With so many US headlines competing for attention, it’s easy to miss how quickly the ground is shifting abroad. Across Europe, governments are rewriting asylum rules, tightening speech laws, reviving conscription, expanding nuclear power, and testing the limits of AI regulation — all while navigating rising extremism, economic pressure, and a security environment more volatile than at any point since the Cold War. This roundup pulls together 15 major European stories you likely didn’t see in your feed, along with the context behind them:
1.
António Costa, the former prime minister of Portugal and newly appointed president of the European Council — one of the EU’s most powerful roles — was wiretapped without proper judicial authorization during a corruption probe. Portuguese media report that Costa appears in 22 intercepted conversations, but prosecutors failed to submit them to the Supreme Court within the required 48-hour deadline. Some recordings were withheld for five years for “undisclosed reasons.” As a result, the wiretaps can no longer be used as evidence. The investigation, known as Operation Influencer, centers on alleged corruption related to lithium mining concessions, a data center project, and a hydrogen power plant during Costa’s tenure as Prime Minister. He resigned in November 2023 after police raided government offices and his official residence, prompting snap elections. Though never charged, Costa was unanimously elected president of the European Council just seven months later.
2.
Ireland has announced new immigration restrictions, with officials citing the need to slow population growth. The country’s population increased 1.6% last year — seven times the EU average — and asylum claims hit a record 18,651 in 2024. Under the new rules, asylum seekers with jobs must contribute 10–40% of their income toward state accommodation costs. Family reunification applicants must now earn at least the median national wage (€44,000) and prove they have suitable housing. Citizenship requirements for refugees will rise from three to five years of residency, and the government can now revoke asylum status for those deemed a security threat or convicted of serious crimes. Justice Minister Jim O’Callaghan said nearly 90% of asylum applicants arrived from the UK, and that Ireland must prepare for “knock-on effects” from Britain’s own recent crackdowns. Tensions over immigration have fueled riots in recent years, including clashes last month in Dublin.
3.
A Berlin court has ruled that German police acted unlawfully when they shut down a pro-Palestine conference in April 2024. Officers in riot gear descended on the venue and cut the power shortly after the Palestine Congress began, preventing any of the speeches from being heard or livestreamed. Police justified the shutdown by predicting that criminal statements — such as incitement to hatred or use of symbols of “terrorist” organizations — would be made. But the court found “no evidence of any criminal offences related to public expression” and called the action “disproportionate.” One of the scheduled speakers, British Palestinian doctor Ghassan Abu Sittah, was stopped at Berlin’s airport and told to return to the UK. The conference was organized in part by Jewish Voice, a group of Jewish peace activists critical of Israeli policy — meaning the German state shut down an event co-organized by Jewish groups in the name of preventing antisemitism.
4.
Italy’s Senate has postponed debate on a landmark bill that would define sex without consent as rape under Italian law. Currently, Italian law only recognizes sexual violence if it involves “force, threats, or abuse of authority,” meaning lack of consent isn’t sufficient grounds for a rape charge. The new bill, which passed the lower house earlier this month, would make non-consensual sex punishable by 6 to 12 years in prison. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the opposition Democratic Party had championed the measure together in a rare bipartisan effort, with both sides expecting formal approval on November 25. But at the last minute, the League party requested a delay, citing concerns that the law could “leave room for personal vendettas which would clog courts with tens of thousands of suits.” The same week, parliament passed a separate law classifying femicide as a specific crime punishable by life in prison.
5.
The European Court of Justice has ruled that all EU member states must recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in any other member country — even if their own domestic laws don’t allow them. The case stems from a Polish couple who married in Berlin in 2018, then returned to Poland and requested their German marriage certificate be transcribed into the Polish civil register. Poland refused, since it doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage. The couple challenged the decision, and the ECJ sided with them, ruling that denying recognition violates EU freedom of movement and the right to family life. The court clarified that member states don’t have to legalize same-sex marriage domestically — but they must recognize marriages performed elsewhere in the bloc “without distinction” or additional hurdles.
6.
The European Parliament has voted to call for a ban on social media for children under 16. The non-binding resolution, passed by a large majority (483 in favor, 92 against), also targets video-sharing platforms and AI chatbots. Lawmakers cited research showing that 1 in 4 minors now displays “problematic” smartphone use comparable to addiction, and warned that features like infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, and personalized recommendation algorithms are damaging children’s concentration, sleep, and mental health. The vote came just a week after French President Emmanuel Macron attacked US and Chinese platforms for fostering a “Wild West” of harassment, bullying, and extremism. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has said she’s watching Australia’s recently enacted ban on teen social media use closely to see what steps Europe might take next.
7.
The EU agreed to abolish the €150 customs exemption that has allowed low-value parcels from outside the bloc to enter duty-free, a move aimed squarely at Chinese e-commerce giants Shein and Temu. Starting as early as 2026, customs duties will apply “from the first euro” on all imported goods. For scale, 4.6 billion parcels entered the EU in 2024, and 91% came from China. That’s nearly 12 million packages per day, double the previous year, and officials estimate up to 65% of those parcels are undervalued to dodge duties. Additionally, the EU is considering a €2 handling fee on every low-value parcel. The move follows the US, which scrapped its own $800 duty-free threshold in May. Individual countries are already acting: Italy is working on a tax to protect its fashion industry, and France — where Shein is facing legal proceedings over child-like sex dolls sold on its platform — is pushing for a €5-per-parcel fee.
8.
The Trump administration has designated four European left-wing networks as foreign terrorist organizations, following through on the president’s vow to crack down on leftists after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The groups include an Italian anarchist front that sent explosive packages to the president of the European Commission in 2003, two Greek networks believed to have planted bombs at government buildings in Athens, and a German anti-fascist group whose members were convicted for hammer attacks on neo-Nazis. None of the groups appears to have operations in the United States. The designation allows the administration to target any financial support the networks may have in the US, though most anarchist and antifa groups are loose affiliations rather than formal organizations. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally, designated one of the groups as a terrorist organization after Kirk’s killing, saying he was following Trump’s lead.
9.
The Czech Republic is pushing ahead with a $19 billion nuclear expansion that will at least double the country’s nuclear output by 2050. South Korea won the contract to build two new reactors at the existing Dukovany plant, beating out France. Russia and China were excluded from the bidding on security grounds following the invasion of Ukraine. The country currently gets 40% of its electricity from nuclear and another 40% from coal. The expansion is designed to replace fossil fuels entirely while meeting surging demand from data centers and electric vehicles. Czech officials say nuclear will generate between 50–60% of the country’s electricity by mid-century.
10.
French prosecutors have added Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok to an existing cybercrime investigation after it generated posts claiming Auschwitz gas chambers were used for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than mass murder, language long associated with Holocaust denial. The Auschwitz Memorial flagged the exchange as a distortion of historical fact. Grok later acknowledged the error and pointed to evidence that more than 1 million people were murdered in the gas chambers, but X issued no clarification. This isn’t Grok’s first problem with antisemitic content. Earlier this year, xAI took down posts in which the chatbot appeared to praise Hitler. French ministers have formally reported the posts to prosecutors, two rights groups have filed criminal complaints, and French regulators have flagged potential violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act.
11.
France is set to introduce a new voluntary national military service program offering combat training to civilians. President Emmanuel Macron is expected to announce the initiative this week, starting with 2,000 to 3,000 recruits in the first year and scaling up to 50,000 annually. The move comes as Europe confronts a security environment in which the US can no longer be counted on to deter Russian aggression — some European officials have warned that Moscow could be ready to attack a NATO member as early as 2028. France’s chief of defense staff sparked controversy last week by saying the country must show it is “prepared to lose its children,” remarks Macron defended while affirming that France must not appear “weak against the power that threatens us the most.” The government has also published a crisis response guide urging households to prepare emergency kits with food, water, medicine, and battery-powered radios.
12.
Germany will require all men to register for potential military service starting January 1, 2026, the country’s biggest step toward reintroducing conscription since it was suspended in 2011. Around 700,000 young men born in 2008 or later will be contacted to complete mandatory registration, medical screenings, and an online questionnaire detailing their willingness to serve. Women will receive the same letter but aren’t required to respond. The goal is to boost the Bundeswehr from 180,000 soldiers to 260,000 by 2035, plus 200,000 reservists. If volunteer numbers fall short of NATO commitments, compulsory service will be reintroduced through a separate law. Applications for conscientious objector status have already spiked to their highest level since mandatory service ended.
13.
Alice and Ellen Kessler, the German twin sisters who became international stars in the 1950s and ’60s, died together by assisted suicide on Monday at their shared home near Munich. They were 89. The twins had planned the joint death for over a year. In an interview last year, they said they wanted “to go away together on the same day” — the idea that one might die first was “very hard to bear.” They requested their ashes be placed in a single urn alongside their mother and their dog, though German burial law prohibits combining remains. The Kesslers fled East Germany at 16, were discovered at the Lido cabaret in Paris, and went on to share stages with Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, and Harry Belafonte. They represented West Germany at Eurovision in 1959 and were still performing into their 80s.
14.
Dutch officials are pushing the United States to reinstate a display honoring Black American soldiers that was quietly removed from a US military cemetery in the Netherlands earlier this year. The panel, installed at the Margraten cemetery’s visitor center in 2024, commemorated the 960th Quartermaster Service Company — a unit of Black soldiers who buried thousands of American war dead in the winter of 1944. The removal went unnoticed for months until Dutch filmmakers alerted the widow of 1st Lt. Jefferson Wiggins, featured in the display, in October. The mayor and provincial government have now formally requested that the US reinstate it. A Biden appointee who led the agency told CNN that the removal was done “at the prompting of the Trump administration.”
15.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Sofia on Wednesday to denounce steep tax hikes in Bulgaria’s 2026 budget — the country’s last budget in the Bulgarian lev before it joins the eurozone on January 1. An estimated 20,000 demonstrators formed a human chain around the parliament building to prevent lawmakers from leaving, with some throwing bottles and firecrackers at police. Three officers were injured, and authorities used tear gas to disperse crowds. The budget doubles the dividend tax from 5% to 10%, raises social security contributions by two percentage points, and sets government spending at a record 46% of GDP. Opposition leaders have called it “leftist” and “pro-inflationary.” But the government says the tax increases are necessary to fund wage hikes for teachers, doctors, and police — and to keep the deficit at exactly 3% of GDP, the ceiling required for eurozone membership.
That’s this month’s roundup. Which stories stood out to you? Did anything surprise you, change how you see Europe’s political moment, or feel unexpectedly relevant to the US? If you’ve come across other global headlines that deserve more attention, drop them in the comments below. I always love hearing what’s on your radar.
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