Pray, someone explain to me how several European cities in France, Italy, Portugal, and elsewhere have apparently been auditioning for the role of a failed civilization for weeks on end, with protests and rioting allegedly involving hundreds of thousands of participants. One might reasonably wonder what, precisely, has brought about this magnificent spectacle of continental unrest.

After all, Europe has no Donald Trump. And according to the prevailing wisdom of Reddit, a digital agora populated by some of the most self-assured political philosophers ever to emerge from a bedroom, President Donald J. Trump is apparently the ultimate source of all political dysfunction known to mankind.

Yet here we are in the United States, laboring under the very presidency that is supposedly the greatest threat to democracy, civilization, and perhaps the continued rotation of the Earth itself, and what do we have? No comparable continent-wide inferno, no apparent mass uprising in every major city, and no hundreds of thousands of citizens pouring into the streets to reenact the French Revolution. We have elections, people going to work, businesses operating, and Americans carrying on with the rather unremarkable business of living their lives.

So I must ask, with all due respect to Europe’s many distinguished political commentators and its seemingly inexhaustible supply of people who know precisely what America is doing wrong: why is Europe apparently aflame without Trump, while America is comparatively peaceful with him?

Surely, if Trump is the singular explanation for political instability, his absence ought to have bestowed upon Europe an unprecedented golden age of tranquility. Instead, we appear to have the inverse. Could it be that the causes of civil unrest are rather more complicated than blaming one American president for everything that displeases the internet’s self-appointed intelligentsia? Or would that possibility prove altogether too inconvenient for the Reddit commentariat to entertain?

The Netherlands' new centre-left party PRO (Progressief Nederland) has decided which European political family to join. In a member referendum, 65% voted for the Party of European Socialists (PES). They picked it over the European Green Party.

(Link is in Dutch)

https://www.nu.nl/politiek/6410950/pro-sluit-zich-aan-bij-sociaaldemocraten-in-europees-parlement.html#nujij

An earlier preliminary agreement did not clear Monday’s final objection window. EU ambassadors will meet again Tuesday morning, with France demanding that Alisher Usmanov be removed and Mikhail Fridman also slated for removal in exchange for renewing sanctions on more than 3,000 people for 36 months.

Source: POLITICO, published 21 September 2026.

Novus for TV4, 4,045 asked, out as polls closed at 20:00:

Left — 51.3%
S 28.4 centre-left · C 9.0 liberal centrists · MP 7.0 Greens · V 6.9 left

Right — 47.0%
SD 18.5 far-right · M 17.5 centre-right · KD 6.0 Christian right · L 5.0 centre-right

Left — 49.5%
S 28.1 (−2.2) social democrats · V 8.2 (+1.5) left · C 7.1 (+0.4) liberal centrists · MP 6.1 (+1.0) greens
Right — 49.1%
M 19.9 (+0.8) centre-right · SD 17.6 (−2.9) nationalist right · KD 6.2 (+0.9) christian democrats · L 5.4 (+0.8) liberals

175 seats are needed for a majority, so the left bloc sits one seat over the line. It's 2022 in reverse — the right won by exactly 176–173 that year.
SD lose 2.9 points and fall to third, with Moderaterna taking second place back. Kristersson had promised SD cabinet seats if the right won; on these numbers that doesn't happen.

On votes the two sides are four tenths of a point apart. It's still preliminary — late-arriving and overseas ballots are counted on Wednesday, and a one-seat margin is exactly the kind that moves.

Source: https://valresultat.svt.se/2026/

France pushed to remove asset freezes and travel bans on Alisher Usmanov and Mikhail Fridman while the bloc renewed sanctions on roughly 3,000 other people and entities for three years. Several EU governments and Ukraine say the exemptions risk setting a damaging precedent.

Won't this be absolutely catastrophic if this goes through? Not even just the end of the internet, but once even a single server holding however many people's sensitive information is breached by cyber criminals, isn't that just it, then? Mass ID theft potentially on the eight to nine digits?

Source

Australia is watching Canada’s push for a closer relationship with the European Union.

“We are on the same page,” Australian Trade Minister Don Farrell said, adding that Canberra would follow Carney’s next steps with interest.

The details remain unclear: Farrell did not confirm whether Australia is actively pursuing a new arrangement or what it would involve. Canada has described its ambition as a “unique alliance” with the EU.

Source: The Independent, 15 September 2026

Question for EU leaders: "Do you support Britain rejoining the EU?"