Eurotopics.net

The campaigns for the European Parliament elections are heating up. Parties are presenting their candidates and publishing their programmes. Forecasts see the Eurosceptics making gains and the established parties losing a substantial number of seats. Whether the British will take part is still unclear. Most commentators focus on their own countries, but some look further afield.

After winning a sweeping victory with 73 percent of the vote in Ukraine's presidential election Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that as president he will fight corruption and seek a peaceful end to the conflict in Donbass. Zelensky is politically inexperienced and made a name for himself as an actor in a comedy series. Commentators have mixed feelings about his election victory.

FPÖ politician Christian Schilcher has resigned from his party and as deputy mayor of the Austrian city of Braunau amid a scandal over a xenophobic text. He had published a poem entitled "The City Rat" in the local party paper in which he compared migrants with rats. Is the FPÖ fit to be part of the Austrian government?

Despite protests by the ruling AKP party, Turkey's electoral authority has officially declared that Ekrem İmamoğlu of the opposition CHP is mayor of Istanbul. İmamoğlu won the mayoral election at the end of March by a razor-thin majority, ahead of AKP candidate Binali Yıldırım. Erdoğan's party has called for a rerun of the vote. Not a good idea, commentators are convinced.

Greta Thunberg presented the pope with an invitation to take part in the climate strike during his general audience on St. Peter's Square on Wednesday. Francis encouraged the activist to continue her fight against climate change. While some commentators are delighted, others make fun of the meeting.

The Ecole Nationale d'Administration (Ena) is the elite university where France's top officials are trained. President Macron now wants to close the school down, apparently in reaction to the yellow vest protests, according to a text for a televised speech Macron was to give on Monday evening that was dropped due to the Notre-Dame blaze. Commentators are dismayed.