Closing summary
… and on that note, it’s a wrap!
Severe weather warnings have been issued across southern Europe, including in Italy, Spain and Portugal, with temperatures expected to get close to or locally even above 40C this weekend, prompting concerns about health hazards and wildfires (14:32).
Expected temperatures on early Saturday afternoon: Madrid 38C, Thessaloníki 38C, Florence 38C, Rome 37C, Lisbon 36C, Tirana 36C, Athens 35C.
It will be hot in Paris (32C) and still warm in London and Berlin 28C, and in Brussels 27C.
The heatwave comes as a star-studded “wedding of the year” (eye roll) between Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez gets under way in Venice, Italy (30C) amid protests from local residents and campaigners (14:55, 15:22, 15:50, 16:05, 16:27).
In other news,
European leaders failed to agree on the latest, 18th, package of sanctions at last night’s European Council meeting in Brussels, with Hungary and Slovakia holding firm in their opposition to the proposed measures (9:46, 9:48).
But it’s worth noting that the EU has agreed on rolling over the already existing sanctions against Russia, which were due to expire (9:59).
In Germany, lawmakers agreed to suspend family reunification rights for refugees without asylum status as conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government pursues a crackdown on immigration (11:28).
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Estonia’s stated intention to let Nato allies’ nuclear-capable aircraft use its territory was a direct threat to Moscow (13:08).
And that’s all from me, Jakub Krupa, for today.
Enjoy the weekend everyone, and stay safe!
If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com.
I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.
Venice 'split into three groups' on Bezos wedding with people who don't care, are angry, or make money out of it
in Venice
Hosing down the deck of his boat in the island’s harbour, one local man offered a laconic and not untypical take on what has become known, a little tediously, as “the wedding of the century”.
What did he make of all the fuss? “I’m not thinking about it at all,” he said. “I don’t care.”
The wedding celebrations – which began in earnest on Thursday night and are due to culminate in a reception held at the Arsenale historic shipyard complex on Saturday – have split the city into three groups.
There are those, like the yachtsman, who simply don’t care; there are those furious that Venice is prostrating itself before a man with an estimated net worth of $212bn (£154bn), and there are those who, like the city’s mayor, see the £40m extravaganza as a welcome money-spinner and a wonderful showcase for the area’s attractions.
Those behind the protests – a coalition of groups angered by the selling-out of the city, housing activists and anti-cruise ship campaigners – say their punning “No Space for Bezos” alliance has already paid off.
They claim their sustained pressure, not least the threat to unleash the blow-up crocodile fleet, prompted the couple to switch the location of the reception from the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a majestic 16th-century building in the city centre, to the more private Arsenale.
As the day wore on, the secret preparations continued and the vicious June sun beat down on tourists, guests and journalists, one visitor making her way around San Giorgio Maggiore shook her head.
This was all proof, if further proof were needed, of the awesome power of the 21st-century super-rich.
“It’s grotesque,” said the woman from northern Spain. “Two hundred-and-fifty guests and a bill of €50m? This is why I don’t buy anything on Amazon.”
‘Venice is worn out’: locals see Jeff Bezos wedding as symbol of city’s ills
Posters featuring an image of Bezos’s head on a rocket blasting into space – in reference to his Blue Origin space tourism venture – have appeared across the city.
The campaigners have also been spreading the word by handing out flyers at various traditional Italian food festivals, known as sagre, and hosting public meetings. Their boldest pre-wedding stunt so far was to erect a banner reading “No Bezos” on the bell tower of San Giorgio basilica on the Venetian island of the same name, where the couple are rumoured to be exchanging their vows.
“There’s a lot of anger in the air because once again the council has enslaved itself to the logic of profit – our city has been sold to the highest bidder,” Marta Sottoriva said.
“Every time an event of this kind happens, the city comes to a standstill, certain areas become inaccessible and even more tourists arrive”
This wedding really is the symbol of all that is wrong with Venice.”
Venice 'operating along parallel lines' with gazebo checkpoints and secret wedding
in Venice
In brief, Venice is hot – though not as hot as Madrid.
The lagoon city seems to be operating along parallel lines this week.
On the one hand, it’s business as usual: the streets and piazzas are rammed with people sightseeing, eating gelato and wondering about splashing out on that gondola ride.
On the other, an army of planners, servers and logistics crews are working hard – and commendably silently – to deliver “the wedding of the century” (sigh) and to keep it all under wraps.
I headed across to the island of San Giorgio Maggiore this morning – where the ceremony is due to take place – to have a look around, but the venue area was closed off and the staff at the gate were polite but decidedly unforthcoming.
It was a similar story around the Madonna dell’Orto last night, where I arrived too late to see Leonardo DiCaprio rock up in a water taxi but did get to meet Germany’s best known (and possibly only) Jeff Bezos lookalike.
He had come tantalisingly close to his doppelganger on Thursday night when a beautiful burgundy boat cruised past him.
“He saw me and I waved and he gave me a thumbs up,” said Halicilar. “I was so happy. I cried.”
He had travelled to Venice to greet and confound the crowds and was also hoping for a quick encounter with Bezos so that he could give him the €3,000 (£2,600) bottle of whiskey he’d bought him as a wedding present.
If the German delivery boss does finally get to meet Bezos, he has a simple message.
“I will just tell him that I’m proud to look like him. That’s all. He’s not arrogant and he has a big heart. He makes people smile and I’m a huge fan.”
(He also hopes that if Bezos is reading this piece, his people can arrange a meeting to hand over the whiskey.)
There’s something surreal about so much conspicuous consumption – the budget is thought to be around the €47m (£40m) mark – being kept so firmly under wraps when the whole thing is so patently lavish and so over the top …
Updated
Let’s go to our Sam Jones, who swapped his usual place of residence in Madrid (currently 34C) for Venice (32C) this weekend as he covers the locals’ reactions to the Bezos wedding.
Congrats to Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez on the wedding – and to Venice for running them out of town - comment
The wedding has provided us this week with welcome respite from the news from Iran, with the spectacle of a man worth $223bn being frightened off by the threat of angry locals coming at him with pool floats.
The wedding on Saturday was originally planned to take place in the centre of Venice at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a 16th-century meeting hall surrounded by canals, raising the spectacle of notable guests including Oprah, the Kardashians and Ivanka Trump arriving on public waterways via open-air taxi.
It is safe to say the Venetians weren’t happy.
After a group called No Space for Bezos lightly threatened to disrupt the guests’ arrival with inflatable alligators, Bezos changed venues to a less accessible hall outside the centre.
(It should be noted that No Space for Bezos is not the same as Everyone Hates Elon, a different but equally energised group that unfurled a huge banner in the Piazza San Marco bearing the legend, “If you can rent Venice for your wedding then you can pay more tax.” Let’s hope Mark Zuckerberg, who will reportedly be at the wedding, gets his own bespoke group along these lines.)
“We are very proud of this!” said Tommaso Cacciari, No Space for Bezos’s spokesperson, to the BBC on Tuesday. “We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!”
Meanwhile, protest groups including Greenpeace are still planning on demonstrating in the city centre on Saturday to draw attention to the obscenity of a projected 90-odd private jets flying in for the event.
As for Bezos and Sánchez, let’s end on a gracious note and wish them all the happiness in the world as they marry in a city that doesn’t want them, in front of 200 people who don’t know them, in a celebration of money over sense.
Hurrah!
Kardashians, critics and copycats kick off €40m controversial Bezos wedding bash in Venice
Angela Giuffrida in Rome and Sam Jones in Venice
The world’s rich and famous have arrived in Venice as the three-day wedding bash hosted by the Amazon billionaire, Jeff Bezos, and his wife-to-be, Lauren Sánchez, gets under way amid protests in the lagoon city.
The US reality TV personalities Kim and Khloé Kardashian were spotted clambering into water taxis in stilettos, while Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom and Jordan’s Queen Rania have also been seen.
Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, was among the first of the 200 or so guests to arrive and has been spending the pre-wedding downtime sightseeing and shopping despite the stifling heat.
By early evening, a bridge leading to the front of the church had been blocked off by private security guards while police stood close by, their six helmets balanced on riot shields.
The Venice authorities have tightened security across the city, with pedestrians and water traffic banned from the area of Thursday night’s festivities from 4.30pm local time until midnight in an attempt to thwart protesters who had threatened to ruin the party.
Protests have raged for weeks in the run-up to the wedding, which critics say threatens to turn the Unesco world heritage site, already swamped by millions of tourists each year, into a playground for the rich.
The nuptials are said to be costing €40m-€48m (£34m-£41m).
Updated
Southern Europe on heat alert as temperatures expected to hit 40 degrees celsius
But new weather warnings for this weekend were issued for large parts of the Mediterranean region, with temperatures expected to get above 40 degrees celsius this weekend.
AFP reported that in Spain, emergency medical staff readied to deal with an expected surge in heatstroke cases, particularly among vulnerable groups such as children, elderly people and people with chronic illnesses.
In neighbouring Portugal, the national meteorological agency IPMA said the heatwave would hit from Saturday, with temperatures passing 40C in the south of the country as well as in the central Tagus and the Douro valleys in the north, AFP said.
21 cities in Italy were put on red alert warning, too, including Rome, Milan and Venice, with people told not to leave their homes between 11am and 6pm.
(Yes, that’s Venice, where private jets and super-yachts deliver guests to three-day wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez protesters say will turn Venice into a playground for the rich.)
Florence is also expected to see temperatures up to 37 degrees celsius on Saturday.
Greece is also getting ready to face the heatwave, with a meteoalert warning about temperatures expected to hit low 40s.
Updated
France hit by severe thunderstorms – but why?
After several days of intense heat, large parts of France were hit by severe thunderstorms on Wednesday night as powerful supercells swept north-east across the country.
We now have a good explainer for you on why it happened.
A low-pressure system that originated near Portugal tracked over an unusually warm Bay of Biscay towards northern France late on Wednesday, bringing a strong upper-level disturbance over land that had been intensely heated through the day. As a result, several long-lived supercells formed, producing large hailstones, frequent lightning, damaging winds and torrential rainfall.
Hailstones of up to 8cm in diameter caused significant damage to property, crops and vehicles, while rainfall totals of up to 150mm in places brought flash flooding, including in Paris.
Updated
Son of Norway’s crown princess suspected of 23 offences including rape, police say
The 28-year-old son of Norway’s crown princess is suspected of three rapes and more than a dozen other offences, Norwegian police as they announced the closure of an investigation launched 10 months ago, AFP reported.
Police attorney Andreas Kruszewski told a press conference the investigation had been turned over to prosecutors, who would decide whether to press charges.
Marius Borg Hoiby, who was born as a result of a relationship before Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, has been under investigation since his arrest on 4 August 2024 on suspicion of assaulting his girlfriend.
The arrest led to a slew of allegations against him.
Kruszewski said Hoiby was suspected of “one count of rape with sexual intercourse” and “two counts of rape without sexual intercourse”.
Hoiby’s lawyer Ellen Holager Andenaes told news agency NTB that her client rejected the three rape allegations.
Kruszewski said Hoiby was also suspected of “four counts of sexually offensive behaviour, one count of abuse in a close relationship, two counts of bodily harm, one count of vandalism, one count of issuing threats, five violations of restraining orders, one count of insulting a police officer, and five traffic offences.”
– via AFP
Estonia's plans to let Nato allies' nuclear-capable aircraft on its territory threatens Russia, Kremlin says
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that Estonia’s stated intention to let Nato allies’ nuclear-capable aircraft use its territory was a direct threat to Moscow, Reuters reported.
Peskov was responding to a question from a journalist from the Life news outlet who asked him about recent comments made by Estonia’s defence minister.
Hanno Pevkur made his comments in response to reports that the UK, which is involved in patrolling the airspace in the region, plans to buy 12 F-35A multirole fighters, capable of carrying both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.
“The F-35s have already been in Estonia and will soon return again in rotation. We are ready to continue to host allies on our territory, including those who use such platforms,” he was reported as saying.
Russia summons German envoy over alleged 'persecution' of Russian journalists
Meanwhile, Russia summoned German ambassador Alexander Graf Lambsdorff to protest Berlin’s alleged “persecution” of Russian journalists, Russian state media reported.
The row began after Russia’s top media official in Berlin accused German police of confiscating his family’s passports, prompting Moscow to warn of retaliation, AFP said.
“The German ambassador was summoned to the Russian foreign ministry today,” the ministry said, according to the state RIA news agency.
Updated
Germany to restrict family reunification for refugees
Meanwhile in Germany, lawmakers agreed to suspend family reunification rights for refugees without asylum status as conservative chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government pursues a crackdown on immigration, AFP reported.
Under the legislation approved by the Bundestag, the process by which family members of refugees with subsidiary protection can apply to come to Germany will be suspended for two years.
AFP explained that refugees with subsidiary protection have not been granted asylum status but are given an initial right to stay in Germany for other reasons, such as the threat of torture or the death penalty in their country of origin.
Interior minister Alexander Dobrindt told deputies the change reflected the government’s priority for “humanity and order” in immigration policy.
While Germany remained open to the world, “the resilience of our social systems has its limits”, Dobrindt said.
Education, housing and care systems were all under pressure, he added. “Therefore, immigration to Germany must also have its limits.”
Poland's Tusk reiterates opposition to Mercosur trade deal
Oh-oh.
Poland’s Donald Tusk is now giving a press conference concluding his country’s six-month presidency of the European Union, and he just pointedly called out German chancellor Friedrich Merz for his comments on the Mercosur trade deal with four South American countries.
Asked by a reporter relaying to him Merz’s comments from Thursday claiming that no leader publicly opposed the deal, Tusk suggested Merz’s comments were factually incorrect, saying with a grimace that they “were not, how do I put it delicately, accurate.”
He said Poland remains “fundamentally” opposed to the deal, together with France among others. He noted, however, that they do not have a blocking majority in the EU, at least not yet.
Updated
Sky sells German pay-TV business to RTL for €150m
We are also getting big business news from Germany as Sky has sold its German pay-TV business to RTL, the former owner of Channel 5, in a deal that could ultimately value the business at almost £500m.
The German market has proved tough for Sky with fierce competition for prime sports rights and broadband customers making it difficult to emulate the success of its highly profitable UK business.
However, in December Sky Deutschland struck a deal securing the lion’s share of Bundesliga football matches, with the majority exclusive, through to the end of 2028-29 season.
For all the latest business news, you can follow our live blog here:
Zelenskyy calls on EU to send 'clear political message' on Ukraine's accession, despite Hungary's block
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on European leaders to send “a clear political message” of support for Ukraine’s accession to the EU, as Hungary continues to stymie progress.
Zelenskyy’s appeal in a video address to EU leaders was made on Thursday evening just hours after Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán claimed he had a mandate to stop Ukraine’s EU accession.
Hungary is blocking the opening of detailed membership talks with Ukraine on the so-called “cluster one fundamentals”, the values chapters of the EU rulebook pertaining to the functioning of democratic institutions, independent judiciary and sound public administration.
Orbán arrived at the summit claiming that 2.2m Hungarians opposed Ukraine’s accession, based on a national poll, after a campaign in which voters were bombarded with anti-Ukraine messages.
Without naming names, Zelenskyy said:
“What’s needed now is a clear political message – that Ukraine is firmly on the European path and that Europe stands by its promises.”
Opening cluster one was not just a procedure, Zelenskyy told the leaders:
“This is what gives motivation, support and strength to the men and women who are defending their families against Russia’s criminal and unprovoked war.”
Ukraine’s president also urged EU leaders to toughen sanctions, proposing a cap on Russian oil revenues of $30, half of the current $60 imposed by the G7. The European Commission recently called for a $45 price cap, but the plan has not won US support.
“Sanctions against Russia remain one of the most effective tools for limiting its aggression.”
He called for sanctions on energy, banks, finance, Russia’s shadow fleet and supply chains that bring European components to Russian weapon factories.
Updated
EU rolled over previous sanctions on Russia
But it’s worth noting that the EU has agreed on rolling over the already existing sanctions against Russia, which were due to expire.
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk told a late night briefing that he was “greatly satisfied” by that decision, as “there is always a bit of concern” about whether all countries would agree on that, but “almost always we manage to get it in the end, and we did that today, too.”
“We still have that decision about the 18th sanctions package ahead of us,” he added.
Why EU failed to agree on new Russia sanctions
Did they or didn’t they? EU leaders, in the end, didn’t manage to agree on the latest proposed sanctions against Russia, as Slovakia and Hungary continue to block a deal.
The measures, the 18th round of sanctions against Russia, since the full-scale invasion of February 2022 cover energy, banking and Russia’s shadow fleet.
EU diplomats regard them as the toughest for some time, although a proposed lowering of the oil price cap to 45$ a barrel looks in doubt, because of US opposition.
Slovakia and Hungary are blocking the sanctions, in protest over a separate plan from the European Commission to phase out Russian fossil fuels by 2028.
The two central European countriess secured an exemption on a Russian oil import embargo in March 2023 that allowed them to continue to be supplied via the Soviet-era Druzhba pipeline.
For Slovakia the main problem is gas. It is seeking guarantees that breaking contracts with Gazprom won’t mean energy companies have to pay massive damages. The Slovak government also says it is worried about consumer bills.
At a press conference in the early hours of Friday, von der Leyen insisted it was on track, without referring directly to either country.
“We should be in a position to have an agreed package soon.”
Updated
Morning opening: EU fails to agree on sanctions
European leaders failed to agree on the latest, 18th, package of sanctions at last night’s European Council meeting in Brussels, with Hungary and Slovakia holding firm in their opposition to the proposed measures.
In particular, they opposed a separate EU proposal on phasing out Russian energy imports.
Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán said overnight that the two countries were “one team,” as he insisted “we cannot accept the EU proposal that we should not buy Russian oil and gas any more.”
Overnight, Russia reportedly fired over 350 drones and eight missiles towards Ukraine, mostly targeting the small western city of Starokostiantyniv, home to an important Ukrainian airbase.
But the EU leaders agreed on their approach to the upcoming trade negotiations with the US, with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen declaring:
“Our message today is clear, we are ready for a deal.”
But then she cautioned:
“At the same time, we are preparing for the possibility that no satisfactory agreement is reached … and we will defend the European interest as needed. In short, all options remain on the table.”
Let’s see what’s the fallout from last night’s summit, and what happens elsewhere as Hungary prepares for Budapest Pride march, the Bezos wedding weekend continues in Venice.
I will bring you all the latest updates from across Europe.
It’s Friday, 27 June 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
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