It is enough to hijack the agenda of an EU summit. A supposed bomb threat was the pretext for forcing a Ryanair flight to land in Belarus, where authorities could then pluck an independent journalist from the plane. What kind of a precedent is set by the scrambling of military jets to force a commercial carrier to land? What is Europe going to do about it?
The crisis at the outset of the two-day summit serves as a reminder of recent slights for EU leaders on the world stage: Russia's dismissal of criticism when it sentenced Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, then Sofagate in Turkey. It goes to the core of the bloc's growing pains: can 27 nations speak with a single voice? Definitely yes when it comes to trade and Brexit, mostly when it comes to defining a common pandemic response. As for foreign policy, we ask our panel.
Produce by Alessandro Xenos, Juliette Laurain and Imen Mellaz.
