During the first round of voting in the presidential election in Austria on 24th April Norbert Hofer, the candidate of the far right Liberal Party (FPÖ) won 36.4% of the vote and the Green Party candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, 20.38%. They will face each other in a second round on 22nd May. The candidates of the two parties in office at present - the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) and the People's Party (ÖVP) were eliminated - something that had not occurred since the Second World War.

The Schuman Report on Europe, the State of the Union 2016 - the 10th to be published in French, the 7th in English, has just been published. It is available now in bookshops and from the Foundation's site in digital form.

According to Frontex estimates published on 18th April 26,460 migrants arrived in Greece in March, i.e. less than half of the number recorded in February.

On 19th April as part of a strategy in support of the creation of a single digital market, the Commission unveiled a series of measures designed to optimise the use of new technologies by European industry.

The 28 European Home Affairs Ministers adopted a common position on 21st April on the creation of a new European border guard to control migratory flows.

On 18th April the 28 Foreign Affairs Ministers spoke of the need to strengthen their action in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean. Defence Ministers decided on 19th to "mobilise the European Union's instruments" to counter hybrid threats.

In a report published on 19th April, the European Court of Auditors deemed that the European Commission was not strict enough in its application of the procedure regarding excessive deficits.

The Council of Governors of the European Central Bank that met on 21st April did not change the key interest rates and announced that it had increased its purchase of monthly assets to 80 billion €. It provided details about the implementation of the securities purchase programme in the corporate sector that will be effective as of June 2016.

On 24th April Barack Obama and Angela Merkel stood together in support of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership agreement (TTIP) and expressed their concern about the situation in Syria. They inaugurated the Hannover Fair, the biggest industrial fair in the world.

On 18th April the Commission approved the first financing in the investment plan for Europe (Juncker Plan) for a Greek industrial company.

A favourable agreement for the UK in the event of it leaving the EU is "pure fantasy" stressed the British Finance Minister George Osborne on 18th April as he presented a report to the Treasury on the dangers of a "Brexit".

According still incomplete results during the snap election in Serbia on 24th April the Progressive Party, (SNS) led by Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic won 48.26% of the vote.

On 20th April the Commission proposed to the Council and Parliament to transfer Ukraine to the list of countries whose citizens do not need a visa to circulate within the Schengen area.

On 19th April during a speech delivered to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker maintained that "the Council of European and the European Union were partners which were founded on the same basis and the same ideals". He added that one of the priorities of his presidency was that of the EU's membership of the European Convention on Human Rights

On 22nd April at the UN's HQ in New York, 175 Heads of State and government signed the agreement concluded at the COP21 on the climate that took place in December 2015 in Paris.

The NATO-Russia Council that took place on Wednesday 20th April in Brussels was the first meeting of this type between the Alliance and Moscow since the annexation of Crimea and the rise in tension again in the East of Ukraine: "NATO and Russia have deep, on-going disagreements."

On 19th April the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published its results on the employment situation in the OECD zone in the fourth quarter of 2015. The employment rate in the OECD zone lay at 66.5% - a high since the crisis of 2008. The employment rate in the euro zone had increased to 64.7%, up for the ninth consecutive quarter.

On 19th April the IMF and the World Bank announced that they were joining forces with the OECD and the UN in cooperation over tax issues and the introduction of new tools and new norms to bring tax evasion to an end.

According to Eurostat on 25th April the European Union's Office for Intellectual Property (EUIPO) received 89,420 requests for trade mark protection on the part of the Member States of the EU.

According to a report published by the OECD on 18th April world trade in counterfeit products totalled nearly 500 billion $ per year.

The Museum of Civilisations of Europe and the Mediterranean (MuCEM) is running an exhibition until 29th August showing the 270 works which aim to show how Picasso's work was influenced by popular art and tradition.