Closing summary
Never a boring day with Europe live, it seems!
But now it’s a wrap from me, Jakub Krupa.
Here are the three things to take away from today’s blog:
Micheál Martin has been confirmed as the new prime minister of Ireland, after parties in the Irish parliament find a way to resolve their dispute, which held up his confirmation vote by a day. He offered some first comments on his guiding principles and EU policy (14:59) and relations with the US (15:01). He is completing hew new cabinet this evening, and we will bring you the latest on this tomorrow.
EU and Nato leaders spoke in Davos about the need to increase defence spending to put Europe in a stronger position to defend itself and argue its case in discussions with the new US administration under Donald Trump (see 09:42, 09:47, 09:55) . But they are likely to be alarmed about his latest comments on Ukraine as, against their suggestions (see 10:09) the US president wants to meet with Putin and get China involved (see 18:00). If you want to follow US reactions to his speech, here’s our US blog:
The leader of Germany’s main centre-right opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, promised today to make “fundamental changes” to asylum law if his party gets elected next month. He spoke after a deadly knife attack that killed two people, including a toddler, put the country’s and the EU’s migration policies back in the spotlight (12:23).
On a more different note, I leave you with the news that if you ever end up in a “mouldy” hotel with stale croissants, you can apparently claim thousands in compensation, as one UK family proved.
Finally, for those of you in Ireland – please, stay safe during Storm Éowyn.
That’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today. Thank you!
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
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Trump's speech at Davos - snap reaction
EU leaders will not be happy with what they just heard from Trump.
In particular, his comments on meeting Putin to discuss Ukraine will cause some concern, given some key EU foreign policy voices explicitly urged him not to do that earlier today (10:09).
Getting China involved and using their “great deal of power over that situation” is also likely to give reignite worries focused around the question – explicitly raised by Ukraine’s Zelenskyy on Tuesday (see 15:02) – whether we could end up in a situation where Europe is marginalised or even not involved in the peace talks.
Finally, what he said on trade and taxes is not new, but will probably keep some EU officials well awake as they try to figure out what could be his next move if he really decides to “do something about it". Jennifer Rankin spoke about it in this blog on Tuesday, too (see 12:28).
Trump says he wants to talk with Putin and get China to help end Russia-Ukraine war
Trump has now moved on to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine:
I really would like to be able to meet with president Putin soon to get that war ended. And that’s not from the standpoint of economy or anything else. It’s from the standpoint of millions of lives are being wasted.
Asked about his relationship with China, he unprompted returns to this topic and says:
Hopefully, China can help us stop the war and in particular in Russia and Ukraine. They have a great deal of power over that situation.
Will there be a peace deal by this time next year?
You are going to have to ask Russia. Ukraine is ready to make a deal.
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Trump complains about EU's treatment of US Big Tech
Trump also complained about various legal problems facing major US tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Meta in the EU.
They [had] court cases with Apple, and they supposedly won a case that most people did not think was much of a case; they won 15 or 16 billion from Apple. They want billions from Google, I think they are after Facebook for billions and billions.
These are American companies. Whether you like them or not, they are American companies, and you should not be doing that.
We have some very big complaints with the EU.
Here is what he is talking about on Apple:
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Trump says EU "treats us very, very unfairly" as he complains about red tape
US president Donald Trump repeated his attack on the European Union for treating US “very, very unfairly,” pointing to his time investing in Ireland and criticising the bloc’s trade rules.
He complained of EU taxes and other trade restrictions, saying that “they essentially do not take our farm products and our cars, yet they sell cars to us by the millions.”
“I am trying to be constructive, because I love Europe, the countries of Europe, but the processes are very cumbersome and they treat the United States of America very unfairly” he said, adding his administration is “going to do something about it.”
Here is what he said:
I want to talk about the EU. ... [Business friends] are very frustrated because of the time everything seems to take to get approved [with] environmental impact statement for things that you should not even have to do that [for].
I am going to give you a quick little example. In my private life ... I did projects, and have a big project in Ireland. It had to get approval on something that would have made it even better, and I got the approval from Ireland in a period of a week, and it was a very, very efficient, good approval, and they informed me that the other problem is you gonna have to get it from the EU, and we think that will take five to six years. I said, you have to be kidding.
This was before politics. I said it is not that important, I do not want to wait five or six years.
I send people to the EU to see if they can speed it up and it was a five or six year wait to get a simple approval that Ireland gave me in not much more than a week.
That was the first time I was involved with the EU and I realised it is a problem and I did not even bother applying to do it, or if I did, I pulled it very quickly. ...
From the standpoint of America, the EU treats us very, very unfairly, very badly.
They have a large tax that we all know about and a VAT tax and it is a very substantial one.
They essentially do not take our farm products and our cars, yet they sell cars to us by the millions.
They put tariffs on things that we want to do. Non-economic or non-monetary tariffs and those are very bad and make it very difficult to bring products into Europe and yet they expect to be selling [to the US] and they do so.
We have hundreds of billions of dollars of deficit with the EU and nobody is happy with it. And we are going to do something about it.
I am trying to be constructive, because I love Europe, the countries of Europe, but the processes are very cumbersome and they treat the United States of America very unfairly.
He then made comments about airlines having problems with securing landing slots at EU airports.
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Efforts to get a Russia-Ukraine peace deal 'under way,' Trump claims
Our efforts to secure a peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine are now hopefully under way. It is so important to get that done.
It is an absolute killing field. … Nobody has seen anything like it since World War II. …
It is time to end it.
Make your products in US or face tariffs, Trump tells businesses
My message to every business in the world is very simple: come make your product in America and we will give you among the lowest taxes on Earth.
But if you don’t make your product in America, which is your prerogative, you will have to pay a tariff. Differing amounts, but a tariff.
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I will focus on what Trump has to say on Europe, Ukraine and broader European security here, but if you are also interested in US politics, you can also follow our US blog here:
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US president Trump about to speak at Davos
Donald Trump is about to start his address at Davos.
You can tune in below, but I will obviously bring you all the news lines here, too.
And yes, I can hear you say “the Pan-Euro-Medi-what?”.
So here’s our Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin with this explainer:
Šefčovič’s suggestion comes as Brussels and London seek to improve economic and diplomatic ties, with the first post-Brexit summit pencilled in for the first half of 2025.
Nearly five years since Brexit, the return of Donald Trump to the White House has raised the stakes for the EU-UK relationship, highlighting for both sides the importance of alliances with like-minded allies. But the details of the reset are tricky, especially for a government that seems anxious to avoid accusations – however farfetched – of trying to reverse Brexit.
UK could try to join Europe-wide trade deal, but it's up to them to move on this, EU's trade chief says
The EU’s new trade chief has said the bloc could consider including the UK in a pan-European trade agreement, the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean convention (PEM), but emphasised that “the ball is in the UK’s court”.
While the UK’s Labour government has ruled out returning to the single market and customs union after Brexit, the possibility of joining a continent-wide deal could open the door to closer cooperation with the EU and bolster much-needed economic growth.
Maroš Šefčovič, who led post-Brexit negotiations for the EU, told the BBC that allowing the UK to join the Pan-Euro-Mediterranean Convention (PEM) was “something we could consider”.
Here is the full story:
We’re expecting to hear from US president Donald Trump this afternoon as he will address the World Economic Forum in Davos via a video link.
But overnight he somewhat unexpectedly revealed his admiration for Austrian and Finnish forests and how they are managed, saying he spoke about their leaders about the issue and it was “beautiful, the way they expressed it”.
They said, ‘We live in a forest. We are a forest nation.’
Here is the clip:
His comments came in an interview with Fox News, when he was discussing recent wildfires in California and brought up the criticism he faced in 2020 for blaming the lack of forest management for the crisis.
Our Rome correspondent Angela Giuffrida with a snap (and slightly sceptical) reaction to the League’s move:
The League, while in government, carries a lot less weight than it used to, although it will be interesting to see how much, in reality, Meloni veers Italy towards Trumpism.
Italy's far-right League backs withdrawal from the World Health Organization
Italy’s far-right League party, a partner in prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s government, proposed a law Thursday to follow Donald Trump and pull out of the World Health Organization, AFP reports.
A spokesperson for Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party is the largest in parliament, said she did not yet have a position on the proposal.
It comes after President Trump said he would pull the United States out of the UN body.
Opposition parties have condemned the idea of pulling out of the WHO.
The League, led by deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini, has been losing voters for years to Meloni’s party. In response, it has been tacking further and further to the political right, and has firmly positioned itself alongside Trump.
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For those who want to get the highlights from the Irish Dáil, here’s a short clip showing the moment Martin was confirmed and some bits from his first speech.
Remember that earlier Polish media report claiming that JD Vance was planning to travel to Poland to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp on Monday (see 10:53)?
The country’s English-language public broadcaster, TVP World, has now corrected their earlier report and says that he is not coming, with “another high-ranking representative of the US government” expected instead.
Martin’s return to the role of taoiseach comes after a group of regional independent TDs (members of parliament), who are propping up his government, agreed a compromise to delay talks to resolve the dispute that derailed what should have been a set-piece ceremony on Wednesday.
With calm replacing the previous day’s rancour on opposition benches, Martin pledged to “remain open to constructive ideas” as leader of the centre-right coalition government.
High on the agenda for the new government is the chronic housing crisis that has dominated local politics for the past few years, along with health, education, infrastructure and the economy.
On the international front, Ireland faces an urgent need to launch a diplomatic offensive in Washington to head off any threat from the Trump administration to repatriate jobs and taxes paid by US multinationals with European headquarters in Ireland, including Apple, Microsoft, Meta, X and Pfizer.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen leads the way with congratulations for Micheál Martin in a post on social media.
Congratulations on your appointment as Taoiseach, dear @MichealMartinTD
Looking forward to working with you again.
Together, we will make Europe and Ireland more competitive in these turbulent times.
Comhghairdeas leat!
It’s third time lucky for VdL: she (or rather, her team, surely) first tweeted the congratulations somewhat prematurely (see 14:04 on our blog yesterday), and today they had to edit it after posting for clarity.
But they got there in the end. Yay!
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Back to Ireland… here are first pictures of the country’s (very) happy new prime minister, Micheál Martin.
Europe scores four Oscar nominations for best international feature award
Turning away from politics for a second, Europe has secured four out of five slots on the final list of nominations for the best international feature award at the Oscars.
France’s entry in this year’s Oscar race, Spanish-language Mexico-set Emilia Pérez made the list, alongside Latvia’s animated fantasy adventure Flow, Denmark’s The Girl with the Needle, and Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Brazil’s I’m Still Here completes the final five.
But Emilia Pérez is likely to get the most attention as it got the record 13 nominations, the most earned by a film not in the English language.
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There were some emotional moments there from Martin as he thanked his wife Mary, and paid tribute to his late parents, Paddy and Lana.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the passing of my father. This week every year I remember all he did for us and the values which he lived by every day.
He gets big applause at the end of the speech, and is off to see the country’s president Michael D. Higgins (and his dog). Yes, we will bring you pictures from that meeting when we get it.
And Martin will be back in the parliament later to assemble the new government.
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Not naive about change under Trump, but our relation with US 'older than our state', new Irish PM says
The new Irish prime minister also indirectly addresses the burning question of Irish-US relations under Donald Trump.
Here is what he said:
Our relationship of kinship with the US is older than our state. It has endured because we have continued to renew bonds of respect and cooperation.
We are not naive about the realities of change. But equally, the Ireland-America relationship is one that benefits us both, and will emerge strongly, no matter what.
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After long and personal thanks, Martin says:
As I look at Ireland today, it is clear that there can be a degree of cynicism towards politics, and too often we dismiss the motivation of others, especially those we disagree with.
I reject this. I believe in the good faith of those who seek to serve their communities in elected office.
He says he will offer more detail on his policies later, but wants to give an idea of his guiding principles.
He says his government will “want to work to reform and strenghten the European Union,” and “will not flinch in our support for protecting Europe’s freedom and democracy.”
He also talks about some domestic challenges, including housing and support for people with disabilities, acknowledging “too many … have to fight too hard to access the services they deserve.”
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Micheál Martin confirmed as new Irish prime minister
It’s done! 95 votes in favour to 76 against.
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After a brief debate in which opposition lawmakers lined up to criticise the government’s domestic record, the Irish parliament is now voting on a motion to nominate Micheál Martin as the country’s next prime minister.
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Outgoing prime minister Simon Harris, who will take a senior role in the new government, introduces Martin.
He makes a point that Martin’s second go will be different compared to his first, 2020 to 2022, when he worked under strict restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, and thanks him for their work over the years.
He then cracks a joke that he could sense that Martin was “somewhat nurturing a mild desire to be the taoiseach again and I want to sincerely congratulate you on that achievement.”
On a serious note, he adds that “there is no doubt” that the new government comes to the office “in the context of a global geopolitical change and the very real challenge it presents,” but also points to the need for domestic reforms in housing, health, and disability, among others.
Just as a reminder, this is the composition of the new Dáil:
Taoiseach nomination process under way
After a procedural vote on the order of business, we are under way with the process of appointing Martin.
Albert Dolan TD of Fianna Fáil, who tried but failed to introduce the motion yesterday because of protests from opposition benches yesterday, opens the debate with a joke: “As I was saying…”
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Irish parliament in session
The Irish parliament is now in session with the new speaker, Verona Murphy, reminding lawmakers of their duty to elect a new government and offering a provisional ruling that she hopes would help to resolve the procedural standoff on independent TDs.
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Martin's election going ahead
The election of Micheál Martin is going ahead.
The regional group of independents who have pledged alliance to his new coalition have said they will not stand in the way of his formal nomination in the Dáil.
TDs are now gathering in parliament for the set-piece ceremony, which was derailed yesterday, to take place with his official elevation to taoiseach to be sealed by the Irish president shortly after 2pm.
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Storm Éowyn to bring 'extreme and real' risk to life, outgoing Irish PM warns
The Irish parliament should starts its proceedings imminently, and TDs are now taking their places. I will bring you the latest here.
But in the meantime, the current taoiseach Simon Harris took to social media to repeat the weather warnings about Storm Éowyn.
I’ve been briefed on the storm hitting Ireland from midnight tonight.
Storm Eowyn is Dangerous, Destructive & Damaging.
We cannot give a higher warning than nationwide RED. The risk to life is extreme and real. You need to pay attention. Do not travel. Do not go near the sea.
Germany needs asylum reforms, likely future chancellor Merz says after deadly knife attack
We are exactly a month away from the German parliamentary election, and the public debate today is dominated by reactions to yesterday’s deadly knife attack that killed two people, including a toddler, in what the country’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, condemned as an “act of terror”.
A 28-year-old Afghan man has been arrested in relation with the attack. The suspect lived in an asylum centre in the area, news outlet Der Spiegel reported.
The leader of the centre-right opposition party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Friedrich Merz, promised today to make “fundamental changes” to asylum law if his party gets elected next month.
Merz’s CDU is leading the polls ahead of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in second, and the Social Democratic party (SPD) in third.
In a sign of hardening language on migration, Merz said he would immediately impose a “de facto entry ban... for all those who do not have valid entry documents”.
“We are faced with the tatters of 10 years of misguided asylum and migration policy in Germany,” he told reporters.
He called for permanent controls at all German borders, a halt on all illegal entries to the country and the use of national law to step in for “dysfunctional” EU asylum law, as well as a push to make more facilities available to make room for migrant detention facilities, Reuters reported.
EU economy commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis stuck to the script and made some very diplomatic comments in Davos just now when asked about the potential risk of US tariffs on imports from the EU, as hinted at by president Donald Trump.
The Latvian, who previously also held the trade portfolio, said this:
The EU and the US are strategic allies and especially in the current geopolitical situation when we see autocracies challenge rules-based order, it is very important that democracies work together. ... It is with this spirit ... that we approach the new Trump administration.
The EU-US trade relationship is the largest in the world. Together, we account for 42% of the world’s GDP, so there’s a lot at stake economically.
We will be seeking engagement and dialogue with the new Trump administration to find a constructive way forward.
Dáil restart pushed back again
The nomination and election of Ireland’s prime minister has been delayed again as opposition and government parties continue to try to hammer out a deal to pave the way for the formal ceremony elevating Micheál Martin to taoiseach.
The Dáil proceedings expected to resume at 10.30 but are now not expected to resume until 11.30 as talks remain in deadlock.
Pressure is also mounting to have all procedures including the appointment of the cabinet completed mid afternoon to allow rural TDs get home before Storm Éowyn makes travel hazardous.
Martin set to be appointed Ireland's next prime minister after 'constructive' talks to resolve political standoff
Meanwhile the Irish public broadcaster RTÉ is reporting that Micheál Martin is on course to be finally appointed as the next Irish prime minister today after “constructive” talks this morning on how to resolve the political standoff that disrupted yesterday’s sitting of the Dáil.
“There is now nothing stopping the Dáil electing a taoiseach today following a constructive meeting between government and opposition parties,” RTÉ’s political correspondent Mícheál Lehane said in a social media post.
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US vice-president Vance to travel to Poland next week: Polish media
US vice-president JD Vance is expected to travel to Poland to attend the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German Auschwitz concentration camp on Monday, Polish foreign-language public broadcaster TVP World reports, citing a source in the Polish government.
If confirmed, this would be Vance’s first European trip since his and President Trump’s inauguration earlier this week.
We have approached the Polish ministry of foreign affairs to verify this information.
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Nato countries need to pay 'fair share' before expanding alliance, US envoy Grenell says
Earlier today, I brought you the European view on Nato spending, so it’s only fair to hear the other side, too.
US presidential envoy Richard Grenell spoke via a video link in Davos earlier today, and let’s say he was not particularly impressed with comments from Nato chief Mark Rutte on Ukraine being accepted into the alliance.
As AFP notes, he also echoed US President Donald Trump’s call on Nato members to spend more on defence.
“You’re going to run into a big buzzsaw in America if we have the Nato secretary general talking about adding Ukraine to Nato,” he said.
“You cannot ask the American people to expand the umbrella of Nato when the current members aren’t paying their fair share, and that includes the Dutch who need to step up,” Grenell argued.
“We need to make sure that those leaders are spending the right amount of money. We need to be able to avoid war. And that means a credible threat from Nato,” he said.
The envoy also blasted Trump’s predecessor for not speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying the new US president was pressuring Ukraine and Russia “to the table”.
“There’s a huge frustration from Americans that we’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and our leaders aren’t speaking to each other to try to solve problems,” Grenell said.
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Don't elevate Putin by giving him a summit on Ukraine, Poland's Sikorski urges Trump
Donald Trump should be wary of giving Vladimir Putin too much prominence by agreeing to an early summit on Ukraine, Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski argued in Davos.
Here is his argument in full:
President Trump has started well by recognising that it is Putin who needs to shift his position, not Ukraine.
If I can make one suggestion to the new administration, coming from the depths of experience of a country that warned the rest of the world about Putin and was not always listened to, it is this: this is not the Putin that Trump knew in his first term.
I would be sceptical about granting Putin an early summit. The president of the US is the leader of the free world; Vladimir Putin is an outcast and an indicted war criminal, for stealing Ukrainian children.
I would suggest that Putin has to earn that summit. If he gets it early, it elevates him beyond his significance and gives him a wrong idea about the trajectory of this.
He will be speaking again in a few minutes, alongside the Latvian president, the European Parliament president, the French Europe minister, and senior Ukrainian government ministers. You can follow it through a live stream here.
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Europe needs to engage with Trump and explain things have changed, ex Nato sec gen Stoltenberg says
Rutte’s predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, said that Europe needs to engage with Trump and not avoid having difficult conversations with him, and make the case that “things have really changed” over the last decade.
The Norwegian, who led the alliance during the first Trump presidency, said:
I think the main thing is to engage with him. When there are concerns or issues raised about what the new administration will do I think the best thing is to go to Washington and discuss.
Back in 2017, some allies thought we should just freeze our relations with the US, do almost nothing, and hope things would improve after the next elections.
We did the opposite. We sat down with President Trump and address the issues he had, especially on defence spending.
The reality is things have really changed. When we made the decision to meet 2% of GDP on defence, only three allies met that [target]. Now, it’s 23 allies. That is a big difference and it makes it much easier to tell whoever is the US president that European allies are taking this seriously.
Nato 'will not able to defend itself' if it keeps current defence spending levels, Rutte says
Rutte also appeared to agree with some of US president Donald Trump’s grievances about how much European allies spend on defence.
Appearing at the same event, he said:
The problem is not US, the problem is Europe. Trump has consistently made this point that in Europe we are underspending in terms of defence.
Thanks partly also to him, we have seen this upturn in spending in Nato on the European side. We felt that the US was getting a bad deal, and Europe was funding its social model, healthcare system, but underfunding defence.
The problem is that we are not yet all at 2%, and ... that 2% is not nearly enough. ... Nato collectively is not able to defend itself in four, five years if it sticks to 2%.
It will be much more. Really much more.
We need to step up support for Ukraine, Nato's Rutte says
Now, let’s turn to Davos, where several European leaders have been speaking this morning about the prospects for Ukraine in 2025.
Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, said that allies “have to step up, not scale back the support for Ukraine” as he warned that “the frontline is moving in the wrong direction.”
He also warned about the broader significance of the war.
It is not only a European conflict, but a geopolitical conflict, and if we get a bad deal, we will see the president of Russia high-fiving with the leaders of North Korea, Iran, and China. We cannot accept it. It would be a big mistake.
Rutte, who previously served as the Dutch prime minister between 2010 and 2024, also spoke about how the conflict could end:
Whenever, hopefully as soon as possible, Zelensky says he is willing to enter into talks, when we can get Putin to the table, the most important thing is that we have a sustainable peace, so we will never again experience what happened with the Minsk agreement in 2014.
I see too many politicians inside and outside Ukraine contemplating if you would have peace talks, what they would mean for the territories the Russians have captured, and secondly what it means for Nato.
The risk here is that we start negotiating with Putin without Putin at the table, and ... he is sitting in his reclining chair in Moscow, just ticking boxes: yes, no, what’s Nato’s position on keeping some of the territory I got…
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Timings for Irish Dail today
The Irish parliament is to reconvene at 10.30 today after a chaotic row over that saw the formal election of the taoiseach abandoned with the Dáil suspended four times.
Opposition party leaders were due to meet with the leaders of the government parties Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael at 8.30am to try to hammer out a deal that would pave the way for a smooth election.
The row centres on protests that independent deputies who have formally pledged allegiance to the two main parties to form a coalition should not be allowed to sit on opposition benches.
Both sides blame each other for the debacle yesterday. If a deal is hashed out, the election of the taoiseach will happen this morning.
The day ahead
The Irish parliament reconvenes for a second attempt to elect Micheál Martin as taoiseach after Wednesday’s sitting had to be abandoned after opposition protests
US president Donald Trump speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, via a video link (17:00 CET).
Separately, French, Polish and Ukrainian foreign ministers speak about Ukraine (11:00 CET), and EU commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis takes part in a panel about tariffs (11:30 CET).
Slovak prime minister Robert Fico convenes a national security council meeting after alleging that opposition forces are trying to overthrow his government in the latest escalation of the ongoing political crisis in the country
Catch-up: Italy's Meloni faces questions about Libyan general's arrest
Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to clarify why a Rome court refused to approve the arrest of a Libyan general accused of war crimes, allowing him to return home to a hero’s welcome on an Italian secret services flight in what critics believe was a tactic to shield alleged abuses committed in the north African country as a result of a migrant pact with Italy.
Catch-up: France's crack down on drug traffickers
One of France’s most wanted suspected drug traffickers was due in court in Marseille after his extradition from Morocco amid a broader crackdown on drug-related crime.
Our Paris correspondent Kim Willsher has the latest.
Catch-up: Ukraine war briefing
We will be also talking about Ukraine today as many senior European politicians have already or will speak on this topic in Davos today.
To catch up on the latest from the frontline, see our explainer below.
Morning opening: (Interruptions.)
There is a storm brewing in Ireland. In both the literal and figurative sense.
Large parts of the country are covered by Met Éireann’s Status Red weather warnings for Thursday night and Friday as Storm Éowyn threatens widespread disruption. Authorities have described it as potentially “among the severest storms that Ireland has ever seen.”
But before then, the country’s parliament, the Dáil, will face Day 2 of its own political storm after parliamentarians could not agree a way forward on Wednesday and failed to confirm the next prime minister, Micheál Martin.
After chaotic scenes in the chamber – best captured in the official transcript as near constant (Interruptions.) as individual lawmakers raged about “not acceptable,” “unbelievable,” and “outrageous” events – the Irish press this morning reports on “frantic efforts” overnight to avoid a second day of disorder.
But you know things are somewhat unusual when the Irish Times’s political podcast seeks to explain the situation with a quote from a famous boxer turned philosopher Mike Tyson: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
I will guide you through today’s events in Ireland and elsewhere, including Davos, where we hope to hear from US president Donald Trump. He is not there and will speak via a video link, but his presence in the White House has dominated the discussions so far, so it’s just as well that we will hear from the man himself now.
I am sure this will calm our nerves, without (Interruptions.), right?
It’s Thursday, 23 January 2025, and this is Europe Live. It’s Jakub Krupa here.
Good morning.
If you have any comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
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