Germany says it wants to build Europe’s strongest conventional army. The World Politics Review analysis warns that Berlin is still nowhere near proving it can turn that promise into soldiers, units and real wartime capacity.

Spain has imported one of the far right’s most dangerous ideas into actual law. The CIDOB opinion warns that “national priority” – the old Marine Le Pen formula of giving social benefits first to those deemed to belong – is no longer just a campaign slogan. It has entered legislation in the Valencian Community through the PP–Vox regional budget deal.

Europe keeps treating migration as a border problem. The RIEAS research paper says that is now dangerously outdated. The real pressure starts much further south – in the Sahel, Central Africa, Sudan and Libya – where jihadist violence, coups, state collapse, organised crime, climate stress and foreign meddling are feeding displacement long before people reach the Mediterranean.

Europe is tightening migration policy just as its ageing economies need migrants more than ever. The Internationale Politik essay argues that the continent has trapped itself in a dangerous contradiction: it wants control at the border, but it also needs people to fill labour shortages, support growth and keep welfare systems alive.

France’s unemployment problem is creeping back – and the Institut Montaigne interview makes clear why politicians should stop pretending this is just a statistical blip. For the first time since 2021, unemployment has moved above 8 percent, with 2.6 million people affected.

HCSS’s summer monitor gives the Netherlands a narrow pass – and then strips away the comfort. For the fourth measurement in a row, Dutch citizens rate social stability at 6.1. That looks steady. It is not reassuring.

InfoSecurity24’s report turns France’s cocaine boom into a grim warning on internal security. A drug once linked to elites and nightclubs has gone mass-market, reaching workers, farmers, the poor and people crushed by stress, long hours and social decline.