The New York Times - Anushka Patil / The G7 condemns Iran’s attack on Israel, as E.U. leaders urge restraint from all parties
 

• After convening a virtual meeting on Sunday to discuss Iran’s attack on Israel, Group of 7 leaders adopted a joint declaration that reaffirmed their “full solidarity and support to Israel” and accused Iran of having risked “provoking an uncontrollable regional escalation” that must be avoided. 

• Iran’s attack, which appeared to have been mostly intercepted by Israel and its allies, was carried out in retaliation for Israeli attacks on an Iranian Embassy building in Syria earlier this month. Iranian leaders have signaled that their retaliation is over unless they are attacked again. 

• The joint declaration from the leaders of G7 nations — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, as well as the European Union — demanded that “Iran and its proxies cease their attacks.” The leaders said they were ready “to take further measures now and in response to further destabilizing initiatives.” 

• Hoping to head off Israel from further escalating the conflict, President Biden privately advised Israel against firing back on Iran, U.S. officials said on Sunday. It was not yet clear how Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his government would respond.

   

Bloomberg / German Leader Warns China Over Dumping, Overcapacity Echoing US
 

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz instructed Chinese officials to promote free trade and equal business opportunities, one week after the US Treasury Secretary pressed Beijing on the same trade issues. 

• “Competition must be fair,” Scholz told an audience of university students on Monday in Shanghai, on the second leg of his four-day trip to the Asian nation. “We want a level playing field, of course we want our companies to have no restrictions,” he added, identifying dumping, overproduction and copyright infringement as key areas of concerns. 

• Scholz is in China to deliver a delicate message that if Beijing doesn’t heed European warnings to end discriminatory business practices, Brussels will have no choice but to escalate trade defense mechanisms. He’s expected to raise Russia’s war in Ukraine, possibly calling on China to use its influence over Moscow to seek a resolution. 

• A survey published Wednesday by the German Chamber of Commerce in China showed that two out of three German companies operating in the world’s second-largest economy say they face unfair competition. The survey results underscored concerns that foreign businesses in China suffer disadvantages compared with their local counterparts.

   

Financial Times - Paola Tamma and Henry Foy / EU faces decline without market reform, report warns  
 

• The EU must integrate its financial, energy and telecommunications markets or face losing its “economic security” and falling further behind the US and China, the author of a new report has warned. 

• Enrico Letta, the former Italian prime minister tasked by European leaders to assess the state of the EU’s underperforming single market, told the Financial Times that further European integration was a matter of survival in the global economy. 

• “The problem is that in this new world, we are too small. And if we don’t integrate, we will decline,” Letta said ahead of the release of his report which will be the main topic of an EU summit on Thursday. “Inertia on the single market means decline,” he added. 

• Letta warned that a possible second Donald Trump presidency would require the EU to be bolder in using the power of its internal market.

   

Politico - Barbara Moens, Nicolas Vinocur and Jacopo Barigazzi / Don’t assume von der Leyen is coming back
 

• A second coronation does not come guaranteed for Queen Ursula. 

• Two months ahead of June’s Europe-wide election, Brussels is abuzz with European diplomats and officials warning that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is not a shoo-in for another five year term leading the EU’s executive. 

• “A big part of it is the arrogance of power,” the EU official continued. “She mistakenly thought she could get away with everything. So some smaller mistakes are now being used against her.” Like other officials quoted in this article, the EU official was granted anonymity to speak freely about the powerful German politician within the Brussels bubble. 

• France — whose relations with Germany are rocky — is still highly ambiguous about its support, probably to extract concessions, though it could spy a late opportunity to rejig the top table.

•  If she passes that potential hurdle of dissent from Paris, she will also have to worry about whether she can secure confirmation from the new-look European Parliament, in which the far-right is likely to be a larger player than today. Even the support from her own center-right European People’s Party looks lukewarm.

Our opinion reads for today:

Financial Times - Najmeh Bozorgmehr and Bita Ghaffari / ‘We’re crazier than you realise’: Iran delivers its message with attack on Israel
Foreign Affairs - Ali Vaez / The Middle East Could Still Explode