Category Archives: Europe

Trump jokingly asked Rolex executives if tariffs prompted US Open invite, CEO says

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Rolex CEO stressed US president’s remarks were made ‘in jest’ in letter to Elizabeth Warren, who had raised concerns

Donald Trump asked Rolex executives if he would have been invited to watch this month’s US Open final from the luxury watchmaker’s VIP box had he imposed steep tariffs on Swiss exports weeks earlier.

The US president’s remarks were made “in jest”, stressed Jean-Frederic Dufour, the Rolex CEO, in a letter to Elizabeth Warren, the US senator who had raised questions about the decision to invite Trump – including whether the conglomerate was seeking to “curry favor” with the administration.

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EU to move forward with plans for drone wall amid Russian incursions

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Ministers aim to bolster defences after spate of airspace violations, amid rising momentum for €140bn loan to Ukraine

The EU has agreed to move forward with plans for a drone wall at the heart of its eastern defences as momentum grows for a €140bn loan to Ukraine based on Russian frozen assets.

After a meeting with ministers from 10 mostly central and eastern European member states plus Ukraine, the EU’s defence commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, said a drone wall to protect against incursions from the skies was an immediate priority and core element of the bloc’s eastern flank defences.

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Nicolas Sarkozy’s lawyers will try to ensure time in prison is ‘as short as possible’

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Former French president sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy over election campaign funds scheme with Gaddafi regime

Lawyers for the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy have said they will try to ensure he serves as little time in prison as possible, after he was sentenced to five years for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to get election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

“We’re going to make sure that his incarceration will be as short as possible,” Sarkozy’s lawyer, Jean-Michel Darrois, told the BFMTV news channel on Friday after he became the first French president to go to jail.

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‘History will remember who showed up’: Keir Starmer faces call to attend Cop30 summit

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Response from leaders and key climate figures comes after PM’s aides advised non-attendance over concerns Reform may attack him

Leading climate figures and Labour MPs have urged Keir Starmer to attend the crucial Cop30 climate summit this November, after aides advised him not to attend for fear of attracting the ire of the Reform party.

Simon Stiell, the UN’s climate chief, said: “Cop30 is where leaders are expected to come and roll up their sleeves, make deals to help their nation’s economy transition faster, creating more jobs, and guide the world on what next steps we take together.”

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New research may rewrite origins of the Book of Kells, says academic

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Exclusive: Author challenges assumption monks on Iona created manuscript, instead positing its origins are Pictish

The Book of Kells was likely to have been created 1,200 years ago in Pictish eastern Scotland, rather than on the island of Iona, according to research that challenges long-held assumptions about one of the world’s most famous medieval manuscripts.

The Book of Kells is an intricate, illuminated account of the four Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that was long thought to have been started in the late eighth century at the monastery on Iona before being taken in the 9th century to the monastery of Kells in County Meath, Ireland, after a Viking raid.

The Book of Kells by Victoria Whitworth (Bloomsbury Publishing, £35). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

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Iran snapback sanctions loom as UN security council set to vote on nuclear programme

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Russian efforts to delay the return of sanctions is expected to fail during vote on Friday

A final Russian attempt to defer the snapback of large-scale UN sanctions on Iran is expected to fail at the UN security council on Friday after European countries rejected last-minute Iranian offers to give UN weapons inspectors limited access to its bombed nuclear sites.

Russia will call for the reimposition of the sanctions to be deferred for six months to give more time for diplomacy, but European diplomats are confident that Russia will not get the nine votes it needs on the security council for the snapback to be deferred. The last time Russia put the same issue to a vote it received only four votes.

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European broadcasters to vote on expelling Israel from Eurovision 2026

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European Broadcasting Union says vote required after several nations threaten potential boycott

The European Broadcasting Union has confirmed it will hold an online vote in November that could see the Israeli broadcaster Kan expelled from next year’s Eurovision song contest.

In a letter sent to participating broadcasters on Thursday, the EBU president, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, wrote there was an “unprecedented diversity of views” on Israel’s participation in Eurovision, and the issue required “a broader democratic basis”.

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Sarkozy’s spectacular downfall marks turning point in France’s struggle against graft

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Experts say political legacy of former president convicted of criminal conspiracy now appears impossible to rebuild

When a Paris court handed Nicolas Sarkozy a five-year prison sentence on Thursday – for criminal conspiracy over a scheme to get election campaign funds from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi – it was a historic moment for modern France.

The rightwing Sarkozy, who served as president between 2007 and 2012, was known in office not just for his hard line on immigration and national identity but for championing harsher sentencing for delinquents. He is now expected to enter jail within a matter of months.

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Sarkozy says he will ‘sleep in jail but with head held high’ after conviction

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Former French president receives five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy over pact with Gaddafi regime

The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said he would “sleep in jail but with my head held high” after receiving a five-year prison sentence for criminal conspiracy – the first time a former head of state has been sent to prison in modern French history.

The verdict and sentencing followed a trial in which he and his aides were accused of making a corruption pact with the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi to receive funding for the 2007 French presidential election campaign.

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Why are Moldova’s parliamentary elections on Sunday so important?

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The background, key players and likely outcome of a contest of crucial interest to both Europe and Russia

Moldova will vote this Sunday in parliamentary elections that its president has described as the most important in the history of the small country. The results will confirm if Moldova, a former Soviet republic that gained independence in 1991, continues on its path of western integration, or moves back into Russia’s orbit.

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Paris court to rule on Nicolas Sarkozy corruption charge

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Former president and others accused of receiving millions of euros in illegal election funding from Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi

A Paris court is to rule whether the former French president Nicolas Sarkozy is guilty of receiving millions of euros in illegal election campaign funding from the regime of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, in the biggest political financing scandal in modern French history.

Judges will deliver their verdict on Thursday after the state prosecutor recommended a seven-year jail term for Sarkozy, who went on trial with 12 other people – including three former government ministers – accused of criminal conspiracy to receive funds from a foreign dictator. Sarkozy and the other accused have denied wrongdoing.

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‘Raring to go:’ the German remote-driving firm that hopes to make private car ownership redundant

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Europe has been slow to embrace robotaxis but Germany will allow remote-controlled rental cars from December

Having been summoned by a few clicks in an app, the electric car slows to a halt outside the former cargo hall of Berlin’s now defunct Tegel airport. No one is at the wheel, but upon a passenger stepping inside, a voice announces: “This is Bartek, I am your driver today. Please buckle up and we can be on our way.”

The car emits a friendly jingle, then makes its way to the former runway, where it performs a fault-free manoeuvre around a route marked by traffic cones.

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Denmark airport closes due to drones, two days after incursions in Copenhagen and Oslo

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Police say the drones over Aalborg airport followed a similar pattern to the ones that had halted flights at Copenhagen airport a few days earlier

Denmark’s Aalborg airport was closed due to drones in its airspace, local police said early on Thursday, two days after the country’s main Copenhagen airport was shut over drone sightings that rattled European aviation.

Danish national police said the drones followed a similar pattern to the ones that had halted flights at Copenhagen airport for four hours a few days earlier. The country’s armed forces were also affected, as Aalborg airport is used as a military base, they added.

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‘Science demands action’: world leaders and UN push climate agenda forward despite Trump’s attacks

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Leaders unveil new targets to cut planet-heating pollution after Trump called climate crisis a ‘con job’

World leaders have unveiled new targets to cut planet-heating pollution at the United Nations, in a bid to spur fresh impetus to the beleaguered climate effort a day after Donald Trump called the crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated upon the world”.

A total of 120 countries and the European Union announced new goals to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in New York on Wednesday. The pledges most notably include one from China, the world’s leading emitter, which said it would cut emissions by 7-10% from its peak level by 2035.

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Supercentenarian gives scientists insight on secrets of healthy old age

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Tests on Maria Branyas Morera, who was world’s oldest person before she died last year aged 117, gave doctors a trove of discoveries

The nonagenarian actor Dame Joan Collins may have been on to something when she declared “age is just a number”.

The deepest dive yet into the biology of a supercentenarian has revealed that even extreme old age can be reached without the brain necessarily faltering or the usual illnesses mounting up.

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Gentle definition at Fendi in collection inspired by childrenswear

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Show at Milan fashion week saw use of adjustable elastics and pull-tapes to unexpectedly sophisticated effect

At Fendi, where Silvia Venturini Fendi is leading the house founded by her grandparents through its centenary year, family is as much part of the sales pitch as the Baguette bag. “I have been thinking about childrenswear, because I have a big family, and my daughter is pregnant with twins,” she said backstage. Two grandsons made a cameo appearance on the catwalk earlier this year while her 18-year-old granddaughter is her “fiercest critic”, the 64-year-old creative director says. (“When she calls after my show, I tremble.”)

This season, Fendi adapted the adjustable elastics that feature in clothes made for growing bodies, making a feature of elegant grosgrain pull-tapes to add gentle definition at the hem of the jacket or the waist of a dress. The result was unexpectedly sophisticated. The casting, featuring men and women of all ages and sizes, was a triumphant showcase for how beautifully the shapes worked on different bodies.

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Italy’s far-right government revives holiday for saint at ‘core of our nation’s identity’

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Millions of Italian workers expected to get day off every 4 October in honour of Saint Francis of Assisi

Giorgia Meloni’s far-right government in Italy has revived a national holiday in honour of the country’s popular patron saint, Francis of Assisi, in a nod to “the very core of our nation’s identity”.

Millions of Italian workers are expected to get a day off each 4 October, the feast day of Saint Francis, after the lower house of parliament approved overwhelmingly a bill making it a public holiday. The measure will pass to the senate for the final nod.

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Trump’s address to world leaders at the UN was for a different audience: his base

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Trump told the assembled European leaders that they were destroying their own countries in a move that was ‘basically Maga madlibs’

Donald Trump may have been speaking to the 192 other world leaders gathered in the United Nations, but the real target of his speech on Tuesday was Europe, which was hauled up repeatedly as the whipping boy for an antiliberal, blood-and-soil polemic that renewed an assault on the transatlantic relationship that has become a theme of his second administration.

In an hourlong address to the assembled world leaders and delegations, Trump told European leaders directly that they were destroying their own countries – and that they should be more like the US as he condemned their policies on immigration, green energy and political correctness.

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Is Copenhagen drone incursion further evidence of Russian interest in allied airspace?

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Sudden boldness of Kremlin is new territory for Nato, which is enhancing air policing over eastern Europe with extra fighter jets

It is disturbingly easy to shut down a commercial airport, as last night’s events in Copenhagen show. Three large drones, Danish authorities said, flew close enough to the runway to force the airport to close for four hours in an incident that inevitably raises wider questions about the security of the skies above Nato countries at a time when Russia has already shown it is willing to test the integrity of alliance airspace.

Videos published by local media show what appears to be relatively large but unidentified craft with green lights near the Danish capital. The drones came in from multiple directions and left in a similar fashion, suggesting, Danish police said, they were operated by a “capable actor”, one with an understanding of how to pilot drones in such a way as to maximise nuisance and cause alarm.

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Trump calls for nations to close borders and expel foreigners in UN speech: ‘Your countries are being ruined’

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US president accuses European countries specifically of ‘destroying your heritage’ by allowing migration

Donald Trump took the stage at the United Nations general assembly hall for the first time in six years to launch a full-on assault on the world body, which he described as a feckless, corrupt and pernicious global force that should follow the example of his own leadership.

In an inflammatory speech on the 80th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, Trump called for countries to close their borders and expel foreigners, accused the UN of leading a “globalist migration agenda”, and told national leaders that the world body was “funding an assault on your countries”.

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