标签： Europe

In a high-profile legal decision that has gripped Norway and drawn new scrutiny to the country’s royal household, Oslo’s Court of Appeal has rejected a bid to release Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, from pre-verdict custody, reversing a lower court’s ruling that would have freed him ahead of his upcoming rape trial verdict.

Høiby, 29, has been held in custody since early February 2026, when he was detained ahead of trial on 40 separate criminal charges, including four counts of rape, multiple counts of assault, violation of a restraining order, drug possession, and traffic offenses. He has consistently denied the most severe allegations, including all rape and relationship violence charges, though he has admitted to some lesser offenses. The case against Høiby first emerged in August 2024, when he was arrested at an ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Oslo’s upscale Frogner neighborhood, where a restraining order barred him from contacting her.

The release request came amid a devastating health update for Høiby’s mother, 52-year-old Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who has lived with a rare, incurable form of pulmonary fibrosis since 2018. Last week, her medical team confirmed her condition has deteriorated sharply over the past three months, placing her on a waiting list for a life-saving lung transplant. Per Norwegian transplant protocol, placement on the list indicates doctors estimate the patient has less than 12 months to live without the procedure. Pulmonary fibrosis causes progressive scarring of lung tissue, restricting breathing and oxygen flow through the bloodstream.

Høiby’s legal team argued that their client should be granted temporary release to be by his mother’s side during her health crisis. “Sitting inside when I know Mum is so sick is unbearable,” Høiby told Oslo District Court earlier this week. On Monday, the lower court sided with the defense, ruling that while there was a small risk of reoffending, Høiby had remained drug-free in custody, and continued detention would be “disproportionately intrusive.”

That ruling was quickly appealed by prosecutors, and on Wednesday the higher court rejected the release order entirely. The Court of Appeal found that the risk of Høiby reoffending and making prohibited contact with the Frogner ex-girlfriend remained “virtually unchanged” from its previous May 13 assessment, with no new evidence to justify altering his custodial status.

“We are very, very disappointed on behalf of our client. One can imagine how he feels,” Ellen Holager Andenæs, one of Høiby’s two defense attorneys, told local Norwegian media outlets after the ruling. Prosecutors have requested a seven-year and seven-month prison sentence for Høiby, and the three judges presiding over the six-week trial are set to deliver their full verdict on all 40 charges next Monday.

Though Høiby was born before Mette-Marit married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, and is not an official member of the royal family, he has been raised within the royal household. The ongoing legal proceeding, compounded by recently revealed details of a three-year friendship between Mette-Marit and disgraced deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has created significant public controversy and cast a shadow over the Norwegian royal institution.

The royal family has remained visible amid the dual crises: Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit visited Høiby in Oslo prison last Sunday, shortly after her transplant waiting list placement was made public. The couple’s two children, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, visited Høiby hours after Mette-Marit was admitted to hospital last Thursday. Høiby was granted a temporary furlough from custody on Monday to meet with his mother’s medical team at the royal family’s Skaugum estate outside Oslo.

Norway’s elderly monarchs, 89-year-old King Harald V and 88-year-old Queen Sonja, have largely stayed out of the recent crises, though during a public royal engagement on Tuesday, Queen Sonja confirmed to reporters that “the situation is serious” regarding the crown princess’s health.

A deep diplomatic rift has opened between Ukraine and one of its most critical European allies, Poland, after a presidential decree from Volodymyr Zelensky honoring a mid-20th century Ukrainian nationalist military group reignited long-simmering historical tensions that now threaten to upend bilateral cooperation.

The conflict traces back to a late-May decree from Zelensky that renamed a Ukrainian Special Operations Forces unit after the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a partisan group that operated across Eastern Europe between the 1940s and 1950s. For many Ukrainians, the UPA is enshrined as a symbol of national resistance, celebrated for fighting against three occupying forces: Nazi Germany, the Soviet Red Army, and interwar Polish governing authorities. Naming the elite military unit “Heroes of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army” was framed by Zelensky as an effort to honor the legacy of Ukrainian independence struggle, a tradition that remains resonant for frontline Ukrainian troops who today display the UPA’s red-and-black flag in combat against Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion.

But the move triggered immediate and widespread outrage across Poland’s entire political spectrum. Warsaw accuses the UPA of perpetrating a targeted genocide of ethnic Polish civilians in the Volhynia region between 1943 and 1945, a massacre that historians estimate killed roughly 100,000 Poles. Polish President Karol Nawrocki condemned the decree as an unacceptable glorification of “bandits and killers,” a view echoed even by pro-Ukrainian politicians including Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Many Poles have framed the decision as a deep act of ingratitude, pointing to Poland’s unprecedented support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion: Poland was the first neighbor to open its borders to more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees, and currently hosts nearly 1 million displaced Ukrainians, while also serving as a key hub for Western military aid to Kyiv.

The anger has escalated to the highest levels of state honors, with Nawrocki confirming he is actively considering revoking the Order of the White Eagle – Poland’s highest state decoration, awarded to Zelensky by then-President Andrzej Duda in 2023. The Polish president told reporters he has already held consultations with the Order’s governing council, and will announce a final decision “in due course.” Under Polish regulations, the honor can be revoked if a recipient is found to have committed an act that renders them unworthy of the distinction, though commentators note any formal revocation would require backing from Prime Minister Tusk, who has sought to de-escalate the standoff.

Hardline political factions in Poland have pushed for far more aggressive action against Kyiv. Opposition Law and Justice party MPs have called for a full sweeping reassessment of bilateral relations, while far-right Confederation leader Krzysztof Bosak has demanded Poland cut funding for the Starlink satellite internet services critical to Ukraine’s military operations, and block Ukraine’s EU accession process until Kyiv reverses the unit naming decree. Nawrocki himself went further, stating that Zelensky’s decision proves “Ukraine is not ready to join the European family.”

Kyiv has so far declined to issue a formal official response to the criticism, though Ukraine’s foreign ministry has stressed it never intended to cause offense to Poland. In a last-ditch effort to ease tensions, Zelensky’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov traveled to Warsaw over the weekend to meet with Polish officials ahead of the Order of the White Eagle council meeting. However, the diplomatic outreach failed to produce a breakthrough: following Budanov’s visit, Nawrocki moved forward with convening the honorary council to discuss revoking Zelensky’s award, and Tusk later acknowledged openly that “diplomacy has yielded no results.”

The growing rift has already produced visible ripple effects: Zelensky, who regularly departs for foreign trips from Poland’s Rzeszów Airport, chose this week to fly to the United Kingdom via Moldova instead. Tusk has clarified the airport remains open to the Ukrainian leader, saying “I am not going to tell him where and how to fly,” but the shift underscores the growing chill in relations.

Analysts warn that a formal revocation of Zelensky’s honor could trigger a full diplomatic rupture between the two neighbors, with serious consequences for both nations and the broader Western coalition supporting Ukraine against Russia. The growing discontent in Poland already threatens to overshadow a major upcoming conference on Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, scheduled for later this month in Gdansk, with Polish foreign ministry officials indicating Zelensky may choose to skip the event entirely. Observers also note rising tensions could benefit right-wing Polish parties that have grown increasingly critical of continued military and refugee support for Ukraine, a shift that aligns with the strategic goals of the Kremlin.

Tusk has repeatedly pushed for de-escalation, urging both leaders to hold direct, honest negotiations to resolve the dispute before tensions spiral out of control. “Co-operation serves the interest of both our states and nations, while conflict serves Moscow’s interests,” he emphasized in a recent statement, framing continued bilateral unity as a critical national and continental security priority.

GENEVA — On Sunday, Swiss voters will head to polling stations to decide on an unprecedented national proposal that would put a hard cap on the Alpine nation’s total population, capping decades of anti-immigration advocacy led by the country’s most prominent right-wing political bloc. If approved, the initiative would lock in a maximum population of 10 million for Switzerland by the middle of the 21st century, marking the first time any national electorate has ever voted on an explicit legal limit to a country’s total population.

Switzerland’s direct democratic system gives citizens the power to force national votes on policy changes through signature collection, with national referendums typically held four times annually. The measure is championed by the populist Swiss People’s Party, the largest faction in the country’s federal parliament, which has built decades of political support on stoking isolationist sentiment around immigration. Pre-election polling from leading Swiss research firm gfs.bern indicates the outcome will likely be an extremely close contest, leaving the final result uncertain ahead of voting.

Proponents of the initiative argue that decades of open border policies with the neighboring European Union have stretched Switzerland’s housing stock, public infrastructure, social welfare systems, and natural resources thin, eroding the country’s distinct way of life. Bernard Bapst, a Fribourg-based lawmaker for the Swiss People’s Party and former customs official, claimed that cross-border openness has led to a measurable rise in criminal activity across the country, rejecting critics’ warnings that the policy threatens national security.

Opponents, however, warn that passing the proposal would amount to a catastrophic self-inflicted economic and diplomatic wound for the wealthy, export-dependent nation. They emphasize that Switzerland has reaped enormous economic benefits from free movement with the EU, which supplies critical skilled labor to key Swiss sectors including healthcare, finance, pharmaceuticals, and technology. The country’s federal government and national parliament both officially oppose the cap, and EconomieSuisse, Switzerland’s leading business group, has labeled the initiative an “absurd proposal” that puts the country’s long-term security and prosperity at risk.

Official government data illustrates the scale of demographic and economic shift that has fueled the debate. Since Switzerland and the EU agreed to ease free movement rules for workers and residents across their shared border in 2002, Switzerland’s total population has surged 23% to 9.1 million by the end of 2024. Over that same period, the country’s total economic output has also grown by 24%. “We are the victim of our own success,” explained Reto Föllmi, an international economics professor at the University of St. Gallen, summing up the core tension at the heart of the vote.

If voters approve the cap, the Swiss federal government will be legally required to implement policies to hit the 10 million target by 2050. If the population hits the 9.5 million threshold before 2050, the government would be forced to impose new restrictions on asylum claims, family reunification, and permanent residency permits. It would also likely require Switzerland to scrap its existing free movement agreement with the EU entirely.

Experts note that any immediate economic or demographic disruption would be limited by the policy’s long-term timeline, but the diplomatic and investment impacts would be felt far sooner. Political science professor Rene Schwok of the University of Geneva notes that a yes vote would significantly strain relations between Bern and Brussels — the EU is Switzerland’s largest trading partner by a wide margin — and create deep uncertainty for foreign firms looking to invest in the country. As of 2024, 32% of Switzerland’s population is foreign-born, the second-highest share among OECD nations, trailing only Luxembourg where more than half of all residents were born abroad.

Immigration has been a polarizing, long-running political issue across the European continent for decades, as countries grapple with aging native populations and rising anti-immigrant political sentiment. Unlike many other Western European nations where anti-immigrant rhetoric focuses primarily on migration from the developing world, the vast majority of foreign-born residents in Switzerland come from other European countries.

This is far from the first time Swiss voters have weighed in on immigration restrictions over the past 50 years. Only one prior immigration cap referendum — the 2014 “Against Mass immigration” measure — passed by a narrow margin, after campaigners stoked public fears about overpopulation and growing Muslim communities in the country. While many countries around the world enforce limits on new immigration, no nation has ever held a national vote on an explicit cap to its own total population, according to Philippe Wanner, a leading demography expert at the University of Geneva.

The debate in Switzerland stretches back generations. At the turn of the 21st century, as anti-immigration sentiment began to rise, former Swiss President Adolf Ogi summarized the opposing perspective that still defines the “no” campaign: “We live from foreigners … we need laborers for tourism … we need intelligent people in Switzerland.”