On 1st of July 2016, the European Council prolonged the economic sanctions targeting of the Russian economy until 31st of January 2017.Sanctions against Russia were introduced on 31st of July 2014 in response to the escalation of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. In March 2015, the EU made the lifting of sanctions on the full implementation of the Minsk agreements to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which was to take place by the end of 2015. Since the agreement with Minsk have not been implemented, in January this year sanctions against Russia had been extended to the end of July.

Constitutional Court of Austria has announced that the presidential election which were held in May, must be repeated. The court has heard around 90 witnesses during two weeks of public hearings and announce at noon that the election result was valid and that a new vote would be held. The far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) brought a challenge after its candidate Norbert Hofer lost out the election. According to official results, the difference is less than 31 thousand votes with the former leader of the Austrian Greens Alexander Van der Bellen. Austria's Interior Ministry announced that Van der Bellen received 50.35 percent votes.

The People’s Party (PP) has become the winner of Sunday's repeated elections in Spain. The election result was broadly the same as that of those in December last year. Unexpectedly, the PP and the Socialists (PSOE) performed better than expected. The PP won 137 seats, short of the 176 needed for an outright majority. The Socialist Party became second while Unidos Podemos (United We Can) - which brings together Podemos, the communist United Left (IU) and the greens, came in third. Citizens (CiU) became fourth again. It remains to be seen whether coalition talks will succeed, as they failed after last year's elections, which brought about similar results.

At 7 am, Spaniards went to the polls to cast their vote in the in repeated Parliamentary elections. The results can be expected around 9 pm. Voters can choose between several political parties, as the historical elections of last year led to the breakthrough of two new political forces: Unidos Podemos (formerly Podemos) and the Ciudadanos (Citizens), which have challenged the former monopoly of the People's Party (PP) and the Socialists (PSOE). The conservative People's Party (PP) is tipped to win, but again to fall short of a parliamentary majority. This time, however, the next position is expected to be taken by the radical left-wing Unidos Podemos alliance, which made an alliance with Alberto Garzón's United Left (IU). 

On 23 June, Norway became the first European country to ratify The Paris Agreement. The Paris Agreement is a document based on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It was negotiated by representatives of 195 countries and finally adopted on 12 December 2015. On 22 April 2016, it was opened for ratification. It enters into force when 55 members ratify it and will replace the current Kyoto Protocol.

On Tuesday 21 June, ambassadors of EU member states made a preliminary decision to extend economic sanctions against Russia for another 6 months until the end of January 2017. The decision has to be approved by the national ministers of foreign affairs in the Council. One of the diplomats said that "It does not seem to require a discussion on this topic at the European Council next week." Therefore, it is expected the approval decision will be taken unanimously next Friday, at a meeting in Luxembourg.