UK relationship ‘isn’t taking up as much of our mental space as it was a few years ago’, says EU diplomat

Since 2016, Britain’s Conservatives have compared the European Union to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, described a senior EU official’s remarks as “bizarre and stupid” and threatened to break international law with a unilateral rewrite of the Brexit deal. So an incoming Labour government does not have to do much to strike a different tone.

But while the EU is ready to deepen ties with a future Labour government – widely assumed to take office after 4 July – it will not offer radical concessions to Keir Starmer. EU sources, already welcoming warmer relations under Rishi Sunak, are looking cautiously at the changing political weather across the Channel.

German Green MEP chair warns that EU plan to tackle climate crisis will be put at risk by agreement with hard right parties

Green members of the European parliament will not support Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the commission president if she makes a deal with hard-right nationalists, the party’s joint lead candidate has said.

Terry Reintke, the German Green MEP chair, said her group would “absolutely” not support von der Leyen – the incumbent centre-right commission president who is seeking a second term – if she made a deal with the Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s group in the European parliament, the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR).

Officials hope for strong youth turnout but experts say this does not translate into support for EU as far right makes inroads

The town has a farm, a university and a factory, but nobody agrees on where to put the police station. Around a large table in a stuffy room in a museum basement next to the Royal Palace of Brussels, a group of teenagers are haggling over the construction of a fictional town that has run out of budget.

The group of 21 sixth formers from the south Belgian city of Mons have already divided into four political parties and fixed their priorities. Health, jobs and equality were high on everyone’s list. Now they have to find consensus on building a town, trading views over where to place brightly coloured blocks – standing for amenities – on the gleaming white table.