From an intense weekend of elections all around Europe to a walk into the Balkan powder keg. This is what the continent has been talking about this week.

In today’s special supplement, there is a special gift for you! A special report on the re-elected Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Take a look!

Elections, elections, and still… elections

That was quite a weekend, dear reader. Isn’t it? In Greece, the incumbent Prime Minister Kyriakos Mītsotakīs and his centre-right party New Democracy were the clear winners of the general elections after securing a large majority of seats in the Parliament but not enough to form a government by himself. Strong of this first round, Mītsotakīs called for new elections on June 25. Why not try to form a coalition government with other minor right-wing parties? Well, why consider yourself satisfied with a slice of cake when you can have the entire pie? In fact, by winning the next round in three weeks, Mītsotakīs will be able to count this time on the treasure trove of seats put up for grabs by the majority prize established by the new electoral law (which will come into force precisely from the next polls) and to govern on his own. There is little doubt as to who is the big loser of the evening: Alexis Tsipras and his radical left party, Syriza, doubled by the Prime Minister.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez went all-in by calling snap general elections on July 23 after his Socialist party suffered heavy losses across the country in regional and municipal elections. In the municipal elections, the EPP-affiliated party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo accumulated over seven million votes (31.53 per cent of the total), surpassing the Socialists, who received 6.2 million votes (28.11 per cent).

Pedro Sánchez’s party lost over 388,000 votes four years ago compared to the municipal elections. At the same time, the Partido Popular gained over 1.9 million votes, mainly due to the collapse of the liberal party Ciudadanos (Renew Europe), which disappeared from the political landscape. Sánchez’s move comes as a surprise to his allies but not to your storyteller: by advancing the general elections, Sánchez avoids the risk of a prolonged erosion of support, preempts any internal factions within his PSOE party, and forces the hand of present and future allies.

Last but not least, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan secured another term as Turkish President in the second round of the general elections. Given up for dead in the lead-up to the first round, Erdoğan was capable of causing the odd upset in an undisputable show of strength and power, defeating his opponent Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu with 52 per cent of the preferences. By adopting nationalist rhetoric to erode the hard core of Erdogan’s consensus, Kılıçdaroğlu has won votes across the country, but he has been abandoned by part of the Kurdish electorate. That Kurdish electorate that felt betrayed by the proclamations of Kılıçdaroğlu and allies in the last 14 days, that did not vote for Erdoğan but stayed at home.

All things seem possible in May.

Balkan mess

The crisis in the Balkans continues: hundreds of Serbian demonstrators protest in front of town halls occupied by Kosovar police forces. In the middle, soldiers from KFOR, the Italian-led NATO mission. Yesterday morning came vitriolic statements from Serbia’s Defence Minister, Milos Vucevic. A short while ago came the words of Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, ahead of a NATO summit that will take stock of the situation in northern Kosovo. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister of Pristina, Albin Kurti, should also return to speak. The tension shows no sign of abating.

What is happening? Simply put: wounds that were never closed are being reopened, and history is being reckoned with. On Friday, Kosovo’s security forces raided the town halls of the country’s northern municipalities, those with a Serbian majority, to allow the entry of the new ethnic Albanian mayors elected in the latest local consultations. The only reason why ethnic Albanian mayors were victorious in those areas is that the elections were boycotted by 97% of the eligible voters in protest at the failure to create the coveted Community of Serbian Municipalities. The line-up is as follows: on one side, Kosovar police officers in riot gear, deployed inside the town halls and protecting them; on the other side, dozens of ethnic Serbian protesters. In the middle, the soldiers of KFOR, the Italian-led NATO force in Kosovo, deployed explicitly to prevent the parties from coming into direct contact. The Balkans is notoriously a powder keg, but the number of matches lit lately is worrying. The hope is that diplomacy and common sense will put them out before the fire breaks out. Perhaps even taking the pleasure of contradicting, for the umpteenth time, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, who predicted: ‘A great explosion is looming in the heart of Europe’. Let’s not give great contentment to him.