Jordan Bardella and Nigel Farage are trying to look less like protest leaders and more like prime ministers-in-waiting. Institut Montaigne sees their Birmingham summit as a calculated credibility operation, with migration and sovereignty used to advertise a new nationalist cooperation across the Channel.

Germany has crossed a political threshold that its mainstream parties can no longer dismiss as an eastern protest. The AfD stormed to 43.8 per cent in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and leaving it just three seats short of an outright majority.

Germany’s old image as Europe’s stable, wealthy anchor is cracking fast. Friedrich Merz is struggling with dire approval ratings, infighting inside his CDU and an economy that has barely grown for six years. Meanwhile, the AfD is closing in on real political power as mainstream parties fail to offer voters a convincing route out.

France and Italy have just staged a show of renewed unity at Antibes, but the IRIS note points to the awkward omission: the Indo-Pacific was missing from the serious agenda. That is not a minor diplomatic gap. It is a warning that two major EU powers are still treating the world’s central strategic arena as secondary business.

Ukraine is becoming the issue that could split Italy’s next election wide open. The Politico report shows Giorgia Meloni under growing pressure as support for Kyiv turns from a foreign-policy commitment into a domestic political weapon.

CEPS’s in-depth analysis gives Brussels a sharp warning on digital power. The EU wants Asian tech partners to help it survive the US-China technology squeeze.

Ifri’s briefing warns that the Franco-German reset is already running into hard limits. The arrival of Friedrich Merz in Berlin and the Toulon ministerial council were meant to revive Europe’s core political machine.