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

Name: Europe Today: Trump weighs Iran strikes as Ukraine talks head to Abu Dhabi
Uploaded: 2026-11-06T08:04:08+00:00
Duration: 20 min
Channel: euronews (in English)

00:15Good morning! Yes, it's Friday, November 6th. You're watching Euronews and this is Europe Today.

00:23Our top stories. Following a modest recovery over the past days, the price of crude oil

00:29increased again. Investors weighed the future course of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran after

00:34President Donald Trump's Republican Party suffered heavy losses in midterm elections this week.

00:40Analysts blamed the still uncertain situation in the region for the higher oil price. The conflict

00:46with Iran, which Trump launched alongside Israel in February, and the resulting higher fuel prices

00:52for U.S. consumers were major grievances for voters in Tuesday's rounds of Republicans.

00:58U.S. First Lady Melania Trump hosted officials from Moscow and Kiev at the White House yesterday,

01:04ahead of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the Ukraine war. The talks would be the first between

01:10Ukraine, Russia and the United States since February. They have revived hopes for peace

01:15as Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine grinds through its fifth year. Last month,

01:21Melania Trump had brokered a partial ceasefire that allowed the evacuation of civilians from a

01:26Russian-occupied town. And Portuguese superstar Cristiano Ronaldo announced his retirement from

01:33international football. The 41-year-old is ending a career that spanned six World Cups and included a

01:39European title and the men's all-time international scoring record. Ronaldo is the second global star player

01:46within weeks to end his time on the national team after long-time peer Lionel Messi finished his career

01:52with Argentina last month. Ronaldo will keep playing at club level in Saudi Arabia.

01:59Welcome to the program, I'm Stefan Grobe.

02:02The U.S. midterm elections are over and attention is now turning to Donald Trump's next move in the

02:07Middle East. For weeks, the president has hinted that Washington could resume military strikes against

02:13Iran once Americans have voted. U.S. officials have reportedly warned regional allies to prepare

02:19for a possible new wave of attacks and for Iranian retaliation. But is military escalation now inevitable

02:27or is there still a diplomatic way out? And could a renewed confrontation plunge an already volatile

02:33region into an even wider war? For more on this, let's head over to Doha, where our correspondent

02:39Adel Halim is standing by for us. Good morning, Adel.

02:44Good morning, Stefan.

02:46So, how are Gulf countries reacting to the midterms? Is there still concern about another U.S. attack

02:52on Iran?

02:55Well, there's a growing concern here in the Gulf that another major attack on Iran may be coming,

03:00despite U.S. President Donald Trump's major losses in the midterms. Trump said overnight that

03:04he'd rather not destroy the rest of the country, but added that he might have to. You will see soon

03:10enough. Now, we've heard this kind of language from the U.S. president before, often used to

03:14pressure Iran into making concessions. But there are also reports that the U.S. and Israel have put

03:20together plans for a short, intensive campaign aimed at targeting Iran's nuclear sites as well as key

03:26infrastructure. And Iran is warning that any countries helping the U.S. launch an attack may soon

03:32become targets themselves. That's a real concern here in the Gulf, home to many American military

03:37bases. So, the fear is another round of fighting may quickly escalate and spread across the region,

03:43bringing more disruption to countries already badly affected after months of conflict. Stefan?

03:50And are diplomatic efforts making progress, or are Washington and Tehran still too far apart?

03:58Well, there are some encouraging signs, despite all the military threats. According to Reuters,

04:03Iran has sent a new nuclear proposal to Washington through Qatari mediators, and the U.S. is reportedly

04:10reviewing it. But there are still some big obstacles to overcome. Iran says it will not negotiate with

04:16Washington until its seven demands are met, including sanctions relief. And U.S. President Donald Trump

04:21has been steadfast that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Here in Doha, Qatar's prime minister spoke

04:26directly with Iran's foreign minister, urging a diplomatic solution as well as safe passage for

04:30ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran's foreign minister has spoken with several counterparts across

04:35the region. And Iran's security chief met with President Putin in Moscow, delivering a message from

04:40Iran's supreme leader. And Russia has also offered to help mediate. Whether any of this is enough to

04:46prevent another round of fighting remains to be seen. Stefan?

04:51OK, Adel, Halim in Doha, thank you very much. Talks aimed at bringing about an end to hostilities

04:56in Ukraine will continue next week in Abu Dhabi, following technical discussions here in Brussels.

05:05Let's bring in our NATO correspondent Shona Murray, who is in Helsinki. Good morning, Shona.

05:11Well, good morning, Stefan. Yes, indeed, those talks have concluded for two days with officials from NATO,

05:15the European Commission and the World Bank. Now it's all eyes on Abu Dhabi next week,

05:20where you'll have higher working level meetings with Russia, Ukraine and the United States convened

05:25by the US envoy Steve Witkoff. What I've heard, the best sort of hope for this is that there may

05:29be

05:30another prisoner swap and potentially a ceasefire. But we don't know if that's confirmed because we

05:34don't know what Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is willing to agree to. Coming from here in Helsinki,

05:40officials are saying that the message needs to be impressed on Putin that Europe will never

05:45abandon Ukraine and for him to continue the war is fruitless. Now, above all, the urgent need for

05:50Ukraine to receive Patriot interceptor missiles, that is also very important. NATO sources have told me

05:58that there's a message coming from the Supreme Allied Commander that countries that have interceptors

06:03need to give them to Ukraine. But they're only willing to do so if they can get guaranteed

06:07of replenishment from the US. That is not forthcoming yet. But I caught up with Antti Hakkinen,

06:12the Finnish defense minister, and I asked him about this situation and what should be done.

06:18The winter is coming and Russia is preparing huge attacks to Ukraine's civil infrastructure,

06:26energy infrastructure. And now is the most critical time to have all the all the air defense

06:32capabilities for Ukraine, what we can arrange. We have the funding, we have the funding. Now we need

06:39the stocks to be delivered to Ukraine. And there's also some other countries globally which can support

06:47Ukraine. But we need the political willingness also from the US side to start the deliveries.

06:52Europeans have gave the funding for that. And now it's only a matter of kind of political

06:59arrangements. Europeans are now the biggest supporter of Ukraine and we are giving the EU loan

07:04a strong bilateral support. So we are quite a big players in that field. But still we have to show

07:12more strength, more willingness in long term to support Ukraine. Because if there comes some political

07:20messages that Europe is exhausted or something like that, that's a wrong message that weakens our

07:27negotiation position. When we are messaging that how we are supporting Ukraine in long term

07:32first and the sanctions also, we have to show willingness in long term to be tough on these positions.

07:41Just final question. You said that there was a serious threat still looming from Russia across

07:46Europe. Can you describe that given where we are geographically?

07:49Well, Russia is ramping up their military in all domains, from traditional conventional warfare and

07:55also nuclear capabilities. And they're building new infrastructure, increasing their manpower,

08:02building new infrastructure, not just in our vicinity, but also wider area. So they can pose a

08:10military threat, not direct at this point. But in future, we have to be prepared for that kind of

08:16scenarios. We hope that there will be a peace and peaceful solutions in everything, but Europeans have

08:22to ramp up their defense and fast and also counter these hybrid threats much more efficiently and united.

08:32Finnish Defense Minister Antti Heckenen speaking to Shona Murray in Helsinki.

08:37In the United States, the midterm elections were not only a referendum on Donald Trump.

08:42They could also prove to be a defining moment for the Democratic Party, forcing it to confront some

08:47difficult questions about its leadership, its identity and its strategy for the future. Who speaks for the

08:54Democrats? And can the party turn electoral gains into a coherent political alternative? And what lessons will

09:01it draw as it looks ahead to 2028? Earlier, I discussed this with Bruce Stokes, associate fellow at

09:07Chatham House, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

09:12Here's what he said.

09:14There was an American comedian in the 1930s named Will Rogers, and he was once asked what political

09:21party he belonged to. And he said, I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.

09:27And there will be, as you suggested, tensions between the progressive wing of the party and the

09:33moderate wing of the party going forward in terms of priorities. I think realistically,

09:40it would appear now there might be maybe eight or more, nine, maybe 10 Democratic socialists in the

09:49Democratic caucus of now 240, 250 people. So they'll be very vocal. They'll claim the election is an

10:00endorsement of their agenda. But I think the reality is that the Democrats and the more moderate Democrats are

10:09really the ones who prevailed. So Democrats succeeded largely on the message of being against Trump.

10:15But going forward, they're going to have to decide what they want to stand for when he won't be on

10:21the ballot. Your take.

10:22I think you're right. You know, we have a long saying in the United States about it's the economy

10:28stupid. And clearly, the exit polling data showed that people thought the economy was the principal issue.

10:34But in this case, it was also Trump stupid that people by three to one said that they had voted

10:41against Trump in this election. So the question is going to be, what do the Democrats stand for

10:50going into the 2028 election? How do the various contenders position themselves?

10:56Because they can't just continue to talk about Trump, because, as you say,

11:02the constitutionally, the president can't run again. So it's going to be a question of what are

11:07we going to do to win the voters support in 2028 when we don't have Trump to beat up?

11:14Well, even with this week's big victories, Democrats are going to be limited in what they can do with their

11:20new congressional majorities because Trump can veto everything. How do you see this divided government

11:26play out? Well, it'd be very interesting to see whether the Democrats can fashion some initial

11:33legislation that addresses the cost of health care, for example, or food stamps, which, yes,

11:42it is true that in the Senate they would need 60 votes because otherwise you can block things in the

11:48Senate if you don't have 60 votes. But it puts at least some Republicans who are up for reelection

11:53in 2028 in a bit of a bind. Do they want to vote against the food stamps? Do they want

12:00to vote against

12:00Medicaid, which is our health care for poor people? Do they want to vote against subsidies for Obamacare,

12:08which have gone up dramatically? On that note, I know it's early, but who do you see as the

12:15candidate leading the Democrats into the next presidential election?

12:20So it's very early at this point, but you're right. There's going to be more than a half a dozen,

12:26maybe even 10 people are going to throw their hats in the rings in the next couple of weeks.

12:30I think the clear winner from this election in terms of raising his profile and exciting people

12:36is John Ossoff, who is the senator from Georgia, who won by 18 or 19 percentage points and is young.

12:46He's articulate. He's from the South. And I think the the initial excitement is going to be about here.

12:57Political analyst Bruce Stokes speaking to us from Boston. A wave of bomb threats targeting

13:02commercial airliners is raising alarm across European aviation. Flights have been diverted,

13:08emergency procedures activated, and fighter jets scrambled, in some cases based on threats that

13:14ultimately proved to be false. But who is behind this apparent campaign? And are we witnessing a

13:20new form of hybrid warfare designed to disrupt European air travel and undermine public confidence?

13:27To assess the scale of the threat and the vulnerabilities it exposes,

13:31I'm now joined by aviation expert and travel journalist, Owen Corey in Dublin. Good morning to you.

13:38Good morning, Stéphane.

13:39So what happens operationally when an aircraft receives a bomb threat? What procedures are immediately triggered?

13:48I think you've already, that is part of the problem, Stéphane. We have over 500 civil airports

13:55in Europe. Usually a bomb threat comes to the airport, less so to the airline. And each airport

14:01is activating it using a separate set of protocols. The protocols aren't that scattered. It tends to be

14:09escalated to the local police force. And from there, very often to the state military intelligence or the

14:16military agencies. What we've seen on Tuesday and again yesterday, when we had over 20 flights

14:23affected, some very dramatically, others less so, is different airports reacting to what seems to be a

14:30blanket set of threats, almost weaponising disruption, because this is designed to disrupt.

14:38This is not designed to blow up anything. If you're going to blow up anything, you're not going to put

14:42every airport in Europe on the highest state of alert. And some airports, Stéphane, seem to be

14:47jumpier than others when these threats come in.

14:49And Owen, are airlines and airports sufficiently equipped to deal with a sustained campaign of false

14:55bomb threats?

14:57This is really weaponising the threat of a bomb, because you've got to remember how safe a European

15:05airspace is. For 40 years, nobody has got a bomb on board an aircraft. You have to go back to

15:11Lockerbie

15:11before you see anything like this happening. Airports have been very, very, very good at security,

15:18and all the viewers will know exactly what it takes to get through airport security. Nobody really has a

15:24chance of getting a bomb on board. But what they've discovered is they can weaponise the threat of a

15:29bomb to disrupt. What we need now is a strategy that when you escalate that bomb threat, who is

15:38assessing that is a genuine threat? Because quite clearly, some of the airports in Europe are

15:45escalating threats, and there are hundreds of other threats that seem to be going in. This has emerged in

15:50the last two or three days that are not being escalated. I think at some stage,

15:54a little bit of talking to each other might be done.

15:57All right, Owen Curry, aviation expert and travel journalist, thank you for coming on the show this

16:02morning. And now let's cross to France, where major protests have been ongoing for weeks as the

16:08government struggles to push its budget through a divided parliament. And if that weren't enough for

16:13France's executive, a new book has now shed light on a series of revelations about French President

16:19Emmanuel Macron. Our reporter Estelle Nilsson-Julien is standing by for us in Paris. Good morning,

16:25Estelle. What can you tell us?

16:27Good morning, Stefan. Well, yes, this new book reveals a series of telegram messages that the

16:34French President exchanged with journalist François Grégoire, who's a political journalist,

16:40former advisor to Sigourney Royal, the socialist politician. And they exchanged the messages

16:46for two years. And this all began when the French President reached out to François,

16:51after she shared a message on Twitter in solidarity with Brigitte Macron, who had been facing an

16:58intense wave of cyber harassment and trolling in light of fake allegations and claiming that she was

17:06a trans person. So she was facing a wave of transphobia, and De Bois tweeted, no woman deserves to be

17:14treated this way. Macron subsequently reached out to her in the telegram messages, and their messages

17:21and texting began from there, Stefan. And what does the book tell us about Macron and his decade of

17:29power? Well, these messages revealed that Macron is determined to prevent the National Rally Party,

17:36which is topping the polls ahead of next spring's presidential elections, from succeeding him. In his

17:43exchanges with the author, he defended his controversial decision to call snap elections in the summer of

17:502024, after the National Rally Party won a record number of seats in the European parliamentary

17:56elections. He also staunchly defended his decision not to name a left-wing prime minister following

18:03the results of these snap elections. At the same time, what we learned in these exchanges is that he was

18:10critical of mainstream politicians from the right to be accused of drifting towards the far right,

18:18Stefan. And you spoke to Françoise Degrois, the book's author. What did she make of all of this?

18:25She told me that Macron is grappling with his political legacy, and he promised upon his victory to

18:33minimize the power of political extreme forces in France. And at present, he has not succeeded in doing so.

18:41But she also told me that from these exchanges, she feels that he is of a very combative nature, and

18:47that he is

18:47still in a questioning phase, interrogating himself, searching for answers and solutions. As for why she published the book,

18:55she told me that in her view Macron knows full well who she is. She's a former advisor, a journalist,

19:02and that he did

19:03not reveal any state secrets to her. And there have been some speculation in France about whether the

19:10knew about this book. They say that they didn't. And Françoise Degrois also told me that the president was not

19:19aware of his publication until the days just before it was released, Stefan.

19:24Wow. Estelle-Lisson-Julien, thank you so much for your reporting. And that does it for us today.

19:31Thank you for watching. I'm Stefan Grobe. Take care, and I'll see you on Monday.

19:55Bye-bye.

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

Category

Transcript

Recommended