Free Republic

From Sunday, non-EU travelers entering Europe’s Schengen open-borders zone will be photographed and fingerprinted at border crossings, as the European Union rolls out its much-delayed automated border checks. The aim of the new system is to eventually replace the manual stamp on passports and secure better information-sharing between the bloc’s 27 states. The border-check system will allow authorities to know when people entered and exited a country, with the goal of better detecting anyone overstaying and people refused entry. […] Non-EU nationals arriving for short stays in EU countries — except Cyprus and Ireland — will be asked for their...

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has praised US President Donald Trump's leadership in the Gaza peace talks, claiming the deal "would not have happened" without him. On Wednesday, Trump announced Israel and Hamas had agreed to the first phase of his 20-point peace plan, in a major step towards a permanent end to their war. It comes two years and two days after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. Sir Keir said the UK "played an important part behind the scenes" and had seen...

1. The Classification of the AfD by an Administrative Agency In the spring of 2025, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV, Germany's domestic intelligence service) classified the political party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a "right-wing extremist" organization. This classification granted the authorities the power to place its members and supporters under police surveillance without prior judicial authorization, including measures such as intercepting private communications or the BfV recruiting informants within the party. This "judgment" was not delivered by an independent court. It was created by an administrative agency directly under the authority of the Interior...

President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that Spain be expelled from NATO over its failure to match the higher defense spending requirement he has engineered. "We had one laggard, it was Spain," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "They have no excuse not to do this, but that's all right. Maybe you should throw them out of NATO frankly." In June, the 32-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization agreed to massively boost defense spending over the next decade under pressure from Trump, who at the time threatened to punish Madrid on trade for resisting the new target of five percent of...

Sir Keir Starmer will warn students not to take part in “un-British” protests marking the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre and accuses those who call for violence against Jews of a “total loss of empathy and humanity”. Writing in The Times, the prime minister says that Britain has become indifferent to antisemitism, posing a profound threat to the nation and its values. He accuses those taking part in the protests of a lack of respect for others and urges the police to use the “full force of the law” against those who call for violence against Jews. “This...

Munich Airport in Germany was forced to close for almost seven hours overnight after a wave of drone sightings, the latest European aviation hub to shutter over unexplained drone flights.A total of 17 flights were grounded shortly after 10 p.m. local time on Thursday, affecting nearly 3,000 passengers, the airport said in a statement.In addition, 15 arriving flights were diverted to the German cities of Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Frankfurt, as well as Vienna in neighboring Austria, the statement said. Flight tracking website Flightradar showed several planes circling the airport at around 11pm local time before heading to other destinations.The airport...

SUMMARYProtests erupt in Spain, Italy, Ireland, France, Germany and Switzerland Protesters in Barcelona smash windows In Italy, students occupy, block access to universities Pro-Palestinian demonstrators in Europe on Thursday blocked traffic and vandalised shops and restaurants after Israeli forces intercepted a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla. Israel faced international condemnation after armed Israeli soldiers boarded around 40 ships that were attempting to break a naval blockade to deliver aid to the Palestinian enclave, arresting more than 400 foreign activists including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. In Barcelona, protesters smashed or spray-painted anti-Israel slogans on windows of stores and restaurants including coffee...

German prosecutors say police recovered an AK-47, several pistols and ammo intended to be used in deadly attacks on Israeli or Jewish institutionsGerman police arrested three men they suspect of preparing a serious attack against Jewish targets in Germany for Hamas, prosecutors said on Wednesday, a week before the second anniversary of the Palestinian Islamist terror group’s attack on Israel. Prosecutors suspect the three men of being foreign operatives for Hamas and of being involved in procuring firearms and ammunition to be used for assassinations targeting Israeli or Jewish institutions in Germany, they said. “In the course of today’s arrests,...

The northern European countries are currently embroiled in a Russian hybrid warfare attempt, a situation that demands immediate and decisive attention. Denmark, a member of both the EU and NATO, is set to host a European Union Summit in Copenhagen this week, with the primary focus on Russian aggression in Ukraine and its hybrid warfare tactics. The Danish transportation ministry has already taken steps to ban all civilian drone flights in Danish airspace, underscoring the urgency of the security situation. Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and other Baltic Sea region countries are currently under threat from drone attacks linked to the Russian...

European officials fear that US President Donald Trump's new rhetoric on Ukraine is aimed at shifting blame to Europe. Trump is calling on the EU for tougher sanctions against Russia and tariffs on China and India, which Europeans consider unfeasible.European officials fear that US President Donald Trump's latest rhetoric on Ukraine "is intended to set them an impossible mission" that will allow the American leader to "shift the blame from Washington if Kyiv fails in the war or runs out of money," the Financial Times reports, writes UNN.Details As the publication writes, "after months of pressuring Ukraine to settle with...

Because they made the mistake of sabotaging his escalator and then his prompter, the President of the United States opened up a supersized can of geopolitical whup-ass on the UN General Assembly this week, pithily summarised by many headline-writers thus:Trump's middle finger to the UN: 'Your countries are going to hell'In fairness, this insight was mainly directed at America's "allies" in Europe. The particular hell they are going to will not be news to those who've swung by this shingle over the last twenty-three years, but I thought it might be worth doing a brisk tour d'horizon of where we're...

Germany, Spain and UK pay double or triple US rates despite huge renewable investmentsAt the Sept. 23, 2025, U.N. General Assembly, President Donald Trump drew global headlines by blasting what he called the "extreme cost" of the green transition, arguing that climate alarmism is impoverishing ordinary people while enriching elites. Whatever one thinks of Trump’s rhetoric, he touched on an inconvenient truth: despite endless assurances from campaigners and institutions like the U.N., World Bank, and World Economic Forum, wind and solar are still not delivering cheap energy. In fact, they are making electricity more expensive. For years, media and green...

As reported by Bloomberg, insiders have told the publication that production has been reduced across two of the German giant’s EV-only factories, due to reduced demand. According to the insiders, Volkswagen’s Emden plant is cutting back staffing hours and will close its production lines for multiple days, impacting the ID.4 SUV and ID.7 sedan/wagon. The move is somewhat of a surprise, given the ID.4 and ID.7 were the third- and fifth-best selling EVs in Europe throughout the first six months of 2025, and aided Volkswagen to an overall EV sales win in August. Both models however are impacted by fluctuating...

Friedrich Merz.... He has insisted that Hamas cannot be allowed a role in Gaza’s future and that hostage release and disarmament are non-negotiable. This is not callousness; it is the minimum moral logic of diplomacy. A peace plan that includes Hamas is not a peace plan at all – it is surrender to fanaticism and rewards the wrong side. And here Germany’s historic responsibility comes into sharp relief. No European nation has a deeper obligation to the security of the Jewish people. For Germans, the Holocaust was not a tragic accident; it was a state-driven programme of annihilation, which can...

I saw this a couple of days ago, and it was so intriguing, I had to hang on to it, figuring there would be a time it would come in handy.Little did I know our president would go into the United Nations General Assembly today with a flamethrower and give me the perfect opportunity to illustrate one of the scorched remnants of European superiority he left smoking on the expensive carpet in that room.When the man told them that their countries were going to fail.IF YOU DON'T GET AWAY FROM THE GREEN ENERGY SCAM, YOUR COUNTRY IS GOING TO FAILIF...

If U.S. President Donald Trump really wants to win the Nobel Peace Prize, he needs to stop the war in Gaza, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday. Speaking to France's BFM TV from New York, Macron said that only Trump has the power to put pressure on Israel to end the war. "There is one person who can do something about it, and that is the U.S. president. And the reason he can do more than us, is because we do not supply weapons that allow the war in Gaza to be waged. We do not supply equipment that...

Chancellor Friedrich Merz has admitted that Germany has been 'living beyond its means for years' with experts now warning that the country could face ruin without economic reforms. The conservative German leader has caused uproar after declaring that the country could no longer afford the cost of its pensions system, which has soared to more than 31 per cent of GDP - one of the highest levels in Europe. Merz also warned of a 'profound epochal break' and the need for 'painful' austerity measures to guarantee that young Germans would have any future prospects. Economic adviser Marcel Fratzscher, who also...

A German shop owner in the northern city of Flensburg posted a sign on Wednesday that Jews are banned from entering his store, sparking outrage among state officials in Schleswig-Holstein. Hans-Velten Reisch, the 60-year-old owner of the store that sells Gothic-Utensils and technical literature, posted a sign that reads, “Jews are banned from entering here! Nothing personal. No antisemitism. Just can’t stand you.” Germany’s largest daily newspaper, Bild, reported on Thursday that Reisch defended his anti-Jewish sign. He told the paper that “I watch the news every evening. And when I saw what the Jews were doing in the Gaza...

German Chancellor: Israel’s actions in Gaza do not amount to genocide. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz says Germany will decide on its stance on EU sanctions against Israel before an October meeting.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to announce the UK's recognition of a Palestinian state in a statement on Sunday afternoon. The move comes after the prime minister said in July the UK would shift its position in September unless Israel met conditions including agreeing to a ceasefire in Gaza and committing to a long-term sustainable peace deal that delivers a two-state solution. It represents a major change in British foreign policy after successive governments said recognition should come as part of a peace process and at a time of maximum impact. The move has drawn fierce criticism from the Israeli...