Populist right-winger Andrej Babiš is the hot favorite to win the Czech general election next month, but don't bet on him becoming PM just yet. President Petr Pavel has a wild-card constitutional option of not appointing Babiš even if je wins the vote. www.politico.eu/article/czec...

Slovak officials face allegations of having used European funds to build fake guesthouses that only privileged insiders can stay in. At the center of it all? The Agricultural Payment Agency, an official body former official called "a rotten bank for oligarchs". www.politico.eu/article/farm...

A scandal involving one of Babiš' lawmakers who allegedly tried to hire a hitman to kill her ex-husband's new girlfriend's dog rocks the Czech political scene. But Babiš, the Houdini of Czech politics, turned it into PR. www.politico.eu/article/czec...

The appointment of just four women out of 15 ministers in Belgium’s new Cabinet has sparked anger on social media and among politicians. It also presented a stark contrast with the government of previous Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, which achieved gender parity among its ministers.

Political relations between cultural cousins Czechia and Slovakia have rarely been worse — not even in 1993, when Czechoslovakia bloodlessly divorced into two independent republics. Read my latest below

The Slovak government’s love for Russia knows no bounds. A group of six MPs led by Andrej Danko, leader of the hard-right Slovak National Party (SNS), went to Moscow this week in a sign of growing ties between Bratislava and the Kremlin.

Competition to rule the wider Arctic and its vast mineral resources and key waterways has ramped up, culminating this week in U.S. President-elect Donald Trump floating military action to capture Greenland from Denmark.

Kyiv’s decision not to renew a gas deal with the Kremlin hasn’t sparked the catastrophe Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico imagined. 🔗 www.politico.eu/article/robe...

Salome Zourabichvili’s term in office ends on Sunday — but Georgia’s pro-Western president says she’s not going anywhere.

Zoran Milanović, a critic of the EU and NATO, is expected to come in first in Sunday’s presidential election.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is threatening retaliatory measures against Ukraine if Kyiv stops Russian gas transit to Slovakia as of Jan. 1.

Estonia launched a naval operation to protect its undersea power cables today, following the suspected sabotage of another cable in the Baltic Sea by a ship belonging to Russia’s so-called shadow fleet.

Donald Trump expressed his renewed interest in acquiring Greenland — after having initially done so back in 2019. Even though the vast majority of Greenlanders are EU citizens, the EU’s diplomatic service is not exactly coming out all-guns-blazing against Trump’s suggestion.

Finland has opened a criminal investigation into the potential involvement of Russia's so-called 'shadow fleet' in the breaking of an undersea power cable between Finland and Estonia on Christmas Day.

The love affair between Slovakia’s prime minister and president is over.

Chad’s government abruptly ended a defense cooperation agreement with former colonial power France, issuing the unexpected announcement just a few hours after a meeting of the foreign ministers of the two countries.

Georgia’s ruling party has picked former Manchester City footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as its presidential candidate, the chairman of Georgian Dream Bidzina Ivanishvili announced at a briefing today.

Israel’s PM Benjamin Netanyahu is officially a wanted man. We took a look at which countries in Europe are vowing to arrest him, which ones are saying they will ignore the ICC’s ruling — and those refusing to say. In short? Netanyahu’s world just got a lot smaller. www.politico.eu/article/benj...

Elena Gorolová was forcibly sterilized under government-sponsored eugenics program in communist Czechoslovakia. Because she is Roma. She told her story until the Czech government was forced to listen. With Sarah Wheaton for @politico.eu. www.politico.eu/article/thes...