Polish vote of confidence not expected before 4pm Warsaw time
Polish Sejm speaker Szymon Hołownia has just confirmed there is a delay to the main vote, which is now expected around 4pm (3pm BST).
The record-high number of over 280 MPs have registered to ask questions in the course of the debate, he says.
That’s over 60% of all MPs (!).
Key events
Jakub Krupa
All questions have now been asked, so it’s over to Polish PM Tusk to respond now.
The vote will follow.
Jakub Krupa
If you’re wondering what’s the latest in the Polish debate, a PiS lawmaker, Zbigniew Dolata, just finished his question (?) addressing prime minister Donald Tusk with a command in German: “Herr Tusk, raus!” (Mr Tusk, out!).
Tusk is not even in the chamber.
So, yeah, the Q&A is still going strong.
As per speaker Hołownia’s comments earlier (14:02), there will be a brief break before Tusk starts responding to questions, and only then we will proceed to the main vote.
So it may take a while. I will keep you posted.
UK and Gibraltar close to post-Brexit agreement on border with Spain
Eleni Courea and Sam Jones
The UK and Gibraltar are on the brink of an agreement which would see Eurostar-style dual border controls implemented at the territory’s airport.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, and Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, are meeting EU and Spanish negotiators in Brussels today in a bid to get the deal over the line.
The UK and Spain have been engaged in on-off negotiations for four years over Gibraltar’s land border with Spain.
The talks have been focused on allowing free movement between two territories by seeing Gibraltar enter the EU’s passport-free Schengen area.
Under the terms of the agreement being thrashed out on Wednesday, travellers arriving at Gibraltar airport would show their passports to British and Spanish border officers.
The system would mirror the one in place for Eurostar travellers at St Pancras airport, where travellers go through British and French passport control before boarding trains to the continent.
Lammy and Picardo are due to meet Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission vice-president, and José Manuel Albares, the Spanish minister for foreign affairs, in Brussels on Wednesday in a bid to finalise the deal.
British and Gibraltarian ministers held a meeting on Wednesday morning “to agree final parameters for negotiation”, Picardo said on X on Wednesday.
France makes arrests over cryptocurrency kidnapping
French police have arrested several people suspected of involvement in last month’s kidnapping of the father of a wealthy cryptocurrency entrepreneur, a source close to the case said Wednesday.
AFP reported that the suspects, apprehended on Tuesday according to the source, are believed to have been part of an attempt to extort funds from a wealthy man by abducting his father.
On 1 May, he was taken in Paris’s southern 14th arrondissement in broad daylight by four men wearing ski masks who bundled him into a delivery van as passers-by looked on.
The kidnappers demanded a ransom of several million euros and cut off one of the man’s fingers.
He was freed days later by a police tactical unit who stormed the house in a Paris suburb where he was being held.
Spanish court orders probe into PM over airline bailout
Poland’s Tusk is not the only European prime minister who is facing domestic pressure.
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez faced a new legal setback on Wednesday as a court ordered an investigation into a potential conflict of interest related to his government’s financial bailout of Air Europa, AFP reported.
The ruling came a day after the supreme court found that Spain’s top prosecutor – a government appointee – might have breached judicial secrecy in another case, potentially paving the way for a trial.
It also follows separate corruption investigations involving Sanchez’s wife, his brother, and a former close aide.
Madrid’s high court said it had directed the civil service ministry’s Office for Conflicts of Interest to investigate whether Sanchez should have recused himself from a 2020 Cabinet meeting that approved a EUR475 million bailout for Air Europa during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Polish vote of confidence not expected before 4pm Warsaw time
Polish Sejm speaker Szymon Hołownia has just confirmed there is a delay to the main vote, which is now expected around 4pm (3pm BST).
The record-high number of over 280 MPs have registered to ask questions in the course of the debate, he says.
That’s over 60% of all MPs (!).
Jakub Krupa
I hope you will excuse me for not bringing you a blow-by-blow report on this debate, but the latest question was about the sports sponsorship choices of a state-owned sugar producer, so…
I will let you know when Tusk is back to respond to all questions and when we get closer to the vote.
Jakub Krupa
I really hope someone is making notes for Tusk, because he is no longer in the chamber either – and yet he is somehow expected to respond to these (260+) questions at the end of this bloc.
Estonia sentences journalist to six years in prison for treason
An Estonian court on Wednesday said it had sentenced a journalist who used to work for Russian state media to six years in prison for treason, AFP reported.
The court found that Svetlana Burceva had worked with a reserve officer of Russia’s FSB security service in “activities against the independence and sovereignty” of Estonia.
“The sentence was six years in prison,” the Harju county district court said in a statement.
Russia hits Ukraine’s Kharkiv with drone attacks
A concentrated, nine-minute-long Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s second largest city of Kharkiv in the middle of the night killed three people and injured 64, including nine children, Ukrainian officials said.
Reuters reported the overnight attack followed Russia’s two biggest air assaults of the war on Ukraine this week, part of intensified bombardments that Moscow said were retaliatory measures for Kyiv’s recent attacks in Russia.
Two men jailed for life for supplying car bomb that killed Daphne Caruana Galizia
Juliette Garside
Two men have been sentenced to life in prison for supplying the car bomb that killed the anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in Malta eight years ago.
The sentencing on Tuesday of Robert Agius and Jamie Vella, reported to be members of the island’s criminal underworld, marked a significant step in the long campaign to bring those charged with Caruana Galizia’s murder to justice.
Her death in October 2017 sparked outrage across Europe and embroiled Malta’s governing party in accusations of a coverup, ultimately leading to the resignation of the then prime minister, Joseph Muscat.
Prosecutors have brought charges against seven people, including a millionaire businessman who is still awaiting trial.
Agius and Vella, who had pleaded not guilty, were sentenced after their conviction on Friday last week. Jurors returned an 8-1 verdict after a trial that lasted more than six weeks.
Greek court strips three far-right MPs of seats over electoral fraud
Helena Smith
A landmark court decision has dealt a blow to the far-right movement in Greece after MPs with the neo-fascist Spartans party were deprived of seats in parliament.
Citing electoral fraud, a specially assembled electoral tribunal stripped three of the group’s lawmakers, including its leader, of their status in a move that, for the first time since the collapse of military rule, leaves Athens’ 300-seat parliament operating with just 297 MPs.
In an unprecedented step, judges ruled that voters had been “deceived” in general elections two years ago because, although Vasilis Stigkas was described as the party leader, there was another person pulling the strings: Ilias Kasidiaris, an unrepentant neo-Nazi and former leader of the now disbanded Golden Dawn.
Parties in Greece legally cannot run in elections if their “real leaders” have been convicted of crimes such as participating in a criminal organisation.
Jakub Krupa
The Polish debate is, so far, going along the usual party lines, so let’s take a moment to bring you some updates from elsewhere in Europe instead.
