Eurotopics.net

President Trump has paved the way for increased US troops in Afghanistan. His military advisors have convinced him that withdrawing US forces from the country would leave a dangerous power vacuum. Trump stressed, however, that the goal was not nation-building but killing terrorists. Is this the right strategy?

Two people were killed and three buried children were rescued from the rubble after an earthquake hit the Italian holiday island of Ischia. Although the magnitude of the quake was estimated at only 4, many buildings collapsed. Exactly one year after the devastating Amatrice earthquake Italy's press reacts with bitterness to this latest disaster.

Travelling to Romania and Bulgaria this week, French President Macron is pushing for a more stringent EU Posted Workers Directive, which allows businesses to send workers to another EU member country temporarily provided they receive the prevailing minimum wage. Macron wants to limit competition from such workers on the French labour market. Commentators take a critical view of the initiative.

French President Macron plans to present his eagerly awaited reform for increasing labour market flexibility at the end of August. Commentators discuss what's at stake.

Germany and the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, a 10-year guarantee of non-belligerence, on 24 August 1939. In a secret supplementary protocol Estonia and Latvia were assigned to the Soviet sphere of influence and Lithuania to the German sphere. This chapter in the history of the Baltic states still moves commentators today.