Europe Today: Trump weighs Iran strikes as Ukraine talks head to Abu Dhabi

Good morning, yes it's Friday, November 6th, you're watching Euronews and this is Europe Today, our top stories. Following a modest recovery over the past days, the price of crude oil increased again. Investors wait the future course of the US-Israeli war with Iran after President Donald Trump's Republican Party suffered heavy losses in midterm elections this week. Analysts blamed the still uncertain situation in the region for the higher oil price. The conflict with Iran, which Trump launched alongside Israel in February, and the resulting higher fuel prices for US consumers were major grievances for voters in Tuesday's rout of Republicans. US First Lady Melania Trump hosted officials from Moscow and Kiev at the White House yesterday, ahead of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the Ukraine war. The talks would be the first between Ukraine, Russia and the United States since February. They have revived hopes for peace, as Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds through its fifth year. Last month, Melania Trump had brokered a partial ceasefire that allowed the evacuation of civilians from a Russian-occupied town. And, Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo announced his retirement from international football. The 41-year-old is ending a career that spans six World Cups and included a European title and the men's all-time international scoring record. Ronaldo is the second global star player within weeks to end his time on the national team after long-time peer Lionel Messi finished his career with Argentina last month. Ronaldo will keep playing at club level in Saudi Arabia. Welcome to the program, I'm Stefan Grobe. The US midterm elections are over, and the tension is now turning to Donald Trump's next move in the Middle East. For weeks, the president has hinted that Washington could resume military strikes against Iran once Americans have voted. US officials have reportedly warned regional allies to prepare for a possible new wave of attacks and for Iranian retaliation. But is military escalation now inevitable, or is there still a diplomatic way out? And could a renewed confrontation plunge an already volatile region into an even wider war? For more on this, let's head over to Doha, where our correspondent Adel Halim is standing by for us. Good morning, Adel. Good morning, Stefan. So, how are Gulf countries reacting to the midterms? Is there still concern about another U.S. attack on Iran? Well, there's growing concern here in the Gulf that another major attack on Iran may be coming, despite U.S. President Donald Trump's major losses in the midterms. Trump said overnight that he'd rather not destroy the rest of the country, but added that he might have to. You will see soon enough. Now, we've heard this kind of language from the U.S. president before, often used to pressure Iran into making concessions. But there are also reports that the U.S. and Israel have... Put together plans for a short, intensive campaign aimed at targeting Iran's nuclear sites as well as key infrastructure. And Iran is warning that any countries helping the U.S. launch an attack may soon become targets themselves. That's a real concern here in the Gulf, home to many American military bases. So the fear is another round of fighting may quickly escalate and spread across the region, bringing more disruption to countries already badly affected after months of conflict. Stefan. And are diplomatic efforts making progress or are Washington and Tehran still too far apart? Well, there are some encouraging signs despite all the military threats. According to Reuters, Iran has sent a new nuclear proposal to Washington through Qatari mediators and the U.S. is reportedly reviewing it. But there are still some big there are still some big obstacles to overcome. Iran says it will not negotiate with Washington until its seven demands are met, including sanctions relief. U.S. President Donald Trump has been steadfast that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Here in Doha, Qatar's prime minister spoke directly with Iran's foreign minister, urging a diplomatic solution as well as safe passage for ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's foreign minister has spoken with several counterparts across the region. And Iran's security chief met with President Putin in Moscow, delivering a message from Iran's supreme leader. And Russia has also offered to help mediate. But whether any of this is enough to prevent another round of fighting remains to be seen. Stefan? Okay, Adel Halim in Doha, thank you very much. Talks aimed at bringing about an end to hostilities in Ukraine will continue next week in Abu Dhabi, following technical discussions here in Brussels. Let's bring in our NATO correspondent Shona Murray, who is in Helsinki. Good morning, Shona. Well, good morning, Stefan. Yes, indeed, those talks have concluded for two days with officials from NATO, the European Commission and the World Bank. Now it's all eyes on Abu Dhabi next week, where you'll have higher working level meetings with Russia, Ukraine and the United States convened by the US envoy, Steve Witkoff. What I've heard, the best sort of hope for this is that there may be another prisoner swap and potentially a ceasefire. But we don't know if that's confirmed because we don't know what Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is willing to agree to. Coming from here in Helsinki, officials are saying that the message needs to be impressed on Putin that Europe will never abandon Ukraine and for him to continue the war is fruitless. Now, above all, the urgent need for Ukraine to receive Patriot interceptor missiles, that is also very important. NATO sources have told me that there's a message coming from the Supreme Allied Commander that countries that have interceptors need to give them to Ukraine. But they're only willing to do so if they can guarantee replenishment from the U.S. That is not forthcoming yet. But I caught up with Antti Hakkonen, the Finnish defense minister, and I asked him about this situation and what should be done. The winter is coming and Russia is preparing huge attacks to Ukraine's civil infrastructure, energy infrastructure. And now is the most critical time to have all the air defense capabilities for Ukraine, what we can arrange. We have the funding, we have the funding now we need the stocks to be delivered to Ukraine and there's also some other countries globally which can support so but we need the political willingness also from the US side that to start the deliveries. Europeans have gave the funding for that. And now it's only a matter of kind of political arrangements. Europeans are now the biggest supporter of Ukraine and we are giving the EU alone strong bilateral support. So we are quite big players in that field. But still we have to show more strength, more willingness in long term to support Ukraine. Because if there comes some political messages that Europe is exhausted or something like that, that's a wrong message. That weakens our negotiation position. When we are messaging how we are supporting Ukraine in the long term first and the sanctions also, we have to show willingness in the long term. To be tough on these positions just final question. You said that there was a serious threat still looming from Russia across Europe Can you describe that given where we are geographically? Well, Russia is ramping up their military in all domains From traditional conventional warfare and also a nuclear capabilities and they are building new infrastructure increasing their manpower building new infrastructure Not just in in our vicinity, but also a wider area So they can pose a military threat, not direct at this point, but in future we have to be prepared for that kind of scenarios. We hope that there will be a peace and peaceful solutions in everything, but Europeans have to ramp up their defense and fast, and also counter these hybrid threats much more efficiently and united. Finnish Defense Minister Antti Häkkinen speaking to Shona Murray in Helsinki. In the United States, the midterm elections were not only a referendum on Donald Trump, That could also prove to be a defining moment for the Democratic Party, forcing it to confront some difficult questions about its leadership, its identity, and its strategy for the future. Who speaks for the Democrats? And can the party turn electoral gains into a coherent political alternative? And what lessons will it draw as it looks ahead to 2028? Earlier, I discussed this with Bruce Stokes, associate fellow at Chatham House, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Here's what he said. There was an American comedian in the 1930s named Will Rogers, and he was once asked what political party he belonged to. And he said, I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat. And there will be, as you suggested, tensions between the progressive wing of the party and the moderate wing of the party going forward in terms of priorities. I think realistically, it would appear now there might be maybe eight or more, nine, maybe 10 Democratic socialists in the Democratic caucus of now 240, 250 people. So they'll be very vocal. They'll claim the election is an endorsement of their agenda. But I think the reality is that Uh, the Democrats and the more moderate Democrats are really the ones who prevailed. So Democrats succeeded largely on the message of being against Trump, but going forward, they're going to have to decide what they want to stand for when he won't be on the ballot. Your take. I think you're right. You know, we have a saying, a long saying in the United States about it's the economy stupid. And clearly the exit polling data showed that people thought the economy was the principal issue. But in this case, it was also Trump stupid that people by three to one said that they had voted against Trump in this election. Um, so the question is going to be, what do the Democrats stand for going into the 2028 election? How do the various contenders position themselves? Um, because they can't just continue to talk about Trump because as you say, um, constitutionally, the president can't run again. So it's going to be a question of what are we going to do, uh, to win the voters support in 2028 when we don't have Trump to beat up. Well, even with this week's big victories, Democrats are going to be limited in what they can do with their new congressional majorities because Trump can veto everything. How do you see this divided government play out? Well, it'd be very interesting to see whether the Democrats can fashion some initial legislation that addresses the cost of health care, for example, or food stamps, which, yes, it is true that in the Senate they would need 60 votes. Because otherwise you can block things in the Senate if you don't have 60 votes. But it puts at least some Republicans who are up for reelection in 2028 in a bit of a bind. Do they want to vote against it? Food stamps. Do they want to vote against Medicaid, which is our health care for poor people? Do they want to vote against subsidies for Obamacare, which have gone up dramatically? On that note, I know it's early, but who do you see as the candidate leading the Democrats into the next presidential election? So it's very early at this point, but you're right. There's going to be more than a half a dozen, maybe even 10 people are going to throw their hats in the rings in the next couple of weeks. I think the clear winner from this election in terms of raising his profile and exciting people is John Ossoff, who is the senator from Georgia who won by 18 or 19 percentage points And he's young, he's articulate, he's from the South. And I think the initial excitement is going to be about here. Political analyst Bruce Stokes speaking to us from Boston. A wave of bomb threats targeting commercial airliners is raising alarm across European aviation. Flights have been diverted, emergency procedures activated, and fighter jets scrambled, in some cases based on threats that ultimately proved to be false. But who is behind this apparent campaign, and are we witnessing a new form of hybrid warfare designed to disrupt European air travel and undermine public confidence? To assess the scale of the threat and the vulnerabilities it exposes, I'm now joined by aviation expert and travel journalist Owen Corey in Dublin. Good morning to you. Good morning, Stefan. So, what happens operationally when an aircraft receives a bomb threat? What procedures are immediately triggered? I think you've already, that is part of the problem, Stefan. We have over 500 civil airports in Europe. Usually a bomb threat comes to the airport, less so to the airline. And each airport is activating it using a separate set of protocols. The protocols aren't that scattered. It tends to be escalated to the local police force. And from there... Very often to the state military intelligence or the military agencies. What we've seen on Tuesday and again yesterday, when we had over 20 flights affected, some very dramatically, others less so, is different airports reacting to what seems to be a blanket set of threats, almost weaponizing disruption. Because this is designed to disrupt. This is not designed to blow up anything. If you're going to blow up anything, you're not going to put every airport in Europe on the highest state of alert. And some airports, Stefan, seem to be jumpier than others when these threats come in. And Owen, are airlines and airports sufficiently equipped to deal with a sustained campaign of false bomb threats? This is really weaponizing the threat of a bomb because you've got to remember how safe European airspace is. For 40 years, nobody has got a bomb on board an aircraft. You have to go back to Lockerbie before you see anything like this happening. Airports have been very, very, very good at security and all the viewers will know exactly what it takes to get through airport security. Nobody really has a chance of getting a bomb on board. But what they've discovered is they can weaponise the threat of a bomb to disrupt what we need now It's a strategy that... When you escalate that bomb threat, who is assessing that it's a genuine threat? Because quite clearly, some of the airports in Europe are escalating threats, and there are hundreds of other threats that seem to be going in. This has emerged in the last two or three days that are not being escalated. I think at some stage, a little bit of talking to each other might be done. All right, Owen Currie, aviation expert and travel journalist, thank you for coming on the show this morning. And now let's cross to France, where major protests have been ongoing for weeks as the government struggles to push its budget through a divided parliament. And if that weren't enough for France's executive, a new book has now shed light on a series of revelations about French President Emmanuel Macron. Our reporter Estelle Nilsson-Julien is standing by for us in Paris. Good morning, Estelle. What can you tell us? Good morning, Stéphane. Well, yes, this new book reveals a series of telegram messages that the French president exchanged with journalist François Degoy, who's a political journalist, former advisor to Ségolène Royale, the socialist politician. And they exchanged the messages for two years. And this all began when the French president reached out to François after she shared a message on Twitter in solidarity with Brigitte Macron. She had been facing an intense wave of cyber harassment and trolling in light of fake allegations and claiming that she was a trans person. So she was facing a wave of transphobia and DeGroote tweeted, no woman deserves to be treated this way. Macron subsequently reached out to her in a telegram messages and their messaging and texting began from there. Stefan. And what does the book tell us about Macron and his decade of power? Well, these messages reveal that Macron is determined to prevent the National Rally Party, which is topping the polls ahead of next spring's presidential elections. From succeeding him in his exchanges with the author, he defended his controversial decision to call snap elections in the summer of 2024 after the National Rally Party won a record number of seats in the European parliamentary elections. He also staunchly defended his decision not to name a left-wing prime minister following the results of these snap elections. At the same time, what we learned in these exchanges is that he was... Critical of mainstream politicians from the right to be accused of drifting towards the far right, Stéphane. You spoke to Françoise de Gouin, the book's author. What did she make of all of this? She told me that Macron is grappling with his political legacy. He promised upon his victory to minimize the power of political extreme forces in France. And at present, he has not succeeded in doing so. But she also told me that from these exchanges, she feels that he is of a very combative nature and that he is still in a... Questioning Bates, interrogating himself, searching for answers and solutions as to why she published the book. She told me that in her view, Macron knows full well who she is. She's a former advisor, a journalist, and that he did not reveal any state secrets to her. And there have been some speculation in France about whether the Illys knew about this book. They say that they didn't, and François Zendebois also told me that the president was not aware of his publication until the days just before it was released. Stéphane. Wow. Estelle Nisson-Julien, thank you so much for your reporting. And that does it for us today. Thank you for watching. I'm Stéphane Grobe. Take care, and I'll see you on Monday.