A passenger train collided this Tuesday morning with a school minibus at a level crossing in the Flemish town of Buggenhout, Belgium, causing four deaths, as confirmed by the Belgian Minister of Transport, Jean-Luc Crucke. Seven secondary school students, a chaperone, and the driver were traveling in the school vehicle, heading to a special education school, according to the Belgian newspaper "HLN". The fatalities are the two adults and two of the adolescents.

European allies have set out to achieve military independence from the United States after the Donald Trump administration decided to abandon the security it has provided them since the end of World War II. They are multiplying defense spending and military capabilities and approving ambitious initiatives to strengthen and unify the European war industry. Although progress is slow, the European Union assures that in the medium term, by 2030, it will have achieved military autonomy in conventional capabilities.

Albert Sorrosal (Barcelona, 1964) has been working for over thirty years in companies advising on and auditing European funds, particularly of a regional nature. Among other things, he is an external consultant for the Directorate-General for Regional Policy of the European Commission itself and is currently focused on European Union funding programs in Ukraine, through the German company TESIM. We interview him to discuss the European Commission's new proposal for the next European multiannual budgets (2028-2034), which affects the governance of funds allocated to regional cohesion policies.

The number of US soldiers who Rutte has issued several warnings to European allies during the NATO Foreign Ministers' meeting this Thursday and Friday in Sweden. When asked about the withdrawal of 5,000 US soldiers from Germany, the Secretary General of the Atlantic Alliance has repeatedly justified it and warned European partners that this is the path the Pentagon will follow and that, therefore, they had better get used to the idea of ​​"a fairer distribution of responsibility for collective security".In turn, the foreign ministers of the European allies have publicly admitted that they already expected a progressive reduction of US military presence in Europe, and the vast majority have claimed that they are already increasing military spending at forced marches. In fact, a significant portion of European partners have embraced the concept coined by the Trump administration: NATO 3.0. It is about moving towards an organization that no longer depends on the US military and, therefore, Europeans must gain autonomy and be capable of defending themselves (or at least defending themselves better) without the support of the Pentagon.

While the eurozone continues to register an anemic economic growth, Spain remains the major economy that is growing the most. Brussels has improved the State's economic forecasts and estimates that this year it will increase its gross domestic product (GDP, the indicator that measures the size of an economy) by a tenth more than it had predicted, 2.4%. A percentage that far exceeds the average of 0.9% for the countries of the single currency and 1.1% for the European Union as a whole.

Donald Trump has warned since he regained the White House that he intends to abandon the protection that the United States offers to Europe, but it has not been until now that the Republican president has begun to turn it into reality. This Tuesday, the North Atlantic Alliance itself confirmed the withdrawal of 5,000 U.S. soldiers from Germany and the suspension of the temporary deployment of 4,000 more troops to Poland. And this Wednesday, the Secretary General of the North Atlantic Alliance, Mark Rutte, justified the Pentagon's movements and hinted that they will not be the last.

The European Union is moving towards the final approval of the trade agreement with the United States and is on track to meet the deadlines set by Donald Trump, who has threatened new tariffs if it does not definitively come into force by July 4. The trade pact, however, will not include the requests made by the European Parliament and will come into effect even if the White House applies customs duties higher than those agreed upon for steel and aluminum, and it will not be automatically suspended even if the US president again threatens the territorial integrity of the EU —as happened with Greenland— or generally breaches the agreement and negatively affects European companies.

It is common for Donald Trump's promises and threats to be blown away by the wind, and even more so when it comes to a whim caused by the words of the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who stated that Iran was "humiliating" the North American power. This time, however, it seems that the President of the United States will keep his word and the Pentagon will withdraw 5,000 soldiers from Germany. This was confirmed at a press conference this Tuesday by the supreme commander of NATO's allied forces in Europe, the American Alexus G. Grynkewich. "We have addressed the recent decision by the United States to withdraw an armored brigade from Europe," said the NATO leader.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz due to the war in the Persian Gulf is causing an increase in fertilizer prices, thus putting the agri-food sector's value chain at risk and threatening to further elevate inflation. For this reason, Brussels presented a plan this Tuesday to alleviate the fertilizer supply crisis, although the main measures are limited to diverting existing European funds and advancing subsidies already allocated to member states through the common agricultural policy (CAP).

The mantra says that the European Union is in crisis. Slowness in acting, critical dependencies, division, anemic economic growth, and little weight on the geopolitical board. However, facing Donald Trump's United States, Xi Jinping's China, or Vladimir Putin's Russia, the European bloc has established itself as the great power that most respects international and humanitarian law, as well as multilateralism in contrast to the law of the strongest. A stance that, in a context of building large blocs on the international stage, has led smaller or medium-sized countries to want to approach Brussels' orbit and shelter under the European Union's umbrella.The disarray caused by Trump and the decline of a Western order led by the United States are not the only reason, but they are among the main factors that have led, for example, Canada, Norway, Iceland, and the United Kingdom to make overtures towards the European bloc in recent times. "Indeed, it seems we are now the last adult in the room, the only reliable and predictable partner," summarizes Jean-Louis De Brouwer, an expert in European policies at the think tank

The name Obelix will continue to be strictly associated with the comic character. The General Court of the European Union (GCEU) has prevented a Polish company dealing in firearms, ammunition, and explosives from registering the commercial name Obelix. "It may lead the relevant public to associate [the two marks] and is liable to impair the reputation of the earlier mark," states the ruling issued by the General Court of the European Union.

New setback for European justice against Meta. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on Tuesday overturned the appeal filed by the parent company of Facebook and Instagram against Italian regulations that aim to oblige social networks and artificial intelligence services to pay compensation for feeding on and using content published by the media. "The right to fair remuneration for publishers of press publications is admissible," states the European court's ruling.

More and more voices in the European Union want to increase the protection of minors on social networks and advocate for establishing an age of majority. For some time now, some member states, such as France and Spain, have been urging the community bloc to ban access to platforms like Instagram or Tiktok for the youngest, but it has not been until this Tuesday that the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has opened the door to presenting a legislative proposal to approve a digital age of majority across the EU. "The discussions about a minimum age for social networks can no longer be ignored," the community leader pointed out at a conference on artificial intelligence and children in Copenhagen.

The European Union continues without applying sanctions against Benjamin Netanyahu's government, but this Monday it agreed to extend restrictions against violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, as well as against Hamas personalities. "Violence and extremism have consequences," remarked the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas.

The consensus is now almost absolute in the European Union. From the Spanish socialist Pedro Sánchez to the German conservative Friedrich Merz, not to mention the far-right Italian Giorgia Meloni, they all agree that the European club must stop depending defensively on the United States. European leaders have lost confidence in the ally that has offered them a military umbrella through NATO since the Second World War and, with each new threat and humiliation from Donald Trump, they proclaim with greater force their desire to become independent of Washington. However, beyond words and political declarations, what is the EU really doing to achieve security autonomy?

Most member states and the European Commission want to apply the trade deal closed with the United States last summer as soon as possible to prevent Donald Trump from having any excuses to further increase tariffs against the European Union. However, some partners, especially France, and the European Parliament want to include a series of safeguard clauses in the pact with the White House. These disagreements are keeping the negotiations between European institutions to ratify the pact at a standstill, while the President of the United States pressures the EU to approve it definitively and threatens with new customs duties on European cars.

The cruise ship affected by hantavirus will disembark from here in three or four days in Granadilla de Abona, a secondary port in the southeast of the Canary island of Tenerife, very close to the airport. Here it is expected that all passengers and crew can be evaluated by medical teams, but they will not be able to disembark from the ship. From next Monday they will be repatriated to their countries of origin if they do not present any symptoms compatible with the infection. In the case of the 14 people of Spanish nationality who are on board —including five Catalans—, they will be transferred by an army plane to the Torrejón de Ardoz base, in Madrid, to be admitted to the Gómez Ulloa military hospital, where they will spend their quarantine. The authorities have not yet determined for how long, but they do know that the incubation period for hantavirus is about 45 days. The ship set sail on Wednesday afternoon and Health estimates it will take three days and 12 hours to dock in the Canary Islands if there are no unforeseen events.

Brussels keeps the regulated electricity tariff in its sights – in our country technically known as PVPC (voluntary price for small consumers) – which some member states, including Spain, have. In fact, in 2023 the Spanish government already undertook a reform of this electricity bill modality because the Community executive demanded it. Pedro Sánchez's executive, however, firmly defends it, especially in a context of tension in energy prices like the current one, although it has committed to the European Commission to carry out an "in-depth" study to analyze its functioning and competition, as required by European regulations and confirmed by the third vice-president and minister for Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen, in a statement to the media this Tuesday.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House and his constant threats against European states have led the European Political Community to unite not only against Russia, but also now against the United States. Emmanuel Macron promoted this alliance after the start of the war in Ukraine. It is an organization that goes beyond the territory of the European Union and includes, for example, countries like the United Kingdom, Turkey, and various states that lie between Russian influence and proximity to the European bloc, especially from the Western Balkans. Those not invited, however, are Belarus and Russia. And, in fact, the raison d'être of this organization is the desire to isolate Vladimir Putin's regime and promote –beyond the EU borders– a more sovereign European alliance with respect to the Kremlin. And now, also, with respect to Washington.