The revision of the EU emissions trading system is due today. How far it loosens the scheme will shape energy bills, competitiveness and transition funding across the V4 – and they have a say.

Lindsey Graham’s passing did what a year of lobbying could not – jolting his Russia sanctions bill back to life. Poland and the Baltics should save the momentum before the midterm elections.

The EU’s failure to finalise its 21st sanctions package on 13 July shows that interests and rhetoric prevail over political will. But it also allows Russia to anticipate and prepare.

Energy security is back on the menu this summer. Among other things, it will test the Visegrad resolve at the EU energy policy table.

Contested and captured information spaces can shape choices long before voters enter the polling station. The answer is not control over speech, but stronger democratic resilience.

The Nordic model of ‘total defence’ is hard to replicate in full. Yet it can still serve as a blueprint for building whole-of-society strategies.

Poland and Sweden signed what PM Donald Tusk called the most important agreement in the history of the Polish Navy. It would be easy to file this under naval modernisation and move on. However, that would not bring forth the gravitas of what is actually happening.

How to measure the success of this week’s NATO Summit in Ankara? By GDP or by opinion polls? The allied will to fight back to back is no less important than material defence readiness. Russia knows it better than most.

On 11 July Bosnia will mark 31 years since the Srebrenica genocide. Hungary arrives at the anniversary still bearing Orbán’s ‘no’ vote on the UN resolution of two years ago, a legacy Péter Magyar can now begin to dismantle.

Ukraine is losing the demographic foundation needed to maintain a functioning democratic state. Europe should help Kyiv return those capable of defending and rebuilding the country.