Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen attacked Spanish leader Pedro Sánchez on migration during a summit debate in Brussels on Friday (16 October). 

Frederiksen, who despite leading a centre-left party has taken an increasingly hard line on migration, criticised Sánchez for granting renewable one-year legal residence permits to undocumented migrants.

“I have asked the commission to look into whether one country is doing almost everything in the opposite direction of what the others are doing. In other words, you come to a country illegally, and suddenly you’re allowed to be there legally,” Frederiksen said before arriving at the second day of the Brussels summit.

In response, Sánchez told reporters after the meeting with EU leaders that Spain’s regularisation scheme “does not go against the grain” – since there are many countries with similar measures.

In April, Spain approved plans to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. These so-called regularisations are a common labour-migration policy that other countries have also used, including Italy, which has authorised nearly 500,000 non-EU work visas through 2028.

But at the EU leaders’ summit in Brussels in June, several European leaders used the meeting to criticise Spain’s regularisation.

The criticism resurfaced during this October summit, after the summer’s migrant crisis in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which some EU governments then weaponised against Spain.

Push for stronger wording

Following a breakfast on Friday (16 October), attended by 16 EU countries backing stricter migration restrictions, Denmark, Poland and Italy had also attempted to link migration to crime in draft EU summit conclusions.

They tried to amend the summit conclusions to call on the commission for extra efforts to monitor national migration measures that can affect other member states, highlight the impact of migration on welfare and public services, as well as avoid “measures that could create incentives for illegal migration”.

However, France and Luxembourg criticised the position of the 16, and leaders had a strategic exchange and agreed to return to the topic at a later date.

According to experts from the Migration Policy Centre, it is hard to conclude whether Spain’s regularisation plans encouraged more migration to the EU.

So-called ‘pull factors’ are difficult to consider in isolation, as migration depends on work opportunities, social networks abroad and other factors, but policies can also play a role. 

Regularisation could pave the way to legal work, generating  “positive employment and fiscal outcomes over time,” the scholars also said.

Denmark itself is not bound by EU laws (due to an opt-out) on border control, immigration, civil and criminal law, or police cooperation, and therefore cannot vote on them in the Council.

Rhetoric versus facts

It is not the first clash between the two socialist leaders on migration, but the timing matters. 

Sánchez faces elections in November, and France heads into presidential elections next spring, where it is feared anti-migrant rhetoric could roll out the red carpet for the far right.

In response to a barrage of criticism from the likes of Austria, Czech Republic and, Sánchez said that the numbers on illegal migration returns speak for themselves. 

“See what is happening in Spain – some politicians are willing to replace the population only so they can be … in government,” said Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš ahead of the meeting on Friday. “I am convinced that for some countries, it is too late – and that some day we will have to defend our borders so that migrants don’t come to us from Western countries if it continues like this. And we, of course, are preparing for this.”

“It’s a road to hell,” added Babiš, who belongs to the far-right Patriots for Europe group.

His comments, Sánchez said, resembled the rhetoric of the far-right political party Vox in Spain, now polling close to 20 percent. “One thing is the rhetoric, the blablabla, and another thing is the facts,” he said.

Ceuta crisis

The situation in Ceuta escalated at the end of July 2026, when tens of thousands of people simultaneously attempted to cross over from Morocco to the autonomous enclave.

The Spanish have since deployed additional security measures to regain control over the territory. 

A majority of newly arrived migrants were eventually returned to Morocco, but thousands remained in the city of 80,000 people – many of whom are unaccompanied children and teenagers.

The crisis has exposed tensions between Spain, Morocco and the EU on border control and asylum and put into question who is responsible for migrants. 

French president Emmanuel Macro previously said: “Spain was the target of an attack. Call it a hybrid attack if you like, but it was an information attack. Traffickers, and probably people seeking to destabilise Spain, led many people living in poverty to believe there was an opportunity, using false information and creating an information bubble.”

Meanwhile Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni previously called for a suspension of the Schengen free movement agreement with Spain.

The whole situation triggered tit-for-tat border closures between Spain and Italy. 

On Thursday (15 October), Italy decided not to renew the security checks with Spain, paving the way for a week of negotiations between Madrid and Rome to reach a final agreement. 

The Cradle | October 16, 2026

Spanish arms manufacturer General Dynamics European Land Systems-Santa Barbara Sistemas (GDELS-SBS) is supplying Latvia with infantry fighting vehicles fitted with Israeli-made turrets, despite Madrid’s arms embargo on Israel, Globes reported on 15 October.

The deliveries cast doubt on the reach of Spain’s 2025 arms embargo on Israel, imposed in response to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which bans the import and export of military equipment, products, and technology to and from Israel.

Yet the ban has not stopped Israeli weapons systems from being mounted on Spanish-made combat vehicles for sale to third countries.

Latvia has ordered 84 Mednieks combat vehicles, each mounted with a UT30 MK2 unmanned turret built by lead Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, under a contract worth roughly $929 million, with deliveries set to continue until 2029.

Latvian Defense Minister Raivis Melnis hailed the first delivery as a step toward strengthening the country’s defense and its cooperation with NATO partners, as members scramble to meet the US’s demand for greater contribution to the alliance.

Elbit had already secured a deal worth around $100 million in April 2025 to supply GDELS-SBS with the unmanned turrets, months before Madrid declared its embargo, with the Israeli firm stating that the systems were bound for an unnamed European NATO member.

SBS was state-owned until the early 2000s, when it was privatized and sold to US arms giant General Dynamics.

According to Globes, General Dynamics’ presence in Europe greatly helps Israel push its weapons, military components, and technology into the continent, owing to the close ties between the US and Israel.

In early 2026, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government came under fire for weighing the purchase of military systems from a company partly owned by Israeli arms giant Rafael, even as it pledged to achieve “zero technological dependence” on Israel.

The arrangement illustrates how Israeli arms firms continue to embed components in European weapons programs through multinational manufacturers, even where governments have restricted direct trade with Israel.

Elbit has benefited from surging demand linked to Israel’s war on Gaza and wider regional conflict, reporting a record $32 billion order backlog as of 30 June 2026.

Europe drove most of the backlog growth in the second quarter of 2026, the company said, with roughly 73 percent of its orders now coming from buyers outside Israel.

Europe is heading into an electoral moment without recent precedent. Four of its five most populous member states, Spain, France, Italy and Poland, are due to vote within the next 12 months – starting with Spain on 29 November.

If voters move further right, the combined effect could reshape the Union far more profoundly than any single national election.

Two shifts stand out. First, the firewall between the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) and the hard-right is crumbling, even in Germany, its last bastion.

Hard-right parties sit in the governments of Italy, Czech Republic, Finland, Slovakia and Croatia, while Slovenia’s government relies on outside support from one.

Second, competition from the far-right is pushing established radical-right parties to harden their positions.

In Catalonia, Aliança Catalana is challenging Vox; in France, Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête, despite scoring single digits, is pressing on Marine Le Pen’s National Rally; in Italy, Roberto Vannacci’s National Future is challenging Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy; and in Poland, Grzegorz Braun’s Confederation of the Polish Crown is cannibalising the Confederation.

Under pressure, established conservatives tend to move towards these parties rather than hold the line, as Spain’s Partido Popular and France’s Les Républicains illustrate. Positions once on the margins become mainstream.

The implications go beyond immigration.

Le Pen and Vox leader Santiago Abascal advocate “national priority” in access to welfare and public services. Under pressure from the League and National Future, Meloni’s government has introduced a 30-percent cap on first-year classrooms for pupils without Italian citizenship, based on their birthplace or prior schooling.

A leaked AfD strategy paper reportedly goes further, proposing that national constitutions override EU law and reducing the Court of Justice to a forum for disputes between governments.

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With support for far right politics well established across Europe, how might upcoming elections shape its future? Europe correspondents Jon Henley and Ashifa Kassam answered Reddit users’ questions about their reporting from the continent

Support for far-right parties has been growing across Europe, with radical right, populist parties in coalition governments in Croatia, Czechia, Italy and Finland, and leading in the polls in Austria, Belgium, France and Germany.

The Guardian reported this year that nearly a quarter of voters in Europe voted for far-right parties in their most recent national elections, a fivefold increase since 1995.

Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.

EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.

Find the full transcript below:

Do you remember the Yellow Vests movement that shook France 2018? On TikTok, a young user has called for a national mobilisation on the seventeenth of October against the cost of living, and the video quickly went viral. So could the Yellow Vests make their big return?

“Please, give us a date, we’re ready to protest! We young people are struggling. We just can’t make a living anymore,” that’s what Justine, a TikToker from Normandy in France has posted a few weeks ago, while wearing a fluorescent yellow vest.

The reference to the 2018 Yellow Vests is unmistakable. The French movement, which began in protest at rising fuel prices, has been widely revived on social media in recent weeks, especially by younger users.

Our colleague Romane Lizée from StreetPress, a fellow member of the Sphera Network alongside Europod, spoke to some of them: young people reviving a protest movement they only knew from a distance.

Yves, a 24-year-old TikToker with over 80,000 followers, made a video called “Survival Guide for the Yellow Vests 2026”. He gives would-be protesters practical advice, such as bringing thick ski goggles or writing a lawyer’s phone number on a piece of paper.

So why is the movement resurfacing now? For many, the movement has come to stand for a general sense of being fed up, something they still feel today.

 “Eight years ago, France put on the yellow vest because petrol hit 1.50 euros a litre, and now we’re almost at three euros and nothing is happening!” That’s how Saïd, a 23-year-old delivery driver, sees it.

The economic context is indeed worse than it was eight years ago. The price of fuel is now almost 2.40 euros a litre.

Throughout September, a series of protests followed one another, called by different professions and for different reasons: climate action, firefighters, a public-sector strike, the law on sexual violence, and finally the student blockades.

High school students have been protesting for a few weeks now, blockading their schools to demand better conditions. We talked about this in a previous Briefed episode. You can find the link in the description.

Now, will the protest be as big and long-lasting as the one in 2018?

Online, a petition launched by the website 17octobregiletjaune, which calls for the protest, has gathered more than 21,000 signatures. Over a thousand actions across the country have been identified on a map by the same website: mostly protests in several cities, but also actions on roundabouts and at petrol stations.

Youth organisations, students’ unions and education staff have already answered the call. More importantly, the CGT, one of France’s main labour unions, has backed it, as have some political figures, like Marine Tondelier, the Green candidate for the presidential election. Still, the true extent of the movement is difficult to predict.

In other European countries, protests are also multiplying, especially among young people. In Spain, huge demonstrations for the right to housing have been taking place in several cities since mid-September. They went quite far: they pushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call snap elections.

In Brussels, on October 9th, thousands of protesters, including rail workers, teachers, and university and secondary school students, marched against the federal government’s policies, in particular its socio-economic measures. Here again, precarity is a central grievance.

In Italy, on October 8th, students called for mobilisation, notably by camping in front of universities across the country to protest against the sharp rise in tuition fees and student rents.

The triggers behind these protests are not all the same, and the mobilisations take different forms from country to country. But the goal is broadly the same: to call for better living conditions and to defend basic social rights. And young people are particularly mobilised.

The public education system in Madrid – teachers and students alike – launched an indefinite strike on Wednesday, October 14. Tens of thousands emptied classrooms and took to the streets, demanding an end to the regional government’s education policy – warning that it promotes privatization.

Episodes of police violence were reported near part of the education sites.

Read more: Spanish unions announce general strike over housing

A joint union front, including sectoral branches of the General Union of Workers (Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT), the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras, CCOO), and the General Confederation of Labor (Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT), among others, started building the mobilization months ago. 

While preparing the strike, they tabled demands including wage increases, investment into education infrastructure, and smaller class sizes.

A strike to defend quality public education

“Madrid’s teachers have said ‘enough is enough’ in the face of regional policies that seek to dismantle public services in favor of private management, demonstrating a profound contempt for the inclusive school, one that equalizes, protects, and guarantees real opportunity for the future of children and the working class,” the union front stated.

“This strike is not just for teachers,” UGT Public Services Madrid emphasized in a statement. “We are defending quality public education for students and their families, who are the ones who suffer the consequences of overcrowded classrooms and staff shortages.”

Union demands were endorsed by students, including the student union Sindicato de Estudiantes. “Ceilings are crumbling, there is no air conditioning, facilities are outdated, and students are forced to learn in makeshift and portable classrooms or overcrowded spaces,” the organization stated.

Student union recognizes strike’s “decisive moment”

Students and teachers insist on the responsibility borne for the crisis by the regional People’s Party government led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Ayuso was also an often-quoted name in recent housing mobilizations in Madrid, where demonstrators linked the right-wing party’s policies with the ongoing housing crisis – including the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal.

The education strike, Sindicato de Estudiantes wrote, is a “way to involve the entire working class and youth against a reactionary government that not only does business with public education, but is selling our neighborhoods to vulture funds and rentier landlords who speculate on housing, one that steals money from public health to hand it to companies and the corrupt …”

Read more: Students in France are fighting for stronger public education

In their communications, student associations echoed the historic school strikes taking place in France. “Also very present in the minds of Madrid students, as in the entire State, are the events shaking France and Belgium: the enormous student strikes of our colleagues that have filled Paris and dozens of cities, and the brutal police repression that they have had to endure,” they wrote. “We know that we are in a decisive moment, and like them, we will fulfill our task.”

Strong adherence to the education strike gives hope for an even stronger mobilization on November 11, when Spain’s labor movement has called for a general strike to increase wages, fight against the cost of living crisis, and overhaul the country’s housing policy.

An international team of researchers has identified that cabergoline—a drug used to halt the production of breast milk—may reduce the risk of breast cancer when administered at the end of the lactation period. The findings, published this Thursday in the journal Cancer Discovery, combine evidence from animal models with an analysis of the medical records of more than 150,000 women in Spain and Norway.

RELATED:

Science, Women, and Research Beyond Reproduction

The research involved scientists from several countries, including specialists from the Cancer Research Center in Salamanca—a joint facility of the University of Salamanca and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC).

In studies involving mice, the researchers found that a dose of cabergoline administered at the end of lactation reduced the proportion of animals that developed breast cancer by approximately half. The models used carried mutations in the BRCA1 and TP53 genes, which are linked to DNA repair, the elimination of damaged cells, and aggressive forms of the disease.

According to the team, the drug reduced potentially precancerous tissue, decreased the ductal area, inhibited cell growth, and increased the presence of immune cells involved in defending against tumors.

The study focuses on mammary involution—the natural “clearing” process that occurs after weaning. During pregnancy, hormone levels rise and milk-producing structures branch out; once lactation ends, these cells are no longer needed, and the breast eliminates the excess tissue.

“It’s like a fruit tree; in spring and summer, the breast develops branches and produces flowers and fruit, but when involution occurs—which is the mammary equivalent of winter—the structures required for pregnancy and lactation are reset in preparation for the future,” explained Christopher Maxwell, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine in Canada and a researcher at the BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute.

The text reads, “A drug could reduce the risk of #BreastCancer postpartum. Cabergoline is prescribed to halt breastfeeding after childbirth. @ciccancer shows in mice that it reduces tumors. A trial will evaluate its efficacy in women after stopping breastfeeding”

The researchers discovered that in mice with mutations in the BRCA1 and TP53 genes, this cleanup process can remain incomplete. In such cases, cabergoline appears to help complete the involution process following weaning.

To explore the effect in humans, the team reviewed medical records from Spain and Norway, focusing specifically on young women in the years following pregnancy. In total, the studies included data on the use of cabergoline in more than 150,000 women.

The results showed that women who received the drug to suppress lactation after childbirth—whether due to a medical recommendation, following the loss of a pregnancy, or because breastfeeding was not possible for medical reasons—had an approximately 70 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer compared to those who did not take it.

This association was observed in women under the age of 50 during the years following pregnancy—a period when the risk of this disease can increase.

Cabergoline is a prescription medication used only when medically necessary to stop milk production. It is not currently approved for the prevention of breast cancer; therefore, the authors emphasize that these findings should not be interpreted as a recommendation for its use as a preventive measure.

The next step will be a prospective clinical trial involving women who will receive the drug only after breastfeeding has ended. The goal is to determine whether cabergoline might, in the future, offer a less aggressive alternative to current preventive measures against breast cancer, such as surgery or hormone therapy.

When European Union leaders meet in Brussels later on Thursday (15 October), migration will be high on the agenda. Amid political panic — real and manufactured — over the events in Ceuta this summer, the European Commission has come out with a five-point plan promising more border surveillance and policing, more dodgy deals with countries outside the EU, and more deportations.

It also includes an ominous plan to devise a new “emergency response instrument” that could allow for the total suspension of access to asylum, which is likely to result in summary mass deportations, in situations when third countries are blamed for ‘instrumentalising’ migration movements.

That the idea is even on the table is a measure of how far the EU’s approach to migration has degenerated.

There is a jarring disconnect between commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s insistence on European values and the rules-based order and the willingness to throw the right to asylum out the window. 

It is a short-sighted and dangerous hypocrisy that will harm women, men, and children at EU borders and potentially beyond if it encourages other states to adopt a similar approach.

If a 20-year-old man I interviewed in Ceuta in August were at the summit in Brussels, he might help guide the debate back to the realities of why people flee and seek safety, their needs and aspirations and hopefully toward a policy informed by shared humanity.

A Ceuta story

He told me he escaped from his village in Somalia in November 2024 when the Islamist armed group Al-Shabab attacked it. He went to Libya and spent six months detained in a smuggler’s warehouse in Kufra, where he said he witnessed many deaths from nightly beatings.  He escaped, reached Morocco, and after months of hardship there saw his chance to seek safety on 31 July, when he swam to Ceuta.

It may well be that instrumentalisation played a role, among many other factors, in the arrival of more than 72,000 people there during two days at the end of July.

For many, the decision to cross may have been opportunistic and fuelled by disinformation on social media. Yet that cannot justify violence, summary returns, degrading treatment, or denying access to asylum procedures, in Ceuta or elsewhere.

Among the thousands who have remained in Ceuta are asylum seekers from strife-torn Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Chad, and elsewhere. 

Suspending asylum completely would not only thwart their chances to find protection. It would rupture the EU’s commitment to the rules-based international order in a profound way.

Rupture of rights

The right to seek asylum is embedded in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the related prohibition of refoulement — sending someone to a place where they face serious harm — is a red line through international human rights and refugee law.

The focus on deterrence and externalisation over the past decade – coinciding with the growing influence of the far-right in European politics – has arguably made this previously unthinkable option part of the conversation.

Both Greece (temporarily in 2020 and 2025) and Poland (continuously at its border with Belarus since March 2025) have suspended asylum without significant reaction from the commission or other member states.

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, fully enacted as of June, undermines the right to asylum in myriad ways. A new Return Regulation portends deportations to third countries despite the documented harm of these kinds of transfers.

The Crisis Regulation, part of the pact, already allows a member state to depart from normal border procedures and curtail important safeguards in a situation of mass arrivals and/or when a third country or hostile non-state actor instrumentalises migration. While the regulation causes concern about potential misuse and unjustified restrictions on access to asylum, it does not allow for wholesale suspension of the right.

I met the young man from Somalia at the height of the humanitarian and rights crisis in Ceuta.

A difficult situation was compounded by recriminations against Spain from other EU countries, exploitation by far-right groups, and neglect and hostility that led to people living on the streets, in the forests, and in makeshift huts on the beach in an apparent effort to compel them to go back to Morocco. It took Spain weeks to begin housing and registering people.

Spain did not invoke the Crisis regulation.  Rather than adding new measures, policymakers should be wrestling with why it didn’t use supposedly tailor-made EU legislation and addressing how mismanagement and a finger-pointing lack of cooperation among EU states create an endless loop of crises that feed xenophobia.

 EU leaders should keep sight of the people affected and basic principles at stake. They should reject approaches to migration that so clearly violate fundamental rights and normalise cruelty.

As EU leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday and Friday (15-16 October) to discuss, among other things, the issue of Europe’s southern border, countless Moroccan families cling to the hope they may see their children again after they entered the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in north Africa in July. 

“Ayoub left on 30 July at 2PM. Since that day, I haven’t heard anything from him, apart from the fact that he went to Ceuta,” his brother said.

Ayoub Elkhamlichi was 27 when he left the north of Morocco for the nearby border with Ceuta, a half-hour drive from his home. 

In the commotion that accompanied the rush of an estimated 72,000 mostly Moroccans into the enclave over 30 and 31 July 2026, 141 people were reported to have lost their lives while attempting the crossing. 

Those that have not been heard of since that deadly July remain innumerable. 

Among them is Ayoub, who had been working in a local konafa shop before leaving.

His brother Mohamed Ali laments that he’d forgotten his ID card, which will reduce the chances he’ll be identified if he’s ever found. 

“The border with Ceuta was opened, so everyone left Morocco, because the city of Tetouan offers few job opportunities,” Mohamed Ali told EUobserver, from his home in one of Morocco’s closest cities to the Spanish border. 

“Ayoub managed to find a job, but the pay was low. So he went to Ceuta,” he said. His family, meanwhile, “are in a state of anxiety and fear.”

It has been 11 weeks since Khaled’s dad Said has also seen his son, 26, who left for Ceuta from Tidass, a small Moroccan town, which Said said “has its problems.”

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Thousands rally for better-funded public schools as a teachers’ strike in Madrid leaves two people injured and five students arrested.

Five students were arrested and two people injured during police confrontations in Madrid on Wednesday, as thousands of teachers and supporters took to the streets on the first day of a regional teachers’ strike demanding better funding, smaller classes and improved working conditions in public education.

RELATED: Marches in Spain Honor Maricarmen, the Evicted Woman Who Died Amid the Housing Crisis

Demonstrators wearing green gathered at Puerta del Sol before marching through central Madrid towards the regional Education Department. The protests targeted the education policies of regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso, whom demonstrators accuse of weakening public schools by diverting taxpayer funds to private education and refusing to negotiate with teachers and parent associations, according to teleSUR correspondent Álvaro Fragua.

Police also confronted students at Madrid’s Complutense University during a demonstration in support of the strike. Two people were taken to hospital with injuries. Five university students and a woman participating in a separate demonstration in central Madrid were arrested. No further arrests had been reported at the time of the report.

Text Reads: 📚 Non-university teachers in the Community of Madrid, Spain, began an indefinite strike this Wednesday—called by trade unions—to demand better working conditions and more resources for quality public education. No end date has been set for the stoppage.
🧑‍🏫 Their demands include better conditions for teaching staff, increased resources for public education, smaller class sizes, and proper care for all students.
📢 Demonstrations have been organized for the initial days of the strike: a march from Atocha to Puerta del Sol this afternoon and a human chain on Thursday at the Department of Education.

Teachers said educational inequality was reflected in disparities between neighborhoods, arguing that children’s access to quality education depended on where they lived, with poorer communities bearing the greatest burden.

The strikers are demanding changes to class sizes, teaching workloads and specialist support for students with additional educational needs. Their proposals include capping classes at 13 students in early childhood education, 15 in primary school, 20 in secondary school, 23 in upper secondary education and 15 in vocational training.

They also want weekly teaching loads limited to 17 periods for secondary school and vocational training teachers and 22 for primary school teachers. The proposed limits would include tutoring, department leadership and coordination duties.

Improving support for students with disabilities and other educational needs is another central demand. Teachers are calling for at least one guidance counselor for every 250 students, one community services professional at each school, one therapeutic education teacher for every eight students and one speech and language specialist for every 12. They also want a compensatory education teacher at every school and additional staffing guarantees for special education.

On pay, the strikers are seeking a €600 monthly increase in the regional general teaching supplement, along with pay parity for vocational training teachers and specialists in community services, therapeutic education, and speech and language support. They are also demanding a special allowance for hazardous working conditions in special education and at least one full-time administrative assistant at every school.

The demands extend to school infrastructure and workplace safety. Teachers want a comprehensive, sustainable climate-control plan for schools, the removal of asbestos, an end to phased construction of public schools and stronger occupational health and safety measures. They are also calling for an equity plan to ensure adequate support for students facing socioeconomic hardship, those with special educational needs and other vulnerable groups.

Teachers announced a larger demonstration for Wednesday afternoon, with a march planned from Atocha to Puerta del Sol, where people were continuing a protest camp in support of the public education movement. The strike’s first day brought demands for changes to staffing, funding, pay and school conditions alongside opposition to the regional government’s education policies.

The Spanish prime minister has been a lonely champion of progressive values in the EU. But the polls look ominous

When it comes to risk-taking, Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has a formidable track record. In 2018, the Socialist party leader swept to power by triggering a no-confidence vote that unexpectedly ousted his centre-right predecessor Mariano Rajoy. He held on to it against the odds after calling a snap election in 2023, at a time when the popularity of his own party had plummeted and the far right was on the rise.

As he endures another rocky period in office, Mr Sánchez has once more rolled the dice. Last week, he announced a snap poll for November after his minority government was blocked from passing measures to ease Spain’s chronic housing crisis. The eviction of 87-year-old María del Carmen Abascal from her Madrid home sparked nationwide protests over soaring rents and prices. The outrage grew with news of her death last Wednesday. Mr Sánchez clearly hopes that campaigning on a national cause célèbre gives him a chance of winning a stronger progressive mandate next month.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Spain recorded 5,807 heat-related deaths during the summer of 2026, the highest figure in a decade, according to the national mortality monitoring system (MoMo).

The estimate, reported on Tuesday, is based on final data collected between May 15 and September 30, the period covered by the National Plan for Preventive Actions against the Effects of Excess Temperature on Health.

The toll surpasses the two deadliest summers since the series started: 2022, with 4,789 deaths, and 2025, with 3,832.

RELATED: France Records 53 Days of Heat Waves This Summer

It is more than 51% above last year’s figure and 188.61% of the 2024 total, when 2,012 deaths were estimated. Even so, it remains well below the summer of 2003, when around 13,000 people died in Spain because of heat, a catastrophe that led the Health Ministry to design a national prevention plan.

August Deadliest Month

August produced the most fatalities, with 2,162 deaths. July followed with 2,026, then June with 938, September with 559 and May with 123.

Compared with last year, the 2026 toll stands more than 51% higher. Measured against 2024, the increase reaches 188.61%, a year in which the system calculated 2,012 deaths.

The number has not reached the historic summer of 2003, when roughly 13,000 people died in Spain as a result of high temperatures. That catastrophe prompted the health ministry to design and launch a prevention plan for the effects of heat on health.

The elderly again bore the heaviest burden. Some 97% of estimated deaths attributable to heat occurred among people aged 65 or older, and 62% among those over 85.

Women were disproportionately affected, accounting for 3,486 deaths, or 60% of the total. Men accounted for 2,321. The impact was not uniform across the country, with the highest mortality rates recorded in the north and northeast of the peninsula.

A Year of Extreme Weather

The team coordinating MoMo at the National Epidemiology Center attributes the impact to an exceptional climatic context. It described this summer as the warmest in recent history, with four heat waves identified by the State Meteorological Agency, plus an additional one in early September.

A persistent drought, large wildfires and an intense marine heat wave in the western Mediterranean compounded the situation. Those conditions combined to push mortality to levels not seen in the decade of MoMo records.

The Carlos III Health Institute said the data reinforce the importance of continuous epidemiological surveillance and stronger prevention and adaptation measures against extreme heat. The warning carries weight as climate patterns grow more volatile.

Scientists have linked the exceptional summer to broader climatic shifts, including the Super El Niño phenomenon. Studies suggest that phenomenon could cause heat-related deaths of 451,000 people worldwide over the coming six months.

“Cannibal capitalism” in Spain, where hundreds of thousands are in the streets demanding an end to the country’s housing crisis that Madrid-based journalist and Canal Red analyst Irene Zugasti says killed 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal. Zugasti joins Zoe Alexandra and Rania Khalek to explain why more than 1,500 tents now fill Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and unions have called a general strike for November 11 – Spain’s first since 2012: “If we hadn’t been in the streets, Sánchez would have done nothing.”

Zugasti explains why Spain’s housing crisis isn’t about a shortage of homes, but about who owns them, and why Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called snap elections now, after the right defeated his emergency measures meant to stem the uprising. She says the movement is inseparable from a wave of youth-led revolts across Europe, from student strikes against rearmament and conscription in Germany to French students taking the streets of Paris. And with just 50 days until Spain votes, Zugasti says the choice Sánchez is selling may not be enough to stop the far right without a mass movement behind it.

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Rough transcript follows:
[Host:] Spain has seen massive protests over the past several weeks. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to demand urgent measures to address the country’s housing crisis. These protests were sparked in large part by an 87-year-old woman, Mari Carmen, who had been fighting eviction from the home where she had lived for more than 70 years. On September 23, she was forcibly evicted from that home and passed away two weeks later, on October 7.

Mari Carmen’s struggle prompted a nationwide debate about the housing crisis, with activists in the streets demanding measures such as a ban on evicting vulnerable tenants, limits on short-term and room rentals, and a rent freeze. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez capitalized on this energy and attempted to push through modest housing reforms in Parliament, but both measures were defeated by the right. In response, Sánchez called for snap elections, which are set to take place at the end of November. So, the political situation in Spain is very heated right now.

Here to break down what has been happening and what to expect from the upcoming snap elections is Irene Zugasti, a journalist and analyst with Canal Red.

[Irene Zugasti:] Hello, Rania. I’m so happy to be here with you at BreakThrough News. Hello from Madrid.

[Host:] We’re very excited to have you here. Your show is incredible, and we’re excited that English-speaking audiences can hear your insight and analysis. A lot is happening in Spain right now, and we have a lot to catch up on and explain to our viewers. As I said in the introduction, mass protests have been taking place, sparked by Mari Carmen’s eviction, but they have also ignited latent anger over the housing crisis. Walk us through how this situation evolved. What is the state of the housing crisis in Spain? How did it get this way? And how did an elderly woman’s struggle against eviction bring hundreds of thousands of people into the streets?

[Irene Zugasti:] I could say that we’re not getting bored in Madrid or Spain these days. We have a lot on the table. But let me introduce Mari Carmen’s story, because some people may not know it. Mari Carmen’s story isn’t unique. There are thousands of Mari Carmens in Spain, but she became a symbol because she embodied the injustice that millions of people in my country—and in many other countries in Europe—face every day.

She was an 87-year-old woman who had lived in the same flat in central Madrid for decades, perhaps 50 years or more. Her parents rented the flat, and she had paid the rent every single month of her life. But eight or 10 years ago, an investment fund—a “vulture fund,” as we call them—bought the whole building. Her rent rose from around €500 a month to €2,650. Obviously, she couldn’t afford that. The goal was to force her out so they could buy the whole building and turn it into high-end luxury flats.

She couldn’t afford the rent. She was elderly, had a disability, and lived alone. She got in touch with the tenants’ union, the housing-rights movement, which is amazing. They helped her with the eviction process, found her a lawyer, supported her, and tried to stop the eviction whenever the police came to her home. They took direct, nonviolent action, blocking her door so the police couldn’t get through.

But finally, on September 23, two or three weeks ago, the police broke down her door. They had to carry her out on a stretcher because she was too old and too frightened to walk. That image was shocking for millions of people in Spain. They thought, “What the hell? How can an 87-year-old woman be taken out of her family home, almost dying, because an investment fund wants to do business with a house that has been her family home?”

From her hospital bed, she recorded a very moving video saying that what had happened to her should inspire people to fight and not stop fighting. Unfortunately, she died on October 7, after 15 days in the hospital.

The day after the eviction, the tenants’ union and many other political organizations—including youth organizations, housing-rights groups, anti-racist movements, and communist and socialist groups—decided to camp in central Madrid, in Puerta del Sol. Today, there are more than 1,500 tents and thousands of people organized there. It’s like a little city, a community. They’re demanding real measures and doing politics there.

Before I continue, I wrote down some figures about the housing crisis, because I’m not sure people have a sense of its scale. The problem isn’t limited to the Global North, but in Spain it’s extreme. It’s not a housing problem; it’s a problem of who owns the houses. The housing crisis is the country’s number-one problem in official polls, year after year. It reflects the failure of capitalism itself, as well as problems with wages, working conditions, and growing inequality.

To give you the full picture: the average age at which people leave home in Spain is 30. It’s hard to live with your parents until you’re 30. Renters earn around €20,000 to €25,000 a year. Landlords who own multiple properties—three, four, five, seven, or 10 houses—earn almost four times as much. Their income comes directly from renters’ pockets. The richest 10% of the country owns more than 40% of all housing wealth in Spain. Large landlords are becoming a majority. Those who own more than 10 properties are effectively taking our wages and salaries.

Imagine that you or I want to live alone in an ordinary flat in Madrid. We would have to spend 98% of our take-home pay—of the average gross salary—to do that. It’s impossible to have a life like that. My country is splitting in two: those who have nothing and those who are accumulating more and more. The gap is growing faster and faster. It’s cannibalism—it’s cannibal capitalism.

Some people say the problem is that we need to build more houses. No, that’s not the problem. There are houses for everyone. There are more houses than ever; the issue is that they’re concentrated in fewer hands. It’s not a crisis of supply. Housing is no longer treated as a human right, even though it’s written into our Constitution. Houses have become financial assets.

Let me end with this: the tenants’ union and the people in the squares are saying that Mari Carmen didn’t die; she was killed. She was killed by this whole machinery: the vulture fund, the courts that ordered her eviction, the police who broke into her home and took her out, and politicians such as Pedro Sánchez, who did nothing and said, “We aren’t strong enough to change the law in Parliament. This is a very difficult, complex problem because many people with different situations are involved.” Come on—you all killed her.

And just as you killed her, many people are suffering and dying. Two people have died by suicide because of evictions in the last two weeks. Many people are dealing with serious mental health problems because they know they may be kicked out of their homes in a couple of weeks. How can you be a healthy person in that situation? You become completely sick. That’s what’s happening. It’s a crisis of capitalism itself, not just a housing crisis.

[Host:] I like the way you described it as cannibalism. In so many ways, that’s what capitalism leads to. I want to ask you to elaborate, because you mentioned the encampment in central Madrid. Yesterday, on Spain’s national holiday, there was a confrontation at Puerta del Sol between far-right activists and people demanding housing reform. Can you talk about the encampment and what happened yesterday?

[Irene Zugasti:] The encampment is beautiful. I wish you could visit it. I think it’s one of the most beautiful things that has happened in Spain in the last five or 10 years, along with the Palestine movement and the feminist strikes.

It began around September 26 or 27, after Mari Carmen’s eviction. It’s in front of the headquarters of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who leads the right-wing regional government in Madrid. That location is symbolic. In just a few days, the encampment became a small community. They organized an assembly and teams working on different issues, including security, mediation, law, and anti-racism. A lot is happening in that square. They’ve achieved things: every morning, they go out and try to stop an eviction. They’re putting pressure on the government and calling for a general strike.

It’s not just people organized around tenant unions. There’s a large socialist movement, too. People are discussing questions such as whether to expropriate the funds and how to lower rents or impose rent control. The people there are very young. The average age may be 20 or 25, and they’re speaking in terms of class war, which hasn’t been very common in recent years in Spain.

They’ve been criminalized using the same playbook you’ve seen in the United States under Trump: counterterrorism rhetoric and attacks on Antifa. They’ve been accused of being terrorists and having weapons because they were cutting sandwiches with knives. They’ve also been accused of harboring pro-Palestinian radical organizations—which we probably do, of course. The framing is that they’re communists, radicals, and troublemakers. But they represent the feelings of millions of people.

What happened yesterday? Every year, Madrid has an awful event: the October 12 parade for the national day. It celebrates what’s called the “Conquista” of the Americas—the conquest and genocide of Indigenous people—and includes military parades, the king, the president, ministers, and so on.

Many people who came to the parade were fascists. They decided to go attack the encampment in Puerta del Sol because it’s nearby. They came with the aim of attacking the people there. What kind of patriots are you? What kind of national project, what kind of Spain and Hispanidad, do you want to build? If your plan for your national day is to attack people asking for housing rights and social justice, that’s Spanish nationalism at its worst.

The beautiful thing—and I was there and saw it myself—was that people formed a human chain around the camp, chanting, “Here we are. We’re anti-fascists. Here we are.” They were saying, “We’re ready. This is a peaceful protest, but we’re not going to allow these people to break up and destroy what we’ve been building for two weeks here in Madrid.”

They didn’t wait for anyone to protect them. They organized themselves and protected the square. There are many young people, but also older activists and people who are curious, strolling around and talking with the activists. Artists are performing. There are many things happening there, and security matters.

At the end of the day, the fascists spent hours walking around and trying to intimidate people, but eventually they left. It’s important and interesting because that’s basically the project of the Spanish right and far right. They align themselves with Trump’s international far-right movement. They’re violent and irrational, and they decide that their enemy is people fighting for justice and rights. That’s it.

[Host:] It’s quite poignant that fascists are attacking people who are simply asking for housing. That’s where their class interests lie. If you wanted any more clarity, that’s what it is. In a way, it’s helpful for us—but terrifying at the same time.

This struggle hasn’t remained confined to the streets. After these weeks of protests, Pedro Sánchez proposed two bills—albeit very lukewarm ones—to address the housing crisis. As I said earlier, they were defeated in Parliament. After the defeat, he called for snap elections on November 29. This has been controversial. Many people have speculated that the far right could make significant gains in the election. What’s your assessment of where Spain stands politically heading into the elections? And what are the other major issues on people’s minds besides housing?

[Irene Zugasti:] I would say Pedro Sánchez—I don’t like him, but he’s a smart guy. He made some calculations. The majority in Congress isn’t simply a question of right versus left. If you consider Pedro Sánchez to be somewhat left-wing, the majority is made up of landlords and capitalists. There are capitalists on the left and on the right.

It’s true that this bill—a bare-minimum decree—was proposed after the encampment and demonstrations, because of pressure from people in the streets. If we hadn’t been in the streets, Pedro Sánchez would have done nothing. He saw the situation and thought, “Now’s the moment. I’m going to propose a bill.” But of course, he knew neither of the two bills would pass. The right wing wouldn’t support them, and they were put together very quickly, without debate.

Even though the watered-down decree would have banned evictions of vulnerable people in certain cases and tried to extend rental contracts for a couple of years, it did nothing to address the key problem. The housing market has to be intervened in on behalf of working people, not landlords and capital. The market is already being intervened in, but on behalf of capitalists. That’s the only real way to stop this inequality, which is costing people’s lives, like Mari Carmen’s.

Without pressure in the streets, Pedro Sánchez wouldn’t have done this. He’s a handsome reformist, very socially liberal, and he shines in Europe because Europe is so sad, fascist, ugly, and terrible. He’s the lesser evil. A very handsome lesser evil. But he’s far from what a party that calls itself the Socialist Workers’ Party should be doing about this problem.

What little he has done has been aimed at not upsetting renters—I mean, landlords, the owner class. Every time he made a small improvement in rental conditions, he offered tax breaks and incentives for landlords. He never touched property ownership or the dynamics of enrichment in Spain.

The snap election is happening because Sánchez is smart. He turned the defeat in Congress and the anger in the streets into a campaign. He’s saying, “It’s now or never.” If he waits a few months, the far right—with all these Trump-inspired groups and powers now helping the Spanish right, which is already very strong—could take everything. But if he calls elections now, the debate might be about housing or the far right; about him or barbarism.

He’s smart because he has a chance, although a small one. I’ve been obsessively studying the numbers: how votes might go in each region, territory, and city, and whether we can get a small majority. It’s difficult. The results could be similar to those in Colombia or Peru, and the far right is getting stronger. That’s why we have 50 days to go.

There’s also a real, transformative left, an institutional left that is more radical on its terms, and they’ll run in the elections. But even with Sánchez’s Socialist Party and the parties to its left—the real left—the numbers are still very difficult. We have to vote in 50 days, and everyone is a bit anxious because we’ve seen what’s happening in Latin America and in many other countries in Europe. We’ve seen it here, too.

We’re hoping that the general strike organized by the people in the streets, the unions, and the social movements might be a game changer. Maybe it will make people feel that they have a chance to change things. But we’ll see what happens.

[Host:] On that note, as we wrap up, Spanish trade unions representing millions of workers have announced a general strike for November 11. Alongside demands concerning working hours, wage increases, health and safety in the workplace, the eradication of precarious employment, and progress in collective bargaining—all important issues—the unions have also brought housing into the strike. What do you make of this call to strike? Do you see momentum continuing in the streets in the coming days and weeks?

[Irene Zugasti:] My generation—we millennials—are very excited. This is something we thought we would never see again. It’s the first general strike since 2012. There was a feminist strike, but it wasn’t the same, because this is a classic labor strike, even though it was born outside the workplace. It began in the neighborhoods and in the squares, in response to the housing problem.

The smaller unions—the housing-rights unions and more leftist, activist unions, rather than the big ones—are the ones that have pushed them to act. The question is what the strike’s political framework will be. Whatever happens, it’s going to be historic. I’m very optimistic because I’ve never seen so many people talking about a strike in 10 or 15 years. There are strike committees organizing in neighborhoods, universities, schools, and workplaces. That’s always good—like going to the gym. It’s good to exercise.

The demands are still being decided and debated. Of course, they include wages and rent: cutting rents by 50%, getting permanent rental contracts, and expropriating the vulture funds. But many other things are on the table. For example, rearmament is an issue in Europe. I saw your interview with Bolenko; he explains it brilliantly. Europe is preparing for war at the expense of social spending, housing rights, social security, public health, and public education, with NATO’s target of 5% of GDP for each member state.

That’s closely related to the housing crisis. The amount of money the Spanish government spent just this month buying weapons from the United States and Israel is the same amount it promised to spend over the next five years on social housing. One month versus five years. They invest 10 times more in producing things to kill people than in building housing so people can live. It’s crazy.

I think one of the strike’s other goals is to connect struggles across Europe. In Germany, students are holding school strikes against military service and rearmament. In France, people are mobilizing for public education and other social rights. In Spain, the issue is housing. If you put these struggles together, maybe this awful Europe—which is the whole drama—has a chance to change things.

It’s the youngest people who are telling us, “This is over. We’re the generation that has faced the worst of this late-capitalist period, and we don’t want to be discussed as if other people can define who we are and what we want. We know this is a class war. We want to build up minorities and hegemonies to change things in the streets and maybe in institutions, too.” They’re still organizing, but they’re challenging the old structures because those structures have failed them.

They’re the real no-future generation, and they’re proving that they have tools, knowledge, and the ability to organize themselves much better than many people thought. We’ve read a lot about how the youngest generations are far-right and more conservative than ever. That’s not true. Look at Paris. Look at Madrid. There’s hope there. I’m speaking like a grandmother—no, I’m not. I still think I’m young, but I have a lot of hope in them.

[Host:] I think that’s the right direction. It’s quite impressive to see the streets of Europe filled with young people demanding change. We’ve followed the situation in France very closely, as well as the student strikes in Germany and the movement in Spain. It’s very inspiring. I think young people, including you, can turn Europe around in the right direction. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been an absolute pleasure.

[Irene Zugasti:] Let me send my solidarity to you and your colleagues at BreakThrough News. I know your government is also targeting you because you’re doing brilliant journalism. Solidarity from Madrid, from all my colleagues.

By John REES

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Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Preparations for war with Russia and complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza have set off a struggle over jobs, wages and military production

War preparation is now a reality across Europe. Within a single September week, Poland issued fresh warnings, Germany ran drills and national alerts, military exercises were held across the Baltic, and Lithuania published plans to evacuate residents of Vilnius in the event of an attack.

The Finnish government is in full cry over the prospect of war, reminding its citizens yet again that they should be ready, in mind and in practice, for the disruption it would bring.

On 18 September, French President Emmanuel Macron gathered party leaders and presidential hopefuls at the Elysee Palace to hear the heads of France’s intelligence services describe what his office called the rapid deterioration of the international situation.

Nato, meanwhile, talks ever more openly about Russian sabotage, cyber attacks, arson and drone attacks.

Many workers and citizens across the continent, though, are not convinced by the war fever.

Thousands of Airbus workers in Spain began strike action on 1 July after rejecting the company’s pay and conditions offer.

Representatives of the UGT and CGT unions said the stoppage had slowed military and commercial production and would make it harder for the company to meet its delivery target. Airbus’s eight sites in Spain produce military transport planes and parts for commercial aircraft and satellites.

As the Defence Matters website reported: “The industrial pressure is not confined to commercial aviation. Spain is central to Airbus Defence and Space, including military transport and satellite activity. European governments are asking manufacturers to increase output at the same time as companies compete for engineers, technicians and production workers.”

Supply lines are so tight that Airbus has had to hire giant Antonov An-124 heavy-lift aircraft to ferry parts from one plant to another just to keep production running.

Air Data News reported that the strike “threatens key military aircraft programmes”, noting that the Eurofighter plant near Madrid and the military transport aircraft site near Seville were both affected.

Spanish unions said about 90 percent of eligible workers took part in the stoppage on 25 August, part of an indefinite strike. The strikes were called after workers voted at plant-level assemblies to reject the company’s offer.

French unions briefed on the dispute said the three striking Spanish unions represent about 40 percent of Airbus Spain’s roughly 14,000 employees. Workers were seeking inflation-linked pay rises, the restoration of previous remote-working arrangements and sick-leave benefits.

After the intervention of Industry Minister Jordi Hereu and concessions from Airbus, the strikers paused the stoppage on 10 September, but not the movement. Two days later, around 8,000 workers from Airbus sites across Spain marched through Madrid to keep the pressure on.

On 1 October, 77 percent of those voting backed an improved offer providing for the restoration of lost purchasing power, inflation-linked pay rises and the protection of remote-working rights, a settlement that months of industrial action had forced out of the company.

The Airbus dispute shows the leverage workers hold in the very industries on which Europe’s rearmament depends.

Trains and the TUC

In Scotland, meanwhile, the rail union RMT, the drivers’ union Aslef and the white-collar TSSA have demanded that the Scottish government remove CAF, the Spanish manufacturer Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, from its shortlist of contractors to build ScotRail’s new fleet of suburban trains.

The company is included in the UN human rights database of businesses involved in Israeli settlements for its role in running the Jerusalem light rail and helping to extend it into territory illegally seized by Israel.

Aslef made clear that its members would refuse to drive CAF trains, a position echoed by TSSA general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust when she urged the Scottish government to “think again”.

Scottish Greens co-leader Gillian Mackay put the first minister on the spot, asking him directly: “So will the first minister agree that CAF should be blocked from this contract, and will he stand with the rail workers who have refused to drive trains produced by a company that they say profits from apartheid?”

In his response, the first minister confirmed that ScotRail was seeking advice on the contract.

For the second year running, delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) backed a motion opposing increases in arms spending.

This year’s motion passed with even more support than last year’s, which reversed the TUC’s previous backing, advocated by the GMB and Unite unions, for higher defence spending.

Speaking in favour of the motion, Alex Gordon, a former RMT president and national officer of the Stop the War Coalition, said: “This movement is about fighting for jobs, for public services, for investment in the industries of the future that our young people, that our young workers need.

“Those industries are not military industries. The skills of the workers in the military sector are vital skills, vital skills that need to be used in civilian production.”

Ports and classrooms

Dockworkers’ unions in at least six countries are planning an international day of action and strikes on 30 October to protest against the war on Gaza and demand an immediate end to the genocide of the Palestinian people.

This coordinated mobilisation follows a strike on 6 February this year that shut down cargo operations at more than 20 Mediterranean and European ports to halt arms shipments bound for Israel.

“No to the war economy, government rearmament plans, and the project of militarisation of ports and strategic infrastructure from [the] EU,” the unions said in their statement. “Public resources must be used to meet people’s social needs, not to finance war.”

The signatories include CGT FNPD in France, Enedep in Greece, LAB in the Basque Country, Liman-Is in Turkey, ODT in Morocco, and Orsa Porti and USB in Italy.

The next generation, at least in Germany, seems even less enthusiastic about the prospect of a new European war. More than 45,000 school students across the country walked out of class in late September to protest against plans for compulsory military service, after hundreds of young men were summoned for medical examinations.

The School Strike Against Conscription initiative said demonstrations took place in more than 100 cities after the German defence ministry began calling in 18-year-old men for medical screening. Service itself remains voluntary for now, but the screening is compulsory.

Students took to the streets demanding a halt to the forced checks, the repeal of the new military service law and an end to what they call a step-by-step return to the draft.

This is now the ground on which European politics is being fought. It is a contest between a political establishment obsessed with war and preparations for war, and millions of workers across the continent unwilling to pay for rearmament with their wages, jobs and living standards.

These are the opening shots in that battle.

Original article:  middleeasteye.net

Wife of former British deputy PM Nick Clegg promises liberal alternative to the PP and Socialists before snap election

The Spanish lawyer Miriam González Durántez has launched a new liberal, centrist party, vowing to clean up politics and give voters an alternative to the dominant socialist and conservative parties as the country gears up for next month’s snap general election.

González Durántez, an ex-EU adviser who is married to the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, says her new party, Democracia21, will offer a modern, transparent kind of politics that “doesn’t feed on fear, insults or nostalgia”.

Ukraine’s president says his country has halted strikes on Russian oil refineries for two days after Trump’s energy ceasefire announcement

On frozen Russian assets, Poland’s Sikorski says the use of frozen Russian assets is “a complicated issue,” but takes a very clear stance in response to any suggestion of releasing them back to Russia.

“We are working on it, but there is also some rumours that some people are expecting these assets to be released back to Russia.

I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself in saying: over our dead bodies.”

“Russia right now is not ready for ceasefire, but still, this only can encourage us to stay with Ukraine and to, strengthen, the pressure on Russia and always be ready for conversations, but and also especially for, for ceasefire negotiations.

But, until this doesn’t happen, we are with Ukraine. We are with the president the German government is is backing the Ukrainian government and the president, completely. He is the person to lead Ukraine, and we are with him.”

If far right nationalists gain power in four big countries simultaneously, we are in for a dramatic Trumpian tilt

When it comes to Europe’s economy or its peace and security, it is obvious that decision-making has to be done largely at the European level to be meaningful. Yet electoral politics is still conducted mostly at the national level. The silver lining of this mismatch is that from country to country in Europe we have governments with different political priorities and leanings. Unlike in the US, where one presidential election can radically change the entire country’s course, as we have seen so vividly under Donald Trump’s leadership, the same drama has not so far unfolded in Europe. This may be about to change.

Pedro Sánchez rolled the dice in Spain last week, calling a snap election for next month after an unholy alliance of the conservative People’s party (PP), the far-right Vox and Catalan pro-independence party Junts blocked his big housing reform package in parliament. If the socialist prime minister, hailed by progressives globally but demonised by Europe’s right and Trump’s US, loses his election gamble, Spain could fall into the hands of a conservative/far-right coalition, which is currently ahead in the polls.

Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist

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