European Union

Turkey's Supreme Electoral Council (YSK) has annulled the local elections in Istanbul at the request of the AKP. Opposition supporters took to the streets in protest and the new mayor elected in April, Ekrem İmamoğlu, urged them to win back their rights in the democratic process. The EU is calling for transparency about the decision-making process. What does this step mean for Turkey?

After a plane crash at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport on Sunday evening that left forty-one dead, police are trying to reconstruct the events that led to the tragedy. About half an hour after taking off the Aeroflot plane, a Suchoi Superjet-100, turned around due to problems and crash landed, bursting into flames. Opinion pages probe the tragedy and its wider implications.

Following a weekend of missile strikes from the Gaza Strip and retaliation by the Israeli army that left more than twenty dead and hundreds wounded, the two sides have managed to agree to a ceasefire under Egyptian mediation. But none of the commentators interpret the ceasefire as a sign that there might be an end in sight to the conflict.

A Turkish ship has been drilling for gas in Cypriot waters since Friday. Cyprus has issued an international arrest warrant against the ship's crew, and the EU, the US and Israel have also criticised the operation. The gas reserves discovered off the Cypriot coast in 2011 are fuelling tensions between Ankara and Nicosia. Cypriot commentators voice their concern.

EU Council president Donald Tusk aims to agree on the post-election senior European jobs, such as EU Commission presidency, quickly, an EU source said ahead of the Sibiu summit. Tusk will inform EU leaders on his intentions on "how to manage nominations". In 2014, it took leaders three meetings to agree. "For Tusk, the question will be whether one can do it in less-than-three goes," the official added.

Monachos Eirinaios
Freedom of establishment
The Greek legislation prohibiting a monk who has the status of lawyer in another Member State from registering at the bar, on account of the incompatibility between the status of monk and the profession of lawyer, is contrary to EU law

The students striking are heroes, but their moral arguments need to be further developed if they want to reach new audiences, writes Darrick Evensen.

Some 210 mayors of European cities have urged EU leaders to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 carbon. In an open letter published on Tuesday ahead of the Future of Europe conference in Sibiu in Romania the mayors call on EU institutions and EU leaders to "align the next EU long-term budget with this strategy, remove fossil fuel subsidies" and make climate action "a priority across all funding programmes".

Polish police have arrested a 51-year old woman in a dawn raid on her home in the town of Plock and seized her computer on charges of blasphemy after she had distributed images of a Roman Catholic icon with a rainbow-flag aureole. The Polish interior minister, Joachim Brudzinski, also condemned her on Twitter. Protection of sexual minorities is a core EU value inscribed in its charter of fundamental rights.