The now-famous report published by Mario Draghi on the competitiveness of the European Union revolved around one idea: if the EU wanted to remain an economic power, it had to modernize its economy and reduce its strategic dependencies on China and the United States. Two years to the day since the report's publication, most of the homework remains to be done. Of the measures proposed by the former president of the European Central Bank, Brussels has implemented a meager 15%.

The European Commission is preparing a regulatory framework to allow municipalities to restrict tourist rentals and the purchase of second homes, with the aim of combating the housing access crisis affecting the continent. Faced with the thousand-and-one recipes applied by member states to curb what is already the main concern of the community's citizens, Brussels will present the affordable housing law on Wednesday. The regulation will set the conditions under which local bodies will be able to apply these restrictions and will offer a common methodology to provide the measures with legal certainty.

As promised last week by the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, the council of ministers has declassified this Tuesday the reports related to the Ceuta crisis. That is to say, all the documents that were prepared before July 30th regarding the situation in the autonomous city to verify whether or not the crisis situation could have been anticipated by the Spanish executive. "We are fulfilling our commitment to transparency," said the executive spokesperson, Elma Saiz, although it is expected that it will not be until tomorrow, Wednesday, that the media and the public will be able to access the papers. It is also unclear what the scope of the publication will be, although sources from the Moncloa assure that it will include all reports and communications between ministries that took place from July 1st to August 1st. In any case, the Defense department had raised objections regarding the possible impact on other intelligence services. In fact, this Monday, in the midst of the Ceuta crisis, King Felipe VI met with Minister Margarita Robles and the top brass of the Defense department – the Chief of the Defense Staff, the General Commander of Ceuta, and the operational commanders – with the aim of "examining the situation from the point of view of defense".

When Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic died two weeks ago while serving a life sentence for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Serbian government announced that it would hold a state funeral for him. But faced with criticism from the European Union – such as enlargement commissioner Marta Kos, who cancelled her official visit to Belgrade in protest – President Aleksandar Vucic nuanced his official position: it would be a ceremony organized by the family.

After months of tensions and direct threats from Donald Trump to take control of Greenland, the European Union has decided to move from rhetoric to action. The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced this Monday from Nuuk a 200 million euro investment agreement to shield the alliance with the Arctic territory and send a clear message to the White House: the future of the island "must be decided by the people of Greenland and Denmark. No one else".

The most feared forecasts for Brussels have come to pass. For the first time since the fall of Nazism, the German far-right has real options to govern a state. The results in Saxony-Anhalt have fallen like a bucket of cold water on the community capital, where the victory of Alternative for Germany (AfD) is read as a harbinger of the penetration of this intolerant ideology no longer into the hemicycle – where it has had a few reserved seats for some time – but into the front line of executive power. A reading contrary to that made by the most populist leaders, who see the results as a political springboard.

Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Romania, Lithuania, and now also Germany. Incursions and drone threats in NATO territory have become more frequent in recent months and have intensified. In early August, a drone loaded with explosives impacted a Ukrainian cargo plane at Leipzig airport without detonating, in one of the most direct sabotage attempts recorded so far at a key NATO logistics center and further into European territory. After nearly a month of investigations, this Tuesday, for the first time, the German government has directly blamed Russian intelligence services for the incident.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, the international order born out of World War II seems to be in its terminal phase. The symptoms are clearly visible: wars that drag on, borders as spaces of conflict, a new arms race, protectionism, trade wars, disinformation, electoral interference, a crisis of liberal democracies, and a growing inability of international institutions to impose rules.

The great flood between Nepal and Tibet has caused hundreds of deaths and more than a thousand missing. We speak with Marcel Hürlimann, professor at the UPC and expert in natural risks, to clarify the nature of this phenomenon.

The Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladić, architect of the bloodiest massacres of the Bosnian War, died this Thursday at the age of 83, while serving a life sentence in a United Nations detention center in The Hague, as confirmed by the Serbian government. Known by the nickname Butcher of Bosnia, he had been convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which held him militarily responsible for the siege of Sarajevo and the massacre of Srebrenica, in which more than 10,000 and 8,000 civilians died, respectively.

Is there a fever for becoming a civil servant? What drives private sector workers to seek employment in public administration? Esther Martín is a professor at the Adams academy, where she has been preparing candidates for public administration exams for 19 years. Recently, she has seen an increase in the number of people wanting to take these exams, driven mainly by a job market with low wages. "The current moment is ideal for taking the exams," says Martín, and she gives two reasons: on the one hand, "a generational change is expected due to retirements," as almost half of the people working in public administration are over 55 years old. On the other hand, the large number of positions offered by the Generalitat: "This year there is a public offer of 8,474 positions. That's a lot. And we anticipate a similar public offer for 2027".

"Let me introduce you to Ari," says Dolors, pointing to a robot. Round, bright cartoon eyes react above a wheeled base. For almost a year now, Dolors, who is 76 years old, has been living with an intelligent robotic assistant (ARI) that keeps her company in her apartment in the Sant Andreu neighborhood of Barcelona.

Germany continues to be shaken by the terrorist attack that last Saturday left one woman dead and around thirty injured during the LGBTI Pride celebrations in Berlin. The perpetrator of the attack, who was shot dead by police the following day, turned out to be a 21-year-old young man radicalized by Islamist ideas who had just been released from a detention center and was under police surveillance. With less than two months to go until the regional elections, the incident has emboldened the far-right, which could achieve its best results in history in the three states where the government is being contested.

The NGO Open Arms rescued 374 people in the Mediterranean in just four days last week. It is the second mission the organization has carried out in the central Mediterranean this year, after rescuing 9 more people in January, in an operation where the ship was anchored and without navigation permits for 20 days. The spokesperson for Open Arms in Italy, Valentina Brinis, explains that in this mission, the 111th, they rescued "many families and children". The youngest were two babies: one a month old and the other twelve weeks old.

The Italian government of Giorgia Meloni has ordered the reintroduction of controls at maritime and air borders with Spain following the arrival in Ceuta of thousands of migrants from Morocco. By order of the Ministry of the Interior, Italy will also increase land controls at the border with France, as reported by the Italian news agency ANSA. Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani has justified the measure to "protect the security" of citizens and defend European borders. "We must work together to prevent uncontrolled flows of migrants from entering the EU territory," he wrote on X, linking immigration with terrorism. However, the Italian government has clarified that the controls will be random and will only affect citizens who do not belong to the EU.

The night has given firefighters in southwestern France a brief respite, who view the evolution of the most serious fire ever recorded in the country with "optimism". After a "very quiet night", meteorological conditions with 80% humidity suggest a "much more acceptable situation", assured Commander Matthieu Jomain, communications officer for the Departmental Fire Service. The prefecture of Gironde announced this morning that it has authorized the immediate return of residents to nine municipalities in the department, allowing 84,000 evacuated people —out of a total of 220,000— to return home.

It was a long time ago the meeting between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in Anchorage, in Alaska, where the American president received his Russian counterpart – against whom an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court is pending – with a red carpet. That August, the leaders spoke of a possible general peace framework in Ukraine that would involve Kyiv ceding the Donbas region. The optimism of the meeting crystallized in three-way negotiations in Geneva, in February of this year, which were abruptly interrupted without any agreement. Since then, it seemed that the White House – distracted by the war in the Middle East – had set aside diplomacy in Ukraine.

The rising cost of living continues to wreak havoc on household economies and has a dramatic impact on the population's access to food. One in three people globally cannot afford to maintain a healthy diet after covering basic expenses such as housing or transportation. Specifically, 2,692 million people – 32.7% of the global population – are condemned to a deficient diet for economic reasons.

What began as a mocking gesture on social media has left a large wave of protest in India that poses a challenge for Narendra Modi's conservative government. Thousands of protesters took to the streets of New Delhi on Monday in a march towards Parliament to demand the resignation of the Education Minister. The protests, among the largest in recent years, have left images of protesters hidden behind barricades and police officers charging at them with batons and tear gas.

The United States continues its offensive to dismantle the International Criminal Court through sanctions and a major media campaign. We discuss this with Pablo Pareja, an expert in international relations and international law at UPF.