An Egyptian national who sought protection in Italy after arriving on the island of Lampedusa in August may end up dealing a constitutional blow to the EU’s asylum laws after seeking legal counsel.

The Egyptian, who is not named, had his asylum claim rejected even though he did not understand his translator. His is appealing.

“Not even European Union law can conflict with our supreme principles,” his lawyer, Claudia Avenia told EUobserver earlier this week.

Aside from his own personal circumstances, his legal case is raising serious issues that could have a knock-on effect on the EU’s new asylum and migration pact, which kicked into force this past June across all 27 EU member states.

Because he is from Egypt, he was shuffled through a fast track asylum procedure. EU laws require the accelerated process from nationals who have a 20 percent chance or less of getting asylum in Europe. Egypt fits into this category.

A new EU law also meant that he was technically not yet legally inside the EU as authorities carried out health checks, identification and other assessments during a so-called pre-screening phase.

It means he was banned from stepping outside a reception centre, where he was being housed.

Lawyers describe it as the legal fiction of non-entry, similar in scope to certain areas of international airports. Rights experts had earlier warned, when the EU rules were being drafted, that this would lead to defacto detention.

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An incident that took place in Italy deserves careful consideration, because it demonstrates the close relationship between Israel and the political institutions of European countries.

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The unexpected

An incident that took place in Italy deserves careful consideration, because it demonstrates the close relationship between Israel and the political institutions of European countries—in a Europe that is becoming a destination for many Israeli citizens seeking to recreate their communities in small territorial enclaves on the Old Continent. Why is it worth discussing this? Because this is an example of a pattern that is beginning to repeat itself in various parts of Europe, and this will have significant geopolitical consequences sooner than we expect.

Here’s what happened. On October 5, 2026, Fanpage.it published an investigative report by Michelangelo Mecchia that had a rare impact in Italian journalism: in less than a week, it reached the Chamber of Deputies, the European Parliament, and the Veneto Regional Council. At the center of the story is an association based in Albignasego, in the Padua area, called Christians for Israel Italy. It is the Italian branch of Christians for Israel International (C4I), a network founded in the Netherlands in 1979 and now present in over forty countries. According to the investigative report, for more than twenty years this network has been raising money for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

So far, this would be a story of transnational religious and political activism—the kind that exists in every democracy. The point is another. Between 2023 and 2024, the Veneto Region allocated 16,000 euros in public funds to the association. And the same association, according to the documentation, has over the years built up privileged access to the leadership of the parties currently governing the country and the region. The question that arises does not concern anyone’s beliefs. It concerns the way in which an Italian public institution chooses its partners, and whether it does so knowing—or wanting to know—who it is funding.

The method used was undercover investigation. Journalists approached the Italian chapter posing as potential donors and asked whether it was possible to support projects in the occupied territories. The answer was yes: all they had to do was indicate “Judea and Samaria” in the transfer description. The term is not neutral. It is the biblical designation that Israeli authorities use for the West Bank and that the settler movement employs precisely to deny that it is occupied territory. According to the investigation, the Italian office also clarified that it works in direct contact with Israeli political authorities.

The main operational channel is Christian Friends of Israeli Communities (CFOIC), a partner organization based in the settlements themselves. According to Fanpage, it is through CFOIC that most of the money destined for the settlements passes, used to purchase drones, cameras, surveillance systems, and jeeps for patrolling the territory. This is therefore not generic humanitarian aid, but equipment for controlling the area around the outposts: the very same security infrastructure that, in the day-to-day reality of the West Bank, serves to demarcate land, monitor Palestinian villages, and facilitate the expansion of the settlements.

Two factors add weight to this picture. The first is the scale. After October 7, 2023, the international network launched an extraordinary campaign that, according to its own 2023 financial report, raised 3.6 million. The second concerns an incident that came to light in the Netherlands, where the investigative journalism platform Investico investigated the Dutch branch of the network: in an interview with reporters, a settler, Nati Rom, proposed using donations to buy guns for settlement residents. The Dutch section subsequently suspended that collaboration. Investico also traced the funding for prefabricated housing units for new settlement residents. It should be noted precisely that the proposal regarding weapons has not been attributed to CFOIC or the Italian section. But it speaks volumes about the environment from which that money comes—and about the fact that the network itself felt it had to distance itself from it.

Then there is the public discourse. Marco Alexander, a tour guide, has spoken several times in the movement’s webinars, suggesting that the best solution would be to relocate the population of Gaza elsewhere, followed by a process of “de-Palestinization.” In a video, the association’s president, Edda Fogarollo, a history professor, attacked Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, for wearing a keffiyeh, calling for the Pope to intervene. The attack came after Israeli police had prevented the patriarch from reaching the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That an association calling itself Christian would choose to take aim at the shepherd of the Christians of the Holy Land—rather than at those who barred him from entering Christianity’s holiest site—is a political fact even before it is a theological one.

International law as a matter of opinion

The press release in which the Green and Left Alliance brought the case before the Regional Council refers to a “ruling” from 2024. The technical term is different, and the distinction deserves clarification because those who defend the settlements often exploit precisely these inaccuracies. On July 19, 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, at the request of the United Nations General Assembly, on the legal consequences of Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. An advisory opinion is not a judgment between parties, but it represents the most authoritative interpretation of current international law that exists. And its conclusions are clear: Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Territory is illegal; Israel must immediately cease all new settlement activity and evacuate the settlers; and all States have an obligation not to recognize the situation as legal and not to render aid or assistance in its maintenance.

This last point is decisive for the Veneto case. The obligation not to provide assistance does not apply only to governments in their diplomatic relations: it extends to the entire state apparatus, including local authorities, to the extent that they use public resources. On September 18, 2024, the General Assembly adopted the opinion through Resolution ES-10/24, approved by 124 votes in favor, 14 against, and 43 abstentions, and called on Israel to end the occupation within twelve months. Italy abstained. That abstention was a political choice by the government, not a suspension of the legal obligations identified in the advisory opinion. The twelve-month deadline expired over a year ago. Meanwhile, the settlements have expanded.

Regarding the term “genocide,” used in the regional communiqué, legal prudence requires a distinction to be made. The case brought by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice is still pending on the merits, and Israel rejects the accusation. In January 2024, however, the Court deemed some of the claims invoked by South Africa to be plausible and ordered provisional measures; in September 2025, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that acts of genocide were committed in Gaza. The final judgment rests with the Court. But a ruling class that uses public funds to finance those who publicly advocate for the forced transfer of the population of Gaza cannot claim to be unaware of the legal and moral climate in which it operates.

Public funds for israeli interests

We must be precise here as well, because the issue is serious and does not need to be exaggerated. The 16,000 euros were allocated via two decrees, in 2023 and 2024, under the call for proposals established by Regional Law No. 5 of February 3, 2020, which supports initiatives for Holocaust Remembrance Day, education about the Holocaust, the fight against antisemitism, and the promotion of Jewish culture. The funds went to two events: 9,500 euros for an “Exhibition of Degenerate Art” and 6,500 euros for an initiative dedicated to Eugenio Gentili Tedeschi.

This, however, does not settle the matter; it merely shifts it. Money is fungible: every public euro that covers an association’s cultural expenses frees up a private euro for other purposes, including campaigns for “Judea and Samaria.” But there is a plan even more significant than the flow of funds, and that is the plan of legitimization. A regional grant—especially one based on a law dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust—conferrs upon its recipient a badge of institutional respectability. It is symbolic capital that can then be spent anywhere: in the halls of the Senate, in relations with schools, and in fundraising. And during the Venice exhibition financed with that money, former Member of the European Parliament Magdi Cristiano Allam denied the very existence of a Palestinian national identity. Public sponsorship, in other words, provided a platform for a thesis that denies a people under occupation the right to exist as a political entity.

Finally, there is an aspect concerning the memory of the Holocaust itself. Using a law designed to educate young people about the extermination of Europe’s Jews as a funding channel for entities committed to supporting a military occupation that has been declared illegal amounts to co-opting that memory for a contingent political purpose. This also harms the Jewish communities of Veneto—the primary beneficiaries of the law—who bear no responsibility for the choices made by a Christian-Zionist association and yet find themselves sharing the same budget line with it.

The situation in Veneto is not an isolated administrative incident. Between 2011 and 2025, the Italian branch of C4I organized conferences with Israeli diplomats and members of the ruling party, several of which took place in the Senate chambers. On October 13, 2021, for example, the association hosted a “Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast” at the Senate, with the then-Israeli ambassador Dror Eydar, Giorgia Meloni (who was in the opposition at the time), Matteo Salvini, Lucio Malan, Paolo Formentini, and Simone Pillon announced as attendees. On that occasion, Salvini described the transfer of the capital from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as a moral, civic, religious, and political commitment.

President Fogarollo ran in the 2015 Veneto regional elections with Fratelli d’Italia and in the 2022 Padua municipal elections on a center-right ticket; in September 2026, she was on the Pontida lawn with an Israeli flag alongside League deputy Formentini. On January 30, 2024, League Senator Massimiliano Romeo introduced a bill against antisemitism that incorporates the IHRA definition, which was later approved by the Senate; in September 2026, Maurizio Gasparri defended it in a public debate with Fogarollo herself. There is nothing illegal about lobbying, and an association has every right to support a bill. But the IHRA definition is contested by a large part of the legal and academic community precisely because, in its examples of application, it risks equating political criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism. When it is promoted most zealously by circles that deny Palestinian identity, the suspicion that the aim is to silence dissent regarding the occupation becomes legitimate.

Viewed through a geopolitical lens, the case illustrates a broader dynamic. Christian Zionism, which originated in the Anglo-Saxon evangelical world, has for decades been one of the most effective vehicles for Western support of the West Bank colonization project: it provides money, volunteers, informal diplomatic networks, and above all, a theological framework that removes the issue from the realm of international law and places it in the realm of prophecy. In Italy, where Catholicism has a very different tradition and where the Holy See has recognized the State of Palestine since 2015, this influence has found a foothold not in the Churches but in a segment of the political right, which uses it as a marker of allegiance to the Atlantic camp. The result is paradoxical: an association that calls itself Christian attacks the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, while Palestinian Christian communities in the West Bank—from Taybeh to Bethlehem—have been denouncing settler violence for years.

What the Venetians expect from their institutions

On October 12, regional councilors Carlo Cunegato and Elena Ostanel of the Green and Left Alliance submitted a question requiring an immediate response to the Regional Executive Committee led by Alberto Stefani. Democratic Party councilors Monica Sambo, Alessandro Del Bianco, Chiara Luisetto, and Gianpaolo Trevisi asked Culture Councilor Valeria Mantovan to report to the committee on procedures and oversight. At the national level, Stefania Ascari, a member of the Chamber of Deputies from the Five Star Movement, questioned the Prime Minister and the ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Economy, and the Interior; in Strasbourg, Members of the European Parliament Brando Benifei and Cecilia Strada addressed the European Commission. To date, as far as is known, neither the Region nor the association has provided a public response on the matter.

There are four requests to be made to the Regional Executive, and none of them is radical. The first is full transparency: publish the decrees, financial reports, and expense receipts for the two grants, so that every euro is traceable. The second concerns the present. The 2026 call for proposals under Law 5/2020, approved on August 19 by Resolution No. 886, makes available 55,000 euros, and the rankings have not yet been published. Before awarding the funds, the Regional Executive must verify that no beneficiary supports, either directly or through networks of which they are a part, activities in the settlements. The third is structural: to introduce an explicit clause in regional calls for proposals that excludes from grants and funding any entity that finances activities in territories that international law considers illegally occupied, in accordance with the Court’s opinion. The fourth is political: a clarification as to why an association with these characteristics was able to access funds intended for Holocaust remembrance.

Throughout its history, Veneto has experienced life as a land of emigration and a border region; it knows what it means to have its territory determined by others, and it has also experienced what it means to be invaded, plundered, and culturally and politically violated. It needs no lessons to understand why a people would refuse to have its name erased.

The resources paid for by Venetian citizens through their taxes must be used for public health care, for nursing homes with fees that are becoming increasingly unaffordable, for schools, and for true culture. They must not—not even indirectly, nor through the veneer of respectability that public funding provides—contribute to legitimizing those who support the colonization of another people’s land. International law has already made clear which side to take. It is up to the Region to demonstrate that it understands this.

A truckers’ strike against high fuel prices paralyzed southern Italy on its sixth day, leaving supermarkets with empty shelves, airports without fuel and postal services suspended.

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Hundreds of tons of agricultural production remained stranded in trucks or piled up in cold storage rooms, and many business owners decided to suspend harvests and halt production of emblematic products such as buffalo mozzarella.

Poste Italiane was forced to completely interrupt the sending and delivery of mail and packages to and from Calabria, Sicily, Campania and Apulia, the company was reported to have said.

RELATED: Italy’s Giorgia Meloni Trademarks Her Voice Against AI Deepfakes

The mayors of Naples and Bari warned in a joint statement that the paralysis not only threatened food supplies but also jeopardized urban waste management, and they warned of an emergency that could plunge entire communities into a health collapse.

Tension on the roads intensified because of picket activity, and local press reported acts of sabotage in areas such as Caserta, including placing truck tires on highways to force heavy transport to brake.

In response, Italian police escorted convoys of commercial vehicles and deployed operations that resulted in 71 people reported and 242 sanctioned.

Minister of Enterprise Adolfo Urso recalled in the Chamber of Deputies that blocking the passage of trucks was a crime punishable by prison sentences.

In the north, Milan prepared special security measures ahead of new and massive student and youth demonstrations scheduled for Saturday, framed by discontent over the cost of living and the deterioration of public services.

Italy’s Council of Ministers approved on October 20 a new youth security decree that extended preventive detention to minors, until then reserved for adults, and created the crime of violent participation in demonstrations, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of up to 20,000 euros for anyone who, within a group of five or more people, throws stones, sticks or objects that endanger third parties.

Manifestare è un diritto, devastare le nostre città no. Ecco le misure che abbiamo approvato per contrastare la violenza e tutelare la sicurezza dei cittadini. pic.twitter.com/kqk51X8YZa

— Giorgia Meloni (@GiorgiaMeloni) October 20, 2026

Protests and fringe violence expose sharp divide between marginalised and immigrant youth and those with greater prospects

Martina Miccichè was filming riot police kicking and beating a teenager with batons as they dragged him along Piazza del Duomo, the central Milan square hosting its cathedral, when she was struck by a flying object, causing a deep gash and bruising near her right eye.

The journalist had joined hundreds of mostly young people marching through the northern Italian city on Saturday afternoon to protest over soaring living costs and unaffordable housing, echoing the wider wave of economic discontent fuelling protests across Europe.

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© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

© Photograph: Stefano Porta/LaPresse/AP

With elections looming in 2027, Roberto Vannacci’s new far-right movement could fatally outflank the prime minister

Giorgia Meloni’s government became the longest serving in Italy’s republican history last month. This unusual political longevity, a moderate foreign policy, a certain personal charisma and even a recent spat with Donald Trump have combined to sharpen Meloni’s profile as the go-to leader on the European right.

Meloni’s personal approval rating – at about 41% – is one of the highest among west European leaders. Her far-right Brothers of Italy party has retained most of its support – a striking feat in our anti-incumbent era and by Italian standards, an achievement.

Riccardo Alcaro is head of research at IAI, Istituto Affari Internazionali, in Rome

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© Photograph: Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Roberto Monaldo/LaPresse/Shutterstock

In questi giorni il caro vita turba i sonni del mondo politico e sindacale, compresi quanti finora hanno ignorato i diffusi rincari dell’energia e dei beni di prima necessità, riducendo l’emergenza a mera polemica politica.

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In questi giorni il caro vita turba i sonni del mondo politico e sindacale, compresi quanti finora hanno ignorato i diffusi rincari dell’energia e dei beni di prima necessità, riducendo l’emergenza a mera polemica politica.

Tuttavia, anche le poche mobilitazioni in corso dimenticano che la causa primaria dell’inflazione è proprio l’economia di guerra: l’escalation militare ha fatto ripartire la corsa dei prezzi, con conseguenze particolarmente pesanti per le economie europee, dipendenti dal greggio in transito nel Golfo Persico.

Un tempo le forniture principali arrivavano dalla Russia a costi decisamente inferiori a quelli attuali. Affermare che l’economia di guerra sia la causa principale dell’inflazione e del rallentamento economico europeo significa semplicemente prendere atto della realtà.

I dati parlano chiaro: tra marzo e agosto la UE ha sostenuto 54 miliardi di dollari di costi aggiuntivi netti solo per le importazioni di gas e petrolio. Questo dato basterebbe da solo ad aprire un dibattito serio sulle conseguenze economiche dei conflitti.

A confermare il quadro è l’Ufficio Studi della CGIA di Mestre: a fine anno gli italiani pagheranno 29 miliardi di euro in più tra rincari di elettricità, gas e carburanti. Solo in Italia il costo dell’energia elettrica è balzato del 51,2%. Rincari dovuti all’instabilità delle catene di approvvigionamento, alle speculazioni finanziarie e all’aumento delle spese militari, che sottraggono risorse essenziali al welfare.

Di fronte a questo scenario, la risposta del Governo appare timida e priva di coraggio. Mentre sostiene le spese per il riarmo, prova a calmierare con fondi pubblici le bollette degli italiani (che stimano una spesa aggiuntiva media di 153 euro all’anno per l’elettricità e 477 euro per il gas). Parallelamente, i rincari a doppia cifra colpiscono anche i beni alimentari di largo consumo: la dimostrazione che non si tratta di un incidente di percorso, ma di un effetto strutturale dell’economia di guerra.

In questo contesto, le manifestazioni di piazza rischiano di rivelarsi inefficaci, sia per la scarsa adesione sia per la debolezza delle motivazioni. Manca una riflessione complessiva sul sistema economico e sui meccanismi che spingono verso il basso i salari (a partire dai criteri di calcolo dell’IPCA). I bonus non sono la soluzione, bensì il sintomo del progressivo smantellamento del welfare pubblico.

È urgente iniziare a parlare apertamente di “economia di guerra”: un modello di produzione che alimenta la corsa alle risorse, dirotta i fondi pubblici verso la difesa e giustifica la sottrazione di risorse ai servizi essenziali. In caso contrario, continueremo a inseguire singoli provvedimenti tampone senza mai affrontare la vera radice del problema.

Articolo originale:  lantidiplomatico.it

A high-ranking EU politician has gone on hunger strike over the humanitarian crisis in besieged Oleshky in Ukraine.

Pina Picierno, an Italian MEP and a vice-president in the EU parliament, told EUobserver she is refusing to eat solid food to draw attention to the besieged Ukrainian town.

Eight kilometres from Kherson, Oleshky is reported to now have 1,700 inhabitants, down from 24,000 people before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The EU says the town is without access to food, medicine, clean water and basic care.

The only route to escape is tapped with mines and rife with attack drones, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha warned last Saturday (17 October).

Saying that Russia wants to make Oleshky a “death trap”, the Ukrainian minister urged the UN and International Red Cross to secure evacuation corridors and immediate humanitarian access to Oleshky.

“Families are starving, surviving on leftover garden vegetables, preserves and even snails,” he said.

Pope calls Putin over Oleshky

The Vatican has attempted to mediate, with Pope Leo calling last week for Russian president Vladimir Putin to arrange a humanitarian ceasefire to allow in aid. 

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Fox News and others have toed president’s line – seemingly hoping unrest abroad will make people vote Republican

Donald Trump sought to capitalize on the scenes of unrest in France, telling a crowd in Kansas on Monday that “migrants” and “communists” were responsible, and that the scenes were “what the radical ‘Dumocrats’ want to do to America”.

As Republicans struggle to convince voters across the country ahead of November’s midterm elections, Trump’s allies in the conservative media have followed suit, seemingly hoping that the scenes in France can scare people to the polls.

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© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

Each country’s protesters have distinct grievances. Listen to them, not the voices telling us Europe is ungovernable

Last Saturday night, the town hall of Limoges in west-central France was set ablaze. By Sunday, images of the fire destroying a symbol of the French republic, and other scenes of unrest across France, were everywhere, but being used to tell very different stories about what is happening in Europe.

For some, the flames announced a pan-European youth revolt, proof that a single movement was sweeping the continent. Donald Trump, who had already insisted that the French schools protests were not about schools but about migration and Islam, urged Europeans to “close the borders”. The mayor of Limoges saw the fingerprints of an alleged ultra-left insurrection.

Alberto Alemanno is the Jean Monnet professor of EU law at HEC Paris and the founder of The Good Lobby

France readers Q&A: Guardian Europe columnists Rokhaya Diallo and Alexander Hurst will be live taking questions from our readers about the unrest in France from at 1500 BST / 1600 CEST on Friday 23 October. Send your questions by email now to conversations@theguardian.com or post questions in the comments from 0900 BST here.

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© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

© Photograph: Aurélien Morissard/AP

Since high school students began protesting in France in September, they’ve been joined by young demonstrators in at least seven other European countries.

© Angelos Tzortzinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

MEPs have approved emergency EU funding to help four southern European countries recover from destructive storms and flooding earlier this year, with Portugal receiving the largest allocation.

The European Parliament approved €489.15 million in financial assistance for Portugal, Spain, Italy and Malta on Wednesday, 21 October, following severe storms and flooding that damaged infrastructure and disrupted communities across southern Europe during the opening months of 2026.

The allocation from the European Union Solidarity Fund was approved by 651 votes to 17, with three abstentions. Portugal will receive the largest share, approximately €261.5 million, followed by Spain with €149.1 million, Italy with €74.9 million and Malta with €3.7 million.

The funding is intended to support recovery operations and help national authorities meet the costs of restoring essential public infrastructure and services damaged by the disasters.

Portugal receives largest allocation

Portugal’s €261.5 million allocation follows flooding and storms that affected the country during January and February.

The Portuguese authorities applied for assistance from the EU Solidarity Fund after assessing the extent of the damage and the associated costs of emergency operations and infrastructure recovery.

The funds will contribute to eligible public expenditure arising from the disasters, potentially including the restoration of transport links, damaged public facilities and other essential infrastructure.

Portugal has already received approximately €65.37 million in advance funding, according to the figures accompanying the parliamentary decision.

Spain will receive €149.1 million following destructive weather during the same period, including severe flooding in February.

The Spanish government had also requested European assistance to cover part of the expenditure associated with recovery operations.

Approximately €37.26 million of Spain’s allocation has already been paid in advance.

The two countries together account for the substantial majority of the assistance approved on Wednesday, reflecting the scale of their eligible recovery costs.

Storm Harry damages Italy and Malta

Italy and Malta will receive assistance following Storm Harry, which struck parts of the central Mediterranean in January 2026.

Italy’s allocation amounts to €74.9 million, while Malta will receive €3.7 million.

The storm caused significant disruption in affected Mediterranean areas, with heavy rainfall, strong winds and damaging sea conditions placing pressure on local infrastructure.

Italian authorities sought European support for recovery operations in the affected territories, while Malta submitted its own request following the damage sustained during the storm.

The Maltese allocation includes approximately €931,000 already made available through an advance payment.

The final assistance amounts were proposed by the European Commission after examining the applications submitted by the four governments.

The Commission’s September proposal to mobilise the EU Solidarity Fund set out the amount of assistance required for each country.

The total proposed mobilisation was €489,148,220.

How the EU Solidarity Fund works

The European Union established the Solidarity Fund in 2002 to assist member states and certain countries participating in the EU accession process following major natural disasters.

The mechanism provides financial support for public emergency and recovery expenditure rather than operating as a general insurance scheme for individuals or businesses.

Eligible expenditure can include emergency accommodation, restoring essential infrastructure, securing protective infrastructure, cleaning disaster-affected areas and protecting cultural heritage.

National authorities submit applications to the Commission, which evaluates them against the relevant eligibility requirements and financial thresholds.

Assistance depends on the assessed disaster damage and applicable regulatory criteria, rather than simply reimbursing every euro of economic loss.

The fund is financed through EU budgetary arrangements and is mobilised following the required institutional approvals.

Payments are made to the countries concerned, which remain responsible for ensuring that assistance is used in accordance with EU financial rules.

The Solidarity Fund can therefore help governments manage exceptional recovery costs, but it does not replace national budgets, private insurance or other financial arrangements.

Rising pressure on European disaster funding

The latest allocation comes against a background of increasingly frequent demands on European disaster-response mechanisms.

Southern European countries have experienced damaging floods, storms, heatwaves and wildfires in recent years, leading to repeated requests for assistance.

Recovery expenditure extends beyond immediate emergency operations. Damaged roads, bridges, coastal defences, water systems and public buildings can require prolonged reconstruction.

These costs can place considerable pressure on local authorities, particularly where a disaster affects tourism, transport or economic activity.

The EU faces the additional challenge of maintaining sufficient funds to respond to major disasters affecting several countries within a relatively short period.

Extreme weather events can also expose weaknesses in existing infrastructure, prompting governments to consider whether reconstruction should incorporate additional protection against future disasters.

However, such investments must be assessed against the eligible spending categories of the Solidarity Fund and the availability of other EU financing programmes.

Parliamentary approval and implementation

Wednesday’s vote represents parliamentary approval of the mobilisation proposed by the European Commission.

The decision concerns disasters that occurred earlier in 2026 and does not constitute a new emergency response operation.

The funds will support eligible recovery measures carried out by the national authorities in the four countries.

The payments already made to Portugal, Spain and Malta will be taken into account when the remaining assistance is disbursed.

EU authorities will retain responsibility for monitoring compliance with the relevant financial and reporting requirements.

The substantial parliamentary majority indicates broad support for assistance to the affected countries, although future disaster-funding arrangements will continue to depend on the resources available in the European budget.

For the four governments, the immediate task is to use the approved assistance to meet eligible recovery costs and restore damaged public infrastructure following the storms earlier this year.

As protests continue to ripple across European cities, the Italian Green MEP Benedetta Scuderi reflects on her own experiences of police repression, from holding a peace flag near a Brussels protest to facing the fury that followed the flotilla to Gaza. She spoke to EUobserver about the EU’s housing priorities, Italy’s elections, and how the far-right has captured freedom of expression for its own use.

You were detained by police in July, a few hundred meters from a far-right protest calling for “re-migration”. How has the rise of the far-right stalled some key areas, like freedom of speech?

The rise of the far-right is really threatening European democracy as we know it. It has never been perfect, but it allowed people to protest. Now, we only let certain people express their dissent. 

In the European Parliament, people can discriminate and use hate speech because of their freedom of expression, but as you go out of parliament with a Palestinian flag, then you’re a terrorist. So, how is it possible that last Strasbourg plenary, I could hear my colleagues saying that Muslims are a threat, and there are no consequences? And then I go out and I say, “Free Palestine,” and I’ll be arrested.

This double standard is extremely problematic. The fact that not allowing fascist symbols within the parliament also meaning that no other symbol can be shown, is not okay. Because we need to be fine to say that certain things are discriminatory and against European values, without having to say that everything else is not allowed. 

We also need to be able to accept dissent. What is happening all over Europe, with violence increasing towards activists, we’re seeing it target only a certain kind of activists. In Italy, fascist protests are ignored by police. Farmers can come to the parliament with tractors, and that’s completely fine. And then we have 20 people doing a sit-in for Palestine in front of the parliament, and getting their heads smashed. 

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Nationalist leaders are framing unrest as consequence of failed liberal governance and open borders

Europe’s far-right leaders have jumped on the violence that rocked numerous cities last weekend, framing it as the inevitable consequence of failed liberal governance and open-border policies and insisting only they can restore law and order.

Months away from key elections in Spain, France and Italy, authoritarian nationalists are eager to weaponise the wave of street unrest, originating in peaceful protests over the cost of living and deteriorating public services but hijacked by violent rioters.

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© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

© Photograph: Abdul Saboor/Reuters

Student protests across Europe are a desperate cry for help, an appeal to governments to build a brighter, hope-filled future. Instead of paying attention, European politicians have decided to manhandle the protesters, misrepresent their demands and manipulate public opinion.

Different narratives are now competing to explain what the protests are really about.

They want to be taught properly. They want more teachers, an end to overcrowded classes, dilapidated buildings and inadequate school meals and an admissions system that sorts young people by class and postcode.

In Belgium, students have protested education cuts and fees. Greek students occupied Syntagma Square over rents, student housing and energy bills. Italian students demanded money for schools rather than war.

But politicians seem intent on telling a different story.

For many EU leaders it is – yet again – all about migration.

Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar has decided that the chaos in French cities makes it “clear to everyone why Hungary advocates the strictest possible approach to migration.”

Poland’s Donald Tusk, who insists he will not repeat the mistakes of other European countries, joined the leaders of Denmark and Italy at the EU leaders’ meeting in Brussels last week to push for an even tougher Fortress Europe.

Together, they almost succeeded in getting others in the EU to agree to a statement linking crime and “irregular” migration.

On the other side of the Atlantic, US president Donald Trump instructed Europe to “close your borders and take control, before it is too late!” while his deputy JD Vance criticised Western liberals for bringing the “third world” to France.

Parts of the media focused on the violence, particularly the looting and destruction carried out by those who have joined the protests to create chaos, rather than on the demands that brought students onto the streets in the first place.

In France, meanwhile, it was the presidential campaign that shaped the political response, with Marine Le Pen from the National Rally calling for law and order and blaming “decades of immigration” for the violence while her protégé, Jordan Bardella, said the police should have more weapons and greater powers.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon of France Insoumise, Le Pen’s leading rival in the elections next year, was accused of fuelling student anger. French centrists struggled to find their footing and their voice. President Emmanuel Macron made an angry television appearance before heading to the Middle East with a delegation of business leaders.

So far, very predictable.

Old playbook: one enemy, no solution

Divert, distract, dehumanise and scapegoat are the oldest tricks in wily politicians’ playbook. The well-worn recipe is simple: take a social crisis, remove its economic content, replace it with a face, a religion, a border. Then offer an enemy, not a solution.

When public services fail, blame the outsider. When wages stagnate, blame the foreigner. When housing becomes impossible, blame the newcomer rather than the landlord, the investor or the government that stopped building.

And when young people take to the streets, describe them as manipulated, criminal, alien or dangerous. Treat their anger as a threat to public order rather than a warning that something is profoundly wrong. Say there has been foreign manipulation and disinformation.

Then turn the full force of the state against the symptoms of the crisis while leaving its causes untouched and change the the subject from justice to fear, from schools to borders, from the future to the past.

Meanwhile, the money goes elsewhere.

Europe is pouring resources into defence and rearmament. Governments speak endlessly of competitiveness, productivity and strategic autonomy. But these questions cannot become excuses for neglecting the social foundations on which Europe’s future depends.

Seriously, who is going to make an ageing Europe competitive if the people expected to build its future cannot afford to have one? Who will run Europe’s basic services if migrants go “home”? What does strategic autonomy even mean if young Europeans cannot get a decent education, find secure employment or afford a home?

Contradictions

We should know by now that security cannot be measured in weapons alone. It also depends on how secure citizens feel, and whether they believe they have something worth protecting. Security demands that people have politicians they can trust and institutions which work for them.

A Europe that invests in its military capabilities while allowing its schools, housing systems and public services to deteriorate risks hollowing out its own strength.

Believe me: I know. I was born in Pakistan, a country which thrives on war and conflict and neglects the well being of its citizens.

There is another contradiction. As young people struggle to make their voices heard, the EU is planning cuts to funding for civil society organisations that defend rights, support communities, hold power to account and help turn public anger into democratic participation.

The EU has always – rightly – backed citizens’ calls for democratic participation, equality and inclusion when it happens in Tunisia, Egypt or Hongkong. How can our leaders close down such calls for participation when they are made at home?

Sadly, politicians and parts of the media have lost young peoples’ trust – and when that faith goes, so does democracy.

The EU can and must offer young Europeans a story of hope, inclusion and progress towards equality. Leaders who prefer to hallucinate about migrants should spend more time living up to the EU’s values by investing in education, affordable housing, decent jobs and public services.

We must give our young people a meaningful voice in decisions that will shape their lives. Our collective future quite literally depends on it.

This article was first published on Shada’s Substack. You can subscribe for free to receive new posts and support her work here.

Italy’s response to a weekend of street violence has moved from emergency policing to tougher criminal law, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni seeking to reassert control after unrest in Milan and other northern cities

The government approved measures on Tuesday creating an offence of violent participation in demonstrations, extending preventive detention powers to teenagers aged 14–17 and making parents financially liable for damage caused by their children. The package also provides for 500 soldiers to support security operations in Milan through December.

The crackdown presents a defining challenge for a prime minister whose political identity rests heavily on law and order: demonstrating that stronger powers can prevent another eruption while addressing the conditions feeding public anger.

Milan’s damaged shopping streets have become the most visible symbol of that challenge. Weekend violence brought looting, fires and confrontations with police, exposing businesses and residents to disorder in Italy’s financial capital.

As EU Today reported in its earlier coverage of the unrest, police brought 271 people to headquarters following Sunday’s disturbances, including 220 minors. Thirty-two were formally arrested, a detail that matters when assessing the scale of alleged criminal involvement.

The prominence of teenagers has shaped the government’s response. According to the Associated Press, the decree makes prosecuting minors over 14 easier and includes plans to expand juvenile detention capacity and judicial resources. Parliament must convert the decree into law within 60 days.

For supporters, the argument is straightforward: shopkeepers should not have to absorb the cost of destruction, and officers need effective tools against groups exploiting demonstrations to commit offences.

Yet preventive detention raises a different question from punishment after conviction. Its credibility depends on clear evidence, consistent safeguards and meaningful scrutiny, particularly when those affected are children.

Making the distinction will help determine whether the package strengthens public confidence or deepens distrust among young people already alienated from political institutions.

The wider European debate offers a warning. In its earlier editorial, EU Global examined the tension between public-order legislation and the right to protest, arguing that governments risk restricting legitimate dissent when security powers expand too broadly. That commentary predates the Milan disturbances but addresses the central democratic question now confronting Italy.

Peaceful assembly and criminal violence require different responses. Protecting the former gives authorities greater legitimacy when confronting the latter; treating an entire demonstration as suspect risks weakening that distinction.

Meloni also faces a political vulnerability that additional arrests cannot automatically resolve. The Financial Times reported that the unrest involved teenagers mobilised through social media, many without political affiliations, against a background of economic stagnation and expensive living conditions.

Those circumstances complicate any attempt to explain the disorder through a single organisation, ideology or grievance. Online mobilisation can accelerate confrontation without producing leaders capable of negotiating an end to it.

For the government, this makes prevention as important as punishment. Better intelligence, timely deployment and coordination between national and municipal authorities will influence whether stronger legislation produces safer streets.

The same applies to the military presence. Soldiers can provide visible reassurance, but the political test will be whether residents and businesses experience sustained security once the immediate emergency passes.

Italy faces two connected tasks.

Establishing individual responsibility for destruction and restoring confidence that lawful political participation can deliver results will be the priorities if public respect for the law is to be maintained.

Meloni’s new measures offer a forceful immediate answer to the first. Their lasting success will depend on whether the government can make progress on the second, before another weekend of anger becomes another emergency requiring still tougher powers.

Hamstrung governments seem to have no answer to the public’s furious demands, making further discontent likely

• Europe live – latest updates

In France, it was the piles of wheelie bins stacked up against school entrances that first hinted at the scale of student anger over crumbling classrooms and teacher shortages. In Spain, it was a tent camp that steadily grew in the heart of the capital as residents railed against soaring housing costs.

Similar scenes have since sprung up in Belgium, Italy and Portugal, and clashes have convulsed Albania’s capital of Tirana, hinting at an autumn of protests across Europe.

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© Photograph: Tom Lartige Catillon/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Lartige Catillon/Getty Images

© Photograph: Tom Lartige Catillon/Getty Images

Students, teachers and civil servants have shown up in Athens, with demonstrations also in Thessaloniki and other cities

Meanwhile, back to Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St Petersburg, the US president, Donald Trump, has just welcomed the release of Stephen Hubbard, a US citizen held by Moscow on allegations of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine (11:24).

In a post on Truth Social, he said:

“Stephen Hubbard, taken four years ago by Russia during the Biden Administration, was just released from prison, at the request of President Donald J. Trump, made directly to President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation last week.

Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family. The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return - an unprecedented situation for Russia. There was no “swap” necessary for this release.

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© Photograph: Costas Baltas/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Costas Baltas/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Costas Baltas/Anadolu/Getty Images

European Parliament Vice President Pina Picierno has announced a hunger strike to draw international attention to the humanitarian disaster in Russian-occupied Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson Oblast, she wrote on X on 20 October. The Italian lawmaker called on associations, citizens, and institutions to join her and demand a humanitarian truce, food and medicine for residents, and safe evacuation for those who want to leave.

Russia has occupied the left bank of the Dnipro in Kherson Oblast since 2022. Its forces have cut Oleshky off, leaving its remaining residents short of food and medicine, Ukrainian officials and UN monitors say. Oleshky had about 24,000 residents before the full-scale invasion. About 1,700 remain, including 47 children, Danielle Bell, head of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, said. Picierno’s protest adds to growing international pressure after Pope Leo XIV asked Russian leader Vladimir Putin for a truce to help the town.

“This battle cannot be mine alone”

In Oleshky, thousands of people are trapped in territory occupied by the Russian army, without regular access to food and medicine, Picierno wrote. Mined areas make escape extremely dangerous, she added.

“Those who stay risk dying of hunger, those who try to leave risk their lives,” she wrote. “To draw international attention to this emergency, I have announced a hunger strike. But this battle cannot be mine alone.”

She said the campaign is meant to support the efforts of Pope Leo XIV and others trying to avert a humanitarian tragedy. By the morning of 21 October, 277 people had joined the initiative, Liga reported.

Picierno, who left Italy’s Democratic Party in June and joined the Renew Europe group, has backed military aid to Ukraine, tougher sanctions on Russia, and Ukraine’s bid to join the EU, according to Liga.

A town Kyiv calls a “death trap”

On 16 October, Pope Leo XIV expressed deep concern to Putin about the situation in Oleshky. He asked for a truce so that food and medical aid could be delivered and civilians could leave voluntarily and safely.

A day later, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross to help evacuate residents.

“Russians are trying to turn the Ukrainian town of Oleshky into a death trap,” Sybiha wrote. “Dozens of bodies lie in the streets or in homes, as Russians forbid residents from burying them.”

Ukraine has flown tons of food into the town by drone. Russian troops seize some of the parcels and accuse the people who receive them of cooperating with Ukraine, local officials say. A resident said eggs there cost nearly 20 times the US price.

Evacuation talks “moved forward”

Talks with Russia on a ceasefire and evacuation are at the stage of “agreeing the final details,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said on 18 October. He estimated that about 6,000 civilians, including up to 200 children, remain in Oleshky and six nearby settlements. He gave no timeline.

On 20 October, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was doing everything it could to help people in Oleshky, calling the situation there “simply terrible.”

Giorgia Meloni’s administration has announced the deployment of 500 military troops to Milan after a weekend of intense protests and riots resulted in broken windows at luxury shops. 

But while mainstream coverage has focused on exclusive brands hiding inventory from angry demonstrators, progressive organizations emphasize that the rage witnessed on the streets of several northern Italian cities is a result of the government’s own policies.

“A Louis Vuitton bag can cost €5,600, while the monthly maximum for the wage guarantee fund in 2026 is €1,340,” wrote the grassroots union Unione Sindacale di Base (USB). In a statement on Tuesday, the union cited devastating national statistics, including data showing that over 14% of working-class families live in absolute poverty.

Broken windows can be repaired, USB noted. “Five years of lost wages, an impoverished family, and a denied future cannot be recovered so easily.”

Students oppose austerity at school and beyond

Significant mobilizations preceded the weekend’s protests. On Friday, October 16, roughly 400,000 students flooded the streets for “No Meloni Day”. They criticized the government’s so-called securitization measures which in practice has meant stifling the right to protest, as well as the unabated turn toward war and armament.

Protesters warned that by prioritizing these points over public services and working conditions, Meloni and her ministers knowingly undermine the future of a whole generation. 

Read more: Curfews imposed in French cities as rebellion against austerity grows nationwide

Echoing developments in France, where teachers’ unions have supported students’ demands over recent weeks of historic struggle for a stronger public education system, educators in Italy began circulating appeals to do the same.

“The established order is the worst of all possible worlds – or comes very close to it – and our schools are a mirror of this: they are falling apart, alienating, militarized,” the appeal reads. “Places where the need to stretch one’s legs is labeled ‘indiscipline,’ and where the ‘foreigner’ is blamed for the decline in knowledge, rather than two decades of underfunding and neglect.”

Real solutions, not repression, needed to address social crisis

Trade unions, teachers, and students all denounced the repression authorities unleashed in response to the protests – both after mobilizations in cities and during school occupations. 

“This government – incapable of offering solutions to the social crisis raging across the country – is once again attempting to manage the streets and social discontent solely through the lens of ‘public order,’ while intensifying repression and shrinking the space available for political activity,” emphasized youth organization Cambiare Rotta.

Teachers specifically called upon others in the system not to endorse crackdowns on students while invoking democratic values. “Democracy today resists in the French and Spanish squares, in the occupied Italian schools, in the resistance to the genocide of the Palestinian people, in the words and deeds of those who oppose the piecemeal world war,” they wrote.

“It is not to be found in threats, in tear gas, in police officers inside schools, or in students maimed by the weapons of our law enforcement. It is not to be found in the unjust rules that too many persist in defending.”

Read more: Mediterranean dockworkers launch historic international strike

The increased protest activity has given hope that the spark that inspired massive mobilizations throughout 2025 might resurface. It comes less than two weeks before a new general strike – and an international dockworkers’ strike in which Italian port workers are set to play a notable role – on October 30.

Violent demonstrations have rocked Europe as protesters call for action over poor university conditions, high tuition fees, corruption, housing costs and the high cost of living

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© Photograph: Boris Grdanoski/AP

© Photograph: Boris Grdanoski/AP

© Photograph: Boris Grdanoski/AP