Europe politics

Europe politics

Where Donald Trump leads, Europe's nationalists and far right follow. After a Truth Social post last month, when Trump announced the US would designate antifa, the decentralised anti-fascist movement, a major terrorist organisation, his international allies swung into action. That same day, the Dutch parliament, where the largest party is Geert Wilders' far-right PVV, passed a resolution, noting the US decision and calling on the government to declare antifa a terrorist organisation in the Netherlands.

"absolutely shocked"

The EU shocked the UK steel industry on Tuesday with an announcement of 50% import tariffs with no apparent carve-out for metal crossing the Channel. The EU is the UK's biggest customer: 78% of all UK steel exports, or 1.9m tonnes, went to the bloc in 2024. The prospect of punitive tariffs on a large chunk of that would make many British products uncompetitive overnight.

dozens of flights were cancelled and thousands of passengers left stranded on the eve of a German national holiday and the famous Oktoberfest. A week earlier, Copenhagen and Aalborg airports were closed following sightings of unmanned aerial systems in Danish airspace. In the month since a swarm of Russian drones violated Polish airspace — three were shot down — a rash of similar incidents has been reported across Germany, the Baltic and Nordic countries, often over power plants and military bases.

The closer Russia's hybrid war comes to European capitals, the less EU leaders seem able to agree on how to respond. That, at least, was the worrying impression left by a dissonant EU summit in Copenhagen. Summoned last week to build consensus on the top priorities for European rearmament, the meeting was an embarrassing display of the turf wars, political squabbles and hidden agendas that are plaguing attempts to build a coherent European defence.

According to recent polls, almost 40% of Spanish men aged between 18 and 34 say that they plan to vote for Vox, the far-right party. Vox won its first seat in the Spanish parliament in 2019 and now it is surging again. Its recent success is no longer a story of just male voters, either: 20% of young women say they would vote for Vox, with the biggest increase among the youngest voters in that group.

"absolutely supported"

The EU is introducing a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) on 1 January targeting imports produced using carbon-intensive methods, such as steel, glass and fertiliser. Businesses have been concerned about the impact of the EU tax on UK consumer bills and the prospect of cheap goods originally destined for Europe, such as Chinese steel, flooding the British market. The UK is introducing its own version of the tax but not until 2027.

EU commissioners are meeting today for a security college discussion on defence and security issues, where they will be joined by the secretary general of Nato, Mark Rutte. Their meeting comes amid growing concerns about drones appearing in European airspace, causing continuing disruption in parts of the Nordics. It remains unconfirmed who or what is behind them, but still prompted a strong reaction in the region.

The EU steel industry, already reeling from Donald Trump's 50% tariffs on imports, is bracing itself for further damage after the US opened the possibility of a rolling list of derivative products that could be subject to tariffs including windows and doors with some metal. In August the US listed 407 product categories as derivative inclusions, ranging from wind turbines, mobile cranes and bulldozers to rail cars and furniture.

The narrow win will come as a relief to Switzerland's main political parties, which had mostly supported plans for the e-ID. Both houses of the Swiss parliament had backed the measure with large majorities and the government had recommended a yes vote. But voters rejected an earlier version of the e-ID in 2021, largely over objections to the role of private companies in the system.

"This election is really about the future orientation of this country," Lipavsky told DW. "For the first time, forces that are openly collaborating with Putin's Russia are reaching for power." "That's the main reason why I'm running in this election," he continued, "I believe we can succeed in maintaining the pro-Western course of the country. And that's incredibly important."

Fionnán Sheahan: Mary Lou's bags of cash could be key as Sinn Féin takes left alliance for test-drive There goes the last faint hope for a bit of craic. Pearse Doherty entering the presidential election would have livened it all up. The Sinn Féin frontman could have feasted on the raw meat on offer in the live debates. Alas, the lion won't be let loose in the cage with the antelopes.

A water cannon was deployed by Dutch police to disperse anti-immigration demonstrators in the Hague after some protestors began throwing bottles and rocks at police officers. A a spokesperson for the Hague local government on Saturday said the those targeted by the police water cannon had split from the main demonstration to block a highway. According to local Dutch media, thousands of people joined the protest, which also saw at least one police car set on fire.

'This refusal sends out the wrong message to the public,' says Joint Oireachtas Transport Committee's Michael Murphy

The door to greater UK participation was pushed open in May when Keir Starmer and von der Leyen signed an EU-UK security and defence partnership. Without this pact, the UK could never supply more than 35% of the value of components of any Safe-funded project. Yet the UK still needs to negotiate a technical agreement to secure a bigger role for its defence firms, and the EU could impose limits on British participation.

The EU executive has called for a suspension of free trade with Israel and sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers in response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Ursula von der Leyen had already floated the proposal to suspend the trade parts of the EU-Israel association agreement last week as the European Commission faced intense pressure for greater action amid criticism that it was not using its economic leverage to influence the Israeli government.

Follow the latest developments in the presidential race on our Irish Independent live blog Three candidates have been nominated by parties via the Oireachtas route - Catherine Connolly, Heather Humphreys and Jim Gavin Roscommon, Longford, Cork City, Galway City and Dublin City councils yesterday opted not to nominate anyone Presidential hopefuls pull on the wellies for campaigning at the Ploughing Championships

If you were a US-dwelling American in the year 2025, there's a very good chance that you would also want to emigrate. But why Portugal specifically? Expatsi, a company that helps Americans move abroad, published the results of a test that matches users to various countries. And Portugal came out on top. Should I take the test? Not really.

Delivering her state of the union address in Brussels last week, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, painted a grim but accurate picture of the challenges faced by Europe as the first quarter of the 21st century draws to a close. A world of imperial ambitions and imperial wars, she noted, is a world in which dependencies are ruthlessly weaponised.

With a pre-prepared statement about a catastrophic international result as the starter of a press briefing that concluded with a response to a public lashing from Roy Keane, perhaps this is the day that David Courell truly arrived as FAI chief executive.

A statement from Eurojust, the European Union's criminal justice coordination body, said it had worked with Romanian, Czech and Hungarian authorities to capture an individual investigated for the crime of treason by way of transmitting state secrets. The Czech Republic expelled a Belarusian diplomat over the affair, as did Moldova. Eurojust did not identify the main suspect but the Hungarian news outlet Telex named him as Alexandru Balan, a former deputy head of the Moldovan intelligence service and for a time its liaison in Kyiv.

A majority of people across the EU's five biggest member states believe the European Commission sold citizens out when negotiating a humiliating tariff deal with Donald Trump that benefits the US far more than Europe, a survey has shown. The poll by Cluster17, which is published on Tuesday, found 77% of respondents ranging from 89% in France to 50% in Poland thought the deal would benefit above all the US economy, with only 2% believing it would benefit Europe's.

It had been expected that each candidate would be given 15 minutes to present - but this may be reduced given that 17 candidates are now seeking Kerry County Council backing

"Fine Gael public representatives cannot in any way facilitate the nomination of any candidate other than the ratified Fine Gael candidate. "In the event of a vote of any local authority on the nomination of a person other than the ratified Fine Gael candidate, the Fine Gael local authority members are whipped to oppose that nomination," the email from party general secretary John Carroll said.