The European Parliament briefing lays out a blunt problem at the heart of EU defence. Europe is spending more, planning more and launching more instruments – but still buys weapons like 27 separate countries protecting 27 separate industrial comfort zones.

Defense Priorities’ op-ed delivers a blunt message from the US restraint camp: Europe must defend itself.

The DIIS brief warns that Europe’s idea of strategic autonomy is changing fast. This is no longer mainly about crisis missions, statebuilding or flying the EU flag in fragile states. It is turning into defence-industrial coordination, arms production, training, battlefield learning and military supply chains.

The IISS analysis delivers a harsh warning for European defence. A flagship Franco-German-Spanish plan to build a next-generation fighter now looks broken. The project was meant to prove Europe could act like a serious military power. Instead, it has exposed the same old problem: national industry, political pride and strategic mistrust getting in the way of hard capability.

Europe’s air forces are chasing drones while the real shortage sits under their wings. The RUSI commentary argues that NATO’s European members do not first need a new fantasy fleet of uncrewed aircraft. They need missiles and bombs – quickly, in depth and in the right types.

France is no longer watching the far right from a safe distance. The Christian Science Monitor interview with Victor Mallet, author of Far-Right France: Le Pen, Bardella and the Future of Europe, presents a country where Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has moved from political outcast to power-in-waiting.

Latvia has a new government, but nobody should mistake it for a clean reset. The KAS country report shows a country forced into a hurried political handover after drone incidents, a defence ministry row and the collapse of Evika Siliņa’s cabinet.