标签： Europe

BRUSSELS — The European Union’s most senior leaders have voiced profound shock and condemnation after Serbian authorities facilitated a state-tinged hero’s funeral for Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb war criminal who died last week while serving a life sentence for genocide and multiple war crimes. The controversial ceremony has thrown into serious question Serbia’s long-stated ambition to join the 27-nation bloc, reopening deep divides over the Balkan nation’s commitment to European democratic and historical values.

Mladic, infamously known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for orchestrating the 1995 Srebrenica massacre that left more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys dead — the first proven genocide on European soil since World War II — was interred in central Belgrade on Monday. The ceremony included full military honors: active-duty Serbian army soldiers carried his flag-draped casket through the cemetery, while the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Porfirije, personally led the funeral service. Multiple sitting Serbian government ministers were in attendance, alongside high-profile guests including Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik and Russia’s ambassador to Serbia, Alexander Botsan-Kharchenko.

While populist Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic — himself a former extremist nationalist who backed Serbian expansionist policies during the 1990s Yugoslav wars — opted not to attend the ceremony, his son Danilo Vucic was present as a representative of the administration. Vucic has framed the public turnout and official backing for the funeral as a natural “emotional outpouring” for a figure still widely viewed as a national hero among conservative segments of the Serbian population. Serbian Justice Minister Nenad Vujic, who appeared alongside Mladic’s family during the service, claimed the state’s only role was to provide security to ensure the event proceeded in an orderly fashion, with all ceremonial arrangements handled by Mladic’s family.

The event comes as Vucic navigates a precarious political balancing act: he faces early parliamentary elections expected to take place within months, and relies on the support of hardline nationalist voters who broadly admire Mladic, while still clinging to Serbia’s official goal of EU accession. Even before the funeral took place, the EU signaled the ceremony would be a critical test of Belgrade’s alignment with bloc values. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos canceled a planned visit to Serbia last week, stating explicitly that any public glorification of Mladic would be irreconcilable with the standards required for EU membership.

In synchronized statements released via social media on Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa condemned the event, saying “The images from Ratko Mladic’s funeral yesterday in Belgrade were shocking. The elements of official support and the presence of some senior Serbian officials at the funeral are deeply regrettable. They demonstrate a failure to confront a dark chapter in Europe’s recent history and contradict the values underpinning Serbia’s path towards the European Union.”

When asked about potential consequences for Serbia’s membership bid, a spokesperson for von der Leyen only confirmed that leadership is currently reviewing the situation, with no further details available. The EU is set to release its annual enlargement progress report for candidate countries in late October or early November, which will outline both progress made and ongoing deficiencies for Serbia. Von der Leyen is scheduled to tour the Western Balkans ahead of the report’s release, but no dates or agenda for a potential stop in Belgrade have been confirmed.

Serbia’s membership prospects were already in a fragile state before the funeral, with the bloc already raising serious concerns about democratic backsliding and electoral irregularities. In April, Kos warned Belgrade that it could lose access to as much as 1.5 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in pre-accession EU funds over fraud allegations connected to recent municipal elections.

The outcome of this controversy will also depend heavily on internal EU politics. Vucic’s ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), a nationalist-populist party, maintains close formal ties to the European People’s Party (EPP), the largest political grouping in the EU that unites center-right parties from across the bloc. Critics have long accused the EPP of shielding Vucic from consequences for his authoritarian turn. The EPP’s relationship with illiberal nationalist parties has precedent: for years the grouping tolerated Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party amid widespread concerns over democratic erosion, only eventually suspending Fidesz in 2019, before the party fully quit the bloc in 2021.

Von der Leyen herself is a senior EPP member, as are half of her college of commissioners and European Parliament President Roberta Metsola. She has avoided harsh public criticism of Vucic in the past. But pressure is now mounting on the EPP to take a harder line. “It is high time for the EPP to stop acting as a safe haven for the SNS party, which openly celebrates convicted war criminals and rolls out the red carpet for the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’,” Slovenian Green MEP Vladimir Prebilic said last week.

In a landmark move signaling a sharp break from its predecessor’s pro-Moscow stance, Hungary’s newly installed government has ordered 10 members of Russia’s diplomatic mission in Budapest to leave the country, citing activities that violate international diplomatic rules. The announcement, made public by Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán on Tuesday, confirms that the Russian ambassador to Hungary was formally notified of the expulsion order.

Orbán, who is not related to Hungary’s former long-serving Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, clarified that the decision stems from a Hungarian security assessment finding the 10 Russian diplomats engaged in activity incompatible with their diplomatic status under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, the binding international treaty that outlines accepted conduct for diplomatic personnel globally. She declined to provide specific details about the alleged improper activities, nor did she specify the timeline by which the expelled diplomats must exit Hungarian territory.

Crucially, the foreign minister emphasized that the expulsion is not a step toward cutting bilateral diplomatic ties between Budapest and Moscow. “This decision protects Hungary’s security and sovereignty,” Orbán said in an official written statement. “It does not imply breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia. Hungary intends to continue the necessary dialogue, based on mutual respect and adherence to the rules.”

Moscow has already signaled it will push back against the action. In remarks carried by Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, the Russian Foreign Ministry pledged to deliver an “appropriate response” to the expulsions, though it offered no further details on what form that retaliation might take.

This diplomatic move marks the first major foreign policy shift from Prime Minister Peter Magyar’s administration, which took power earlier in 2025 on a campaign pledge to reverse the country’s long-standing pro-Russia alignment. Magyar’s predecessor, Viktor Orbán, maintained a close alliance with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout his tenure, repeatedly working to delay or block collective European Union sanctions targeting Moscow over its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and prioritizing bilateral energy trade deals with Russia.

Analysts view the expulsion as a clear indicator that Budapest is aligning more closely with broader EU policy toward Russia, a departure from years of diplomatic ambiguity and pro-Moscow advocacy under the previous Orbán administration.

LONDON – In a significant shift of policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the United Kingdom government announced Tuesday it will implement a ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements built in the occupied West Bank. The move comes as a direct response to Israel’s ongoing expansion of settlement construction, which British officials say threatens the viability of creating an independent Palestinian state. Details of the new measure will be laid out to the House of Commons later this week by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who confirmed last week he would pursue a full “reset” of the UK’s diplomatic relationship with Israel.

Work and Pensions Secretary Pat McFadden clarified ahead of the official announcement that the ban is not a blanket boycott of all Israeli products, but a targeted measure focused exclusively on settlement expansion activity that violates longstanding international law. Speaking to Times Radio, McFadden emphasized the core principle guiding the UK’s decision: “At the heart of the statement is the idea that the U.K., along with many other countries, do not want to see the possibility of a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine being erased by changes to the facts on the ground.”

The dramatic policy shift comes against a deeply contentious backdrop in the region. Israel’s current government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is widely regarded as the most ultranationalist and religiously conservative administration in the country’s history. Since taking office, it has overseen a sharp surge in new settlement construction across the West Bank, a territory Israel captured during the 1967 Middle East war that the international community has long recognized as the core territory for a future independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s government rejects the premise of Palestinian statehood entirely, framing the entire West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s centre-left Labour government has already taken incremental action against settlement expansion, imposing targeted sanctions on violent extremist settlers and unauthorized illegal outposts over the past year. Tuesday’s announcement scales up those measures significantly, extending restrictions to cover all trade in goods – and potentially select services – connected to any Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Burnham has repeatedly raised alarm over Israel’s recent approval of the controversial E1 settlement project, a planned development that would split the geographically contiguous Palestinian West Bank into two disconnected sections. Palestinian leaders and international human rights groups warn that if completed, E1 would eliminate any realistic path to creating a sovereign, unified Palestinian state.

The UK’s decision marks the latest step in the country’s evolving approach to the conflict. As a longstanding close ally of Israel, the UK formally recognized Palestinian statehood last year in a bid to revitalize stalled international negotiations aimed at a two-state resolution.

Domestically, the harder line on Israeli settlements is expected to gain broad support from within the Labour Party, where a large share of voters and lawmakers have pushed for bolder action to hold Israel accountable for its expansion policies and defend Palestinian rights. However, the move carries notable political and diplomatic risks. Some political analysts have warned that the UK’s action could play directly into Netanyahu’s hands, bolstering nationalist support for his government ahead of a tightly contested general election scheduled for October.

Israeli officials have already issued fierce condemnation of the impending ban. Senior cabinet members have threatened reciprocal action: Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that “if Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.” Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s hard-line public security minister, went a step further, calling on Netanyahu to formally back Argentina’s longstanding territorial claim to the Falkland Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic known as the Islas Malvinas in Argentina.

The announcement has also drawn pushback from the United States. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, labeled the ban “discrimination against the Jewish people” and warned that the UK could face “repercussions or retaliations” from the U.S. if it moves forward with the restrictions. Ahead of the public announcement, Burnham’s office confirmed the British prime minister held a call with U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday to outline the UK’s position, stating Burnham “set out the U.K.’s commitment to working toward peace and security in the region” and reaffirmed the country’s commitment to achieving a two-state solution. No details have been released on how President Trump responded to the announcement.

BRUSSELS – Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) groundbreaking first victory in a German state election has reignited widespread concern over the growing momentum of far-right politics across the European continent. The breakthrough comes as millions of voters channel growing frustration over overlapping crises – from soaring cost of living and economic instability to heightened geopolitical tensions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and trade frictions with China and the United States – while mainstream political establishment struggle to craft cohesive, trusted responses.

While anti-immigration, pro-Russian populist far-right parties have steadily expanded their influence across European national and regional institutions in recent years, the landscape is far from one-sided: the movement has also suffered high-profile setbacks, and many leading parties have softened their once-radical policy stances to enter governing coalitions with moderate, mainstream factions.

In Sunday’s regional vote in Saxony-Anhalt, the AfD fell just short of an absolute majority, a result that would have allowed it to form the first far-right state government in Germany since the end of the Nazi era. Even without a full majority, however, the party remains in a strong position to negotiate a coalition and claim the region’s top leadership post. News of the AfD’s win was quickly celebrated by far-right leaders from Portugal to Austria, who are already gearing up for a wave of national and regional elections across Europe in the coming months.

These upcoming contests will serve as a critical litmus test: will the AfD’s victory mark a permanent tipping point, unraveling the post-World War II anti-fascist consensus that has shaped European politics for 80 years? Or is it simply the latest example of a global pattern where angered, disillusioned voters oust sitting incumbent governments, regardless of ideology?

In recent years, far-right parties have already secured cabinet positions and influence in multiple national governments across the bloc. The most high-profile success came in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni – leader of a party with historic neo-fascist roots – became prime minister, making her the head of government of one of Europe’s largest and most politically influential nations. Though Meloni campaigned on an anti-EU populist platform, she has shifted sharply to the moderate end of the spectrum once in office, a move that has earned her broad praise across the continent and allowed her to lead Italy’s most stable government in decades. Even so, she now faces a challenge from an even more right-wing upstart party led by a retired military general.

Beyond Italy, far-right factions have joined ruling coalitions and taken control of key cabinet portfolios in Finland, Croatia, and Slovakia. In the 2024 European Parliament elections, populist anti-immigrant parties notched major gains across the 27-nation bloc, reflecting their growing grassroots support among European voters. In response, the center-right European People’s Party, the largest faction in the EU legislature, has increasingly aligned itself with far-right groups – a partnership that produced a controversial, historic overhaul of EU migration policy earlier this year, which drew fierce backlash from traditional center-left allies and global human rights organizations.

Sophia Russack, a fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, described the dynamic as a defining paradox for mainstream parties: “You partner up with them to prevent them from getting more powerful,” she explained.

For all their recent gains, the far-right populist movement has also suffered a series of notable defeats in recent months. For 16 years, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán stood as the ideological standard-bearer for European far-right politics and a key inspiration for populist movements across the globe. But in April, he suffered a landslide defeat at the hands of a former ally who campaigned on an anti-corruption platform. In the Netherlands, iconic far-right leader Geert Wilders collapsed a governing coalition he helped co-found after his moderate allies refused to support his sweeping, hardline crackdown on immigration.

In the United Kingdom, the anti-immigration far-right Reform UK party has expanded its influence steadily in recent years, scoring a major upset as the top winner in May local elections. That result triggered internal panic within the Labour Party, leading to the replacement of former leader Keir Starmer and the appointment of Andy Burnham as Prime Minister. Though Reform UK holds just eight of 650 seats in the House of Commons, it has repeatedly led national opinion polls and dominated national political conversation around immigration policy. Led by veteran nationalist figure Nigel Farage, the party has found particular traction in regions that voted to leave the European Union in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Even so, Reform UK has recently stumbled, losing multiple special parliamentary elections and facing growing scrutiny over its sources of funding.

Jeremy Cliffe, editorial director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, noted that electoral setbacks for far-right parties send a mixed message: “These parties are mortal, they can be defeated, but when they’re in power, they’re not all chaotic and hopeless,” he explained.

All eyes now turn to 2025 national elections in France and Spain, which will shape the future of the far-right’s trajectory across the continent. Lisa Musiol, head of EU Affairs for the International Crisis Group, noted that the contests will either confirm the movement’s continued advance or mark a clear halt to its growth.

In Spain, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez – celebrated by the global left for his progressive stance on migration and his positions on the conflicts in Gaza and Iran – has faced widespread mass protests in response to the Ceuta border crisis. The far-right anti-immigrant Vox party, which currently holds just 32 of 350 seats in the national parliament, is widely projected to make major gains. It has already entered regional governing agreements with the center-right Popular Party, the parliament’s second-largest faction, in four autonomous regions. Following the AfD’s election win, Sanchez warned that the result should serve as a wake-up call for progressive forces across the continent: “a warning that the far-right threat is gaining ground in Europe and the world,” he said Monday, adding that “a progressive coalition government is more necessary than ever.”

In France, far-right leader Marine Le Pen is currently the front-runner to replace deeply unpopular incumbent President Emmanuel Macron, who is constitutionally barred from running for a third term. Le Pen, leader of the National Rally, has long held anti-EU and anti-immigration policy positions. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, whose center-right party is one of many competing against Le Pen, condemned the AfD’s German win as a victory for “the neo-Nazi, anti-European and pro-Putin far right.” “We urgently need to open our eyes to the despair that is propelling such ideas and such parties to power,” he wrote in an online post. “It can be done, but this is our last chance.”

This report includes contributions from Associated Press writers Suman Naishadham in Madrid, Giada Zampano in Rome, and Sylvia Hui in London.