European Summit

While not expected to attend, tech billionaire and vocal Trump supporter Elon Musk will be a recurring theme

Farmers burned bales of hay, threw eggs and firecrackers at police and wrested some promises of relief from European leaders on Thursday, the culmination of weeks of protests across the continent over excessive red tape and competition from cheap imports. Eager to reassure a key part of the electorate and end disruptions in several cities, leaders at a European Union summit in Brussels showered the farmers with compliments and compassion if few concrete proposals. In France, the government did make significant concessions enough that two major farmers' union promised to suspend the chokehold their tractors have placed on Paris for days. For weeks, farmers have complained that it's becoming harder than ever to make a decent living as energy and fertiliser costs surge because of Russia's war in Ukraine, more and cheaper farm imports enter the bloc, and climate change-fuelled droughts, floods or fires destroy crops. Their protests have snarled traffic in cities, preventing millions

Russia targeted Ukraine with drones in another major attack early on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy travelled to Spain to rally support from Western allies at a summit of around 50 European leaders. Ukraine's air force said that the country's air defences intercepted 24 out of 29 Iranian-made drones that Russia launched at the southern Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad regions. Andriy Raykovych, head of the Kirovohrad regional administration, said that an infrastructure facility in the region was struck and emergency services were deployed to extinguish a fire. He said there were no casualties. The attack came as Zelenskyy arrived in Granada in southern Spain to attend a summit of the European Political Community, which was formed in the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The key for us, especially before winter, is to strengthen air defense, and there is already a basis for new agreements with partners, he said in a statement posted on his ..

"The migratory situation in the European Union (EU) is strained", the member states' Justice and Home Affairs Ministers agreed at their Council meeting here

The leaders of the EU reaffirmed their full commitment to the EU membership perspective of the Western Balkan (WB) countries on the sidelines of the EU-Western Balkans Summit held here

The sources said that all three options laid out in the report had benefits but also challenges

The European Summit is unlikely to come to grips with the migrant crisis nor should one expect significant progress on eurozone reforms