Markets are positioned for the European Central Bank to raise its deposit rate by 25 basis points to 2.25% on 11 June 2026, the first move after five consecutive holds since July 2025. A Reuters poll found 59 of 70 economists expect a hike, driven by an energy-led rise in euro-area inflation to 3.0%.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has signalled the EU could propose a bloc-wide social media ban for children as early as this summer, backed by a new privacy-preserving age-verification app and growing pressure from France, Spain, Greece and Denmark to protect minors online.
The Hungarian opposition leader Péter Magyar travelled to Brussels on 27 May 2026 for a high-profile reset meeting with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. The visit reverberates well beyond Budapest: it signals shifting alignments inside the European Council and creates an unexpected opening for UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy’s parallel push to reset London’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
The Authority for European Political Parties and European Political Foundations moved on 27 May 2026 to recommend the deregistration of Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN), the far-right pan-European party closely tied to Germany’s AfD. The decision could strip the formation of its EU funding and its right to operate as a recognised European party.
The General Affairs Council on the EU side will discuss the state of play of EU-UK relations later this week, with the file taking on added sensitivity given Sir Keir Starmer’s domestic difficulties. Brussels is increasingly factoring UK political volatility into its working assumptions on regulatory cooperation, defence partnership, and the future financial services framework.
Following the European Commission’s preliminary findings of 29 April 2026 that Meta’s Instagram and Facebook are in breach of the Digital Services Act on the protection of minors under 13, the US tech giant faces fines of up to 6% of its global annual turnover. The case represents one of the most direct DSA enforcement actions to date.
Reform UK has led national opinion polls since early 2025 and converted that lead into 1,454 seat gains in this month’s local elections. The party’s trajectory raises a question that mainstream British politics has spent years avoiding: what happens when a populist insurgent achieves not just protest support but operational delivery?
MEPs in Strasbourg have moved this week to delay certain high-risk provisions of the AI Act and adopt a new ban on so-called ‘AI nudifier’ systems, in a vote that signals a recalibration of how the Union balances innovation incentives against the most acute risks of generative AI.
Members of the European Parliament engaged in heated debate on 21 May over the cybersecurity risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence systems, with lawmakers divided over whether to impose mandatory security testing requirements on developers of frontier AI models or maintain a more flexible, risk-based approach. The plenary session saw MEPs grapple with how to…
The revised Victims’ Rights Directive comes to plenary debate today at 13:00 in Strasbourg, ahead of Thursday’s final vote. For the 75 million Europeans who fall victim to crime each year, this represents the most significant reform of EU victim-protection legislation in more than a decade.
