Eurotopics.net

A trio consisting of the two state premiers Manuela Schwesig and Malu Dreyer and the party leader in the state of Hesse, Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel, are to lead the SPD on an interim basis. The SPD's leader Andrea Nahles resigned on Sunday after the party suffered a historic defeat in the EU elections. According to commentators the causes for Nahles's failure do not lie solely with the SPD.

Laurent Wauquiez, leader of the French party The Republicans, has resigned in the wake of its poor showing in the EU elections. The successor party to former president Nicolas Sarkozy's UMP and France's biggest conservative party received just 8.48 percent of the vote. Commentators disagree as to what the resignation means for President Macron.

After the death of the comparatively liberal Communist Party leader Hu Yaobang in mid-April 1989 hundreds of thousands demonstrated on Tiananmen Square for political reforms. The peaceful protest ended at the start of June in a massacre carried out by the army that left hundreds dead. In China all discussion of the events is still taboo.

Around 5,000 people demonstrated on Saturday in Budapest against the government's plans to nationalise the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA). They held signs that read: "Nationalisation is not innovation" and "Thou shalt not steal". Now is the time for protests, opposition media urge.

After her party's poor performance in the EU elections Andrea Nahles has resigned as SPD leader and head of the party's parliamentary group. Chancellor Angela Merkel and the CDU leadership have rejected the idea that the move puts the grand coalition in Berlin in jeopardy, but commentators speculate on early elections and outline the huge challenges the SPD - and Germany - face.