Europe

This article is about Germany rapidly increasing defence spending, and also the fact that they're considering conscription. I also found this interesting:

A recent YouGov poll showed that 79% of Germans still see Vladimir Putin as "very" or "quite" dangerous to European peace and security. Now 74% said the same for Donald Trump.

Thoughts?

German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung, WDR, and NDR also cite the report, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin appears intent on testing NATO’s Article 5 guarantees. The alliance’s mutual defence clause obliges member states to come to one another’s aid if attacked. The assessment suggests Putin may seek to challenge how seriously that commitment would be honoured.

• Switzerland is considering amending its surveillance law to add new types of monitoring and information collection

• the current amendment is not subject to a parliamentary vote or public referendum under Swiss law.

Original paywalled article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-30/anti-american-sentiment-rises-in-europe-as-trump-fuels-anger

"I am yet to hear from anyone serious inside the U.S. administration, and I stress anyone serious in the U.S. administration, saying that they are somehow withdrawing from NATO," Stubb said at an event at London School of Economics.

"What President Trump is doing now is correct. He is putting pressure on European states to increase their defence expenditure ... and take more responsibility for their own security," Stubb said.

Archived

Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are joining forces against dangerous products from global online stores such as Temu and Shein.

The three countries' environment ministers are pushing jointly to get the EU to take tougher action against retail giants. For example, they want to investigate whether it is possible to ban them from putting certain products up for sale.

"Global online platforms like Temu and Shein are flooding the market with products that are not safe for consumers and our children. We must do something about it," says Norwegian Andreas Bjelland Eriksen on his way to an EU meeting in Brussels on Thursday, side by side with Swedish Romina Pourmokhtari (L) and Danish Magnus Heunicke.

"It's very serious things that we notice that these platforms do not think they have a responsibility for. Then it's up to the legislator to take a step forward and handle this problem before the products spread in our societies," says Pourmokhtari.

The EU Commission warned in early February of tightened controls on packages from China due to criticism of Temu and Shein.

Sweden, Denmark, and Norway now want the EU Commission to also investigate what can be done about online retailers' way of marketing their products.

Paywall? https://archive.is/cBXlo

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.31-081424/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-03-31/france-fines-apple-150-million-over-ios-data-tracking-consent

France’s antitrust regulator fined Apple Inc. €150 million ($162 million) after a lengthy probe into how the technology company asks to collect iOS users’ data and the impact on advertisers.

Apple’s ATT system is not allowing app publishers to comply with Europe’s GDPR privacy rules, the authority said, forcing these apps to display multiple pop-ups and making their use excessively complex.

Class, education and gender found to influence difference in views but anxiety about finances was a common theme

While English is still the de facto lingua franca, with the US burning bridges to Europe like there's no tomorrow, and the UK having left the EU, should they adopt an easy-to-learn auxillary language?

I'm thinking of an language like Esperanto, but not necessarily that. I was intrigued by Esperanto and went through the course on lernu.net and found it easy to pick up (though I am by no means fluent yet). While it is constructed, it was developed without any modern linguistic knowledge, so another option could be to construct a new language for this purpose, or adopt another already developed language that would serve the purpose better (I don't have an overview of what is out there).

I know there are several official languages already, but I imagine that leads to a lot of overhead. An auxillary language could make communication easier, and make it easier for citizens of any member state to participate in the Union, and would to some extent remove any power asymmetry resulting from native mastery of a language.

Good idea? Poor idea? Why? Why not?

A French court has found far-right leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misusing EU funds to pay staff from her National Rally party between 2004 and 2016 and followed up the verdict on Monday with a sentence barring her from running for office immediately, possibly dashing her political ambitions of standing in the next presidential race.

https://archive.ph/IeidE

A judge is set to rule on whether Le Pen and her National Rally party embezzled European Parliament funds. She and 24 other party officials are accused of having used money intended for European Union parliamentary aides to instead pay staff who worked for the party between 2004 and 2016, violating the 27-nation bloc’s regulations.

Paywall? https://archive.is/LerJ9

The announced US withdrawal from Europe’s defence has put the question of the continent's rearmament back on the table. Euobserver looks at the state of play.

https://archive.ph/tnRFB

Can the United States be trusted with Germany’s gold?

Its leader is trying to cripple the country’s most important industry. His deputy thinks it’s a pathetic freeloader. The man who has their ear is throwing what look a lot like Nazi salutes and openly interfering in its elections to support a far-right party that its own intelligence service thinks is a threat to the constitution.

No wonder, then, that some politicians in Germany are worried that what was for decades seen as one of the world’s most reliable storehouses might not be so secure after all.

STOCKHOLM, March 31 (Reuters) - Sweden announced a new military aid package to Ukraine worth 16 billion crowns ($1.59 billion) on Monday, the biggest package to date from the Nordic country, saying it wanted to help Kyiv strengthen its position in talks on ending the war.

The bulk of the package, nine billion crowns, will consist of new equipment that will be purchased in processes led by the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration, Defence Minister Pal Jonson told a press conference.

Paywall? https://archive.is/U5CPS

The healthiest people live in Madrid

France's constitutional court on Friday ruled local politicians can be barred from office immediately if convicted of a crime, leaving the door open for far-right leader Marine Le Pen to potentially be barred from the 2027 presidential race in an embezzlement trial concluding on Monday.