NPR's Michel Martin talks to Adam Szubin, former head of U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, about the new U.S. economic sanctions against Iran.

In Wilbert L. Cooper’s new memoir, The Black Shield, he tells two intertwining stories: the history of the city’s Black Shield Police Association, one of the country’s oldest Black policing organizations, and the multigenerational narrative of his own family, embedded in the police force. Both of his parents and sister are retired Black Cleveland cops, and on his mother’s side, there’s been a Cleveland cop in the family since 1950. In this book about race, policing, and power, Cooper examines the complex duality of the Black cop, what it was like for his parents to navigate an institution that was hostile to their own community, and, ultimately, what this all has meant for him.

This excerpt combines the prologue and a chapter focused on his mother’s beginnings in Cleveland’s police department. Two individuals mentioned spearheaded legal efforts in the 1970s to diversify the department: Fred Johnson, the association’s president who led a lawsuit over the department’s discriminatory hiring and promotion practices, and Jean Clayton, a policewoman and the organization’s secretary whose parallel lawsuit disbanded the segregated Women’s Bureau and integrated women into the department. Below, Cooper recounts how his mother, Gayle, walked through the door that they opened. But it was not without a struggle.

—Cheri Lucas Rowlands

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The gun was always there. I used to see it in flashes as Dad would get ready to leave the house. After he doused himself in spicy cologne and sliced a plastic comb through the waves of his jet-black Jheri curl, I would catch that 9-millimeter sliding between the small of his back and the belted waistband of his blue jeans. 

Mom had her own. She kept it in her purse. One of those big leather bags, the kind they show behind the counter at Dillard’s, with shiny metal clasps and countless compartments. Her gun would be in there with red lipstick, a double-sided compact mirror, and her bulky pager. I knew the gun was there because I sensed its heft whenever I’d have to move the bag off the kitchen table to do my homework. It felt like a bowling ball in a pillowcase.

Dad used to store his 9-millimeter above the fine china, on top of the large, baby-pink Victorian-style cabinet in our dining room. One time while he was sleeping, I climbed on top of the pink-velvet-upholstered chairs to get a good look at it through the scrollwork. When I came face-to-face with the gun, I was too intimidated to actually pick it up and play with it.

It took a few moments for me to work up the gumption to run my little fingers across the raised bumps of its grip. Then I touched the ridges of the slide and the smooth, cold, hard barrel from where bullets burst. And just that alone felt crazy to me. Even in the dusty, mundane space of the cabinet, the stock-still object pulsated with wild energy. It was like petting a tiger.

Even now, it’s overwhelming for me to imagine that all that calamitous potential to take life, to inflict pain, to inspire fear, to demand subservience, to have your way with the world, to finally be the actor instead of the one who is acted upon—was right there and it was theirs.

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I was 7 or 8 when I saw Dad shoot that gun. It must have been the summer, because I still remember the heavy outside air kissing my arms and legs, the suburban sunlight beaming on me. I see that light reverberating off the concrete, making vivid every blade of green grass in the yard and every goose-egg stone in the gravel strips. But I cannot hear the gunshot. I cannot tune in to the boom. All I sense is the fear, because it is so foreign. I’m still there. Standing in the driveway. Stuck and dumbfounded. Until Dad’s shouts break through, begging me to run inside before those crackers come back, commanding me to have Mom call the cops.

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Have you heard of Pastor Leon McCray? The man of faith who saw two White people dumping a refrigerator on his property. When McCray tried to stop them, the duo threatened him. One of the Whites ran off to grab three more racists. McCray says that’s when they all ganged up on him. That’s when they told him that his “Black life didn’t matter.” The beating didn’t stop until McCray pulled out his gun. When the police showed up at the scene, they handcuffed McCray and put him in the back of the cruiser. His assailants laughed and waved at him as he was taken off.

But at least McCray survived. You know that many of us aren’t so lucky: The police shot and killed the father Philando Castile during a traffic stop after he told them he had a firearm. The police shot and killed the father John Crawford while he was carrying a pellet rifle inside the Walmart that retailed the damn pellet rifle. Police shot Emantic F. Bradford Jr. at a shopping mall while they were responding to a call about gunshots at the mall. Witnesses say they killed Bradford as he was trying to direct shoppers to safety.

These killings now give shape and sharpness to that immense and totalizing fear I felt in the driveway as a child. That American malice is always there anytime we try to commandeer a power that wasn’t intended for us. Black people are killed or incarcerated every day for much less than what Dad did. Simply owning a gun can put a bullseye on your back. Pulling one on a White man can turn you into a hashtag.

So why did Dad want to call 911? I know that he’d tell you it was because his gun was different from Pastor Leon’s. Dad didn’t buy it at Walmart or Bass Pro alongside camouflage galoshes and fly-fishing rods. He didn’t pick it up at a gun shop with a shooting range full of targets depicting men in turbans and hip-hop gear. He didn’t procure it across state lines at a gun show with bundles of cash and no identification or background check. And he didn’t get it off the street, with scratched-out serial numbers and bodies on it.

Dad got his gun from the City of Cleveland. That’s where Mom got hers, too. Both are tools of policing, the Cooper family business. They hold up those guns and their power to use them as symbols of our freedom in a country that will not stop killing or incarcerating Black folks. When I was a child, I never questioned that contradiction. But to become my own man in the America I inherited, I realized I’d have to try to solve the paradox of my parents.

By the time the Black Shield had forced the hand of the Cleveland Police Department in 1977, Gayle had given birth to another child—a little boy named Geoffrey. Now with three kids, she was even more entrenched in a wrathful marriage and farther away from the working world. And losing her uncle Lloyd, which felt a lot like losing a father, only made her feel that much more alone. When he died, the dream of becoming a cop and the freedom the job promised died with him. 

It was at the moment that she’d almost completely resigned herself that it all came raging back. She opened up an issue of the Plain Dealer to find that people who’d taken the test with her and were lower than her on the eligibility list were being appointed to the police academy. And quickly, her despondency turned to confusion. And then her confusion turned to anger. She said to herself, “I know my number is higher than this and they’ve gone eighty past me and I’m not getting called?!” As she started to look into the issue, she found out that the city had expunged her from the eligibility list. “They were trying to lose Black folks’ stuff,” she told me. The city claimed it was because her addresses had changed and she hadn’t notified the civil service. To get back on the list, she had to go to court. “They claimed I had moved, but I owned my own home!” she said. “I told them, ‘I bought this house, I haven’t gone anywhere.’” As soon as she prevailed in her hearing, a White officer walked up to her in court. He simply said, “I’m from the academy.” He took her information. And then he said, “You will start the police academy on Monday.”

Later that same night, Fred Johnson called Gayle’s phone. It was the first time she’d ever spoken to the man. Lloyd was never big on the Shield Club, and Curtis was much closer with her younger brother, his namesake, who would join the police department five years later. Gayle didn’t have a complete idea of what the Shield Club had been up to at that point, or of how much it had shaped the situation she was walking into. Because of all the lawsuits, more than 40 percent of her classmates would be people of color and women. But the department they were entering was only 9 percent Black or Hispanic, and 2 percent women. For his part, Johnson stressed the struggle happening in the city to resist the change that Black women like Gayle represented. The academy was framed as a contentious environment controlled by people who were intent on destroying Gayle’s professional prospects and her spirit.

Despite the reforms that resulted from the Shield Club and the Women’s Law Fund cases, Gayle was still put through a series of tests, during which she could still be expunged. She had to meet with a psychiatrist, who asked her questions about her affiliations. Although this test had been revised thanks to the efforts of Fred Johnson and the Shield Club, it remained biased. As many of us conclude from a life living in this country run by White people, Gayle figured the best way to stick around was to hide herself. Her strategy was to answer every question like a White man of modest intellect.

In the 1970s, Gayle had spent a few years in the Nation of Islam. Although she never really let go of Jesus, she converted aesthetically and culturally to satisfy the whims of her second husband. She traded her hot pants for conservative flowing dresses. And instead of sweet potato pie, she started baking bean pies. When she did make a Polish Boy, she did it with beef sausage. She even traveled to Chicago once for Saviours’ Day to see the honorable Elijah Muhammad with her own eyes. But she put all that behind her when she found out that her proud Muslim husband was sleeping with a fellow “sister.” By the time she took the psych test to become a police officer, she’d gone back to straightening her hair and listening to gospel music. But some of the political knowledge she gained from the Nation, especially its perspective on America, stuck with her. She understood things differently than most—like the “riots” that happened in Hough and Glenville. She saw them as a natural reaction to the way her people had been done in this city and done in America. To her, the people who stormed the streets weren’t criminal. The crimes being committed were by the landlords renting rat-infested apartments and the Board of Education shoving kids into overcrowded schools and businesses charging a premium for rancid meat. She had a lot of ideas about these sorts of things, but none of them could feed her kids or free her from her marriage. And so she kept them to herself during her psych test.

The new hires were also required to do a complete physical examination. This was especially humiliating for Gayle. The whole ordeal was a perverse take on the idea that if women want to be in the academy, if women want to do what the men do, then they have to go through the exact same processes. For the physical exam, this meant standing around nearly nude to be ogled by their peers. “They made us stand up there in paper gowns and these guys were trying to catch glimpses at us. And they make you do stuff in the gowns so the gowns get all torn up. My breasts and everything were just hanging out,” Gayle recalled. She was so thoroughly humiliated that a fellow female in the academy came to her with some Scotch tape to try to cover her up. “They did that kind of thing because they wanted us to quit. The guys didn’t want us, their wives didn’t want us, it was terrible. They treated us like new meat, picking out which one they were going to take.” 

Fred Johnson made himself available to all the Blacks in the academy because he was prepared for the city to try to find excuses to fail them. Gayle didn’t think she’d have a problem. She was voted the vice president of the academy class and consistently scored high on all of the interstitial tests. Those high scores were attained by studying alongside her new girlfriend. But when they both got good grades on a test with similar answers, they were accused of cheating and threatened with expulsion from the academy. Fred Johnson had to step in and help them prove that they’d arrived at the same answers because they’d been preparing together.

After passing the academy, but before they could be sworn in as officers, they were also required to take a qualification test administered by the State of Ohio that evaluated their skills. Cadets could fly through the academy with high marks and still get disqualified to be a police officer. Although policewomen in Cleveland had been in the academy before the 1970s, they weren’t required to take the qualification test because officers in the women’s bureau didn’t carry guns. Anticipating that they would do whatever they could to disqualify her, Gayle prepared for the test with the desperate intensity of a woman fighting for her life. “To prepare for the running test, I used to run up and down the steps whenever I’d put the kids down for nap,” she told me. To make her qualifying time, she outran some Vietnam veterans, who threw up before they crossed the finish line. The state also required people to do a series of chin-ups and push-ups and dips that demanded upper body strength that seemed to favor the male physique, but Gayle fought her way through those. When she finally had to take her shooting test, the last phase, it was 19 degrees below zero. In 1977, Cleveland was in the midst of one of its coldest winters ever. But one of the essential rules of the academy was that it never canceled or postponed qualification tests for any reason, in an effort to help simulate what it’s like to be a police officer and have to work when everyone else gets the day off. And so Gayle stood at the outdoor range with the soft skin of her red-nailed fingers sticking to the ice-cold metal of her gun, her body involuntarily shivering, hoping the icy air didn’t tank her shot.

The first night Patrolwoman Gayle Smith reported to the Fifth District of the Cleveland Division of Police in the winter of 1977, her supervisor showed her two things: the coffee machine and the broom. It was expected that she would be the shift’s glorified janitor. But she bucked back. “I did not go through all that training to do no housekeeping. I came here to be a police officer,” she remembers saying to him, surprised by her own candor. Ridiculous as it seems now, perhaps this kind of insult by her male colleagues should have been expected. After all of the efforts by the Women’s Law Fund and Jean Clayton to break down the formal barriers in the CDP, women still constituted only 2.3 percent of the police force when Gayle started. The assholes she was working with had almost no experience working alongside women as equals and little incentive to see them as such. Gayle was basically a guinea pig. Ironically, it was because of Jean Clayton, Gayle’s initial inspiration to become a lady cop, that the women’s bureau was dissolved and lady cops ceased to exist. Although Gayle had been intent on following Clayton’s path, she found herself involved in something entirely new.

While most of the male cops were unhappy with the gender integration of the department, a lot of the women officers were displeased, too. They were especially pissed at Jean Clayton and her damn lawsuit. These were women who had no interest in being partnered with men and participating in a form of policing that oriented itself around violence and punishment. There were certainly fair criticisms of the women’s bureau, from its troubling focus on purity to the fact that its diversion efforts and empathy weren’t as equally distributed to Black suspects as they were to Whites. But I wonder if the department would be less lethal and repressive today if the men on the Cleveland Police Department had become more like the women and their women’s bureau. Instead, the women became more like the men. After the women’s bureau closed, some of its important work, such as sex crimes, was shamefully ignored or mishandled. Gayle would see this firsthand. But first she needed to get out of coffee duty.

It took some convincing, but eventually Gayle got her first assignment outside the district. After roll call, she would be taken to White City Beach, a former park on Lake Erie that in the 1940s was home to attractions like Bonavita the lion trainer, along with fishing and a yacht club. After natural disasters hurt the park and desegregation saw the City of Cleveland give up on supporting community spaces shared by both Blacks and Whites, White City Beach went the way of Euclid Beach. By the 1970s, it became a dumping ground for garbage and a place where the city parked vehicles that were towed to clear the streets for snowplows or as the result of car wrecks. That year, it was overflowing with gnarled automobiles. It had been the coldest Cleveland winter of the century, complete with “superbomb” blizzards and scores of days that were more than 20 degrees below zero. There were more than one thousand cars down there at White City Beach, but not another soul in sight.

“They dropped me off at White City Beach every night and stuck me in a shell of a car that was up on bricks and cinder blocks, with a wire heater inside of it. There was no bathroom. They’d leave me there all night and they’d come back and get me in the morning. I was just down there by myself in pitch blackness and cold. Even if I had wanted to get out, I couldn’t go nowhere. If someone had tried to steal the cars down there, there is nothing I could have done about it. It was demoralizing.”

Mom told me this in the kitchen, where I’d often heard her talk about the bad early days on the job. I’m not sure whether this was the first time I was really listening, or if she was telling it differently. Usually, her stories were never this detailed and specific. It was just “racism” and “men being nasty.” Perhaps because I was taking a real interest, she started accessing parts of the story she had often left untouched in her recounting.

There is a feeling of humiliation that stings long after an event has passed. It doesn’t just hurt because of what was done, it hurts because you feel as though you had some agency in the matter. That you let it happen. When she started telling me what it was like, I could feel her own surprise at the disregard she had endured. In the zone car with White partners, she was beneath speaking to. These were men who would greet a dog if they saw it on the street, but wouldn’t say one word to her. In this sense, despite the lawsuit and the consent decree, not much had changed on the job since the late 1950s, when White officers would “throw a shoe” to avoid being paired up with Curtis and Fred Johnson.

“When they finally had two guys take me out, they put me in the back seat where a prisoner would sit. And they didn’t let me touch the radio. They were supposed to show me some things. But instead, they got out of the car and went to eat. They just left me locked in the back of that car without saying anything. I’m just beating on the door and everything.”

It wasn’t until an old, White, Catholic officer who looked like Santa Claus decided to take Gayle under his wing that she finally got to learn a bit about real policing. The rotund veteran with snow-white hair explained to Gayle the first time she got in the car with him exactly why he was willing to teach her. It wasn’t that he was pleased about working with Blacks or with women. He simply realized the futility of resistance: “If we get rid of her, they will just send another one of them down here.”

“It was crazy to have me on the job that length of time and nobody taught me nothing except what I learned in the academy,” she remembered of her time wasted on frivolous assignments. “When he took me out, the first thing he ever told me was this: He said, ‘Okay, kid, what time is it?’ I looked for my watch. He said, ‘That is the first rule. Don’t you ever take your eye off anybody. If they ask what time it is, say you don’t know or your watch is broke. But you don’t look down.’”

It was with Santa Claus that she got to see how the men handled sex crimes now that the women’s bureau was closed. The first rape call that they ever responded to together involved a White woman. The lady had walked three doors over from where she lived to bum a cigarette from her neighbor. Before she could get back home, three men had grabbed her off the street, dragged her into a car, and took turns raping her. While Gayle was wrenched by the story, calling back to her own experiences of sexual abuse, the veteran was incredulous. “He talked to that girl so bad, I felt sorry for her,” she remembered. “He asked her, ‘What were you wearing?’ ‘Why were you out at that time of night?’ ‘What did you expect was going to happen?’ It was horrible . . . I will never forget it. That girl ended up not even filing.”

It was also alongside Santa Claus that she finally proved she could be real police, like the men. The call was a robbery at a drugstore that drew several cars to the scene. The suspect was a young Black man who managed to run out the back door. To show her tenacity, Gayle took off after him ahead of the rest of the cops, moving just as she had when she was training for the department’s entrance exam, going up and down those steps. Santa, who was heavy and plodding with bad knees, couldn’t keep up as Gayle tailed this man through an alleyway. And then from behind her, a shot rang out.

When a police shooting happens, officers come together to get their story straight. Although this was an era when it was still legal for officers in Cleveland to shoot fleeing felons, all the patrolmen made sure they agreed on what took place. After they were finished, they looked over at Gayle to see if she saw it the same way they did. Forget the police academy. The offensive rape call was a pop quiz, and this shooting was the final exam of real police shit. And Gayle passed with flying colors. “After that, I started having people to work with,” she told me. “It didn’t feel good, but I had a demon behind me.”

Browse Wilbert L. Cooper’s book-related events and appearances or buy the book today:

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Wilbert L. Cooper grew up in the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. He studied journalism at Ohio University and earned a master’s degree in publishing at New York University. He has written for outlets such as The Guardian, The New York Times, The Marshall Project, and The Wall Street Journal. His Vice documentary The Cleveland Strangler was nominated for a National Magazine Award. In 2024, he was the recipient of the Richard J. Margolis Award. The Black Shield is his first book.

NPR's Michel Martin asks the president and founder of the Emirates Policy Center how the UAE and other Persian Gulf nations view increased sanctions on Iran.

Um experimento da Anistia Internacional mostrou que as medidas da Meta não estão sendo suficientes para combater a desinformação no Facebook na campanha eleitoral brasileira. A ONG internacional submeteu 14 anúncios com conteúdo desinformativo sobre as eleições brasileiras e um neutro. Oito foram aceitos, enquanto os sete restantes (incluindo o neutro) foram sinalizados para verificação de identidade por parecerem relacionados a uma questão social, eleição ou política, em vez de serem rejeitados especificamente por conterem desinformação eleitoral. Nenhum deles foi postado publicamente, portanto, os usuários não tiveram contato com o conteúdo.

Os 14 anúncios desinformativos do experimento da Anistia Internacional incluíam alegações de que as eleições de outubro deste ano seriam fraudadas e pedidos de intervenção militar. Com exceção do anúncio neutro, os 14 violaram as próprias políticas da Meta sobre desinformação, especificamente a seção relacionada à interferência na votação ou no comparecimento dos eleitores. A definição de desinformação da Meta inclui “conteúdo com potencial para interferir em processos políticos”.

Três de quatro anúncios que pediam intervenção militar foram aprovados. Um deles dizia: “Precisamos de uma revolução militar. Não vote nas eleições e os militares vão tomar o poder se houver menos de 50% de comparecimento nas urnas”.

O anúncio neutro foi incluído pela Anistia para testar a exigência de verificação de identidade feita pela Meta para a postagem de quaisquer conteúdos relacionados a eleições.

Segundo a ONG, a conta usada para o teste não concluiu o processo de verificação de identidade para manter o perfil mais neutro, de modo a evitar influência do algoritmo. Portanto, não há como saber se, caso fosse feita a verificação de identidade da conta, os anúncios seriam aceitos ou não.

Em 2025, o Facebook tinha 109,2 milhões de usuários no Brasil, segundo a plataforma de dados Statista; já o Instagram é mais popular e contava com 146 milhões de contas no mesmo ano. Os anúncios podem circular entre as plataformas.

Pouco tempo para as novas regras

De acordo com a descrição do experimento da Anistia Internacional, os anúncios refletiam “três táticas frequentemente utilizadas por políticos e candidatos para apoiar práticas autoritárias”: “deslegitimação eleitoral”, com conteúdos que minam a confiança no sistema de votação brasileiro e nos resultados; “construção do inimigo”, colocando adversários políticos e a Justiça como ameaças; e “autoritarismo com foco na segurança pública”, que traz o uso da força, da intervenção militar ou de um líder forte como respostas necessárias ao crime.

“Em vez de zelar pela participação eleitoral e pelo acesso à informação precisa, estes sistemas de moderação correm o risco de aprovar conteúdo nocivo [ao processo eleitoral]”, diz Ummar Bashir, pesquisador e consultor da Anistia para Inteligência Artificial e Direitos Humanos.

Os anúncios foram enviados de fora do Brasil, do escritório da Anistia em Londres, sem uso de VPN, recurso que poderia simular que o conteúdo fora postado em território nacional. Para a ONG, a aprovação é preocupante porque mostra “vulnerabilidades passíveis de exploração por atores nacionais ou estrangeiros que busquem influenciar processos eleitorais”.

A Meta não respondeu aos questionamentos da ONG sobre as falhas de moderação que permitiram ao Facebook aceitar os anúncios enganosos.

Questionada pela Pública, a empresa disse que investe “recursos significativos para proteger o processo eleitoral de 2026 no Brasil – da transparência em publicidade, líder do setor, à aplicação de protocolos rigorosos para anúncios sobre questões sociais, eleições ou política – e continuaremos a fazê-lo.” Afirmou ainda que o relatório da Anistia Internacional se baseou em uma amostra pequena de anúncios que nunca foram publicados. “Não reflete a escala do nosso trabalho. Nosso processo de análise de anúncios possui diversas camadas de análise e detecção, antes e depois deles serem publicados”.  

Em seu site institucional, a empresa informa que usa inteligência artificial para identificar, nos anúncios, conteúdos que possam violar suas políticas. Em seguida, segundo a empresa, o conteúdo é avaliado automaticamente ou por revisores humanos e, quando uma violação é confirmada, são aplicadas medidas como remoção, restrição ou rejeição dos anúncios, de acordo com os Padrões da Comunidade da Meta. Este conjunto de regras, de acordo com a companhia, “é baseado no feedback de usuários e especialistas em tecnologia, segurança pública e direitos humanos”.

Em 2025, dias antes da posse do presidente dos Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, o CEO da Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, anunciou uma mudança drástica nas políticas de moderação de conteúdo e checagem de dados. Segundo ele, a intenção era combater uma suposta “censura” promovida por checadores “enviesados”, dos quais ele prometeu se livrar.

“O teste da Anistia aponta motivos para preocupação, sim. No Brasil, estamos diante de uma nova exigência que altera bastante a forma de condução dos negócios de todas as plataformas, não só da Meta”, avalia Fernando Neisser, professor de Direito Eleitoral da FGV/SP. Ele se refere ao julgamento do Supremo Tribunal Federal que revisou o Artigo 19 do Marco Civil da Internet e decidiu, em 2025, que as plataformas não precisam esperar decisões judiciais para derrubar conteúdos.

Neisser lembra ainda as novas obrigações impostas pelos planos de conformidade entregues pelas plataformas ao TSE na primeira quinzena de agosto de 2026. Segundo o professor, eles determinam a necessidade de verificação temática de publicidade paga por parte das empresas de tecnologia. Os planos ainda não foram divulgados na íntegra até o fechamento desta reportagem.

“Para certos assuntos, como pornografia infantil, a verificação é fácil de ser feita com filtro automatizado. Mas é muito difícil ainda filtrar de forma automatizada temas tão contextuais, como discurso de ódio e atos antidemocráticos”, avalia Neisser, que diz que a aplicação dessas regras na eleição deste ano é pouco provável. “É muito difícil exigir a criação de mecanismos num prazo tão curto. Eles foram pedidos basicamente às vésperas do início do processo eleitoral. Não é crível imaginar uma mudança de procedimentos em um prazo tão exíguo”.

Para Jurema Werneck, diretora-executiva da Anistia Internacional Brasil, a forma como a Meta lida com a desinformação também contribui para o modelo de negócios da empresa de Zuckerberg. “O experimento mostra que a Meta não está fazendo o suficiente para impedir que sua plataforma seja um vetor de desinformação, ao mesmo tempo em que continua lucrando com os sistemas de conteúdo e publicidade que possibilitam sua disseminação”.

*Atualização às 15h18 de 25/08/2026: Inserimos o retorno da Meta.

In July 2026, the price of fuels and lubricants for personal transport in the EU increased by 16.9% compared with July 2025. This followed year-on-year increases of 20.7% in May and 13.7% in June. 

In 25 of 27 EU countries, fuels and lubricants prices were higher in July 2026, compared with July 2025. In 13 countries, July annual increases were larger than those in June 2026. However, in most countries (24), the annual rate of change in July was lower than in May 2026, when 4 countries registered annual price increases exceeding 30%. 

In July 2026, compared with July 2025, the highest increases were recorded in Romania (+24.2%), Germany and Lithuania (+22.9% each), Bulgaria (+22.2%), the Netherlands (+22.0%) and Finland (+20.5%). Prices dropped slightly in Hungary (-0.1%), while the  lowest increases were recorded in Sweden (+1.2%) and Ireland (+3.2%). 

Click to enlarge

 Source dataset: prc_hicp_minr

Diesel prices up 4.3%, petrol up 4.7% compared with June 2026 

On a monthly basis, in July 2026, EU consumers saw diesel prices increase by 4.3% and petrol by 4.7%, compared with the previous month. In June 2026, diesel had dropped by 6.4%, and petrol by 4.2% relative to May 2026.

Between June and July 2026, diesel prices increased in 17 EU countries. The highest increases were registered in Poland (+13.4%), Germany (+12.7%) and Greece (+12.1%). The prices dropped in 9 EU countries, with the largest decreases in Cyprus (-7.9%), Sweden (-7.4%) and Ireland (-6.4%).

When it comes to petrol prices, 14 countries recorded increases and 12 countries recorded decreases in prices between June and July 2026. The largest increases were in Poland (+17.2%), Germany (+11.0%) and Spain (+7.1%), while the largest decreases were recorded in Sweden (-11.1%), Cyprus (-5.4%) and Ireland (-4.1%). 

Click to enlarge

Source dataset: prc_hicp_minr

For more information

• Thematic section on harmonized indices of consumer prices
• Database on harmonized indices of consumer prices
• Statistics explained articles on harmonized indices of consumer prices
• Visualizations on the harmonized index of consumer prices
• Webinar on consumer prices and inflation
• Statistics4beginners workbook on inflation
• Education Corner with videos and exercises, including on price statistics 
• Inflation explained to kids

Methodological notes

• This data comes from Eurostat data collection for the compilation of the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), which is used to measure inflation in the EU.  
• Fuel prices in Malta have been fixed since 2020, therefore there was no change.
• The ECOICOP version 2 codes used for this article were:
  • CP0722 - Fuels and lubricants for personal transport equipment
  • CP07221 - Diesel
  • CP07222 - Petrol

24 August 2026 marked Ukraine's 35th anniversary of its independence. This occasion embodies Ukrainians' bravery, resistance and resilience in the face of Russia's continuous and vicious war of aggression. It also symbolises their aspiration to be a democratic and European country. On the Independence Day, the European Commission reaffirms its unshakable solidarity and commitment to Ukraine's sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity. We continue standing with Ukraine in pursuing a comprehensive, just and lasting peace, and supporting their European path.

Over the past months, the EU has secured the first disbursements under the €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan to sustain the country's defence capabilities and reconstruction. The EU has also adopted the 21st package of sanctions further restricting Russia's ability to fund its illegal war and to carry out attacks on Ukrainian civilians and civilian infrastructure. In July 2026, President Ursula von der Leyen visited Kyiv, launching a new EU-Ukraine Defence Industrial Partnership and the EU-Ukraine Drone Deal, including an additional €1 billion in support for drone production.

The EU is leading the efforts in terms of ensuring the recovery and long-term investment in Ukraine's economy, also confirmed at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in June. It is playing a crucial role in securing the return of Ukrainian children forcibly transferred or deported by Russia, as well as in holding Russia accountable for its crimes, including through the International Claims Commission and the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, the EU and its Member States have mobilised a total of €220.2 billion in humanitarian, financial, and military assistance to Ukraine and its people. Since 2024, the EU has made available €8 billion in proceeds generated by immobilised Russian Central Bank assets to support Ukraine, including €3.8 billion channelled through the European Peace Facility and the Ukraine Facility. The remaining part of the proceeds supports the repayment of G7 Extraordinary Revenue Acceleration loans through the Ukraine Loan Cooperation Mechanism.

More information on the EU's support for Ukraine is available on the webpage and factsheet.

On the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance of the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes on 23 August, Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen (pictured), and Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law, and Consumer Protection Commissioner Michael McGrath, issued the following statement:

“On 23 August, we commemorate the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. That pact, and the war and devastation that followed, brought intolerable suffering to millions of people across Europe and beyond. The years that followed were marked by occupation, repression, deportation and violence on a massive scale.

"Today, we honour the memory of all those who have suffered under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. The pain endured by victims, survivors and their families echoes across generations. Every EU country is now home to a generation that has grown up free from tyranny and oppression. For many, freedom, democracy and peace may appear self-evident, but they are not. They were secured through extraordinary courage, sacrifice, resistance and resilience, and they must never be taken for granted. Remembering the past is therefore not only a duty to those who came before us. It is also a responsibility to future generations.

"This day is a solemn reminder of the consequences of hatred, intolerance and the denial of human dignity. It calls on us to remain vigilant in defending the values on which the European Union is founded: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and fundamental rights. By preserving the memory of the past, we reaffirm our commitment to a Europe built on peace, justice and solidarity.”

The statement is available online.

Kazakhstan plans to commission 845 megawatts of new power generation capacity in 2027 as part of a broader effort to meet growing electricity demand and build a reserve in the national power system. The planned projects combine gas-fired generation with renewable energy, reflecting the country’s strategy to expand capacity through multiple sources rather than relying on a single type of generation. According to the Energy Ministry, the new facilities are expected to allow Kazakhstan to fully cover its electricity needs as early as the first quarter of 2027.

By the end of the year, the country expects to generate an electricity surplus of around 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours. The 2027 expansion follows a larger planned capacity increase in 2026, when Kazakhstan expects to commission around 2.6 gigawatts of new generation. This includes four gas-fired power plants, expansions of two existing power stations and 10 new renewable energy facilities.

Together, the plans suggest that the government is seeking not only to close the gap between electricity supply and demand, but also to create additional capacity that could provide greater flexibility for the power system.

Gas and renewables form the core of new capacity

Several conventional generation projects are scheduled to be completed in 2027.

Five gas turbine units at the Zhambyl State District Power Plant are expected to add a combined 210 MW. A combined-cycle gas plant at MAEK is planned to provide 160 MW, while the first stage of the Baskuat Energoprom project will add 34.7 MW through five gas piston units. Another combined-cycle plant, developed by Kazakhmys Energy, is expected to contribute 70 MW. At the same time, the government plans to continue expanding renewable generation, with projects totaling 570 MW.

These include a 100-MW solar power plant in the Almaty Region and three solar projects in the Kyzylorda Region with a combined capacity of 70 MW. Wind projects include two 100-MW facilities in the Aktobe Region, a 50-MW wind power plant in the Kyzylorda Region, another 50-MW project in the Turkistan Region and two wind facilities in the Abai Region with a combined capacity of 100 MW. The planned renewable projects account for a substantial part of the capacity expansion, while gas-fired facilities are intended to provide additional dispatchable generation. This mix is particularly important for a power system that needs both new electricity volumes and generation that can respond to changes in demand.

From meeting demand to building a reserve

The expected 1.3 billion kilowatt-hour surplus by the end of 2027 marks an important shift in the government’s projections. The objective is no longer limited to covering immediate electricity consumption but also includes creating a reserve that could strengthen the reliability of the national grid. However, installed generation capacity and actual electricity output are not identical. The amount of electricity ultimately available to the system will depend on factors including the operating performance of new plants, fuel supply, grid infrastructure and, in the case of wind and solar projects, weather conditions.

The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the creation of a joint venture by CMA CGM S.A. and TotalEnergies S.E., both of France.

The transaction relates primarily to LNG bunkering logistics services.

The Commission concluded that the notified transaction would not raise competition concerns, given that the joint venture will have negligible activities in the European Economic Area and given the companies' limited combined market positions resulting from the proposed transaction. The notified transaction was examined under the simplified merger review procedure.

More information is available on the Commission's competition website, in the public case register under the case number M.12406.

The European Commission has closed an antitrust investigation into alleged anticompetitive behaviour by Pratt & Whitney Canada Corp. (‘Pratt & Whitney'), the main supplier in the European Economic Area (‘EEA') of turboprop aircraft engines. The closure of the investigation follows the company's amendment of contractual clauses, which removes possible obstacles to access to critical input and services faced by spare parts suppliers. Spare parts are sold to customers in the EEA for the repair and maintenance of engines.

The Commission investigated whether Pratt & Whitney may have been foreclosing access to critical input and services needed by spare part suppliers, so-called used serviceable material (‘USM') suppliers, for certain turboprop aircraft engines. USM suppliers need access to used engine cores to tear them down and replenish their stock of spare parts. They also need access to certification services that attest that a spare part is airworthy and can be reused. By limiting the ability of maintenance shops in their network to sell used engine cores or provide certification services to USM suppliers, Pratt & Whitney may have restricted competition from independent USM suppliers. Following exchanges with the Commission, Pratt & Whitney amended its agreements to remove these restrictions and clarified that maintenance shops are not prevented from buying USM from other suppliers.

After thorough analysis and assessment of evidence, and considering the changes and clarifications made by Pratt & Whitney to its contractual clauses, the Commission concluded that the investigated concerns have been addressed. Further action is no longer considered a priority at EU level. Pratt & Whitney has made a public announcement on its website highlighting the changes made to its contractual clauses.

The closure of the investigation is not a finding that the conduct in question complied with EU competition rules.

Em um vídeo no TikTok, uma repórter pergunta a vários jovens em quem eles pretendem votar para presidente nas eleições deste ano. Todos respondem Lula e apresentam justificativas que vão desde a expectativa por mais oportunidades até relatos sobre sua origem humilde e a percepção de que o petista ajuda “gente como a gente”.

Em outro registro, uma idosa é abordada com a mesma pergunta. “Vou votar no Flávio [Bolsonaro], minha filha, porque o Brasil precisa de uma renovação de verdade na política para garantir segurança e um futuro melhor para nosso país”, responde.

As cenas parecem aquelas entrevistas de rua em formato rápido, conhecidas no jargão jornalístico como “povo fala”. Popular em redes de vídeos curtos, o formato já foi apontado pelo próprio TikTok como uma das tendências de produção de conteúdo na plataforma em 2024.

A novidade é que, agora, nem os repórteres nem os eleitores desses vídeos são reais. Um levantamento do Aos Fatos identificou ao menos 50 conteúdos no TikTok que simulam entrevistas e depoimentos sobre os dois principais candidatos da corrida presidencial deste ano: Lula (PT) e Flávio Bolsonaro (PL).

Publicados antes do início oficial da propaganda eleitoral, nesta segunda-feira (17), os conteúdos acumulavam, até aquela data, 7,4 milhões de visualizações — e apresentavam como espontâneas opiniões produzidas artificialmente. Em 18% deles sequer havia indicação de que as pessoas retratadas haviam sido geradas por IA, contrariando as regras da plataforma sobre conteúdos manipulados.

Especialistas ouvidos por Aos Fatos afirmam que a legislação eleitoral proíbe o uso de personagens fictícios gerados por IA, mas a responsabilização se torna mais complexa quando os vídeos são produzidos por terceiros, sem vínculo aparente com as campanhas.

O TikTok disse nesta sexta-feira (21) que removeu todos os conteúdos identificados por Aos Fatos por violarem as diretrizes da plataforma sobre mídia editada e conteúdo gerado por IA. Veja a íntegra da resposta da empresa no final desta reportagem.

‘Já decidiu seu voto?’

Nas falsas entrevistas, personagens declaram voto, elogiam candidatos ou explicam por que rejeitam determinado nome da disputa presidencial. Nos vídeos favoráveis a Lula, os eleitores artificiais se apresentam como beneficiários de políticas sociais ou atribuem ao petista melhorias em suas condições de vida.

Já nas peças pró-Bolsonaro, os falsos votantes associam o senador à renovação política e ao combate à corrupção e à criminalidade.

Outros conteúdos recorrem a estereótipos para atacar eleitores do PT. Neles, os personagens aparecem em locais insalubres — muitas vezes associados ao Nordeste —, vestem roupas sujas ou rasgadas e se dizem beneficiários de programas sociais, já que “não querem trabalhar”.

Os conteúdos manipulados também os representam como alheios à própria condição de vida: mesmo cercados por lixo ou vivendo em situações precárias, os falsos eleitores agradecem ao governo pelos benefícios recebidos e declaram apoio a Lula.

Para Leandro Petrin, especialista em direito eleitoral e sócio do escritório Callado, Petrin, Paes & Cezar Advogados, vídeos de supostos cidadãos comuns apoiando ou rejeitando uma candidatura podem sugerir que determinada opinião é compartilhada espontaneamente por uma parcela da sociedade.

“Um vídeo que simula um eleitor que não existe e atribui a esse personagem fictício uma declaração de voto não é apenas propaganda: é a fabricação de um fato social que nunca ocorreu”, explica.

Rogério Silva de Vargas, secretário-judiciário do TRE-RS (Tribunal Regional Eleitoral do Rio Grande do Sul), vai além e classifica conteúdos do tipo como fraude lesiva ao processo eleitoral, pois visam “iludir, confundir ou ludibriar o eleitorado” para conferir vantagem indevida.

O levantamento do Aos Fatos reuniu conteúdos encontrados por meio de buscas no TikTok e de recomendações feitas pela própria plataforma durante o monitoramento. Embora a maioria das contas não reúna grandes audiências individualmente, os 50 vídeos analisados somavam 7,4 milhões de visualizações.

Os primeiros registros identificados foram publicados em março, meses antes do início oficial da propaganda eleitoral. O volume começou a aumentar em junho e se concentrou sobretudo em julho e na primeira quinzena de agosto, período que coincide com a intensificação do calendário das eleições.

Aos Fatos não encontrou indícios aparentes de que as contas responsáveis pelos conteúdos tenham ligações com as campanhas de Lula ou Flávio Bolsonaro. A maior parte deles foi publicada por páginas dedicadas à produção de vídeos com inteligência artificial, entre eles perfis que simulam podcasts.

Há também contas voltadas para a produção de conteúdo político ou de apoio a determinado candidato, mas sem vínculo aparente com partidos ou campanhas.

O uso de personagens sintéticos na disputa já chegou à Justiça Eleitoral neste ano. Em abril, o PT acionou o TSE (Tribunal Superior Eleitoral) contra Dona Maria, personagem fictícia criada com IA que acumulou milhões de visualizações com críticas ao partido e ao governo Lula. A sigla pediu a suspensão do perfil sob a alegação de propaganda eleitoral antecipada negativa e disseminação de desinformação.

Legislação proíbe prática

O uso de inteligência artificial para simular depoimentos de votantes inexistentes não está fora do alcance das regras eleitorais. A Resolução 23.610/2019 do TSE proíbe o uso eleitoral de conteúdos sintéticos em áudio ou vídeo que criem ou manipulem a imagem ou a voz de pessoas vivas, falecidas ou fictícias.

A regra, portanto, não se restringe às deepfakes tradicionais, que atribuem falas ou comportamentos falsos a pessoas reais. “É uma irregularidade eleitoral, seja em formato de áudio ou de vídeo, seja para criar a imagem [ou a voz] de uma pessoa fictícia ou de uma pessoa real”, afirma Marcos Rafael Coelho, secretário-judiciário do TRE-MS (Tribunal Regional Eleitoral do Mato Grosso do Sul).

Isso não significa que qualquer vídeo com personagens gerados por IA deva ser automaticamente considerado ilícito. Marcos Jorge, coordenador jurídico do escritório Wilton Gomes Advogados, explica que é necessário verificar se o conteúdo foi produzido ou divulgado para favorecer ou prejudicar determinada candidatura.

A proibição também vale para conteúdos publicados antes do início oficial da propaganda eleitoral, em 16 de agosto. Segundo Jorge, durante a pré-campanha, a prática pode ser enquadrada como propaganda eleitoral por meio de proscrito — ou seja, pelo emprego antecipado de uma forma de propaganda que seria proibida durante a campanha.

A data da publicação tampouco impede que esses vídeos voltem a circular. O sistema de recomendação do TikTok seleciona conteúdos de acordo com as interações do usuário e informações do vídeo. Assim, uma gravação publicada meses antes pode voltar a ser recomendada já durante o período eleitoral.

Questionado por Aos Fatos, o TSE afirmou que não se manifesta sobre temas ou casos que possam vir a ser ou são objetos de análise na Justiça Eleitoral.

Responsabilidades

O fato dos conteúdos não terem vínculo aparente com candidatos ou campanhas não impede que haja irregularidade.

“Perfis de terceiros respondem civil e penalmente pelo conteúdo que produzem e publicam, independentemente de qualquer relação com candidatos. Sem esse vínculo, a resposta tende a ficar no campo da remoção de conteúdo e da responsabilização individual do autor, não alcançando as sanções mais severas do direito eleitoral (multa a candidato, cassação)”, afirma Petrin.

O cenário muda quando há evidências comprováveis de participação, contratação, financiamento, orientação ou conhecimento prévio da campanha. A depender da gravidade e da repercussão, o caso pode ser analisado pela justiça eleitoral sob a perspectiva de abuso de poder ou uso indevido dos meios de comunicação.

Rafael Maciel, sócio e head de inteligência artificial e proteção de dados do Lara Martins Advogados, pontua que há muitas dificuldades práticas para distinguir uma manifestação produzida de forma independente por um apoiador de uma ação coordenada com uma campanha.

Maciel explica ainda que as plataformas também estão sujeitas a obrigações previstas pelas regras eleitorais, como restrições à publicidade com IA, identificação de conteúdos sintéticos e deveres de diligência diante de publicações irregulares.

Segundo o especialista, as redes sociais não respondem automaticamente pelo conteúdo produzido por terceiros, mas podem ser responsabilizadas por falhas próprias, como o descumprimento de notificações ou decisões judiciais e deficiências nos mecanismos de segurança e moderação.

Aviso de IA não libera conteúdo

A presença de um aviso de que o vídeo foi produzido com inteligência artificial também não afasta a irregularidade, já que a resolução do TSE diferencia os usos permitidos de IA, sujeitos a regras de transparência, dos conteúdos sintéticos proibidos para fins eleitorais.

A regra exige que a fabricação ou manipulação seja informada de forma explícita e destacada, explica Coelho, secretário-judiciário do TRE-MS. “Mas quando se criam pessoas fictícias, como se fossem falsos eleitores dando depoimentos, aí a prática já entra na segunda camada porque ela é absolutamente proibida. Não importa se tem um rótulo falando que a inteligência é artificial”, ressaltou.

Marcos Jorge chama atenção ainda para outra questão: dizer apenas que um vídeo foi gerado por IA não necessariamente deixa claro ao usuário que o entrevistado não existe, que a entrevista nunca ocorreu e que a opinião apresentada não é de uma pessoa real.

As consequências podem se tornar mais graves quando o conteúdo sintético é empregado para disseminar desinformação ou atacar adversários.

Nesses casos, outras infrações podem se somar ao uso irregular de IA. Coelho explica que o emprego da tecnologia para atacar candidatos com desinformação ou discurso de ódio pode resultar em multas e, quando houver envolvimento ou responsabilização da candidatura beneficiada, ter consequências mais graves.

A depender das circunstâncias, a prática pode ainda ser entendida como uso indevido dos meios de comunicação social, com sanções que podem chegar à cassação de registro ou diploma e à inelegibilidade.

Porém, a aplicação dessas penalidades depende da comprovação da responsabilidade da candidatura e da gravidade da conduta.

Outro lado

Procurado pelo Aos Fatos, o TikTok informou que removeu todos os conteúdos enviados pela reportagem por violarem suas diretrizes sobre mídia editada e conteúdo gerado por inteligência artificial.

A plataforma afirmou que exige que os criadores sinalizem conteúdos sintéticos e que, mesmo quando rotulados, remove materiais que violem suas regras. Entre os conteúdos proibidos estão aqueles gerados ou significativamente editados por IA que possam induzir usuários ao erro sobre assuntos de interesse público ou simular material proveniente de uma fonte jornalística real.

A empresa também destacou as ações adotadas para as eleições de 2026 e afirmou que, durante o período eleitoral, seu foco “permanece em garantir a segurança das pessoas e proteger a integridade do TikTok”.

A senior political figure has questioned whether the continued detention of the Mayor of Albania’s capital city is “strictly necessary”.

Erion Veliaj (pictured) has remained nominally in office as mayor of Tirana despite being held in what is known as pre-trial detention (PTD) since February 2025.

He is accused of corruption and money laundering but strongly denies any wrong doing.

The latest in a protracted series of court cases takes place on 15 September when his case will be considered by Albania’s Supreme Court.

This comes after the country’s Constitutional Court recently called for a review as required by Albania's constitution.

The hearing has assumed particular importance as it is a review of both his pretrial detention and its proportionality.

The mayor’s local lawyer Plarent Ndreca said that following the Constitutional Court's judgment "the legal basis for maintaining Mr Veliaj in detention has fundamentally changed.”

In an exclusive interview with this website,  a senior figure with the European Democratic Party, a pan-European political party, said the case “raises serious questions of necessity and proportionality.”

Sandro Gozi, the party’s Secretary-General and also a senior French MEP with Renew Europe, a mainstream group in the European Parliament, questioned if his continued detention may be “excessive.”

This website asked Gozi what specific concerns he had about the case.

He said: “Let me be very clear: fighting corruption is essential, particularly in a country seeking EU membership, and asking for respect for the rule of law can never mean asking for impunity.

“Serious allegations must be investigated and prosecuted independently, whoever is involved. But the rule of law also means proportionality, due process and the presumption of innocence.”

He pointed out that Veliaj has been in pre-trial detention since February 2025, adding, “and after such a long period it is legitimate to ask whether continued detention remains strictly necessary or whether alternative measures could be used.”

Some have argued the case “shines a light” on current flaws in the judiciary and rule of law in Albania.

On this,Gozi, secretary general since 2021, said , “One case cannot define an entire judicial system, and Albania has made important progress in fighting corruption.”

He added, “However, there is a broader issue that deserves attention: Council of Europe SPACE data show that 58% of Albania's prison population was being held without a final sentence, the highest proportion in Europe, compared with a European average of 29%.

“The same analysis notes that very high levels of pre-trial detention can be associated with slow proceedings or an excessive reliance on detention as a precautionary measure.”

The MEP said: “These are concerns Albania should address as part of its European path.”

Albania is a leading front runner to join the EU, possibly as soon as 2030, and has been widely lauded by the 27-strong bloc and others, including MEPs, for closing most of the negotiating chapters required for EU membership although some caution that ongoing issues with its judiciary may slow progress towards accession.

Gozi, a member of Mouvement Democrate in France, said: “I strongly support Albania's European perspective, but accession must remain merit-based.

“No judicial system is perfect, including those of existing member states, but respect for the rule of law, judicial independence and fundamental rights must be firmly guaranteed before accession,” added the Euro deputy, who chairs the Delegation to the EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly.

Asked about the use of PTD in the case of the mayor, not least as an elected official, and also the time taken for his case to come to trial,he said, “Eighteen months of pre-trial detention is an extremely long period and raises serious questions of necessity and proportionality.

“This concern remains entirely unchanged regardless of Mr Veliaj’s political position.”

The MEP, who is from Italy and was former Undersecretary of State for European Affairs in the Matteo Renzi and Paolo Gentiloni governments, declined to be drawn the length of time the case was taking to come to court, saying: “I will not speculate on allegations concerning an independent court.”

The European Democratic Party also recently posted a statement on the case which pointed out the mayor had been as been in PTD since 10 February 2025 —  a year and a half.

The statement adds that formal charges were notified only in July 2025, after 163 days in detention and that, recently, Albania’s Constitutional Court overturned a Supreme Court decision and ordered a new review of his detention “questioning its proportionality in light of his mandate as Tirana’s democratically elected mayor”.

It goes on: “We join those calling on the Albanian authorities to uphold the rule of law, the presumption of innocence and the principle of proportionality. This case comes against a deeply concerning backdrop for Albanian democracy.

“We will keep the spotlight on it, because Albania deserves a European future — one that is fully democratic, transparent and firmly committed to fighting corruption, while guaranteeing that justice is always exercised with fairness, independence and respect for fundamental rights.”

European Democratic Party members include Renew Europe MEPs and, in 2025, RE “strongly condemned” what it called the “politically motivated” arrest on corruption charges against another elected official: Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev.

Speaking earlier this year, RE Lithuanian MEP Petras Auštrevičius, the European Parliament's rapporteur on enlargement, highly praised Albania's reform effort but said that concerns regarding pre-trial detention practices in Albania "demonstrate precisely why judicial reforms must deliver real results.”

Ben Brandon, of Mishcon de Reya LLP, is one of Veliaj's international counsel based in London. He is just returned from Tirana where he was able to visit the mayor in prison for the first time since the official's arrest.

Speaking to this site,  Brandon said: "We have long argued that Erion Veliaj's pre-trial detention is unnecessary and disproportionate. Until the Constitutional Court examined his case, no court in Albania properly considered the relevance of his status and responsibilities as the democratically elected Mayor of Albania's capital city, or the available alternatives to detention. The Supreme Court has been directed to re-examine the proportionality of his continued detention by the Constitutional Court on 15 September.

“We hope that the Supreme Court will follow the clear reasoning of the superior court, correct the obvious errors that have been made in Mayor Veliaj's case over the past 18 months, and release him immediately."

Currently, there are local media reports that a separate investigation has now been opened against the Mayor, focused on expenses, though this has not been confirmed.

With the clock ticking on Albania seeking to close its last remaining EU negotiating chapters, some argue it is not a coincidence there has been a perceived crackdown in the justice sphere, with a spate of cases brought against high profile public figures and elected officials, including Veliaj.

Veliaj’s case is not the only one to have captured the Albanian media’s attention in recent times, with a former environment minister among those charged with corruption.

However, for Veliaj the most immediate concern is his detention at a centre close to the Albanian coast.

His local lawyer points out it is not the first time concern has been raised about the use of pre-trial detention in Albania with most recent data showing that  about 58 per cent of its prison population, approximately, 2,653 people, are held in remand, a rate up to five times higher than the EU average.

PTD is said to frequently be used for crimes like corruption but Veliaj and his lawyers argue that to detain someone for so long – the average stay is 253 days  – is “highly unusual” unless it is a case relating to drug trafficking, organised crime and/or terrorism.

The spotlight has, to some extent, also fallen on the organisation in Albania charged with the task of rooting out corruption and tackling serious crime.

SPAK, as it’s commonly referred to, has been widely praised for its concerted efforts in this regard and has been hailed by many for its work, including by the European Parliament’s rapporteur on Albania, Socialist MEP Andreas Schieder, as being “essential”, not least in helping to fulfil the country’s pre-accession reforms.

The MEP has, in the past, said SPAK was playing a “crucial role” in the fight against corruption and “shows the Albanian government is taking this task very seriously”.

Asked to comment on the Veliaj case a SPAK spokesman said: “We can confirm that the Special Prosecution Office has concluded its investigation and has formally submitted the case for trial before the Special Court Against Corruption and Organised Crime (GJKKO), where proceedings are now under way.Any submissions relating to these matters should be made directly to the Court (GJKKO), in accordance with the procedures and timeframes set out under the Criminal Procedure Code.”

The comment was made in July and, at the time of going to press, no-one from SPAK had replied to a most recent query from this site.

More than 5,500 participants from over 80 countries are expected to gather in Kazakhstan’s capital on 9-10 September for the ninth Astana Finance Days (AFD) 2026 forum, hosted by the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC). The forum will bring together investors, representatives of the financial and technology sectors, regulators, government and quasi-state institutions, and international businesses.

Since its launch in 2018, Astana Finance Days has developed into one of the region’s major financial forums, providing a platform for discussions on capital markets, investment and financial cooperation. The 2026 program will focus on capital markets and investment products, regulation and market confidence, institutional innovation, financing the real economy, and regional and cross-border capital cooperation. Confirmed speakers include Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development Zhaslan Madiyev, National Bank Governor Timur Suleimenov, Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan Chairperson Yelena Bakhmutova and Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States Kubanychbek Omuraliev.

Representatives from international financial institutions and global companies are also expected to participate, including the Islamic Development Bank Institute, Freedom Holding, Binance, Mastercard, Bloomberg and the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The forum will feature the AFD Exhibition, bringing together financial institutions, banks, investment and asset management companies, as well as fintech and technology projects. According to the AIFC, the event will provide participants with opportunities to discuss global financial trends, explore investment and business opportunities, and establish contacts with investors, company executives and industry leaders.

The forum will also highlight business development opportunities within the AIFC ecosystem, featuring case studies on company growth, capital raising and expansion into international markets. For Kazakhstan, which is seeking to strengthen its position as a financial hub connecting Central Asia with global markets, the forum provides an opportunity to bring global investors and financial institutions into closer contact with the region.

Issue 639: A study shows that seagrass meadows have the capacity to be one of the largest carbon sinks among plant ecosystems, with the Mediterranean holding the highest seagrass biomass carbon stock per hectare.

Seagrass meadows, formed by densely growing flowering plants such as Posidonia, Zostera and Thalassia in shallow waters, are key coastal ecosystems. As well as offering important habitat for marine biodiversity, seagrass plays a crucial role in mitigating climate change through carbon storage.

However, these ecosystems are under threat from coastal development, pollution, eutrophication, and climate change, with implications for global carbon stocks. At EU level, conserving and improving seagrass meadows falls under wider legislation such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and Nature Restoration Regulation. The EU has also funded research and innovation projects looking at various threats facing seagrass, and published its Blue Carbon Road Map, which moves towards including ‘blue carbon’ – the carbon stored by coastal vegetation such as seagrasses, tidal marshes, mangroves and seaweeds – in carbon and nature credit schemes (e.g. via the Road Map towards Nature Credits). Additionally, the UN has called for a redoubling of efforts on seascape restoration to maximise the potential of blue carbon for climate change mitigation.

Much research has focused on how seagrass promotes the accumulation of organic carbon in seabed soils, as opposed to in plant material above and below the soil. Its net primary productivity (NPP) – the amount of organic carbon the plants absorb minus their own respiration – also deserves more attention, say the researchers behind a new study looking at the importance of seagrass meadows in global carbon stocks.

To better understand the role of seagrass in carbon cycling, researchers in Spain analysed a 2023 dataset on seagrass meadow structure, biomass and NPP, drawn from a major literature review covering 1975–2020. They supplemented this with their own review of studies containing original data, including previously unidentified sources. They assigned data points to global seagrass bioregions and compared above- and below-ground biomass and NPP across different types of seagrass (genera) and in different regions.

They estimated global seagrass carbon biomass at 24-40 megatonnes (Mt) – among the highest plant organic carbon stocks on Earth – with NPP fixing 83-137 Mt of carbon annually. Both metrics varied widely by area, bioregion and country. The Mediterranean had the highest seagrass biomass carbon stock per hectare, followed by the Tropical Indo-Pacific and Atlantic, while NPP was highest in the Temperate Southern, North Pacific and North Atlantic East bioregions. With this in mind, the Mediterranean offers a significant opportunity to maximise the climate benefit of blue carbon strategies through targeted conservation and restoration measures.

They reported substantial differences between genera in carbon biomass stocks, with the highest, Posidonia, holding 50 times more carbon biomass than Halophila, the lowest. Long-lived, large, and persistent seagrass species within the genera Posidonia, Enhalus and Thalassia predominate in bioregions such as the Mediterranean and the Tropical Atlantic, contributing to higher biomass carbon stocks per hectare compared to bioregions such as the Temperate North Atlantic and Pacific, which are dominated by relatively small opportunistic (Zostera, Cymodocea) or colonising (Halophila, Ruppia) genera. However, regions dominated by more transient species still play a significant role in the carbon cycle as they have exceptionally high NPP, exceeding that of regions with larger overall biomass.

Based on the study’s estimates, Australia has the highest annual CO₂ emissions from seagrass loss, accounting for 52% of the global total – followed by Spain, Mexico, Italy and the United States. Targeted conservation efforts in these countries would therefore have the most notable impact in delivering the greatest CO₂ mitigation.

Meanwhile, although net seagrass losses in the Temperate North Atlantic East region are high, the associated emissions are relatively low due to a) the limited biomass carbon storage capacity of the dominant seagrass types in this region (Zostera), and b) their limited extent compared to other bioregions. Emissions within the Temperate North Pacific and North Atlantic West bioregions were negligible due to the absence of net seagrass meadow loss in these areas.

The results suggest that the biomass of persistent, long-lived seagrasses should be included in carbon accounting (assuming that conservation and restoration actions contribute to maintaining these carbon pools in a steady state condition, so they are not lost). The researchers note that there are challenges to scientists’ ability to ‘measure’ organic carbon stocks, with extreme variation between locations and stocks changing over time – as illustrated by the broad estimates in the research. Despite this limitation, the improved data published in this study could inform new frameworks for climate mitigation through carbon sequestration, with the work providing a 91% increase in seagrass biomass data and adding data from previously underrepresented regions. 

Reference: 

Gomis, E., Strydom, S., Foster, N.R., Montemayor, D., Mateo, M.A., Serrano, E., Inostroza, K., McCallum, R., Lafratta, A., Webster, C.L., O’Dea, C.M., Said, N.E., Dunham, N., Bernasconi, R., Werner, A., Vitelli, F., Puigcorbé, V., D’Cruz, A., Salinas, C., McMahon, K.M., Hyndes, G.A., Lavery, P.S., Pessarrodonoa, A., Duarte, C.M., Serrano, O., 2025. Global estimates of seagrass blue carbon stocks in biomass and net primary production. Nature Communications, 16(1), p.9530. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-64667-6

To cite this article/service:

'Science for Environment Policy': European Commission DG Environment News Alert Service, edited by the Science Communication Unit, The University of the West of England, Bristol.

Notes on content:

The contents and views included in Science for Environment Policy are based on independent, peer reviewed research and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission. Please note that this article is a summary of only one study. Other studies may come to other conclusions.

The Commission adopted a legislative proposal to simplify Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 on Energy Labelling and Regulation (EU) 2020/740 on Tyre Labelling on 24 June 2026 (COM (2026) 565 final). The objective of this proposal is to ensure simpler and more effective implementation of the rules without undermining the original policy objectives that give customers the right to have energy and tyre labels in display at the point of sale. 

This adopted act and its accompanying impact assessment are now open for feedback for a period of 8 weeks until 15 October 2026. All feedback received will be summarised by the European Commission and presented to the European Parliament and Council with the aim of feeding into the legislative debate. 

You can provide your feedback here: Energy-efficient product legislation – Omnibus simplification

Register for the 2026 Internal Audit Service Conference 

Registration is still open.  Join us on 11 September 2026 in Brussels and experience face‑to‑face networking opportunities with with Europe’s leading internal‑audit professionals.

The European Commission’s Internal Audit Service (IAS) will host its annual conference on 11 September 2026, in Brussels at the Charlemagne building.

This year’s theme is  Internal Audit in Motion: Keeping Pace with a Changing Europe and will feature keynote speakers, three discussion panels, and a TEDx-style session to examine the challenges of internal audit in the public sector within an increasingly complex environment. The programme will cover:

• The transformation of the EU budget and new MFF 
• The impact of technology on the future of internal audit work 
• Organisational culture and adding value via internal audit

The conference is open to all Commission officials as well as external professionals with an interest in internal audit and can be attended in person or online. CPE points will be awarded for participation and registration is free.

The Commission looks forward to welcoming you to an insightful and engaging day of discussions on the future of internal audit in the European Commission.

Programme and registration

The European Commission has approved a €4.5 million German state aid scheme for fishing and aquaculture companies facing increased fuel prices due to the Middle East crisis.

The scheme was approved under the Middle East Crisis Temporary State Aid Framework (METSAF) adopted by the Commission on 29 April 2026.

The German scheme

Germany notified to the Commission a €4.5 million scheme to support companies active in the primary production of fishery and aquaculture products. The scheme, which will run until 31 December 2026, aims to mitigate the impact of the increase in fuel prices.

The aid will take the form of direct grants. The scheme concerns the grant of a limited amount of aid based on the increase of fuel prices. The aid intensity corresponds to 70% of the estimated increase in fuel costs for fishery and aquaculture companies during the period from 1 March until 23 July 2026. The aid will not exceed €50,000 per company.

The Commission assessed the scheme under EU State aid rules, in particular Article 107(3)(c) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which enables member states to support the development of certain economic activities subject to certain conditions, as well as Sections 1 and 2.1 of the METSAF.

The Commission found that the scheme is in line with the conditions set out in the METSAF. In particular, aid will be granted based on a scheme with a clear estimated budget and will be provided to temporarily support the development of companies active in primary production of fishery and aquaculture products. The Commission concluded that the scheme is necessary, appropriate and proportionate to facilitate the development of an economic activity and does not adversely affect trading conditions to an extent contrary to the common interest.

On this basis, the Commission approved the German scheme under EU State aid rules.

Background

On 29 April 2026, the Commission adopted the METSAF to enable member states to support the EU economy in the context of the Middle East crisis. The METSAF is a targeted and temporary framework to address the effects of the crisis on some of the most exposed sectors of the economy: agriculture, fishery, transport and energy-intensive industries. The METSAF will be in place until 31 December 2026. During its period of application, the Commission will keep the content, scope and duration of the framework under review in the light of developments in the Middle East and of the general economic situation.

While the transition towards a clean economy remains the long-term solution to shield EU companies from the effects of global energy shocks, the METSAF allows member states to act immediately to make sure that the growth of the most exposed companies is not irreparably hampered by the current crisis.

To this end, support can take various forms for companies active in the agriculture, fishery and transport sectors. This includes aid based on actual consumption to cover part of the price increases for fuel or fertilisers, and a simplified approach for small amounts of aid.

The METSAF also includes a temporary adjustment to the Clean Industrial Deal State aid Framework allowing for further flexibility and higher aid intensities to address electricity price spikes.

More information on the METSAF can be found online.

For more information

The non-confidential version of today's decision will be made available under case number SA.124349, in the state aid register on the Commission's competition website. New publications of state aid decisions on the internet and in the Official Journal are listed in the Competition Weekly e-News. 

Related topics

Competition

State aid

The European Commission has published an updated version of the guidance document to help stakeholders prepare for the implementation of the Digital Batteries Passport under Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 concerning batteries and waste batteries.

The Guidance Document: Digital Batteries Passport – data points by category provides a structured overview of the data points relevant to electric vehicle (EV) batteries, light means of transport (LMT) batteries and industrial batteries covered by the passport requirement. For each battery category, it indicates whether individual data points are mandatory, optional, applicable only in specific circumstances, or do not have to be completed or displayed as of February 2027, when the Batteries Passport requirements will begin to apply. In total, the document brings together 71 data points, showing their legal sources and their applicability to each battery category.

Supporting industry preparations

The guidance is intended primarily for economic operators across the batteries value chain, including manufacturers, importers and other organizations responsible for making information available through the Batteries Passport. It may also be useful for conformity assessment bodies, market surveillance authorities and other stakeholders involved in implementing the Batteries Regulation.

By bringing the relevant data points together in a single document, the guidance aims to promote a common understanding of the Batteries Passport information requirements and a consistent approach across the sector. It can help organisations identify the information they may need to collect, assess and make available, and begin aligning their internal processes, data systems and reporting practices.

From 18 February 2027, each EV battery, each LMT battery and each industrial battery with a capacity greater than 2 kWh that is placed on the market or put into service shall have a battery passport.

How to use the guidance

The guidance should be read together with Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 and any relevant delegated or implementing acts. It does not introduce additional legal requirements and should not be regarded as an authoritative interpretation of the legislation or as representing the European Commission’s official position. The document may be developed further as implementation progresses. Future updates may provide further clarification of individual data points and indicate possible measurement units or reporting formats, supporting greater comparability and consistency.

È celebre la definizione di capitalismo di Joseph Schumpeter: distruzione creatrice.

L’ansia di fare tabula rasa, di ri-creare il mondo senza limiti a immagine e somiglianza del febbrile tipo umano del capitalista/imprenditore animato dal desiderio di innovare per guadagnare e dominare ha raggiunto il suo apice con lo sviluppo della tecnologia informatica ed elettronica.

L’ultima tendenza è rendere ogni cosa immateriale, una bolla tecnica controllata da chi ha scoperto i segreti dell’ordine naturale e li piega ai propri interessi. Di dominio ben più che di arricchimento.

Si può affermare che la nuova geopolitica ha per oggetto il controllo prima, il superamento poi della creatura umana. Lo strumento più raffinato, l’innovazione più disruptiva (ciò che spezza una continuità, interrompe un processo o produce un cambiamento improvviso e radicale) è l’Intelligenza Artificiale.

Siamo arrivati al punto che l’IA, ossia i suoi padroni, gli Altman, i Karp, i Thiel e pochi altri, stanno distruggendo a tappe forzate il patrimonio comune più alto dell’umanità, i libri, che custodiscono e trasmettono il sapere umano.

Anthropic, Open AI, Palantir e le altre aziende tese all’onnipotenza tecnologica, compresa Amazon, acquistano biblioteche intere, specie testi rari e antichi, si appropriano delle ultime copie di manuali tecnici, scientifici, storici, filosofici e di ogni altro testo utile ai loro fini; scansionano il contenuto e poi lo distruggono.

Immagazzinare fisicamente libri cartacei costa troppo, meglio cancellare la traccia di millenni di conoscenza umana dopo averla messa a disposizione dei modelli previsionali e predittivi – gli LLM, large linguistic model – dell’Intelligenza Artificiale.

Sapere non è più per tutti, ma oligopolio di un grumo di giganti privati. Forse l’ossessione di Peter Thiel per la figura biblica dell’Anticristo è un capitolo ulteriore del mondo al contrario.

Per il tecnocrate filosofo l’Anticristo contemporaneo è la resistenza all’accelerazione tecnologica e alle sue possibilità. Lucida follia rovesciata di geni ossessionati dal dominio e dalla propria personale caducità.

Non è certo la prima volta che i libri, il lascito ai posteri di ogni ambito della cultura, sono oggetto di distruzione. Sono noti il rogo di testi storici e filosofici ordinato dal primo imperatore cinese nel 213 a.C, la distruzione della biblioteca di Alessandria – summa della sapienza antica – da parte dell’invasore maomettano nel VII secolo, il falò delle vanità (arte, libri, abiti, gioielli) dell’allucinato Savonarola nella Firenze di fine secolo XV, l’incendio nazista nel 1933, la distruzione di libri imposta da Mao Tze Tung negli anni tragici della cosiddetta rivoluzione culturale.

In Fahrenheit 451, distopia letteraria di Ray Bradbury ambientata nell’America del XXI secolo, i libri sono vietati e un corpo specializzato ha il compito di rintracciare gli ultimi esemplari per distruggerli.

Ma ciò che viene compiuto dalla cupola tecnocratica e tecnolatrica padrone dell’IA è del tutto inusitato, non solo nelle modalità.

La cultura viene sottratta alla fruizione libera, acquisita per nutrire l’IA e poi distrutta per motivazioni economiche e ostentare il monopolio assoluto sulla conoscenza: padroni del passato per dominare il presente e ipotecare il futuro.

Tutto diviene semplice traccia elettronica, teoricamente indelebile, trasferita nei magazzini virtuali, i clouds, le nuvole elettroniche che uniscono la potenza di calcolo dei grandi data center agli algoritmi di apprendimento automatico.

Tutto viene sottratto all’umanità che ha prodotto per millenni conoscenza per accumulo di esperienze; tutto diventa “cosa loro”. Non si perde completamente, come nei roghi antichi, ma è privatizzata.

Sarà disponibile a discrezione, scegliendo con cura chi avrà accesso, perché, a che scopo e a quale prezzo.

Si chiama “progetto Panama”, sino a pochissimo tempo fa negato e secretato. L’intero scibile umano si trasforma in materiale disponibile, il Bestand di Heidegger, ma solo per la tecno oligarchia dominatrice del tempo presente.

Non si sfugge alla prigione tecnocratica, si diventa plastilina nelle mani di chi è in grado di nascondere o rendere fruibile il sapere secondo interesse o capriccio.

A noi resta un nichilismo smemorato, spensierato, colmato a richiesta e dietro pagamento attraverso lo schermo dello smartphone e la scatola magica dell’Intelligenza Artificiale, cornucopia postmoderna della dea Atalanta.

Forse chi scrive parla pro domo sua, in quanto autore di oltre dieci libri, ma vorrebbe che l’oblio di ciò che ha scritto e pensato avvenisse per scelta e per la legge del tempo, non per sottrazione deliberata da parte di pochi potenti che si appropriano di tutto, materiale e immateriale, lo immagazzinano nella dimensione virtuale e ne fanno oggetto di allenamento intensivo per il cervellone artificiale che oltrepassa tutte le intelligenze che una volta chiamavamo umane.

Non solo la cupola tecnocratica si impadronisce delle risorse del pianeta, acqua, fonti energetiche, porzioni sempre più ampie del territorio per dedicarle ai giganteschi apparati da alimentare continuamente, raffreddare, ingrandire a scapito dell’antiquata civiltà degli uomini e della persistenza dei viventi, ma la trasforma in trust privato della conoscenza e dell’intelligenza, destinata a decadere nel residuo homo (non più) sapiens. Schiavitù assoluta per de-umanizzazione.

È obsoleto anche lo studio di Howard Gardner sull’intelligenza umana. Le sue conclusioni verranno rinchiuse nel cloud, a disposizione esclusiva della tecnostruttura e dei suoi servi più eminenti?

Gardner identificò nove tipologie differenziate di intelligenza umana, più una decima, speculativa, ciascuna deputata a differenti settori del nostro agire.

Intelligenza logico-matematica; linguistica; spaziale; musicale; cinestetica o procedurale; interpersonale; intrapersonale; naturalistica; filosofico-esistenziale.

Dopo di lui, Antonio Battro e Percival J. Dunham identificarono una nuova tipologia, l’intelligenza digitale. Successivamente Gardner fece una sintesi delle abilità necessarie nell’età contemporanea proponendo una classificazione alternativa: intelligenza disciplinare, sintetica, creativa, rispettosa ed etica, dopo aver esaminato diverse attitudini, dall’intelligenza tecnologica a quella digitale, mercantile, emotiva e perfino spirituale.

Lo psicologo americano ha lavorato per il re Prussia? Probabilmente sì, se l’IA si appresta a sostituirci nelle decisioni, nelle iniziative, perfino in certi ambiti della creatività. Dunque, l’homo sapiens è una creatura fungibile, fastidiosa, perché ancora dotata di giudizio e raziocinio.

Perciò, dopo averla ridotta a puro impulso ed esecutrice immediata dei propri istinti con la cantilena dei “diritti”, i padroni universali hanno ogni interesse a ridurne il numero. Umanità inutile è un’espressione usata apertamente da Yuval Harari e Bill Gates.

Una volta incorporata nel magazzino universale dell’Intelligenza Artificiale l’intera produzione intellettuale e scientifica dell’uomo, messo da parte per inservibilità pratica il suo pensiero etico, morale, spirituale, bruciata o resettata ogni sua traccia, il mondo di Fahrenheit 451 sarà perfettamente realizzato.

La residuale futura umanità insipiens regredirà ad animale dalla scarsa dotazione istintuale, la nostra condizione primigenia. I più abili diventeranno cyber uomini al servizio della megamacchina.

E non ci sarà un Guy Montag ribelle a salvare i libri, accaparrati dai signori dell’Intelligenza Artificiale.

Aveva ragione Martin Heidegger: solo un Dio ci può salvare. Ma lo vorrà?

L'articolo Se l’Intelligenza artificiale distrugge i libri proviene da Blondet & Friends.

The EU has spoken out in support of “all those who have suffered under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes”. This comes on the eve of the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance of the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes on 23 August. Ahead of the Day, senior EU political figures have issued a strongly-worded statement against “hatred, intolerance and the denial of human dignity. The statement was issued by the EC Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, and Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law, and Consumer Protection Commissioner Michael McGrath (pictured).

It reads: “On 23 August, we commemorate the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in 1939 between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “That pact, and the war and devastation that followed, brought intolerable suffering to millions of people across Europe and beyond. The years that followed were marked by occupation, repression, deportation and violence on a massive scale.”

It goes on: “Today, we honour the memory of all those who have suffered under totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. “The pain endured by victims, survivors and their families echoes across generations. Every EU country is now home to a generation that has grown up free from tyranny and oppression.

“For many, freedom, democracy and peace may appear self-evident, but they are not. They were secured through extraordinary courage, sacrifice, resistance and resilience, and they must never be taken for granted. Remembering the past is therefore not only a duty to those who came before us. It is also a responsibility to future generations.”

The statement continues: “This day is a solemn reminder of the consequences of hatred, intolerance and the denial of human dignity.

“It calls on us to remain vigilant in defending the values on which the European Union is founded: respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and fundamental rights.

"By preserving the memory of the past, we reaffirm our commitment to a Europe built on peace, justice and solidarity.”