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Good morning from Brussels. I’m Mared Gwyn.
It’s the final day of crunch G7 talks on the shores of Lake Geneva, where Euronews’s Angela Skujins and Maria Tadeo continue to report from the ground – and where leaders overnight coalesced around a rare joint stance on the war in Ukraine.
G7 unite on Ukraine: In the statement, published shortly after midnight, leaders said they “stand united in our unwavering support for Ukraine in defending its freedom, sovereignty, and territorial integrity”. The statement has been signed by the US President, Donald Trump.
Crucially, all leaders also committed to increasing “pressure on the Russian war economy” and to “strengthen our sanctions, including those on the oil and gas sectors.”
Europeans will no doubt consider the statement a major win, after both the US and the UK had been accused of watering down sanctions on Russian energy commodities in order to cushion the impact of the war in Iran.
Anticipation high over US-Iran MoU: Trump has also vowed to publicly disclose the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding with Iran, due to be signed Friday at Switzerland’s mountainside Burgenstock resort, according to reports.
That signature is expected to trigger 60 days of negotiations, according to a draft MoU seen by Euronews, which would focus on sanctions relief and the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
The Memorandum also includes a US commitment to a $300 billion fund designed to kick-start investment in Iran and finance reconstruction.
Meanwhile, on today’s G7 menu, AI: Leaders will be joined by tech executives from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Mistral AI for a discussion on ensuring “a safe, rapid and effective deployment of artificial intelligence.”
As my colleague Luca Bertuzzi explains in this must-read preview, as AI is fast becoming a strategic asset, fears of a potential American “kill switch” have rarely felt more real.
On Friday, Washington imposed export control measures blocking all access to Anthropic AI’s Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national. Anthropic consequently had to “abruptly disable” access to both models to comply.
The restrictions, and the speed with which the company applied them, confirmed one of Europe’s worst-kept fears: that the Americans could shut down access to their most powerful technology at a moment’s notice.
Washington cited national security as its justification. Fable 5 and Mythos 5 are said to have unprecedented capabilities to identify and exploit cyber vulnerabilities, making them a formidable hacking tool.
But being abruptly cut off from the world’s most advanced AI models left European and other Western allies flat-footed, delivering the ultimate reality check: access to American technology in the Trump era is no longer a given.
Germany and Poland set to boost military cooperation and shared duties in new defence deal
Germany and Poland were set to sign a new defence agreement Wednesday, putting aside their complicated past to strengthen European military cooperation at a time of heightened tension with Russia and growing uncertainty over US engagement in Europe.
Relations between the two neighbours in recent years have become more pragmatic in the wake of Russia’s full‑scale war on Ukraine in 2022 and the coming to power of a liberal government in Poland in 2023.
As the US weighs a partial drawdown of its military presence in Europe, Poland is keen to ensure that major European allies take a greater role in defending the continent’s eastern flank.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is seeking partners in his bid to revitalise his country’s military, the Bundeswehr, after decades of neglect with ambitions to build the strongest conventional army on NATO’s European side — an effort that will make it a central pillar of European defence in the years ahead.
Poland’s importance as a logistics hub for Ukraine, alongside its growing economy and heavy defence investment, has made it a compelling partner for Germany and other core European countries. Malek Fouda has more.
More from our newsrooms
Activists denounce Israeli miner ICL in Spain and its links to white phosphorus. An activist camp and the documentary ‘Salt in the Wound’ denounce environmental damage by ICL in a Catalan mining basin and its ties to white phosphorus used in warfare in Lebanon. Javier Iniguez De Onzono has more.
Lukashenka apologises to Zelenskyy, calls him ‘young and inexperienced’. Belarus leader Aliaksandr Lukashenka said his country poses no military threat to Ukraine and claimed his earlier statements were only in response to what Lukashenka said were threats from Kyiv to Minsk. Sasha Vakulina has the story.
We’re also keeping an eye on
- Group of 7 leaders wrap up three days of high-level talks
- European Parliament plenary session continues in Strasbourg.
That’s it for today. Angela Skujins and Luca Bertuzzi contributed to this newsletter.
Read the full article here
