Eurotopics.net

For years, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has used the stage of the Summer University in the Romanian, but predominantly Hungarian-speaking Băile Tușnad to give highly provocative speeches. This year his vitriol was again directed at Brussels, Washington and Warsaw. But this time Poland's Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, did not beat about the bush in his response: Orbán should ask himself why he is still in the EU.

The opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics takes place in Paris on Friday. Europe's commentators survey the city and the event, in which international conflicts and tough security measures seem to be the dominant themes so far.

A bill to liberalise Poland's abortion law - one of Prime Minister Donald Tusk's key election promises - has failed in parliament: 215 deputies voted in favour and 218 against, with two abstentions and 23 absences. The governing coalition of liberals, moderates, conservatives and leftists is split over the legislation. Tuesday saw angry protests by the Women's Strike movement in front of the Sejm.

Mobile phones have already been banished, to varying degrees, from everyday school life in Italy, France, the Netherlands and the UK. Other countries are also considering such bans.

The German Ministry of the Interior has banned the Islamic Centre Hamburg (IZH) mosque association on the grounds the organisation pursues anti-constitutional goals and spreads aggressive antisemitism and the ideology of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Tehran summoned the German ambassador to Iran over the issue. Is the ban long overdue?