Following the formation of a new Greek coalition government led by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and the appointment of the new French government on 21st June, the Robert Schuman Foundation has updated its political map of Europe and the political data on France and Greece that feature on the site www.atlas.permanent.eu. This site is linked to the "Permanent Atlas of the European Union" co-directed by Jean-Dominique Giuliani and Pascale Joannin, respectively Chairman and General Director of the Foundation. The book is available on the Foundation's site. Order it!

Around 240,000 Icelanders are being called to elect their president of the Republic on 30th June next. The outgoing head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson is running for his fifth term in office. Five other people are standing for election: Thora Arnorsdottir, Ari Trausti Gudmundsson, Herdis Thorgeirsdottir, Hannes Bjarnason, Andrea Olafsdottir. According to the latest poll by the Capacent Gallup institute for the TV channel RUV, Mr Grimsson is due to win on 30th June with 44.8% of the vote; 37% is due to go to Thora Arnorsdottir. Ari Trausti Gudmundsson is due to win 10.5%, Herdis Thorgeirsdottir, 5.3% Andrea Olafsdottir, 1.7% and Hannes Bjarnson 0.7%.

On 20th June the UK national statistics office announced a rise in the number of job seekers in May 2012. Analysts forecast a decline in this number which instead of decreasing by 3000, rose by 8100. However according to quarterly statistics the number of people without work declined by 51,000 over the period February to April 2012, the rate of unemployment remained at 8.2% in the first quarter of 2012.

On 19th June Viviane Reding, the Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for Justice and Fundamental Rights met European professional associations, business schools established in Europe and woman company heads to review the participation by women and male/female equality on executive boards. The "Board Ready Women" list continues to grow and business schools are trying to train future graduates so that women, who hold more than 60% of university degrees, represent more than 14% of the members of executive boards in European companies that are floated on the stock exchange.

On 19th June MEPs and the Council came to an agreement establishing a single European railway system. To be fully adopted the directive still has to be approved in plenary session by the European Parliament in July, then by the Council. Several things have been established, such as the obligation for the independence of supervisory organisations, and the deadline for the directive's transposition (30 months after its entry into force). This project is a reformulation of three other directives in the "first railway package" that aimed to simplify, clarify and modernise the applicable legislation. The aim is to stimulate growth and to improve investment conditions in the sector.

The President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy is suggesting to involve all of the Member States in the reform of their retirement systems in association with life expectancy, in an interview that was published on 24th June in the newspaper "Die Welt am Sonntag". "We can provide recommendations to the Union as a whole, as for example a link between the age of retirement and life expectancy," explains Herman Van Rompuy. In his opinion it is decisive "not only to make recommendations (...) but to make them binding." This issue is to be debated in the European Council on 28th and 29th June. The Robert Schuman Foundation has published a summary table in order to understand better the retirement systems in the 27 EU Member States.

After two days of talks on 18th and 19th June in Moscow no agreement was met over the nuclear issue in talks between the major powers and Iran. The former repeated their request for Iran to stop its uranium enrichment programme and to close its underground factory in Fordo. Catherine Ashton, the EU's High Representative and the group's emissary 5+1 (USA, Russia, China, France, UK, Germany) declared that there were significant differences over vital issues between both sides." A meeting was programmed on 3rd July to clarify the situation. According to Ms Ashton "the decision is in Iran's hands and we are expecting the country to decide whether it wants to face up to a problem that involves the entire international community."

On 20th June the European Space Agency gave its final greenlight to the launch of the satellite Euclid. This satellite was designed to analyse black matter that is responsible for the expansion of the universe - it will be launched in 2020. With a budget of over 800 million euros, a space telescope 1.2 metres in diameter and its 10 billion light years of observations scientists hope to progress towards knowledge about the universe.

On 19th June the German supreme judges decided to oblige the government to involve the Bundestag more in future decisions that increased European integration. The Bundestag's increased participation will be the counterweigt to the greater transfer of competences over to the EU said the judges, demanding "effective and early involvement by the Bundestag in the decisions taken regarding what the government wanted. The Greens had complained about the procedure to adopt the European Stability Mechanism. The decision of the experts in Karlsruhe does not affect the ongoing ratification process; MPs now have to give their decision on 29th June.

Austrian Social Democrats of the SPÖ, conservatives of the ÖVP and the Greens came to agreement on 19th June over a reform that aims to counter corruption in political environments after the scandals of recent years. "Transparency is the best means to avoid corruption," said Karl-Heinz Kopf, the ÖVP group leader. The "transparency package" also plans for a reduction down to 3,500 euros - instead of the present 7,260 - concerning the limit on the obligatory declaration made by parties regarding the private donations they receive. A national donor register will also be introduced and MPs are liable for prosectuion if they accept bribes, even if there is no proof of influence peddling. The text is to be put to parliament in an extraordinary session on 27th June.

The Congress of Deputies, the lower chamber of the Cortes Generales in Spain, ratified the European Stability, Coordination and Governance Treaty (TSCG). The text was approved by the absolute majority in plenary sssion by 311 MPs against 19.

On 21st June François Hollande, President of the Republic of France, on the initiative of his Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, appointed the members of a new goverment. Few changes have been made to the previous one. Four new ministers have been appointed: Guillaume Garot, responsible for Agrofood, Annie Marie Escoffier for Decentralisation, Thierry Repentin for Vocational Training, and Hélène Conway for the French Expatriates. Parity has been strictly respected with 19 men and 19 women in government. Delphine Batho is now Ecology Minister and Nicole Bricq, Foreign Trade Minister.

After winning the general elections on 17th June the head of the centre-right Greek party, New Democracy, Antonis Samaras was appointed Prime Minister on 20th June. The latter gained the support of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK) and the Democratic Left (DIMAR), which was necessary to form a coalition government. Mr Samaras appointed his cabinet on 21st June comprising 38 members, including 17 ministers. The new team includes one woman, Olga Kefaloyanni, who will be Tourism Minister. The ministers were sworn in during the afternoon before they had even met for their first council. The head of government said that the renegotiation with the EU and the IMF of the aid plan to Greece would be his priority.

On 21st June the Hungarian government announced that it wanted to put forward further amendments to the law governing the Hungarian Central Bank. Parliament will then have to vote on this within two weeks. Letters have also been sent to the European Commission, the IMF and the ECB to keep them informed of these modifications. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban then informed the President of the Commission José Manuel Barroso that he did not want to interfere in the appointment of the Bank's Vice President or of any other member of the Bank's Monetary Council.

On 22nd June the President of the Italian Council, Mario Monti granted an interview to six European newspapers including the "Monde", "La Stampa", "El Pais" and "The Guardian". He defended Italy's economic results saying that the country would not require any international aid. He also spoke of the need for greater European integration to emerge from the crisis and called on the European Council, that is due to meet on 28th and 29th June to "act quickly", "from a financial, economic and political point of view". When asked about what a "nightmare scenario" might be he said that in a situation like this "there would certainly be increasingly fierce speculative attacks against all countries" and that "most of Europe would have to continue to bear extremely high interest rates." He also discussed the danger of the rise of an anti-European in countries affected by the crisis.

Latvia Justice Minister Gaidis Berzins resigned on 21st June after a disagreement with Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis regarding property restitution rights of Jews killed during the Second World War. He justified his resignation saying that the head of government wanted to create a new committee responsible for this issue whilst, in his opinion, this had already been settled in 2010.

On 19th June the newspaper "The Ukrainian Week" published an interview with the President of the European People's Party at the European Parliament, Joseph Daul. On this occasion he declared that he would support the head of the Ukrainian opposition, Yulia Timoshenko, until she was released. In his opinion the EU must support civil society, guarantee the independence of the media and support cooperation with NGO's. European aid must lead to the promotion of democracy by helping those who work for the establishment of the rule of Law and the Protection of Human Rights. He recalled that MEPs were prepared to help the Ukrainians as soon as they asked for it: "We call for solidarity with those who are fighting for the revival of democracy in Ukraine."

After several days of negotiations the Member States of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) came to agreement on 22nd June. The final Rio+20 document entitled "The future we want" calls for a great deal of work designed to launch the process in view of achieving sustainable development goals, as well as strengthening the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Governments from the world over, the private sector and civil society, also committed to mobilising 513 billion dollars to fund sustainable development. Of all of the funds promised 323 billion dollars will go to the Secretary General Ban ki-Moon's initiative "Renewable energy for all" which should guarantee universal access to clean energy by 2030.

The OECD's working group on corruption finalised two reports on 20th June, one concerning Greece, the other Slovakia; they encourage the two countries to takes appropriate steps. Greece failed to open an inquiry into a transnational corruption scandal. Twelve years after its signature of the Convention to counter corruption, Slovakia still has to introduce a really effective and binding regime. The working group formulated a series of recommendations for each of these countries whilst stressing the positive aspects of the work achieved by Slovakia in this area, even though a great deal still has to be clarified.

According to figures published by Eurostat on 19th June, the EU granted protection to 84,100 asylum seekers in 2011 in comparison with only 75,800 in 2010. Most asylum seekers were Afghan (16% of those received), Iraqi, Somalian (11%). In 2011 365,600 decisions concerning asylum requests were taken in the EU. The recognition rate (requests that end positively) totalled 25% in the Court of First Instance, 19% on appeal. The countries which granted asylum the most were Germany, the UK, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Italy.

On 19th June the European Data Protection Supervisor presented a report to the European Parliament's Civil Liberties, Justice, and Internal Affairs Committee. This report reveals significant progress in terms of personal data protection. Targeted visits of European institutions and agencies that were not meeting their objectives, as part of the new implementation policy, show that they are on the right path to fall in line with the regulations. The EDPS published a record number of opinions, notably on the revision of the European legal framework as far as data protection was concerned, which will remain a priority on the 2012 agenda.

Twenty years ago the Art and Exhibition Centre of the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundeskunsthalle) opened its doors in Bonn. This museum has already put on nearly 18 exhibitions and attracted 16.5 million visitors. Until 16th September it is putting on a vast exhibition of the work by Anselm Kiefer (borin in 1945). For the first time the biggest private collection of work by Anselm Kiefer, belonging to Hans Grothe, is on show to the public with around 30 sets of work dating from the 1980's to the present.