Europe

    Ursula von der Leyen was confirmed as the European Commission president Tuesday, becoming the first woman to hold one of the most prestigious positions in the European Union and who will be one of the most prominent faces from the bloc on the world stage. The European Parliament voted 383-327 with 22 abstentions to approve von der Leyen's nomination. The confirmation required an absolute majority of 374 votes and the outgoing German defense minister scraped through with barely nine votes to spare in a cliffhanger vote. A majority is a majority in politics, she said when questioned about her narrow escape. Von der Leyen will replace Jean-Claude Juncker when his term expires at the end of October. She was put forward as a last-minute candidate by EU leaders as part o...

    The death threats started in 2015, when Walter Lübcke defended the refugee policy of Chancellor Angela Merkel. A regional politician for her conservative party, he would go to small towns in his district and explain that welcoming those in need was a matter of German and Christian values. Hateful emails started pouring in. His name appeared on an online neo-Nazi hit list. His private address was published on a far-right blog. A video of him was shared hundreds of thousands of times, along with emojis of guns and gallows and sometimes explicit calls to murder him: Shoot him now, this b******d. And then someone did. Far-right militancy is resurgent in Germany, in ways that are new and very old, horrifying a country that prides itself on dealing honestly with its murd...

    After a second episode in which Ms. Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, trembled uncontrollably in public last week, she headed to the airport, took a 12-hour flight to Japan, held 10 bilateral meetings and four group sessions with world leaders, including President Trump, then flew back to Europe for a record-breaking 20-hour negotiation with her European counterparts in Brussels. The last several days have been a reminder of Ms. Merkel’s storied stamina, proven in countless crisis summits during her 14 years in office. But they also reinforce the mystery of what exactly is going on with the health of the woman who has been the rock of European politics at a time when the authority of both her party and her country appear to be declining. When Angela Merkel trembles, th...

    Another deadly heat wave has Europe in its sweaty grip this week. Record temperatures topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.8 degrees Celsius) in parts of France, Germany, Poland and Spain, with hotter days to come. The same thing happened last year record-breaking heat was responsible for 700 deaths in Sweden and more than 250 in Denmark, countries that have never needed air conditioning before this new era of climate-change-driven extreme events. Europe’s five hottest summers in the past 500 years have all occurred in the last 15 years, not including this summer. All have been deadly. The 2003 heat wave was the worst, having led to the deaths of over 70,000 people; in 2010, 56,000 died in Russia alone. These extreme heat events are all connected to a slower jet strea...

    Germany will fight to the last hour to prevent the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal and is willing to hear any fresh ideas for the Irish border backstop, the country’s ambassador to the UK has said. Speaking at a car manufacturers’ summit in London, Peter Wittig said Germany cherished its relationship with the UK and was ready to talk about solutions the new prime minister might have for the Irish border problem. My country is ready to talk and the chancellor [Angela Merkel] once said she would be willing to talk to the last hour not to have a no-deal scenario, he said. “It’s a mindset. We are not giving up in achieving an orderly Brexit. Germany has been a very pragmatic voice in this whole tortuous Brexit process and we will continue to be that. Even if ...

    EU leaders are “unanimous” that the new British prime minister will not be able to renegotiate the Brexit withdrawal agreement, the European Commission president has said. Jean-Claude Juncker was speaking in Brussels after a meeting with the 27 presidents and prime ministers of the remaining EU countries. “On Brexit there was nothing new nothing new, because we repeated unanimously that there will be no renegotiation of the withdrawal agreement,” he told reporters. His colleague Donald Tusk, speaking at the same press conference added: “We have agreed on the following united approach of the EU27. We look forward to working together with the next UK prime minister, we want to avoid a disorderly Brexit and establish a future relationship that is as close as possible ...

    These astonishing images show just how desperate migrants are to get into Europe. They capture the moment border police found a man in his twenties squeezed behind a car dashboard, trying to enter Spain’s North African enclave of Melilla. Officers said three vehicles were stopped in Beni-Enzar, Morocco, in the space of three hours on Saturday. Shocking pictures also showed a stowaway hidden in an engine compartment Border Police said they found another illegal migrant behind a car's rear seats, and a fourth in a dangerous position in a dumper truck, where they were in danger of being crushed. The migrants, including a 15-year-old girl, were rescued from their cramped surroundings and two of the men, aged 20 and 21, had to receive medical treatment. Border police...

    Jews in Germany have been warned to avoid wearing traditional skullcaps in public in certain parts of the country, amid concerns over a rise in anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism commissioner Felix Klein reportedly said he could not recommend to Jews that they wear the traditional kippah in some areas. According to the BBC, Mr Klein told the Funke newspaper group: I cannot recommend to Jews that they wear the skullcap at all times everywhere in Germany. His comments come amid concerns over a rise in anti-Semitism in Germany, with official figures showing hate crimes against Jews had increased by 10% in 2018 compared to the previous year. In his interview, Mr Klein suggested that the internet and social media could be contributing to a rise in anti-Semitism. He called f...

    Fake Russian collusion in Austria led to the demise of the nation’s government last weekend, and could result in criminal charges for a top far-right leader. The scandal has rocked Austria to its core, providing a blow to the growing clout of nationalist, anti-immigrant parties in Europe. While viewed as a local affair by some, it’s a political crisis that could potentially span the continent. On May 17, German media released a video showing Hanz-Christian Strache, the head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party, talking about a deal with a woman who claimed to be the niece of a Russian oligarch. The video, filmed in 2017 inside a glamorous Ibiza vacation house, shows Strache and a party colleague speaking with the woman for six hours about how she could use her mone...

    France has warned that it will not accept repeated extensions of the Brexit deadline beyond 31 October, amid deadlock in the UK over the deal negotiated by Theresa May. We must not get sucked into repeated extensions, that’s for sure, a French presidential adviser said on Friday. The advisor told the Reuters news agency: Our message is clear: a solution must have been found by October 31. The senior official did not categorically rule out a further extension, and expressed hope that talks between the Government and the opposition Labour party would provide a workable majority for Theresa May to get her deal through parliament. As an EU member state France has a veto over any extension to Article 50, though in practice the leaders on the European Council have tende...