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A la carte
NAWROCKI'S NIGHT: After a wild evening, it's official: Conservative Karol Nawrocki won the second round of Poland's presidential election on Sunday, 51% to 49%.
Nawrocki, who is backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, has vowed to thwart Prime Minister Donald Tusk's liberal agenda and ultimately undermine his government by using the presidential veto already used by Andrzej Duda, the outgoing PiS president.
Historic levels of hubris? Nawrocki’s rival, Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, initially claimed victory after a 9 p.m. poll showed him leading by the slimmest of margins, with 50.3 percent to Nawrocki’s 49.7 percent. But Nawrocki refused to back down, declaring, “We will win.” When the results came in overnight, Nawrocki was proven right. By Monday morning, official figures showed him with 50.89 percent to Trzaskowski’s 49.11 percent.
What it means for Brussels: The outcome could have profound and potentially destabilizing consequences for the EU, which has come to view Poland as a reliable and important partner in mainstream EU policy. It is also a major boost for the far-right ECR, controlled by Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, and for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who has long been an ally of Law & Justice in dismantling the rule of law.
A more detailed analysis can be found here by Aleksandra Brzozowski from Euractiv.
UKRAINE
STUNNED SILENCE? The EU response to Ukraine's strike on Russian aircraft behind enemy lines on Sunday was scant. Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius greeted “Glory to Ukraine” at X. Kaja Kallas, the Russia hawk, remained conspicuously silent.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky provided new details of the daring feat last night, saying it had been planned for more than a year, 117 drones were used, 34% of Russia's strategic aircraft were hit, and no Ukrainians were harmed. “It was an absolutely unique operation,” he wrote on X.
A new round of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators will take place in Istanbul today. Zelensky criticized Russia for not providing the promised peace memorandum.
JUSTICE
EU-US COOPERATION ON MIGRATION: Donald Trump's Attorney General Pam Bondi will attend a gala dinner with EU justice ministers in Warsaw this evening ahead of a meeting to discuss combating illegal migration and visa reciprocity.
The Polish presidency of the EU Council is meeting this evening and Tuesday morning. The Poles' website says journalists' access has been cancelled. A Polish official contacted late last night could not immediately explain why.
The meeting will be chaired by Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar, and cooperation on fighting organised crime, terrorism, cybercrime and drug trafficking is also on the agenda. The EU-US format is held twice a year, but this is the first time since MAGA came back to power and since EU-US relations were undermined by Trump's tariff barrage.
Teaming up: Bondi is overseeing large-scale deportations from the US – some of them in defiance of court orders – while the EU is drawing up plans to process applications outside the bloc and deport more rejected asylum seekers. The EU and US are still negotiating an “electronic evidence” agreement to share information on criminal investigations.
INDIA-PAKISTAN
SOUTH ASIA WAR OF WORDS: With a ceasefire agreement in effect, India and Pakistan will send politicians to Europe in the coming weeks to shape the rhetoric around their latest conflict over Kashmir, a region claimed by both countries.
Ravi Shankar Prasad, an MP from Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist BJP, is visiting Brussels this week with eight fellow politicians and diplomats, focusing on the Pahalgam attack in April and trying to justify India’s military response. They have already travelled to France, Denmark, Italy and Britain. Next week, Pakistan is sending a delegation led by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the 36-year-old former foreign minister and son of the late Benazir Bhutto.
Around the block
FRANCE
Far-left MEP Rima Hassan joined Greta Thunberg on board a boat bound for Gaza to increase pressure on Israel over its restrictions on humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Strip. Israel banned Hassan from entering Israel earlier this year.
ITALY
A political scandal has erupted in Italy after insults and threats were made against the children of high-ranking government officials.
The children of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini have been subjected to insults and threats in recent days, sparking outrage across the political spectrum. A university professor who later apologised wished Meloni's daughter the same fate as a recent femicide victim, while Salvini condemned the torrent of online abuse aimed at his 12-year-old daughter.
Meloni spoke on X about a “sick climate” fueled by ideological hatred, where even death threats against children are used as weapons against their parents.
ROMANIA
President Nicusor Dan visited the Praid salt mine in central Romania on Saturday after the historic tourist site was hit by severe flooding last month.
Several hundred local residents gathered to demand answers and urgent action. Many accused authorities of ignoring the groundwater seepage for years, despite long-standing concerns about the vulnerability of the mine's defenses.
“You know very well that many parts of the Romanian state are dysfunctional,” President Dan said. “We need public pressure to make it work properly.”
CZECH REPUBLIC
Czech Justice Minister Pavel Blazek (ODS, ECR) has resigned amid a scandal over his acceptance of a Bitcoin “donation” of around €40 million from a convicted drug dealer. Blazek insists his actions were legal.
An extraordinary session of the Czech parliament is scheduled for Thursday, June 5, 2025. Opposition parties are calling for the resignation of the entire government, although this remains unlikely given the ruling coalition's solid parliamentary majority.
Between us
Nice to meet you! Recently on Ursula von der Leyen's Instagram page: Kluck. Elderly German couple Christina and Heinrich Johann Kluck greeted von der Leyen when she visited Aachen to collect the Charlemagne Prize last week. T-Online spoke to the pro-EU activists, who are involved in a civic project called “Pulse of Europe” and have been married for 62 years.
Twins? Anna-Kaisa Itkonen is the spokesperson for the European Commission. Not to be confused with Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, the Finnish Minister for Local Government.
Don't miss: The Chattering Classes, which hit your inbox on Saturday night, examines the Euractiv scoop on the shoddy quality of an oft-cited EU media poll and the BBC's cuts in Brussels.
On our radar
- Meeting of EU and US Justice and Home Affairs Ministers, 2-3 June in Warsaw, with participation of Polish Justice Minister Adam Bodnar and US Attorney General Pamela Bondi.
- Commission President Ursula von der Leyen receives Policy 2025 in Berlin.
- Agriculture Commissioner Christoph Hansen meets Indian Commerce Minister Shri Piyush Goyal in Paris.
- Parliamentary President Roberta Metsola is on an official visit to Copenhagen ahead of Denmark's EU Council Presidency.
Reporters: Alexandra Brzozowski, Alessia Peretti, Catalina Mihai, Aneta Zachova.
Editors: Vince Chadwick and Sofia Mandilara
Source: Source
