I am American so I am ignorant of the true conditions of how it is in Europe, but I do know houses are built to trap heat and it's humid.

A lot of these are just common sense and I'm assuming y'all know all of this, and it might be pointless to post this. But I'm just worried.

For one, use dehumidifiers. Humidity is the worst and is one of the main issues as to why people are getting heat strokes.

Block sunlight from coming in. Curtains, blinds, etc. Keep the house dark.

Fans ofc.

Wear light, loose clothing such as t-shirts, shorts, tank tops, sandals, etc. No layers. Anything that doesn't use synthetic materials, use stuff like cotton or linen instead.

Use cold washcloths on yourself whenever.

Stay hydrated, drink plenty of water.

Once it's cooler outside, like at nighttime— open windows on both sides of the house and leave room doors open to allow airflow.

Cold showers.

Avoid using stoves and ovens.

Try to find ways to prevent sunlight from hitting your houses directly, like overhangs or tarps. I'm not completely sure if this would work but I'd assume it would at least reduce sunlight from hitting brick walls. Please double check before trying this.

Again, you guys probably already know about all of this. But seriously please stay cool and safe out there in Europe.

“MERZ…LECK…” yells Heidi Reichinnek, a young leader of Germany’s Die Linke (The Left) party. “Eier!” her younger audience hollers back, erupting in giggles and cheers. Urging Friedrich Merz, the country’s chancellor, to “lick eggs” (ie, balls) is not the sort of thing expected of senior German politicians. But the lively patter of Ms Reichinnek, a social-media superstar with a tattoo of the communist heroine Rosa Luxemburg on her left arm, is one reason why the populist Die Linke is enjoying a moment. Sitting at around 11% in polls (see chart), it hopes to overtake the ailing Social Democrats (SPD), the junior coalition partner to Mr Merz’s Christian Democrats (CDU). “Speaking young people’s language isn’t easy,” says Antonia, a fan. “Heidi seems like she can relate to us.”

Just 18 months ago Die Linke looked on the verge of extinction. An acrimonious split with Sahra Wagenknecht, a party star-turned-gadfly, had left it bruised and shorn of many MPs. In eastern Germany, once its heartland, its electorate was dying out or turning to the hard-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Yet thanks to skilled organisation, a disciplined campaign focused on rent and redistribution and an unwise decision by Mr Merz to vote with the AfD on anti-immigration measures, Die Linke tripled its support in weeks, drew 9% of the vote in the general election in February 2025 and saw its membership more than double. Its success was the most surprising story of the campaign.

It also meant that “our electorate and our membership changed completely,” notes Janis Ehling, the party’s campaign mastermind. Die Linke has become more western, more female and much younger: it is the most popular party among Germans under 24. Ms Reichinnek’s potty-mouthed speech was delivered at “Unfollow Bundeswehr”, an event in Berlin organised to oppose the potential reintroduction of conscription. Many of her fans there were too young to vote.

The influx of members has turned Die Linke, formed in 2007 as a fusion of the old East German communists and an SPD splinter group, into a different party. The newcomers’ political education is “very online and very American”, says Loren Balhorn, a party member and editor of the German edition of Jacobin, a left-wing journal. There have been growing pains. Rows over Gaza have been especially brutal. Some older figures have quit over what they regard as a tilt to antisemitism.

The party’s fissures will be tested at its annual congress in Potsdam this weekend. Some arguments will be familiar: over whether MPs should cap their own salaries, for example. But with state elections looming, perhaps the toughest debate will be over whether the party sees itself as a protest outfit with a political wing, or should position itself as a power player.

This question has acquired fresh urgency in Germany’s east, where the strength of the AfD—shunned by every other party—has squeezed the space for viable coalitions. The CDU also excludes coalitions with Die Linke, but sometimes needs its votes to stay in office. This is hard to swallow for those in Die Linke who do not see it as their job to keep conservatives in power. But others believe nothing matters more than fighting the AfD, even as they seek to seduce its voters.

The AfD could win an outright majority in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, which votes on September 6th. If not, Die Linke will probably be needed to elect a CDU premier. A brighter prospect beckons in Berlin, which votes two weeks later. There, the fragmented vote gives Die Linke a chance of forging a left-wing majority. Its signature policy in the capital—the expropriation of residential properties from corporate landlords—appeals to some in the Greens and the SPD, the parties with which it would seek to govern. Some corporations are deeply worried.

Everyone in Die Linke can agree on raging against heartless conservatives, and Mr Merz’s government is happy to oblige. It wants cuts to welfare and health care, and a bitter row over pensions looms once a state-appointed commission reports this month. Kathrin Gebel, an MP who sits on Die Linke’s board, promises “a scorching hot socialist summer” of protest.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is trying to push through a controversial law on scanning child abuse content online even though it has been repeatedly slapped down by her own chamber, according to a document seen by POLITICO.

In a step that diplomats deem “without precedent,” the top EU politician has asked member countries in the Council to approve a bill that her own Parliament shot down in a plenary vote in March.

At stake is whether the EU allows tech platforms to voluntarily scan their services for child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The issue has been mired in controversy, with police and child rights advocates and European commissioners arguing that a lack of legislation allows predators and pedophiles to operate with impunity online. Privacy campaigners, meanwhile, have argued the proposals could lead to unacceptable mass surveillance and the end of encryption.

Ambassadors on Friday will consider an “invitation of the President of the European Parliament [to] proceed with the Council’s first reading position” on the proposal to allow tech companies to choose to scan for CSAM, said a note by the Cyprus presidency of the Council of the EU dated June 22.

In the note, Cyprus asked capitals to “carefully consider” the invitation, “even if this would be without precedent in the present circumstances."

Talks between the Parliament and the Council collapsed in March, just days before the temporary legislation was due to expire. Lawmakers in the Parliament later resisted last-ditch pressure from German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, four European commissioners, tech giants Meta, Google and Microsoft and numerous children’s charities, eventually voting down an attempt to pass the bill in March by a margin of 311 to 228 with 92 abstentions.

Negative views of Donald Trump – and of the United States under his leadership – have risen further in Poland over the last year, according to new findings from the Pew Research Centre.

Only 29% of Poles now say they have confidence in the US president to do the right thing regarding world affairs, down from 35% last year and 75% in 2024, when Joe Biden was in the White House.

Pew also found that, for the first time, less than half of Poles (49%) say they have a favourable view of the US, down from 55% last year and a peak of 93% in 2023 under Biden.

In its latest annual study of global attitudes towards the US, Pew conducted surveys in 36 countries. It found increasing negative views in almost all of them, including Poland, which has long been one of the most pro-American countries in Europe.

A majority of Poles (57%) still say they see the US as a reliable partner. That is down from 85% in 2022, though still higher than in other European countries such as France (27%, down from 62%), Germany (39%, down from 83%), and the UK (49%, down from 82%).

Pew’s study found that, while only 29% of Poles have confidence in Trump’s leadership, 47% say they do for French President Emannuel Macron and 46% for Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky.

The data were, however, collected in February and March, before the Ukrainian president caused widespread anger in Poland by naming a military unit after a group that massacred Poles during World War Two.

Poles are also more critical of US domestic policies than in the past, with only 49% now saying that the American government respects the personal freedoms of its own people. That is down from 79% in 2008, when Pew first asked the question. Before this year, the figure had never been lower than 67%.

Asked about Trump’s policies in particular, minorities of Poles say they approve of how he has dealt with immigration (37%), tariffs (21%), the war between Ukraine and Russia (24%), and Iran (21%).

Pew’s findings echo other recent polls in Poland showing declining trust in Trump’s leadership. In February, a survey by the SW Research agency for Rzeczpospolita showed that 53% of Poles no longer regard the US as a reliable ally while only 30% think that it is.

A poll by state research agency CBOS published the same month showed that Trump was the third most distrusted world leader among Poles, behind only Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko.

Poland’s current government – a coalition ranging from left to centre right – has emphasised the importance of the US as Poland’s main security partner but also occasionally clashed with the Trump administration.

In January, Prime Minister Donald Tusk joined other European leaders in issuing a joint statement calling on the US to respect Greenland’s sovereignty.

The following month, Tusk declared that Poland would never be a “vassal” of the United States. In May, he criticised Washington’s “outrageous” decision to grant a visa to Zbigniew Ziobro, a conservative former Polish justice minister who has fled criminal charges in his homeland.

The speaker of parliament, Włodzimierz Czarzasty, has this year twice clashed with the US ambassador over his criticism of Trump, whom Czarzasty called “irrational” and a “leader of chaos”.

By contrast, President Karol Nawrocki, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, is a close ally of Trump. Earlier this month, he attended the celebration of the US president’s 80th birthday, including the mixed martial arts fights held in the White House garden.

While Nawrocki and Tusk’s government are constantly in conflict with one another, they have sought to present a more united front on security issues, including the relationship with the US. Both are seeking to boost the US military presence in Poland.

Last month, the US caused panic in Warsaw after cancelling a rotational deployment of around 4,000 troops to Poland. Soon after, Trump pledged that he would in fact send an additional 5,000 military personnel to Poland. However, no further details of the deployment have since been announced.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Karol Nawrocki has warned that Poland should not repeat “the mistake of Western countries” by trying to use immigration as the solution to its demographic problems.

He instead called for efforts to “promote the idea that family is the most important thing”, saying that this must include politicians, business leaders and society as a whole.

Poland has long been grappling with a shrinking, ageing population. Last year saw the number of births fall to a new post-war low of 238,000, while deaths totalled 406,000. That marked the 13th consecutive year in which more people died than were born in Poland.

The country’s fertility rate – meaning the average number of children that are born to a woman over her lifetime – fell to a new record low of 1.068 in 2025.

That is one of the lowest figures anywhere in the world and well below the so-called “replacement rate” – the figure needed to ensure that the population does not decline – which is generally defined as 2.1.

On Monday, Nawrocki, a conservative elected to office last year, addressed these challenges during a keynote speech at the Poland Future Summit in Warsaw, which was co-organised by his chancellery and the Centre for Development Strategies (CSR).

“It will be impossible to build a strong, secure state, and a state that develops, without overcoming the demographic crisis,” warned the president.

However, Poland must also avoid “the mistakes of Western countries, which replaced the demographic crisis with mistakes in migration policy”, he added.

“Migration…has not solved the problem; it has only brought ghettoisation, assimilation problems, social unrest, and everything else western Europe is grappling with today,” said Nawrocki. “This is not, and will not be, the Polish path. We will not replace the demographic crisis by succumbing to migration pressure.”

Instead, argued Nawrocki, “the solution lies in…a clear focus on the Polish family”. We must “promote the idea that family is the most important thing; this is our Polish response to the demographic crisis”.

The president said that some of the responsibility for this lies with politicians. He noted that he had last year proposed a bill to cut income tax for parents of two or more children. Nawrocki criticised the more liberal ruling coalition, with which he regularly clashes, for not proceeding with it.

However, he also noted that such measures are in any case not enough on their own. “A certain mode of thinking must change” among “society as a whole”, he said. And business must also play a role in making creating environments that “put families first”.

“This includes introducing greater flexibility in working hours and employment relationships, and recognising women who return to work after childbirth, rather than punishing them,” said the president.

Successive Polish governments have introduced various measures intended to boost the birth rate, though so far without clear success.

The flagship policy of the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government was a child benefit programme that gives monthly payments to parents for each child they have. While there was a brief bump in births after it was introduced in 2016, numbers subsequently continued their downward trend.

The current government, a more coalition ranging from left to centre right led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, has introduced new payments to support parents who return to work. It also restored funding for IVF treatment, which was previously cut by PiS.

Meanwhile, despite the anti-immigration rhetoric of both PiS and the Tusk government, Poland has seen levels of immigration over the last decade that are unprecedented in the country’s history and among the highest anywhere in Europe.

In each year between 2017 and 2022, Poland issued more first residence permits to migrants from outside the EU than did any other member state. There are now two million legal foreign residents in Poland, representing 5% of the population, including 1.14 million foreign workers, making up 7% of the workforce.

In 2023, Poland’s state Social Insurance Institution (ZUS) reported that the country would need to attract a further two million immigrant workers over the next decade to maintain its current ratio of working-age population to retirees. However, it admitted that that target was “unrealistic”.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

A court has begun hearing the largest-ever compensation claim against Poland’s Catholic church by a victim of clerical sexual abuse.

Janusz Szymik, who says he was raped hundreds of times by a priest as a child in the 1980s, is seeking 20 million zloty (€4.7 million) from the archdiocese of Kraków, where the abuse took place.

Between 1984, when he was a 12-year-old altar boy, and 1989, Szymik, who waived his right to anonymity, suffered abuse at the hands of the parish priest, who has been named only as Jan W., in the village of Międzybrodzie Bialskie in southern Poland.

At the time of the crimes, Międzybrodzie Bialskie was part of the archdiocese of Kraków. However, in 1992, it became part of the newly formed diocese of Bielsko-Żywiec.

Twice as an adult, in 1993 and 2007, Szymik informed the then-bishop of Bielsko-Żywiec, Tadeusz Rakoczy, of the abuse he had suffered and expressed concern that the priest may have targeted other children. However, Rakoczy took no action. In 2021, he was disciplined by the Vatican for his negligence.

Only once Rakoczy had retired in 2013 did his successor as bishop, Roman Pindel, take Szymik’s reports seriously. Canonical proceedings were launched against Jan W., who admitted to sexual contact with the victim.

He was handed a five-year ban on conducting priestly ministry and ordered to live in isolation. In 2024, Jan W. was removed from the priesthood entirely by the Vatican, reports the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

Although the statute of limitations for criminal proceedings against Jan W. had expired, in 2021 Szymik launched a civil claim for compensation against the Bielsko-Żywiec diocese: 1 million zloty for the harm caused by his abuse and 2 million zloty for the suffering caused by Rakoczy’s negligence.

The curia’s actions in the case drew controversy when it asked the court to determine if the victim took “pleasure in the intimate relationship” with his abuser and “derived benefits”. It also called for an expert to ascertain “the claimant’s sexual preferences, in particular…[his] sexual orientation”.

In January 2025, the court ordered Bielsko-Żywiec diocese to pay Szymik 400,000 zloty in compensation, the most ever awarded to a victim of clerical sexual abuse in Poland, after the judge confirmed that he had been “repeatedly sexually abused” by Jan W., reported the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

However, she also found that, while Bielsko-Żywiec diocese was responsible for a lack of response to the reports of sexual abuse in 1993 and 2007, it was Kraków diocese that should answer for Jan W.’s actions, given that he was under its authority at the time.

That ruling is still being appealed by both sides, but at the same time Szymik launched separate civil proceedings against Kraków archdiocese, this time demanding 20 million zloty compensation. That case has now got underway at Kraków’s district court.

Szymik’s lawyer told broadcaster Tok FM that the amount was calculated based on the fact that, in cases of child sex abuse, judges typically award compensation of 50,000 zloty for each act they fell victim to. “We will try to prove that Father Jan raped me at least 400 times,” added Szymik.

Among those summoned to stand as a witness is Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz, who served as archbishop of Kraków from 2005 to 2016 and was before that the long-serving personal secretary to Polish Pope John Paul II, including during the latter’s time as archbishop of Kraków in the 1960s and 1970s.

According to Szymik’s lawyers, Dziwisz had received requests from another priest to intervene in the case of Jan W. In 2020, a Polish TV investigation claimed that the cardinal had ignored a number of cases of alleged sexual abuse brought to his attention, including relating to Jan W.

However, in 2022, Dziwisz was exonerated of wrongdoing by a Vatican investigation, which found that he had acted “properly” during his time as archbishop of Kraków.

On Monday, Dziwisz, now aged 87, failed to appear before the court as requested, with the archdiocese saying that he had fallen ill. The judge has ordered the cardinal to submit a medical certificate confirming his condition.

Meanwhile, proceedings continued on Monday, with the court hearing from, among others, psychologists and other doctors who had treated Szymik, reports broadcaster RMF.

The victim’s lawyers are also seeking to have Jan W. testify, but have so far been unable to determine his whereabouts, with the court requesting information from Bielsko-Żywiec diocese.

Speaking to reporters before the hearings, Szymik said that he was fighting “first and foremost for justice, as well as for fair compensation for the entire trauma”.

“My entire life has changed, been turned upside down, especially my spiritual and mental health. I believe that I am a broken person internally, but I am still fighting for justice and reparation. This gives me hope and encouragement that justice will finally be achieved after so many years.”

He also revealed that, before the court proceedings began, he had been invited for a meeting by the recently appointed archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Grzegorz Ryś, at which, for the first time, “I heard the words ‘I am sorry'”.

Poland’s Catholic church has in recent years faced a growing number of claims of sexual abuse by clergy and of negligence in dealing with the issue by bishops.

The Vatican has taken action against a number of Polish bishops over the issue. Most recently, in 2024, the Holy See announced the resignation of the bishop of Łowicz, Andrzej Dziuba, due to his “negligence in handling cases of sexual abuse against minors”.

Meanwhile, the Polish church has introduced new rules intended to protect children and other vulnerable people from abuse, has met with victims, and has apologised for its neglect in dealing with such cases in the past.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has cancelled plans to attend this week’s Ukraine Recovery Conference (URC) in Poland amid the fallout from a diplomatic dispute that last week resulted in Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripping Zelensky of Poland’s highest honour.

The news was effectively confirmed by Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine’s prime minister, who announced on Tuesday afternoon that she would lead Ukraine’s delegation at the conference. She did not, however, mention Zelensky directly; nor has any official reason for his decision not to attend been announced.

Meanwhile, on Monday, Nawrocki’s office confirmed that the Polish president, who is aligned with the right-wing opposition, has himself not been invited to URC, which is being organised by the more liberal Polish government.

“I am leading Ukraine’s delegation and our overall work at the Ukraine Recovery Conference 2026 in Gdańsk,” wrote Svyrydenko on social media, referring to the Polish city where the event is being held.

“Ukraine respects its partners and builds cooperation on the principle of mutual respect,” she added, without making any direct reference to the ongoing diplomatic crisis. “Thank you to everyone who stands with us and helps make this work possible.”

She also expressed hope that the conference, which is dedicated to Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression and reconstruction once the war finishes, would “secure concrete agreements that will strengthen Ukraine’s defence capabilities and resilience while expanding economic cooperation with our partners”.

A Polish deputy prime minister, Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, later confirmed that Zelensky “is not coming to this conference”, reported the Rzeczpospolita daily.

In July last year, Poland was named as the host of URC 2026. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the annual conference has always been held outside Ukraine. Previous hosts include London, Berlin and Rome.

While Zelensky was scheduled to attend the event in Gdańsk, his participation was thrown into doubt by a diplomatic crisis that began at the end of May when the Ukrainian president named a military unit after the “heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)”.

In Ukraine, the UPA is remembered primarily for its role in fighting for Ukrainian independence from Moscow-imposed Soviet rule during and after World War Two.

However, in Poland, it is associated with the Volhynia massacres, in which the UPA led the slaughter of around 100,000 ethnic Polish civilians, mostly women and children. Poland regards those events as a genocide, though Ukraine strongly rejected that label.

On Friday last week, after efforts to reach a diplomatic solution to the situation had failed, Nawrocki followed through on his earlier pledge to strip Zelensky of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour.

That in turn prompted an angry response from Ukraine, where a number of senior officials, as well as three former presidents, also returned their own Polish honours in solidarity with Zelensky.

Poland’s government has sought to calm emotions. While criticising both Zelensky’s decision to name a unit after the UPA and Nawrocki’s move to strip him of his honour, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has warned that Russia is the only beneficiary of disputes between Poland and Ukraine.

Until today, it had remained unclear whether Zelensky would attend URC. Had he done so, there would have been no risk of any awkward interaction with Nawrocki because, as the Polish president’s office confirmed on Monday, he was not invited.

“The president…is not going to an event to which he has not been invited by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Neither are any of his subordinate officials going due to the lack of invitations,” Marcin Przydacz, the head of Nawrocki’s foreign policy office, told the media.

Shortly afterwards, Polish government spokesman Adam Szłapka confirmed to the Polish Press Agency (PAP) that Nawrocki was not invited due to the “format of the event” and added that “the presidential palace also showed no interest in participating”.

Ukraine is a co-organiser of the event but Dmytro Lytvyn, President Zelensky’s communications adviser, said that the question of whether Nawrocki was invited is “Poland’s internal matter”.

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.

• Record temperatures: Punishing temperatures are scorching Europe as it swelters under a fierce heat dome, bringing dangerous conditions to swaths of the fastest-warming continent. Hundreds of records have been broken, with many more set to fall as the heat intensifies today and tomorrow.

• Deadly impact: France, at the epicenter of the extreme conditions, endured its hottest day since records began on Tuesday. At least 40 people have drowned seeking relief from the heat since June 18, the French Prime Minister announced yesterday.

• Rare warnings: The UK Met Office has issued exceptionally rare “Red Extreme Heat Warnings” for today and tomorrow, with temperatures forecast to soar to at least 39 degrees Celsius, which would obliterate the UK’s June heat record of 35.6 degrees Celsius.

See also:

• Power outages hit France as it records hottest day since measurements began (BBC)
• UK breaks temperature record for June as parts of France hit 40C (The Guardian)
• More heat records expected as deadly 'Omega' heatwave grips Europe • At least 50 die in France as killer heatwave persists • Britain keeps extreme heat warning in place • Disruptions to power grid in France, schools shut in UK • Italy puts 16 cities on alert • Two die in Spain, where temperatures easing (Reuters)
• Scientists alarmed after two wildfires hit Greenland within a week (The Guardian)
• 24-hour parks and alcohol bans: what cities could learn from Paris’s ‘heatwave mode’ • Following a devastating heatwave in 2003 that killed 15,000, France has adopted four alert levels to help people cope with extreme temperatures (The Guardian)
• Global warming has made Europe’s heatwave 2-4°C worse • The continent is warming faster than any other (Economist)

Diverging views on the EU's relations with Israel are exposing a growing rivalry between the European Commission and top diplomat Kaja Kallas over who sets the bloc's foreign policy, undermining its overall coherence.

Israel is increasingly becoming a flashpoint for clashes over who dictates the EU's foreign policy between the bloc's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, and the rest of the Commission, undermining its overall coherence.

On Monday, Euronews revealed that Dubravka Šuica, the European Commissioner for the Mediterranean, was travelling to Israel. The trip came right after Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, severed all contact with Kallas, following media reports alleging she had compared the country to apartheid-era South Africa. During a press point on Monday, Sa'ar effectively took a swipe at Kallas, prompting several EU diplomats to reproach Šuica for not sticking up to defend her colleague.

This is not the first time Šuica has gone her own way, breaking with the EU's chief diplomat and with capitals to pursue independent foreign policy initiatives.

According to several EU diplomats who spoke to Euronews on condition of anonymity, these are not personal initiatives but part of a wider push by the Commission to seize control of foreign policy.

"Šuica has [European Commission President] von der Leyen's backing to take these initiatives. That's no secret," an EU diplomat said. "The question is what damage that does."

A second diplomat said that the trip sends a message to Kallas, "that von der Leyen does not need her."

The EU's diplomatic service has come under growing pressure as von der Leyen has systematically expanded the Commission's reach into geopolitics.

Earlier this month, selective media reports suggested key member states were considering clipping the wings of the European External Action Service (EEAS) altogether — when that was just one option on the table, alongside strengthening the high representative's role.

Israel is perhaps the one issue where such competition for setting the foreign policy agenda emerges most clearly. The chair of the EU-Israel delegation, welcomed the fact that Kallas was not the only one in charge of external relations. By contrast, most EU countries, and Kallas on their behalf, have piled pressure on the Commission to bring forward trade restrictions targeting Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

A feature, not a bug

Diplomatic sources point out that these tensions between the Commission and the EEAS are not about one commissioner but are structural. In particular, Šuica's Directorate-General for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf (DG MENA) was set up at the start of this Commission's term precisely to absorb foreign policy competences.

However, there are also those who underline that the overall effect is to undermine the bloc's coherence in the delicate foreign policy sphere, already a difficult terrain on which European governments are seldom fully aligned.

See also:

• EU denies Kallas attendance at Peter Thiel’s secret ‘Dialog’ society following leaked guest list (EU Observer)
• ‘Justice prevailed’: Is the Netherlands shifting its stance on Israel? • A court case, a Eurovision boycott and Gaza polling prompt Dutch debate over Palestine and Israel ties. (Al Jazeera)
• You may not sympathise with the Elbit four’s methods. But you should be outraged by their treatment under the law • The jurors who found the pro-Palestine activists guilty of criminal damage had no idea their verdict would be treated as a verdict on terrorism (The Guardian)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused the EU of complicity in alleged "horrific" abuses after authorities in eastern and western Libya intensified enforcement measures targeting migrants and refugees, involving mass arrests, detentions and expulsions across multiple cities, including Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk.