Good morning from Brussels, 

Unlike the EU pre-election period in 2019, Europe’s streets have not been rocked by massive climate marches ahead of the EU vote on 9 June.

Record-breaking global temperatures and threats to the Green Deal have not been enough to motivate protestors to return to the streets en masse.

Euractiv’s Donagh Cagney explains why. 

On the other hand, Europe’s farmers who took to the streets for months are now seeing the results.

Arnaud Rousseau, the head of France’s largest farmers’ union, is delighted to see food sovereignty taking centre stage in the political debate. 

“From an ideological point of view, it’s a great victory”, he told Euractiv in an interview. 

On a policy level, he called for an EU commissioner for agriculture who would also be vice-president of the Commission and vowed to remain “vigilant” over the policies the next EU executive will follow. 

Reporting from Paris, Hugo Struna has more.

EU foreign ministers will meet with their six counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the UAE in Brussels on Monday for the second time in a month to discuss efforts to end Israel’s war on Gaza. Alexandra Brzozowski has the story.

On the Russian front, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that European banks face growing risks operating in Russia and the US is looking at strengthening its secondary sanctions on banks found to be aiding transactions for Russia’s war effort. Read more. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s hybrid warfare tactics have raised the alarm in Europe, with several EU member states stepping up their deterrence options towards Moscow.

European issues absent from Bulgarian election campaign. Ahead of the June European elections and a parallel national vote, bloc-wide issues are far from the campaign agenda, with domestic matters prevailing across all parties and politicians. Read more.

Latvia’s European elections race too close to call. Latvia’s conservative-nationalist party Nacionālā Apvienība (ECR) is leading the polls ahead of the European elections, beating even the ruling coalition Jaunā Vienotība (EPP), but with 16 lists currently vying for at least one of Latvia’s nine seats, the results are too close to predict. Read more.

BERLIN | PARIS

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have urged voters to take part in June’s European elections, which they say is a bid to protect democracy amid a likely shift to the far right in the EU parliament. Read more.

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BERLIN

Germany’s Scholz warns von der Leyen: No collaboration with the far-right. The new European Commission president must not collaborate with far-right forces, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned on Friday, amid signs that the current Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen is eyeing closer collaboration with hard-right parties if she wins a second mandate. Read more.

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PARIS

French left slams government plan to cut unemployment benefits further. French left-wing candidates in the EU elections have criticised Prime Minister Gabriel Attal’s plan to cut unemployment benefits, which he revealed in an interview on Sunday, just two weeks before the European elections. Read more.

Why are French Greens losing ground in EU elections race? With two weeks to go to the European elections on 9 June, the French Greens – and their allies across Europe – are in freefall in the polls. After the great success of 2019, has the wind changed for the Green lists? Read more.

ROME 

The Italian government has objected to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s call for allies to lift restrictions on using Western-supplied weapons against targets in Russia. Read more.

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MADRID

Madrid furious over ‘scandalous’ Israeli video comparing flamenco with Hamas killings. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares on Sunday strongly criticised a video posted the same day by his Israeli counterpart Israel Katz on X, featuring two flamenco dancers interspersed with images of Hamas terrorist attacks and a direct message to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Read more.

Spain’s Podemos warns about ‘hypocrisy’ of ‘European Commission of war’. The European Union is “complicit” in “genocide” allegedly being carried out by Israel in Gaza, while the European bloc acts with “hypocrisy” by sending arms to Ukraine but leaving the Palestinian people to their fate, Irene Montero, the lead candidate of Spain’s radical left Podemos party in June’s European elections, has said. Read more.

VILNIUS

Lithuania’s Nauseda wins presidential election. Former central banker Gitanas Nauseda won Lithuania’s presidential election on Sunday after opponent Ingrida Simonyte conceded. Read more.

WARSAW | PARIS

Poland’s PiS wants explanation from Tusk after French PM’s remarks on migration. Prominent opposition PiS lawmaker Mariusz Błaszczak called on Prime Minister Donald Tusk to explain his earlier words on the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact after his French counterpart Gabriel Attal said in a recent debate that the West had convinced eastern EU countries to either accept migrants or contribute financially to migration management. Read more.

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PRAGUE

Czechia to host top-level meeting of 7 EU members to talk Ukraine support. Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS/ECR) will host a high-level meeting of seven European leaders in Prague on Tuesday to bolster support for Ukraine.  Read more.

• EU: Foreign Affairs Council convenes to discuss russian war against Ukraine, situation in Middle East, electoral process in Georgia, and more;
• Agriculture and Fisheries Council expected to focus on market situation, future of crisis management, origin labelling, animal welfare, and more;
• Brussels eight conference on supporting future of Syria and region aiat engaging civil society for political solution, mobilising financial support for Syrians and their host communities in neighbouring countries, and more;
• Commission President Ursula von der Leyen participates in 26th International WDR Europaforum, in Berlin, Germany;
• Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides participates in 77th World Health Assembly, in Geneva, Switzerland;
• Energy Commissioner Kadri Simson delivers keynote speech at “Investing in Ukraines Future” conference, in Tallinn, Estonia;
• Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarčič holds meetings with Minister for Foreign Affairs and Emigrants of Lebanon Abdallah Bou Habib, and Minister of State of Qatar Lolwah Rashid Al-Khater;
• Spain: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on official visit;

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[Edited by Sarantis Michalopoulos, Daniel Eck, Liene Lūsīte, Alice Taylor]