Listen on Spotify Apple Music Google Play Acast As recent national elections in several European countries have shown, far-right voters no longer fit the stereotype of the angry, old white man, but now often include women, young people and even migrants. In this episode we unpack what drives voters to abandon the mainstream and more traditional party loyalties for the far right, and how poverty, or fear of it, motivates typical supporters of the AfD in Germany, Geert Wilder’s PVV in the Netherlands, or Chega in Portugal. Host Sarah Wheaton is joined by POLITICO reporters Hanne Cokelaere ..read more

BRUSSELS — The EU approved a plan to use the profits generated by investing frozen Russian assets to buy weapons for Ukraine. Ambassadors meeting in Brussels on Wednesday gave the go-ahead after Belgium signaled a climbdown on the way it treats tax revenue on the cash — the last major obstacle to deal. The profits generated by investing Russia’s assets immobilized in Belgium— where a large part of the assets frozen in Europe are kept — are worth between €2.5 billion and €3 billion per year. “The money will serve to support #Ukraine‘s recovery and military defence in the context of the Rus ..read more

The fugitive: Carles Puigdemont’s final shot at Catalan independence The separatist politician is running for president from his camp just across the Spanish border. By AITOR HERNÁNDEZ-MORALES in PERPIGNAN, France Illustration by Michelle Kondrich for POLITICO There once was a mayor of a small European city who was chosen to lead a rebellion. When the uprising was suppressed, he fled the kingdom and took refuge in a nearby realm even as the authorities detained his friends and allies. For years, he lived under threat of imprisonment should he ever step foot in his native land. He s ..read more

Israeli tanks entered the Gazan city of Rafah on Tuesday morning — despite months of warnings by allies and aid groups that a full-scale attack would be a humanitarian catastrophe. More than half of the population of Gaza — 1.4 million people, the majority of whom arrived having already been displaced from further north — are trapped in Rafah. “I’m afraid that this is going to cause again a lot of civilian casualties, whatever they say. There are 600,000 children in Gaza, they will be pushed to so-called safe zones,” the EU’s foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Tuesday ahead of a meeting ..read more

BRUSSELS — Belgian and German police on Tuesday conducted searches at the European Parliament offices of a far-right MEP and his aide as part of an investigation into suspected Chinese espionage. An investigating judge of Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ordered the search of the offices of MEP Maximilian Krah, top candidate for next month’s EU election from the far-right Alternative for Germany party (AfD) and his aide Jian G., who is suspected of “of secret service agent activity,” according to German public prosecutors. The search was delayed, according to one of Krah’s employees —&n ..read more

The vote that Europe cares about the most is almost upon us. No, not the EU election — that only interests about 60 percent of citizens, according to Eurobarometer’s latest survey*. We mean Eurovision. * We should at this point mention all the serious, respectable stories on the EU election produced by our newsroom which you can find at our election hub here. This is not one of them. Armed with data skillfully interpreted and presented in the compelling charts below, we asked ourselves: What if the Eurovision votes held greater political power? What if, instead of (sometimes fleeting) musical ..read more

BRUSSELS — The EU has said neutral countries can opt out of its plan to use the profits of Russia’s frozen assets to buy weapons for Ukraine, six EU diplomats told POLITICO. The proposal comes ahead of a meeting of the EU’s 27 envoys on Wednesday, in which the Belgian Council presidency hopes to strike a deal to unlock funding for Ukraine. Capitals that oppose military aid to Kyiv can limit themselves to providing humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country, according to a new text circulated by the presidency on Friday. This is a last-ditch attempt to win over EU countries that are not pa ..read more

The European Commission is moving to widen Czech sanctions against Voice of Europe, an alleged pro-Russian propaganda network, to be enforced across the European Union. Voice of Europe is listed as one of four entities to be added to the sanctions list as part of the bloc’s 14th sanctions package against Russia, according to a document dated May 3 and seen by POLITICO. The three others are Russian state-owned news agency RIA Novosti and Russian news outlets Izvestija and Rossiyskaya Gazeta. The news website Voice of Europe as well as Viktor Medvedchuk, an ally of Vladimir Putin, and Artem ..read more

Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo is seeking European Union allies in his push to ban imports on products from territories occupied by Israel. The call by Belgium, which currently chairs the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU — the bloc’s intergovernmental part — comes amid growing reports of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories. “With regard to the trade that comes from these occupied territories, let’s send out a clear signal … That’s why we’re looking for other partners to give a clear signal that what’s going on in the West Ba ..read more

Social media app Telegram will be overseen by Belgian authorities as it seeks to comply with new rules under the European Union’s law on policing content on platforms. The Dubai-based platform has selected a Brussels-based company as its legal representative in the EU, a spokesperson for the Belgian telecoms authority BIPT told POLITICO. The news was first reported by local paper De Standaard. Platforms that operate in Europe are required to appoint a local representative under the bloc’s new content moderation rulebook, the Digital Services Act (DSA). Telegram, founded by Russian-born Pavel D ..read more