EU institutions, UK-EU relations, and Brexit aftermath
Sir Keir Starmer is clinging on as Labour leader and prime minister after more than 95 MPs called on him to resign in the wake of May’s local election rout. The Health Secretary and several junior ministers have quit, but the prime minister insists he will not walk away.
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.
Sir Tony Blair launched a withering attack on Sir Keir Starmer on Wednesday 27 May 2026, telling the Labour leader his government has ‘no coherent plan’ and warning the party of ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’. The intervention by the former Prime Minister comes amid renewed leadership pressure on the Starmer premiership.
Brussels-watchers face an exceptionally dense agenda this week: the Competitiveness Council convenes on 28 May for Internal Market and Industry under Cypriot chair Michael Damianos, followed by Research and Space on 29 May. The European Innovation Council Summit 2026 runs in parallel, while preparations begin for the 23-24 June European Council.
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.
Over 95 Labour MPs have now publicly called on Sir Keir Starmer to resign or set out a departure timetable, while Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election candidacy was approved by the NEC on 15 May. With a YouGov net favourability of -57 matched only by Liz Truss, the Prime Minister enters one of the most precarious phases of his premiership.
Between 26 May and 1 June 2026, the EU institutional agenda intensifies ahead of the June European Council, with foreign ministers gathering for the informal Gymnich meeting on 27-28 May, the Competitiveness Council debating the Industrial Accelerator Act on 28-29 May, and the EU-Western Balkans summit setting strategic enlargement direction.
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.
