Spain’s Vox, Allied With Orban and Kaczyński, Flops in Election

Russia intensifies the bombardment of Odesa, targeting grain storage infrastructure and port facilities. This follows their retraction from the  UN-sponsored grain export, could trigger a food crisis in the Global South. NATO-Ukraine council to meet on Wednesday to discuss the remedies.

Upcoming on Visegrad Insight:

• Viktoryia Kolchyna analyses Wagner’s presence in Belarus
• Volodymyr Yermolenko writes on Milan Kundera’s legacy today
• Martin Ehl discusses Ukraine’s threat to block Russian gas transit

EU/REGIONAL

• Extreme right Spanish party Vox lost seats in elections on Sunday, resulting in a hung parliament without a functional majority from either the right or left blocs.
• Polish and Hungarian right-wing leaders Orban and Kaczyński had endorsed Vox, hoping it would join their “cultural revolution” to strengthen nation-states, resist further EU integration, and limit LGBTQ rights and migration.
• The vote relieves the EU by reducing the risk of disrupting the Spanish EU presidency, which started on 1 July. Socialist PM Pedro Sanchez will likely continue as caretaker, although a new vote may be held in November to resolve the gridlock.
• African leaders meet Vladimir Putin at a summit in St Petersburg this week as anger in some West African countries increases over Russia’s attempts to cut Ukraine from grain trade. Putin is likely to come under pressure to rejoin the grain deal. Moscow wants to sell its grain to Africa in cooperation with Turkey and Qatar. 
• Putin decided not to attend a BRIC summit in South Africa next month, saving South African President Cyril Rmaphosa from potential embarrassment and legal trouble for not respecting the ICC arrest warrant for the Russian leader over war crimes in Ukraine.
• The EU is preparing a 20 billion euro fund to keep arming Ukraine.
• The latest Eurobarometer showed Europeans remain broadly in favour of continuous support for Ukraine’s war effort.
• The U.S. and the EU agree to hold negotiations on critical minerals.
• Extreme heatwave is expected to stay until August, the World Meteorological Organisation projects with parts of the Mediterranean, including the Western Balkans, with temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius. 
• German opposition leader Friedrich Merz of the CDU said he could  “pragmatically” cooperate with the extreme right AfD in local governments, causing an outcry even among his party officials.

Significant moment in German politics: CDU leader Merz says his party is “of course” prepared to work with the AfD at communal politics level. AfD co-leader Chrupulla says it’s the start of the end of the firewall between conservatives and far right. pic.twitter.com/y3QQxjH6aF