sharing programs have also been implemented across Dutch cities, offering easy access to bicycles for short-term use. Individuals can easily rent a bike at a train station, use it to reach their destination, and return it at another location. It costs around 4.45 euros per 24 hours, which is usually reimbursed by employers. 
 
Dutch companies often provide incentives for employees to commute by bike or public transport. Some offer tax benefits, reimbursements for bike expenses, or subsidised public transport passes. Cycling education is also integrated into the school curriculum, emphasising road safety and cycling skills from a young age. 
  
The Dutch cycle more than 15 billion kilometres a year, with urban planners ensuring essential facilities (supermarkets, shopping and recreational areas, hospitals, schools and stations) are within cycling distance. However, the state secretary for infrastructure Vivianne Heijnen has emphasised the need for continued effort, as almost half of car journeys are shorter than 7.5 kilometres, a distance easily covered by cycling.

“There is a car chase in Budapest. The administration considers those who dare to get into cars as criminals.”

– Gergely Gulyás, Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff

‘Car chase’ could easily be the title of a movie in Hungary, with Gergely Karácsony, Budapest’s liberal mayor, as the lead.

To tell the truth, the Hungarian capital has never been friendly to cyclists. Cars are status symbols here, and the city has always favoured motorists. So, when Karácsony was elected in 2019, his actions to transform the city faced controversy.

But the fiercest attacks did not come from the inhabitants, but from the right-wing populist government, in an attempt to woo voters and make the opposition mayor’s life difficult. When Karácsony cycled to work, politicians attacked him for not driving. When he opened a bike lane or wanted to reform parking, he was called an “enemy of cars” – along with every cyclist in the city.

Just like that, Budapest has become an example of how politics can make enemies of cyclists – while the inhabitants suffer the consequences.

After the full-scale war in Ukraine started, six biking organisations in Ukraine launched an international campaign #BikesForUkraine. Now they collect foreign donations to help deliver bicycles to war-torn communities. Initiative participant Maryna Bludsha tells more.

Why does Ukraine need more bicycles?

In times of hostilities, road networks and public transports system become ruined: some buses catch fire, or are stolen by invaders, such as in Kherson. Also, there’s often lack of fuel. Thus, a bicycle becomes the only reliable mode of transport. Right after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, we started receiving requests for bikes. People still need more than we can provide: as of June 11, we have given 1,391 bikes to local communities in Ukraine, but we have requests for 2,974.

We often give bikes to volunteers who distribute medicine, goods and food. Also, there are doctors, social workers and local authorities who need bikes. These are mostly from war-torn regions, but we also help other communities which have many internally displaced persons and need to provide more services.

Who provides the donations?

Most help comes from the EU countries, which includes 40 out of 50 of our key supporters, especially Germany, The Netherlands and Lithuania ― people or organisations help with either money, so we can to buy new bicycles in Ukraine, or they collect bikes from locals in their area. Often they also repair the bikes before sending them to Ukraine. Our Berlin partners, Changing Cities, have organised bike repair gatherings, so people could help Ukraine in this way.

In the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Kyiv cyclists organised a volunteer service to deliver urgent aid. Do you know any other examples of how bicycles can be useful in war?

In Kyiv we have a bike courier company called CargoCult, which also delivers goods to people and organisations in need. Traffic in the city was jammed at checkpoints and in queues, and bikes turned out to be the fastest way to get around.

I can remember their fatigue all too well. Our parents’ generation subordinated their entire lives to work. They always filled their free time with a list of activities – partly out of financial necessity, and partly because they could not come up with idea how to spend it. Leisure was seen as something for losers, who didn’t care about anything in life. That is why they, who were the first generation to get a whiff of capitalism, entrusted their lives to money.

Working hard, and overhours, was the only way to get by. Consequently, some of us got to know our parents poorly and still miss them. My peers, people aged 25-30, with different points of view and life experiences, all say the same: their parents worked too long hours, and, when bringing up their children, gave too much emphasis to the importance of achieving financial stability.

For our parents, luxury was constituted by all the preys of juvenile capitalism. To fully enjoy it, one had to play by the rules dictated by the free market economy. On the other hand, our generation is slowly writing our own definition of luxury. Its basic ingredient is not financial freedom, but free time. And how much of it an employer can guarantee us may be the scale which determines the labour market, or even turns it upside down.

The four-day working week becomes an inevitable perspective. It is not a mere whim of a lazy neo-liberal society, but a solution with tangible benefits for companies, bosses, subordinates, the inexorably changing climate and the economy itself. Beyond these categories, there is something else. That one extra day of the weekend is also an opportunity given to the next generation. A chance to no longer miss the chance to see anyone, to have the strength to nurture relationships and build a healthy society.

Germany is still divided, at least when it comes to the country’s attitude towards the concept of a four-day week. According to a recent survey 62 percent of the inhabitants of the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) oppose a four-day working week on full pay, but with reduced working hours. In the territory of the ex-West Germany, a majority is also against it, but to a lesser extent: only 54 %. 

The most common reason for this scepticism is the fear that it will be too hard for companies to delegate the same duties in fewer hours. Apparently, the experience of the economic model of the GDR or the aftermath of its breakdown have made people more suspicious towards experiments with the organisation of work.

Zemorda Khelifi, a member of green party Europe Ecologie les Verts (Europe Ecology The Greens), is vice-president of the Lyon metropolitan authority. From September, more than half of the city’s 9,600 local civil servants will be able to adopt the four-day week, if they wish.

Why has the Lyon metropolitan authority decided to carry out this pilot scheme? 
This trial fits in with the way ecologists see society, where quality of life, health and the environment are paramount. Ideally, we would like to reduce working time to a 32-hour week [instead of 36], but that’s out of our control. On the other hand, we hope to make our jobs more attractive at a time when we are finding it hard to recruit.  

What benefits do you hope to gain from a four-day week?
Trials carried out abroad, notably in the UK, Portugal and Iceland, have shown an improvement in the physical and mental health of workers, leading to a reduction in sick leave for employees. This should also have an impact on gender equality in the workplace. 80% of our part-time staff are women. By switching to a four-day week, they will be able to go back to full-time work if they so wish and receive full pay, while retaining a day off.

Doesn’t the inevitable lengthening of the working day run the risk of undermining its intended effect? 
That’s obviously a risk. But it will also make it possible to reduce commuting times, which have risen sharply in recent years. According to a survey we carried out in 2021, 50% of our employees have to travel more than thirty minutes between home and work, and 10% have to travel for longer than an hour. Having an extra day without work should also, at the very least, make up for this. It’s also important to remember that this is a voluntary experiment, and we’ll be assessing its effects and staff satisfaction after six months.

“Rather than make this banner, I’d rather prepare a lesson. I can’t afford to go on strike and not get paid. But I can’t afford to not strike in the long term either.”

These are the slogans held up by a teacher on strike for almost a month, showing the dilemmas faced by frontline workers in the Romanian education system.

The majority of teachers are so underpaid they are forced to take second or third jobs. Often, they work as a maths or biology teacher in the morning, and deliver food on a bicycle in the afternoon. That is why the biggest teachers’ strike in 20 years, which involved 300,000 people, kicked off in May. The strike was halted in mid-June, when the government partially accepted the demands.

Prison workers have also stopped work for higher pay, and health workers have gone on a Japanese strike in recent days, wearing a white stripe as a sign of protest.

Beware the time trap. The idea of having more time for oneself is extremely appealing, but be wary of those who turn this into private time. We need more social time. We do need to engage more with politics. Let our sofa not be our fate.

“Italy is a Democratic Republic founded on work”, the country’s Constitution says. As a fact, Italy is founded on precarious work. For decades, our social tissue has been lacerated by precarious contracts, and prime minister Giorgia Meloni made the situation even worse with her “labour day decree“, curtailing limitations to temporary jobs.

Since the pandemic, work from home has also spread. Even those who have a stable contract are now working as though they are hired on performance-based pay. Colleagues meet less; their ability to resist inequality at work is weakened. In Rome, food delivery workers sleep on grassy roundabouts between jobs. Rights slip away from us. Slavery is now 2.0.

Will the four-day week really bring back a balance between the 99 percent and the increasingly rich one percent? It depends on the meaning we give to our free hours. Speaking to crowds protesting against plans to raise the retirement age to 64, French left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon said we should not merchandise our lifetime. I do agree, but should we conclude we just need more “private time”, as Mélenchon calls it?

We should also resist the privatisation of time: we are deserting cinemas and shared cultural experiences because everyone has their own Netflix. We are no longer joining parties because politicians have given up representing us. Instead of going to restaurants, we order meals with an app. Do you feel freer or lonelier? Let’s take back our time together. Let’s go back to union meetings. Let’s take back politics. Let’s get angry about climate change. Time is worth nothing if we don’t take back hope.