Europe

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2697975

French authorities said Wednesday they had tracked nearly 80 disinformation campaigns led by Russian operators between August 2023 and early March 2025, mainly targeting Ukraine and its allies, including France.

The estimate by the French agency countering foreign online attacks, Viginum, said the campaign was "particularly... effective in distributing anti-Ukrainian and anti-Western narratives to Western audiences".

The so-called "Storm-1516" campaign uses artificial intelligence to create realistic profiles, pays amateur operators, and poses a "significant threat to the digital public debate, both in France and across all European countries," the agency said.

"The European public debate is being pounded by disinformation campaigns conducted by Russian entities and relayed especially by the American far-right," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in a statement to AFP, adding that Russian entities had targeted the French legislative elections of 2024.

...

The Viginum report highlighted the role of American far-right influencers or pro-Russian influencers like Adrien Bocquet, a "former French soldier exiled in Russia", who amplify the dissemination of false information.

Some of the false information -- such as the alleged purchase by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of a former Nazi building in Germany or a luxury hotel in Courchevel -- have been verified by AFP's digital investigative team in articles available on AFP Factuel's website (factuel.afp.com).

...

The disinformation-fighting organisation NewsGuard previously attributed to Storm-1516 a video supposedly showing a Chadian migrant confessing to raping a 12-year-old girl in France. Another, AI-generated video accused Brigitte Macron, the wife of President Emmanuel Macron, of sexual assault.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.bg/post/103527

Around Germany and Greece there were other countries. They went by names like frugal four and PIIGS. They forced "austerity" and stricter working hours onto indebted countries to save their own banks.

The colours on this map show well that northern "productivity" is not about working hours, but about other topics that did not get addressed. Among these topics are also tax heavens (think the Netherlands) and money laundering (think Austria's special relationship with Russia).

So it was nothing more than poor political leadership without vision.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26140567

This is an initiative to ban conversion therapy in the EU, if you are an EU citizen please consider signing it.

This is a more serious post than normal, but I feel this is important to share.

EDIT: Also how long should this remain pinned? The collection period is for another 2+ weeks, should it stay up until then? Here's a form

EDIT 2: All (just 1) responses from the form say keep it up for the collection period so that's going to happen for now.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/63190260

Incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz suffered an embarrassing setback when he fell short of a majority in an initial vote in the lower house of parliament, potentially delaying his swearing-in as head of government due to take place later on Tuesday.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33723368

Archived

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months.

[...]

TikTok, whose parent company ByteDance is based in China, has been under scrutiny in Europe over how it handles personal information of its users amid concerns from Western officials that it poses a security risk over user data sent to China. In 2023, the Irish watchdog also fined the company hundreds of millions of euros in a separate child privacy investigation.

[...]

The Irish watchdog said its investigation found that TikTok failed to address “potential access by Chinese authorities” to European users’ personal data under Chinese laws on anti-terrorism, counter-espionage, cybersecurity and national intelligence that were identified as “materially diverging” from EU standards.

[...]

TikTok faces further scrutiny from the Irish regulator, which said that the company had provided inaccurate information to throughout the inquiry by saying that it didn’t store European user data on Chinese servers. It wasn’t until April that it informed the regulator that it discovered in February that some data had in fact been stored on Chinese servers.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62880263

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency formally classified the Alternative for Germany as a right-wing extremist movement, meaning authorities will have enhanced powers to monitor the party as a potential threat to democracy.

The judgment by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution “is based on an extremely careful expert review spanning approximately three years” that examined remarks made by high-ranking AfD officials, according to a statement published Friday by Sinan Selen and Silke Willems, the office’s co-vice presidents.

https://archive.ph/gbEqD

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62632335

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62522292

https://archive.is/A4rQ7

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28737882

The plans, hatched by Sweden’s rightwing government with support of its far-right backers, made waves around the world. Politicians said they were working to strip citizenship from dual nationals who had been convicted of some crimes.

The concept also made a cameo in Germany’s February election after Friedrich Merz – whose centre-right CDU/CSU bloc emerged victorious in the ballot – told the newspaper Welt it should be possible to revoke German citizenship in the case of dual nationals who commit criminal offences.

The proposal was swiftly criticised, with one political commentator pointing out that it would result in some being “Germans on probation” for their entire lives. “They can never truly be German. One mistake, one crime – and their Germanness is gone,” the journalist and political commentator Gilda Sahebi wrote on social media. “It doesn’t matter if they were born here or if their family has lived in Germany for generations.”

Merz’s idea, she added, had laid bare the normalisation of “racist discrimination” in that, “in other words,” he was calling for remigration – the concept long-peddled by far-right, anti-immigrant parties and which, in Germany, calls for the mass deportation of migrants, including those with German citizenship.

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62344884

The European Union is looking into whether Hungary’s plan to deploy facial recognition technology to identify people attending LGBTQ+ Pride events is illegal.

https://archive.ph/qYlDB

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28700515

Paywall? https://archive.is/ZSHXV

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62371556

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/62370804

Europeans are thinking of replacing the F-35

The long read: Working for Hope Not Hate, I infiltrated an extremist organisation, befriended its members and got to work investigating their political connections

The important part o the article to me is this quote

For more than a year, I went undercover in the British far right. Using the pseudonym Chris, I spent time with nine different groups of extremists. Among them were a political party, a circle of Holocaust deniers and an organisation backed by an American tech tycoon that sought to prove black people are genetically less intelligent than white people.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33240717

Despite record declines in oil revenues and a growing budget deficit, the Kremlin has doubled its 2025 funding for Yunarmiya, a Russian youth movement known for promoting military training and ideological indoctrination among teenagers, reported independent Russian outlet Mozhem Obyasnit, citing the organization’s financial documents on April 22.

The group has been allocated $12.3 million (1 billion rubles) this year—the highest amount since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Of that, $9.85 million will come from federal subsidies under the national project Youth and Children, launched by presidential order in 2024 to create “advanced schools” in Russia’s regions.

[...]

Yunarmiya was established in 2016 by then-Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu. According to its official website, the group now includes 1.75 million children and teenagers.

Activities include basic military training, army-style discipline, and patriotic education—including programs conducted in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.

The group has been tasked with instilling what the government calls the “right attitude” toward military service. In 2021, the Russian government set a target to grow Yunarmiya’s ranks to 3.25 million children by 2030.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/33178561

• Russian attacks target Dutch public service and infrastructure
• China threat via support for Russia, chip industry espionage
• MIVD urges scaling up military to match Russia's pace

Russia is increasing its hybrid attacks aimed at undermining society in the Netherlands and its European allies, and Russian hackers have already targeted the Dutch public service, Dutch military intelligence agency MIVD said.

"We see the Russian threat against Europe is increasing, including after a possible end to the war against Ukraine," MIVD director Peter Reesink said in the agency's annual report.

[...]

Western countries have in recent years said hybrid threats by Russia and China were becoming increasingly more aggressive.

Such threats could include everything from physical sabotage of critical infrastructure to disinformation campaigns, espionage and cyber attacks in a bid to influence or undermine society, the agency said.

It repeated its warnings of Russian entities mapping infrastructure in the North Sea for espionage, and acts of sabotage aimed at internet cables, water and energy supplies.

Britain's foreign spy chief accused Russia in November of a "staggeringly reckless campaign" of sabotage in Europe, ranging from repeated cyber attacks to arson.

[...]

China also still poses a serious threat to Europe through its support for Russia's war efforts and aggressive stance towards Taiwan, the report said. It was continuing its efforts to gain Western knowledge through investments and espionage, especially in the Dutch semiconductor industry, it added.

The MIVD said last year Chinese cyber espionage was more extensive than initially thought, targeting Western governments and defence companies.

Reesink reinforced the message shared by European allies that the military needed to be scaled up.

"If you look at the speed at which Russia is increasing its military complex, its equipment, its artillery, it's by far much faster than we do in Europe, even in the U.S. So that creates a sort of window of vulnerability for us," he said.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28562046

Two former senior US military commanders have said Europe's aerial shield is not prepared to meet the scale of the threa...

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/21168931

• The EU has agreed binding rules to reduce plastic pellet pollution, aiming to tackle up to 184,000 metric tons of annual leakage into the environment.
• Provisional measures will require companies to prevent spills, implement risk management, and report losses — but reliance on self-reporting may limit accountability, environmental groups argue.
• Campaigners have welcomed the deal but criticized loopholes, delays for maritime transport, and lighter rules for small businesses, warning these could undermine the regulation’s impact.

archived

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28561868

BRUSSELS, April 21 (Reuters) - The European Union is determined to enforce its full digital rule book no matter who is in charge of companies such as X, Meta, Apple and Tiktok or where they are based, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Politico.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/2523894

Archived link

In the era of Trump 2.0, the first question British defence companies are facing when trying to export their weapons abroad is whether they are independent of the US arms industry. Or simply, are they “Itar-free”?

Itar, which stands for the International Traffic in Arms Regulations, refers to a set of longstanding US rules that govern the items on the United States Munitions List, which is aimed at safeguarding national security.

The list contains US-produced software, components and other technology that can be used for either military purposes or serve a dual use. If a weapon is subject to Itar, it cannot be built, sold or supplied to someone else without US consent and support.

One defence industry source said: “Even if you have US engineers, you become Itar-tainted.”

To employ ex-US military employees, UK companies would become subject to Itar restrictions if they have not been granted an exemption.

Although the restrictions are nothing new, a combination of Trump’s tariffs, vague threats to Canada and Denmark and pause on providing military aid and intelligence to Ukraine has left defence companies and governments thinking twice before investing in American components or equipment.

...

Helsing, a European defence tech company, and Auterion, a supplier of drone operating systems with a European headquarters in Munich, also pride themselves on having Itar-free equipment.

Helsing has pursued the policy because it “was founded on the principle of providing sovereign capabilities for a strong Europe”, according to Amelia Gould, the company’s global maritime director.

“Europe has this technology, we don’t need to import everything from the US,” she added.

Brinley Salzmann, the director of overseas and exports for ADS, a defence trade association, said that what was once a preference for Itar-free weapons was quickly becoming a requirement.

He said: “As international collaboration increases and governments seek greater control over their supply chains, the ability to operate without US extraterritorial export restrictions is becoming a strategic consideration.”

...

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/42733798

Project 2025 authors are providing a closed-door workshop of discussion for right-wing groups in Europe to shape their united stand against the EU. We don't know the invitation-list, but as Yorkshirebylines reports on this:

"It is known to have featured contributions from two prominent right-wing organisations: Hungary’s largest private educational institution with a Brussels-based thinktank, Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), and the Polish Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture.

All three groups present are highly connected to the political leadership of their respective countries, and they all have something in common: a firm belief in reducing the role of government, controlling the judiciary and installing a conservative religious approach in terms of access to reproductive healthcare for women, divorce and same-sex marriage."

Obtained invitation that goes over the proposals talked about:

VSquare mainly focus on preventing a rise in populism in Europe and report a lot on Turkey and Hungary, about Russian influence, and as we can see here, about American right's attempt at influence. According to themselves, they are Polish, and operate as a collaborative non-profit investigative journalist center.

"the two Central European organizations reported connections to Russian influence add another layer of scrutiny. While Ordo Iuris leaders have denied pro-Russian affiliations, the organization has long engaged with networks that promote Kremlin-aligned narratives, including Agenda Europe and the World Congress of Families – a group linked to Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev. (VSquare has published multiple investigations into the international network-building of Ordo Iuris," VSquare adds with links on the page leading to their investigations)

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/42627109

cross-posted from: https://futurology.today/post/4453232

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/19685434

Frustration with established parties across Europe has created openings the right has been quick to fill. Can a divided left rally in response?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/28408447

She had been welcomed to the White House with open arms as few other foreign visitors had been since Donald Trump’s return, and Giorgia Meloni wanted to assure her host that – at least when it came to their political worldview – they spoke a common language.

Italy’s prime minister, whose Brothers of Italy party has roots in neo-fascism, was keen to stress that she shared many things with the man who had just hailed her as a “friend” who “everybody loves … and respects”. Tariffs were a bit of problem. But between friends? Hey, we can work it out.

Even if Italy boasted one of Europe’s biggest trade surpluses with the US, such disagreements could be bridged with recourse to the previously uncoined creed of “western nationalism”, argued Meloni, speaking in confident, lightly accented English, although she admitted she did not know if it was “the right word”.