The seventh Estonian Gymnastics Festival, "The Charm of Rural Life," began Saturday at Kalevi Central Stadium in Tallinn. The event brings together 3,000 gymnasts and folk dancers, ranging from infants to women in their 80s.

President Alar Karis and Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas honored this year's outstanding school graduates at a ceremony in the Rose Garden of Kadriorg on Saturday.

Prime Minister Kristen Michal's approval rating fell to 4 percent in June, according to a poll commissioned by Delfi.

Experts say there is a good chance this time that Estonia's next president will be elected in the Riigikogu. Among the few names mentioned publicly so far, analysts consider Chancellor of Justice Ülle Madise the strongest candidate.

President Alar Karis and Minister of Education and Research Kristina Kallas honored this year's outstanding school graduates at a ceremony in the Rose Garden of Kadriorg on Saturday.

The number of travelers passing through Estonia's southeastern border crossing points has increased significantly during the summer vacation season, leading to heavier bus traffic at the border.

2022. aasta 24. veebruaril alustas Venemaa režiimi juht Vladimir Putin sissetungi Ukrainasse. Pärast seda, kui Ukraina lõi tagasi pealetungi Kiievile, on lahingute kese kandunud Ida- ja Lõuna-Ukrainasse. Postimees kajastab 1594. sõjapäeva sündmusi allolevas blogis.2026/ukraina-kalender 

Ukraina pealinnas Kiievis ja selle ümbruses kõlas ööl vastu esmaspäeva õhuhäire ja kõmatas kümneid tugevaid plahvatusi, teatasid sündmuskohal viibivad uudistekanalite AFP, Unian ja Ukrinform ajakirjanikud.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen is appealing against a verdict which found her guilty of misusing EU funds.

Novak Djokovic claims the all-time record for most men's singles match wins at Wimbledon by beating qualifier Roman Safiullin to reach the quarter-finals.

Employers are being urged to use their "common sense" to allow staff to work flexibly where they can.

Queues are expected at airports this summer owing to EU's new digital border control system.

How Pedro Lourtie became the EU’s dealmaker in chief Council President António Costa’s chief of staff is in charge of building consensus between capitals. It’s a job that’s only getting harder. By GABRIEL GAVINin Brussels Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO When the motorcades carrying the EU’s presidents and prime ministers pull into Brussels for high-stakes negotiations every few months, it’s Pedro Lourtie’s job to make sure they leave with a deal. In the weeks leading up to a European Council — the summits where leaders hammer out responses to trade wars and armed conflicts — the studiously polite, grey-maned career diplomat and his team have already made hundreds of calls and held dozens of meetings so they can go home with a result. However, a European Council on June 18, originally slated to discuss the threat to EU industries from China, was roiled by revelations that Lourtie himself had opened a diplomatic back channel with Moscow, the first such confirmed move since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It was a reminder that, as head of cabinet to European Council President António Costa, Lourtie has to perform a careful balancing act: advancing Brussels’ priorities while staying closely attuned to all 27 capitals so their positions can be absorbed, reflected and, where possible, forged into consensus — all while trying to heal a bitter historic rift with the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, that derailed Costa’s predecessor. “You’re the broker: You’re advancing the agenda decided by the leaders, negotiating, talking to everyone. I genuinely enjoy that,” Lourtie told POLITICO in an interview in his office on the 11th floor of the glass-fronted Europa building ahead of the June summit. Costa now faces an uphill struggle to get a deal on the EU’s contentious €1.8 trillion long-term budget by the end of the year, with a series of leader summits planned for October and November to try and assuage concerns from those paying the bill and prevent a last-minute collapse in talks. Having staked their mandate on that, Lourtie’s skills as a broker have never been in higher demand. Drawn into the fray While he is used to working behind the scenes, Lourtie was inadvertently thrust into the spotlight by the revelations that he reached out to the Kremlin. At Costa’s direction, he placed two calls to Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy adviser to Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Costa insists nothing of substance was discussed, and that it is well within his mandate to map out which contact points might one day become useful. “The contacts made at this point had the mere objective of establishing a channel of communication in order to, when the moment comes, have a diplomatic channel with Russia to defend EU’s interests,” said an official with knowledge of the outreach, granted anonymity to speak frankly. The exchange, they went on, is just “diplomats doing their job.” The first call lasted around five minutes; the second just 30 seconds, the official said. However, the episode strained relations with some of the capitals Lourtie has worked to win the trust of — particularly given contrasting accounts of who was informed and when. At a European Council summit on June 18, France and Germany voiced frustration at the move in rare criticism of Costa and his team, which had until now been at pains to keep capitals informed and on side. Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal went further, telling POLITICO that it was “too early” and “misguided” to be pursuing such contacts. But, despite the inevitable controversy arising from the move, three diplomats said the reaction would have been far tougher if EU countries didn’t have a baseline level of trust in Costa and Lourtie. “He probably meant well,” said one national diplomat of the decision, adding that Lourtie and Costa have so far not been seen as motivated by anything other than advancing the EU’s interests. A second, meanwhile, said the debate was more a battle for control, given France has already opened its own diplomatic backchannels, while a number of smaller EU countries wanted to make sure Brussels was representing them so their interests are taken into account. António Costa speaks with the media prior a Council summit in Brussels on June 18, 2026. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images Following the news, Lourtie debriefed ambassadors at Coreper — in a bid to reassure them that nothing had changed and he wasn’t moving faster or further than they were comfortable with. Career diplomacy It’s a tension between Brussels and national capitals that the Lisbon native understands well, having been on both sides of the negotiating table. Lourtie served most recently as Portugal’s ambassador to the EU, as well as secretary of state for European affairs and a foreign affairs advisor to past prime ministers. While that reassures national capitals he can see things from their perspective, it’s also made him an invaluable ally for his opposite number at the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen’s influential chief of staff Bjoern Seibert. The two top officials maintain uncommonly close contact — speaking by phone several times a day, going for regular working dinners and holding Sunday meetings to plan for the week ahead, sometimes even jointly gathering ambassadors to troubleshoot issues. “From the start, we have had a good relationship,” Seibert told POLITICO. “It’s not just that the two houses work together on so many complex files, it is the close relationship between the two presidents, and of course the challenging geopolitical reality which means a lot of time spent together.” “I can say he is a true professional, able to calmly and diplomatically navigate any situation and really an asset not just for the Council, but for the capitals and the EU,” Seibert said. That’s a marked change in tone since before former Portuguese Prime Minister Costa and his team took office in December 2024, when relations between the Council and Commission had hit all-time lows. Ex-European Council President Charles Michel had an openly hostile relationship with von der Leyen, and since leaving office has accused her of trying “to grab more power” and “to get involved in things that are not the responsibility of the Commission.” Lourtie sees things differently. “For the European Union to deliver, the two institutions — the European Council and the Commission — must work closely together. This is what we do, helped by an excellent relationship between Bjoern and myself,” he said. In the loop The relationship between Brussels and national governments has also come under strain in recent years. Reaching consensus among the EU’s 27 governments can take weeks or months, particularly on politically sensitive issues. Russia’s war in Ukraine and a string of geopolitical crises have forced Brussels to move faster, leaving some governments worried officials could go too far in negotiations without a clear mandate. Along with his boss, Lourtie has positioned himself as the eyes and ears of member countries in fast-moving international talks on issues well beyond the latest outreach to the Kremlin, usually going to unprecedented lengths to keep envoys in the loop. In November last year, when the Trump administration abruptly announced hastily arranged Ukraine peace talks in Geneva, Lourtie and Seibert cut short their trip to the G20 summit in Johannesburg and boarded the next flight to Switzerland to join the European delegation. After dinner with the negotiators at Geneva’s Four Seasons hotel, the pair slipped into the back of the EU delegation’s car in the parking lot to dial into an emergency call with the bloc’s ambassadors, deciding it was the most secure place to brief capitals on the discussions. “This was quite a new approach,” recalled one participant on the call. “And it showed how important this relationship … has become.” Regular meetings with ambassadors from member countries, known as Coreper, have become a key part of Lourtie’s strategy to keep capitals on side. Ahead of a European Council, much of the process of drafting joint statements and navigating thorny policy questions now happens in these closed-door sessions. That means when leaders do all meet, it’s no longer a painful multi-day affair with legal texts being haggled over in the room, as was sometimes the case under Michel. Charles Michel is pictured ahead of a Council summit in Brussels on June 27, 2024. | Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images “For me, [Coreper is] the heart of the EU machinery — it’s where things move forward,” said Lourtie. “I’m glad this role takes me there every couple of weeks or so.” However, a Coreper meeting ahead of the leaders’ summit on June 18 was a less comfortable exchange, coming after the revelations Lourtie had made contact with Ushakov. While he attended personally and gave an account of the contacts retrospectively, several capitals were unhappy about having heard about it first in the media. “It was a bit awkward,” one diplomat said of the meeting with envoys. Lourtie takes the lead on corralling ambassadors in Brussels while his deputy, David Oppenheimer, deals with top aides to leaders back in national capitals. Along with Costa himself, the trio are all Portuguese, making it easier for them to play the role of neutral broker in a system often dominated by the EU’s two powerhouses, France and Germany. And it’s not just a matter of getting EU leaders singing from the same song sheet. Costa’s team has played a major role in coordinating geopolitical efforts, such as mediating between Ukraine and Hungary to repair the Druzhba oil pipeline and unlock a much-needed €90 billion loan being blocked by Budapest, officials said. The move, one of the most difficult handled by the Council in recent years, ultimately saw the funds released. Playing politics For now, the strategy seems to be working. Costa faces having to renew his mandate from member countries at the start of next year. That could have put him in a vulnerable position, given his center-left political family, the S&D, has just three leaders around the Council table. The largest group, the European People’s Party, by contrast, has 12 leaders and its chief, German MEP Manfred Weber, had floated the idea that Costa could be replaced by one of its own candidates as part of a potential shakeup. However, seven diplomats and two officials from countries spanning the political divide told POLITICO that his re-appointment is seen as a formality as a result of support from national capitals, a vote of confidence in Lourtie and Oppenheimer as well. “We are quite happy,” said one envoy of the way the Council is operating. “He will make it,” said a second, praising Lourtie’s efforts to pre-agree European Council conclusions and make leaders’ summits a single-day affair. But the biggest challenges could await Costa’s team in his second term. While the EU’s most high-profile blocker of decisions, Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, has left the political stage, a surge of populists still threatens to narrow the path to achieving consensus that Lourtie and Seibert depend on. Slovakia’s Robert Fico, Czechia’s Andrej Babiš and Bulgaria’s Rumen Radev now make up the reinforced ranks of the Council’s awkward squad, variously digging in their heels on issues from green policy to support for Ukraine. And a 2027 French presidential election could hand the reins of the EU’s second-largest economy to the far-right, with profound consequences for the €1.8 trillion long-term budget Brussels needs to find agreement on before the end of next year. And, as the response to his Kremlin call revealed, the effort Lourtie will have to expend to keep Brussels’ agenda on track, and countries on side, will only increase — along with what’s at stake if he can’t.

STOCKHOLM — At first glance, Fryshuset in Stockholm looks like any ordinary school. A group of girls sit together during recess, laughing, while the rhythmic bounce of a basketball echoes from the gym next door. Only the social workers and monitors discreetly making their rounds hint that something else is happening inside. The sprawling building is at once a school, a social hub and a drop-in center for young people at risk of being drawn into crime. That mission has become increasingly urgent in Sweden, where gang violence has spread and teenagers are being recruited into organized crime at ever-younger ages. Stockholm, one of the cities hardest hit by the violence, has invested millions in prevention programs aimed at stopping children from joining gangs in the first place. “We have two options,” said Alexander Ojanne, Stockholm’s deputy mayor for social affairs and public safety. “We can wait until it is too late — or we can try to rescue the situation beforehand.” The debate over how to do that has become one of Sweden’s defining political fights ahead of a general election in September. Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson’s center-right government has sought to curb gang violence through tougher penalties, expanded police powers and tighter migration laws. At one point, it even considered allowing prison sentences for children as young as 13 in the most serious cases. At Fryshuset, the approach is different: mentoring, talent development and early intervention. “Education is the best way to help young people lead a good life. That is why we work closely with schools and social services,” Ojanne told WELT, which, like POLITICO, is part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. Sweden’s problems with organized crime and drug trafficking have been building for years. The rise of social media has made recruitment easier, while tougher sentences for young adults have helped push gangs to use younger children to commit crimes. According to the Swedish Prosecution Authority, in the first nine months of 2025, 127 suspects in homicides — including aiding and abetting murder — were under the age of 15. During the same period in 2022, that number was 14. The risk factors are often similar, said Sven Granath, a criminologist at Stockholm University. “Individual factors such as an impulsive personality and difficulties in school are often accompanied by social risks: poverty and unemployment, violence or drug abuse in the family.” Portrait photo of Alexander Ojanne. | Lara Jäkel/POLITICO Statistically, those factors are particularly common in migrant communities, primarily for socioeconomic reasons but also for cultural ones, he said. “These are often large families with many siblings, where the parents frequently can neither read nor write Swedish. As a result, they are hardly able to adequately supervise and support their children,” said Granath. In some “rather patriarchal cultures,” he added, there can also be a view that problems are solved through violence. Sweden’s highly segregated housing patterns have further deepened the problem. That is where Fryshuset tries to intervene. “The idea is that children from all over Stockholm come together here and get in touch with other social groups,” said social worker Camila Salazar Atías, who has worked with children from difficult backgrounds for more than 20 years. More than 90 percent of those who commit offenses were already known to social services beforehand, she said. “We could save many of them if we invested in them early enough.” In recent years, the children in the program have been younger. “They are systematically and viciously exploited by the gangs,” said Salazar Atías. “Many come to us and say: I never chose this. I was dragged into it, and now I don’t know how to get back out.” A central part of Fryshuset’s work is its school. In addition to regular subjects, students must choose an elective course called “Passion,” with options ranging from basketball and skateboarding to music and dance. Portraits of former students who went on to become athletes or actors hang on the common room wall. The goal is straightforward: keep at-risk young people in school and give them a sense of belonging. “It gives the children a positive context, an identity. If things are chaotic at home and school isn’t going well, they at least have their community there to hold on to,” said Salazar Atías. Portrait photo of Camila Salazar Atías. | Lara Jäkel/POLITICO Deputy Mayor Ojanne said institutions like Fryshuset are an essential part of the city’s safety net. Gang violence in Stockholm began largely as a local phenomenon, concentrated in so-called vulnerable areas, he said. But the structure of organized crime has changed. Gang bosses increasingly operate from abroad, said Ojanne. “From there, they pull the strings and pressure young people in Sweden to commit horrific crimes, which sometimes drag in innocent bystanders as well.” The continued supply of recruits is linked to Sweden’s widening social divide, he argued. “Since the welfare system was scaled back, things have really taken off — like a snowball that can hardly be stopped. It is getting bigger and bigger and more and more brutal.” Stockholm has tried to respond by funding prevention programs, support for parents of at-risk children, more social workers, assistance for individuals trying to leave gangs and free after-school care. But the national government has emphasized enforcement. Gang crime was one of the central issues in the last election, helping Kristersson’s coalition win power. Since then, the government has expanded police powers, tightened migration rules and increased penalties for young adults. Its proposal to allow prison sentences for 13-year-olds in particularly serious cases was withdrawn last week, apparently because it lacked a majority in parliament. Many experts and politicians, including some from within the government’s own ranks, had warned that the measure could simply push gangs to recruit even younger children — as happened after previous sentencing changes. Ojanne said the deterrent effect would also be limited. “I don’t think a 13-year-old who is being threatened by a gang would care whether he ends up in jail,” he said. “That is not the right way to stop this.” Granath, the criminologist, agreed that the focus should be on the adults behind the violence. “It is much more important to bring the masterminds behind the crimes to justice,” he said. There has been some progress. Expanded police powers and improved investigative methods have helped authorities prevent or solve more shootings and remove illegal weapons from the streets, said Granath. Ojanne said Stockholm has significantly fewer open drug markets now. Some gang leaders abroad have also been caught, including, most recently, a high-ranking member of the notorious Foxtrot gang in Tunisia. But tougher law enforcement alone will not keep young people out of gangs over the long term, said Salazar Atías. Recidivism rates remain extremely high after prison or juvenile detention. Fryshuset tries to fill that gap by helping young people find work, so that debts do not push them back toward gangs, and by pairing them with mentors who have left criminal networks themselves. “They are credible ambassadors because they were once in the exact same situation themselves,” said Salazar Atías. “The dropouts only say three sentences, and the mentors immediately know what they are going through right now.” What helps most, she said, is giving them a path away from crime. Passed last year, Sweden’s new Social Services Act has created better conditions for organizations like Fryshuset. But the government could do more on prevention, including scrutinizing the role of social media in gang recruitment, she added. At Fryshuset, construction of a new building is set to begin later this year. “The need is so great that we have outgrown our premises,” said Salazar Atías. Lara Jäkel is a journalist covering foreign policy with WELT. The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network harnesses the resources of the company’s newsrooms to publish ambitious scoops, investigations, interviews, opinion pieces and analysis. It allows journalists — including those from POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, Onet and Fakt — to collaborate on major stories for an international audience of hundreds of millions across platforms: online, print, TV and audio.

'I will finish when I choose,' Ronaldo reveals amid speculation about his World Cup future ahead of the last-16 match.

The move underscores growing scrutiny of the conflict mineral trade fuelling violence in eastern DR Congo.

St Petersburg governor reports no victims after ‘large-scale’ overnight attack that also hit Baltic port of VysotskUkraine launched a big overnight drone attack on St Petersburg and the surrounding area, hitting the city’s oil terminal and port infrastructure in the wider region.The St Petersburg governor, Alexander Beglov, said the city had been subjected to a “large-scale” drone attack that had hit its oil terminal. He said there were no casualties and the aftermath of the attack had been dealt with. Continue reading...

Aerial footage released by Catalan firefighters shows a huge plume of smoke rising from a wildfire burning in La Bisbal d’Empordà area of northeastern Spain. The wildfire has burned about 750 hectares (1,853 acres), according to provisional estimates from the Catalan rural agents serviceWeather tracker: Heatwave breaks June temperature records across Europe Continue reading...

Authors point to systemic causes for concern about consistency, capability and culture in England and Wales

FCA official makes case for greater powers for watchdog as millions use technology for personal finance decisions