On 10th May next the Poles will be going to ballot in the first round of the presidential election. If none of the 11 candidates running manages to win an absolute majority, a second round will be organised two weeks later on 24th May. The most recent poll by IBRiS for the daily Rzeczpospolita published on 30th March credits outgoing President Bronislaw Komorowski (Civic Platform, PO) with 41% of the vote in the first round ahead of Andrzej Duda (Law and Justice, PiS), who is due to win 27%. Left wing candidate Magadelna Ogorek, Janusz Korwin-Mikke (Coalition for the restoration of freedom and hope for the Republic, KORWiN) and Adam Jarubas (People's Party, PSL) are due to win 5% each. Around 11% of those interviewed say that they still have not made their choice.

The European Forum for Ukraine and the Ukrainian Institute for National Remembrance with the support of the Robert Schuman Foundation is organising a conference that will take place at Sciences Po Paris on 16th April on the use of the theme of the Second World War in Russia's political discourse. Various speakers will address themes of political discourse, propaganda and the role of religion in Russia in the light of Russian and European history since the Second World War.

On 8th April French Prime Minister Manuel Valls presented new measures to revive corporate, household and government investment. He recalled that to "step up economic recovery all of the levers had to be activated. And investment is a vital lever." These measures include a tax measure that should boost the profitability of corporate investment as it enables the deduction of investments made from the tax base (in terms of their corporate tax) to a total of 140%. A plan for motorway works was approved, which represents 3.2 billion € in investments. Moreover the Public Investment Bank will also aim to grant 8 billion € in loans by 2017.

On 7th April the European Parliament published data providing a view of the progress (or regression) registered in view of the 2020 economic and environmental goals. Germany almost reached 3% of the GDP in terms of R&D spending, Denmark has risen above the objective, France is stagnating at 2.23% ie less than Slovakia (2.59%).

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi travelled to Germany on an official trip until 14th April. Together with German Chancellor Angela Merkel he inaugurated the Hannover Fair on 12th April. Hannover is host to the biggest industrial fair in the world and was the occasion for both heads of government to discuss the trade and industrial links between their two countries. The Chancellor said she was pleased that Germany is India's first European partner. She said she wanted technological links to be improved, notably in the digital domain, in which India is one the world leaders. Mr Modi was expected in Berlin to discuss more political issues with the Chancellor notably world and regional questions.

On 9th April the new Estonian government entered into office after Prime Minister Taavi Roivas was sworn in the Riigikogu (Parliament). Mr Roivas will lead the three party government coalition: the Reform Party (Eesti Reformierakond), the Social Democratic Party (Sotsiaaldemokraatlik Erakond) and Pro Patria - Res Publica (Isamaa ja Res Publica Liit). The new government, which comprises 14 ministers including two women, put forward its priorities: improvement of the situation of families, enhancement of security and economic growth, the reduction of social charges, as well as the reform of the civil service.

According to a poll published on 11th April by the newspaper Ilta-Lehti, the agrarian party, Centre, credited with 23.5% of the vote, should be the grand winner in the general elections on 19th April. Centre is due to come first ahead of the social democrats (17%) and the populists, True Finns (16.6%). The conservatives (Kokoomus) of outgoing Prime Minister Alexander Stubb is due to win 16.2%. On 19th April nearly 4.5 million people will be called to choose the 200 MPs who will sit in parliament for the next four years. 17.1% of the electorate have already voted.

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi is visiting France on 7th and 8th April on a trip that aimed to strengthen economic and security cooperation between the two countries. Mr Caid Essebsi, the first democratically elected Tunisian president, was guest at the Hôtel des Invalides with French President François Hollande before a meeting and a ceremony during which agreements were signed. He then spoke to the Senate.

On 8th April, as negotiations over his country's debt were in full swing, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras travelled to Moscow. He was welcomed by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. In the context of the Ukrainian crisis and sanctions against Moscow this visit was not viewed positively by Europe. Recalling the strong spiritual link between Russia and Greece (both are mostly Christian Orthodox), Vladimir Putin said he wanted to re-establish strong bilateral links between the two countries.

On 7th April Turkish, Serb, Greek, Macedonian and Hungarian Foreign Ministers signed the joint Budapest Communication towards the strengthening of energy cooperation. This communication expresses its support for the creation of a viable trade route that will enable the diversification of natural gas deliveries from Turkey to the countries of Central and South Eastern Europe. These five countries are interested in the Russian gas pipeline passing via Turkey announced by Vladimir Putin in December 2014 in replacement of the South Stream project. This communication, which is more a political declaration than a binding document comes in a tense context in which the Russian-Ukrainian crisis is affecting energy supplies to the EU.

La Guardia di Finanza (i.e. Italian customs and financial police) has published its 2014 annual report. Figures show a major effort in terms of fighting corruption and tax fraud and yet at the same time it provides a dramatic view of corruption in Italy. 13,062 tax infringements were noted. The value of goods seized totalled 1 billion, 200 million euros. The Guardia's work aims to re-establish fairness on the market of the euro zone's third most important economy.

The Radio and TV Commission of Lithuania took an unprecedented decision on 9th April as it banned a Russian speaking TV channel. RTR Planeta, a State run Russian-speaking TV channel will not be broadcast for three months because of the way it processes Ukrainian information which has been qualified as "tendentious" - encouraging discord and aggressiveness. This decision reflects concern regarding a possible spread of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict to the Baltic countries.

On 2nd April 2015 after the Government Council Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel announced that Luxembourg would contribute to the Juncker Commission's Investment Plan to a total of 80 million euro. Luxembourg's participation in the Plan has been the source of national debate, notably in terms of the financing guarantees of Luxembourg infrastructure projects; discussions finally concluded with a positive agreement. This participation will be made with the funds of the Société Nationale de Crédit et d'Investissement (SNCI), a public law banking establishment specialised in the financing of Luxembourg companies in the mid and long term. Luxembourg is the fifth country after Germany, Spain, France and Italy to provide its contribution to the investment plan.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat welcomed his Italian counterpart Matteo Renzi on 9th April. A press conference was devoted to international issues and the Mediterranean "the heart and soul of Europe", notably immigration, terrorism and Libya. After the conference Matteo Renzi attended the inauguration ceremony in Magħtab of the electric submarine cable between Malta and Italy that will enable the Maltese islands to have a continuous supply of electricity.

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski travelled to Kyiv on 8th April for a two-day official visit to Ukraine. On the agenda was a speech before the Rada (Ukrainian Parliament) and a visit to the Bykivnia Cemetery to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre in which a great number of Polish prisoners of war were executed. Bronislaw Komorowski also met his Ukrainian counterpart Petro Poroshenko to discuss security issues, bilateral cooperation and reform in Ukraine.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls, on a visit to Lisbon on 10th April 2015, lauded the budgetary work undertaken by the Portuguese government. "Your government finances continue to improve and Portugal is benefiting from investor confidence" thanks to the reforms implemented and to the "effort consented to by the Portuguese people," declared Mr Valls. Portugal, which is doing better in the "austerity" ranking than France, has committed to bringing its government deficit below the 3% mark of the GDP this year. France achieved a postponement of two years before it has to bring its deficit below the 3% mark and hopes that it will fall to 4% in 2014, to 3.8% in 2015, then 3.3% in 2016 and 2.7% in 2017.

On 8th April Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta met Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner for the Euro and Social Dialogue, to launch the national Youth Guarantee programme. This European programme aims to help young people enter the job market by facilitating their access to training within the four months following the end of the studies or their most recent job. In Romania this means granting 470 million € for the 400,000 young job seekers. In his speech Victor Ponta recalled Romania's commitment to the EU, the progress achieved in terms of the budget and his determination to integrate the euro zone in the future.

During a speech in his old constituency of Sedgefield, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the promise of a referendum on the UK's exit of the EU made by D. Cameron in the event of the Conservatives winning the general election. Indeed he declared that an exit of the EU would be damaging to the British economy and would reduce the UK's influence in the international arena. He finally provided his support to Ed Miliband, the Labour leader who is running neck and neck with Cameron in the polls.

On 9th April Pope Francis hosted Slovakian President Andrej Kiska, who then spoke with Mgr Antoine Camilleri, Under-Secretary for Relations with States. The present international situation, notably that in the Middle East, was the focus of the meeting.

On 9th April NGO Amnesty International denounced the summary executions of Ukrainian soldiers by the pro-Russian separatists in the east of Ukraine. In a press release the NGO quotes as an example Igor Branovytsky who was captured during the battle for the airport of Donetsk, subsequently tortured and murdered in captivity. Amnesty International maintains that it has seen the pictures of three Ukrainian soldiers who were shot in the head and quotes the interview by the Ukrainian newspaper Kyiv Post with a separatist leader who said he had killed "more than 15 captured Ukrainian soldiers". A separatist leader "denied the rumours whereby prisoners of war were being killed in the DNR" the self-proclaimed republic of Donetsk.

By taking up the term of "the first genocide of the 20th century" employed by Jean-Paul II in 2001 in a joint declaration with the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church Karekin II, Pope Francis replaced the persecution of the Armenians within the perspective of the major tragedies of the past century and associated the events of 2015 with the present tragic situation of Christians in the east. Turkey immediately showed its irritation and convened the apostolic nuncio and recalled its Ambassador to the Vatican.

Following the attack on the Bardo in Tunis and increasing political instability in the Southern Mediterranean the Council of Europe launched the initiative South Programme II on 10th April to promote democratic governance in the region. The programme, financed by the EU, plans for cooperation between the partner countries in the region and the introduction of technical assistance to counter corruption, money laundering and terrorism. It also plans - if the partner countries request it - for a reform of the judicial system (to guarantee its effectiveness) and legislation (to promote fundamental rights) - a common legal framework will be set up between the EU and North Africa. Representatives of the governments of Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia and the Palestinian National Authority met on 10th April with experts from the Council of Europe.

According to a study published on 8th April by the OECD the EU still made the most donations in the world in 2014. The EU and its Member States indeed provided more than half of public development aid distributed across the world last year. The Union gave 0.42% of its gross national income ie 58.2 billion euro, an increase of 2.4% since 2013. Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development believes that "2015 will be a vital year for the future of sustainable development": the EU and its Member States have committed to increasing public development aid to total 0.7% of their GNI. Sweden (with 1.10% of its GNI), Luxembourg (1.07%), Denmark (0.85%) and the UK (0.71%) have now already gone beyond this goal.

According to a Eurostat study published on 9th April the EU's current account was in surplus by 38.7 billion € in the 4th quarter of 2014 (ie 1.1% of the EU's GDP), up in comparison with the surplus in the 3rd quarter (when it was 29.9 billion €). The service account also lay in surplus over the same period totalling 37 billion €. 18 Member States were in surplus in terms of the total balance of their national current accounts (internal and external to the EU): Germany recorded a surplus of 67.3 billion €, ahead of Italy (+14.4 billion), the Netherlands (+12.5 billion), Spain (+7.3 billion) as well as Sweden (+6.9 billion). The biggest deficits were recorded in the UK (-27.1 billion), Greece (-2.1 billion) and in Poland (-2 billion).

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) revealed in a report published on 13th April that the crisis in Ukraine has affected defence spending in some EU Member States quite significantly. Hence Poland and Lithuania are planning to increase their defence budget by 20% and 50% respectively. World military spending totalled 1,800 billion $ in 2014, ie a decrease of 0.4% in real terms since 2013. Although world military spending is stabilising due to reductions in the USA and in Western Europe, these are easily compensated for by an increase in Asia and Oceania, the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Africa.

The Jacquemart-André Museum in Paris is hosting the exhibition "From Giotto to Caravaggio - the passions of Roberto Longhi" until 20th July. For the very first time in France the works of the Roberto Longhi Foundation (Florence) are on show. Giotto, Masaccio, Masolino, Piero della Francesca, Ribera, Caravaggio - all major names in Italian painting - from the 14th to the 17th century - will be on exhibition. They once belonged to Roberto Longhi (1890-1970) one of the major personalities in the history of Italian art. Via these works, on loan from the most important French and Italian museums, a unique dialogue between connoisseur Roberto Longhi and his passion for art will be on show.