Institutional gridlock is today's throughline: Brussels' unanimity rule blocks a new tax, Dublin's asylum rules fray further, and two analyses ask whether alliance deterrence is being tested on multiple fronts at once.

Asia-Pacific

  • Taiwan's National Security Council, led by Joseph Wu, has become the central coordinator of defense reform, societal resilience and China diplomacy, including a proposed 18% jump in the 2027 defense budget and tougher Han Kuang exercises; President Lai marked the 68th anniversary of the 1958 Kinmen shelling with a 'peace through strength' message. Whether the opposition-controlled legislature funds the push intact remains open. more

European Union

  • Italy's Matteo Salvini says Rome will not accept Dublin returns of asylum seekers from Germany, linking the refusal to German-linked NGO rescue missions in the Mediterranean; Germany joins France and Spain in facing the same rebuff, straining the EU's new migration pact before its redistribution rules fully apply. more
  • Germany, Italy, Austria, Poland, Portugal and Spain want an EU-wide windfall tax on oil companies discussed at next month's Dublin finance ministers' meeting, pointing to profits swollen by fighting near the Strait of Hormuz; the real obstacle is the bloc's unanimity rule on tax matters, which Brussels sidestepped in 2022 by using emergency energy powers instead. Germany's own coalition is split, CDU against and SPD in favour. more

Analysis

  • Hormuz traffic has thinned to a handful of vessels a day despite both Washington and Tehran insisting the strait is open; Seoul, Tokyo and Ottawa have each broken publicly with the US on security, law or trade; and the same 27-vote wall in Brussels blocks Russia sanctions, Israel sanctions, migration enforcement and the windfall tax alike. more
  • NATO shot down an explosives-laden drone over Latvia, Washington began scaling back a major US-South Korea exercise, and a former Finnish prime minister warned Europe's 'one China' policy leaves it unable to respond quickly to pressure on Taiwan — three episodes that raise the question of whether alliance systems built around one Cold War threshold are being tested by low-cost, deniable pressure in several theaters at once. more