Eurotopics.net

In Portugal the liberal-conservative PSD under Prime Minister designate Luís Montenegro has only managed to get its candidate elected as house speaker in the fourth round of voting. The right-wing Chega party, which gained a number of seats in the elections, had also put forward a candidate - apparently in contradiction to what had been agreed - meaning that Montenegro had to compete for the votes of the Socialists (PS). Commentators see more difficulties on the horizon.

Originally the office of prime minister was to rotate between the liberal PP-DB and the conservative Gerb-SDS alliance. Now the cabinet formation process has failed completely in Bulgaria. Nikolai Denkov (PP-DB), who has been prime minister for the last nine months, immediately returned a renewed mandate to form a government on Wednesday. Since the populist ITN is also not expected to be able to form a government, the country now faces its sixth parliamentary elections in three years.

The US state of Florida under the conservative Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has passed a law banning children under 14 from having user accounts on social media. Children under 16 will require parental consent. The move has prompted a discussion about child protection and data security in Europe's press.

With 14 votes in favour and the US abstaining, the UN Security Council has adopted a demand for an "immediate ceasefire" in the Gaza Strip. The resolution calls for both a ceasefire until the end of Ramadan on 9 April and the release of the hostages taken by the radical Islamic Hamas organisation. Europe's press evokes a wide array of potential consequences.

Although Vladimir Putin has blamed Islamist terrorists for the attack in Moscow that left over 130 people dead, with a reference to those "who ordered it" he did not completely retract the version that Ukraine had a hand in the massacre. Seven suspects are now in custody. Four of them have already been brought to court, showing visible signs of torture. Commentators see this as a symptom of the climate in Russian society as a whole.