Europe

Archived

On April 1st, 2025, Finland officially closed the Salmisaari coal power plant in Helsinki, marking an essential moment in the country’s energy history

By doing this, Finland lowered its reliance on coal for power generation to below 1%, an achievement that reached four years ahead of schedule.

The closure is part of other efforts by the Finnish government to phase out coal completely by 2029, transitioning to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources, primarily wind power.

The article title is a bit of a misnomer because apparently they only surveyed western Europeans rather than people across Europe. But still it's interesting.

These survey results appear in the article:

https://archive.ph/ktDRE

U.S. officials have told European allies they want them to keep buying American-made arms, amid recent moves by the European Union to limit U.S. manufacturers' participation in weapons tenders, five sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

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?

https://archive.is/2025.04.01-221630/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2025/03/31/schooled-by-trump-americans-are-learning-to-dislike-their-allies

Source can be downloaded from the EU website: https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/api/deliverable/download/file?deliverableId=97983

It's linked to on this page (near the bottom in the "infographics" section): https://europa.eu/eurobarometer/surveys/detail/3492

We have found PFAS elements in plenty of production processes and products. And for these cases, we don't have solutions that could be easily implemented in real time. So 'zero PFAS' is not possible.

Then, there are areas where we honestly have no idea how to replace PFAS, for example in many medical devices. And in these areas where we don't yet know how we can get PFAS out

Berlin’s immigration authorities are moving to deport four young foreign residents on allegations related to participation in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, an unprecedented move that raises serious concerns over civil liberties in Germany.

The deportation orders, issued under German migration law, were made amid political pressure and over internal objections from the head of the state of Berlin’s immigration agency.

The internal strife arose because three of those targeted for deportation are citizens of European Union member states who normally enjoy freedom of movement between E.U. countries. None of the four has been convicted of any crimes.

“What we’re seeing here is straight out of the far right’s playbook,” said Alexander Gorski, a lawyer representing two of the protesters. “You can see it in the U.S. and Germany, too: Political dissent is silenced by targeting the migration status of protesters.”

Dan Jarvis told lawmakers that any person or company "carrying out activity as part of any arrangement" with Russian authorities, including government agencies, armed forces, intelligence services and the parliament, will need to register with the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme from 1 July.

Anyone who doesn't sign up faces five years in prison.

US energy giant Chevron is set to launch its first exploratory drilling for hydrocarbons south of Crete in 2026, Environment and Energy Minister Stavros Papastavrou said on Monday.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/60150824

As part of its efforts, the bloc has repeatedly introduced its Chat Control legislation, aimed at weakening the encryption that protects messaging services and force providers to provide a client-side backdoor for law enforcement.

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.

https://archive.ph/v8Vlf

The conservatives of incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz and their likely center-left coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), have agreed to demand the bloc withhold funds and suspend voting rights from countries that violate key principles such as the rule of law, according to a draft coalition agreement seen by POLITICO.

While Hungary wasn’t mentioned by name, the draft agreement is clearly referring to the EU’s worst offender, which for years has been accused of taking a wrecking ball to democratic norms, curtailing the freedom of the press and restricting the independence of judges.

Paywall? https://archive.is/GOdZp

https://archive.ph/vVAXu

Meta is worried that the expected DMA ruling against Meta’s “pay or consent” model could impact its European revenue, which accounts for almost a quarter of its overall earnings, by forcing the company to allow European users to limit personalized ads on Facebook and Instagram for free.

Finland plans to withdraw from the Ottawa convention banning anti-personnel landmines

Poland and the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania said last month they will withdraw from the convention

Big US technology companies have been offered a significant tax cut by Keir Starmer in return for lower tariffs from Donald Trump’s administration as the UK braces itself for a global trade war.

The Guardian understands the UK government is willing to reduce the headline rate of its digital services tax (DST) in an attempt to placate the US president, while at the same time applying the levy to companies from other countries.

Paywall? https://archive.is/4GBXx

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the conscription of 160,000 into military service.

The decree, which was reported by news agency Interfax and also published on the government website for legal announcements, says conscription applies to all citizens aged between 18 and 30 and covers the period from April to July.

Tensions between Moldova and Russia ratcheted up on Monday after Moldova's decision to expel three Russian diplomats on Monday.

The Moldovan Foreign Ministry declared the three "persona non grata" and ordered them to leave, saying there was "clear evidence'' of actions that violated their diplomatic responsibilities.

Russia's Foreign Ministry pledged to take retaliatory measures, though it has not specified what those might be.

[...]

The immediate trigger for Moldova's expulsion of Russian diplomats was the case of Alexander Nesterovschii, a member of parliament aligned with pro-Russian interests.

Nesterovschii was sentenced in absentia to 12 years in prison after being convicted of illegally funding a political party linked to Ilan Shor — a fugitive businessman and former lawmaker.

Shor, who fled Moldova after being implicated in one of the country's largest bank fraud scandals, has since aligned himself with Kremlin-friendly causes.

[...]

President Maia Sandu condemned what she described as direct interference in Moldova's judicial system.

"Interference by the Russian Federation with the judicial system of the Republic of Moldova is unacceptable,'' she said in a radio interview. "Imagine if Moldova interfered with justice in Russia.''

Moldova's pro-European government has frequently accused Russia of attempts to destabilize the country as it seeks closer ties with the European Union. Moldova aims to join the EU by 2030 and was granted candidate status in 2022.

[...]