Prime Minister Robert Fico’s leftist-populist ruling coalition voted on Tuesday to abolish an office that protects people who report corruption in a further crackdown on the rule of law in Slovakia. The draft bill — passed via a fast-track procedure on International Anti-Corruption Day — shuts down the country’s Whistleblower Protection Office, which was created in 2021 under the EU’s Whistleblower Protection Directive. The shuttered office will be replaced by a new institution whose leadership will be appointed by the government. Critics and opposition parties say the change will strip various protections from whistleblowers. The European Public Prosecutor’s Office warned last month that restricting protection for whistleblowers “seriously limits detection, reporting, and investigation, particularly of corruption.” The Slovak decision, which drew 78 votes in the 150-seat parliament, is expected to spark tensions with the European Commission. The EU executive noted last month that “several elements of this law raise serious concerns in relation to EU law.” “We regret that MPs did not heed the warnings of dozens of experts and international organizations, including the European Commission and the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which drew attention to the negative impacts of the new law,” the Slovak whistleblower office said in a post on Facebook. “The level of protection, as well as public trust in the whistleblower protection system that we have painstakingly built at the office over the past years, will be significantly weakened by this law,” it added. NGOs and the political opposition said they view the move as political payback from Interior Minister Matúš Šutaj Eštok, whose ministry had been fined by the whistleblower office for suspending elite police officers under whistleblower protection without first notifying the office. The suspended officers had been investigating corruption among senior Slovak officials. Slovakia’s Interior Ministry told POLITICO in a statement that “the opposition’s claims of ‘revenge’ are false and have no factual basis.” “The change [with the office] is not personal, but institutional. It is a systemic solution to long-standing issues that have arisen in the practical application of the current law, as confirmed by several court rulings,” the ministry said, adding that the changes are consistent with the EU’s whistleblower protection directive. To become law, the legislation still needs approval from President Peter Pellegrini, who has signaled he might veto it. In that case it could be enacted by the parliament in a repeat vote. Since returning to power in 2023 for a fourth term, Fico’s Smer party has taken steps to dismantle anti-corruption institutions, including abolishing the Office of the Special Prosecutor, which had handled high-profile corruption cases, and disbanding NAKA, the elite police unit tasked with fighting organized crime. The European Commission did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

BRUSSELS — European governments struck a deal on Wednesday that clears the way for new rules protecting kids from child sexual abuse online. The agreement among countries puts an end to a years-long, heated lobbying fight that pitted privacy groups and even Elon Musk against law enforcement and child rights groups. The proposed law — which is now on track to pass by an April deadline, pending final talks with the European Parliament — would allow online messaging apps to scan content to stop the spread of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and child grooming, and require platforms to do more to detect and take down content. Child rights groups say the deal struck by countries will go some way toward tackling the problem of child abuse online, even if it doesn’t go as far as they had hoped. To land an agreement, Danish diplomats who led negotiations in the Council of the EU softened their proposal to steer clear of a controversial “mandatory scanning” clause, which would have forced apps like Signal and WhatsApp to scan their services for illegal content. That idea — labeled “Chat Control” by privacy campaigners, who argued it would open the door to state surveillance — was also fought hard by end-to-end encrypted messaging apps. Signal had threatened to cease its services in Europe if the “Chat Control” proposal had moved forward. The compromise approved by EU ambassadors on Wednesday allows companies to decide voluntarily whether to scan their services, which is the current status quo under a temporary legal exemption that expires in April. It also places fresh obligations on platforms, including mandatory risk assessments. The deal clears the way for the Council to start negotiations with the European Parliament on a final text. Parliament reached its position on the law in 2023. Wednesday’s compromise doesn’t fully please either camp in the lobbying fight. Police and investigators fear illegal content will remain out of sight on end-to-end encrypted applications, while privacy activists say large-scale surveillance of communication will still expand. Privacy activists voiced concerns over the proposal, particularly over how targeted the scanning measures would be — a sign that they’ll continue to pressure negotiators in coming months. Andy Yen, CEO of the Swiss privacy-friendly tech maker Proton, said in a statement it is “vital we all remain vigilant” against attempts to introduce mandatory scanning “through the back door” during the negotiations. Ella Jakubowska, head of policy at digital rights group EDRi, said there’s “a lot still to fix in the Council’s text.” Meanwhile, ECLAG, a coalition of child rights groups, said it is “concerned by the absence of mandatory detection orders” in the Council compromise. Negotiators in the Council and Parliament have a hard deadline of April, when a temporary legislation allowing apps to scan for CSAM expires. The lead negotiator for the Parliament, Spanish lawmaker Javier Zarzalejos, said in a video posted on X that the negotiations are “urgent.” Cyprus will lead negotiations on behalf of the Council starting in January. A Cypriot official said it is “in full awareness of the April deadline.”

BRUSSELS — European Parliament members this week rubbished the EU executive’s Democracy Shield plan, an initiative aimed at bolstering the bloc’s defenses against Russian sabotage, election meddling and cyber and disinformation campaigns. The Commission’s plan “feels more like a European neighborhood watch group chat,” Kim van Sparrentak, a Dutch member of the Greens group, told a committee meeting on Monday evening. On Tuesday, EU Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath faced the brunt of that censure before the full Parliament plenary, as centrist and left-leaning lawmakers panned the plan for its weaknesses and far-right members warned that Brussels is rolling out a propaganda machine of its own. “We want to see more reform, more drive and more actions,” Swedish center-right lawmaker Tomas Tobé, who leads the Parliament’s report on the matter, told McGrath. The European Democracy Shield was unveiled Nov. 12 as a response to Russia’s escalating meddling in the bloc. In past months, Europe has been awash in hybrid threats. Security services linked railway disruptions in Poland and the Baltics to Russian-linked saboteurs, while unexplained drone flyovers have crippled public services in Belgium and probed critical infrastructure sites across the Nordics. At the same time, pro-Kremlin influence campaigns have promoted deepfake videos and fabricated scandals and divisive narratives ahead of elections in Moldova, Slovakia and across the EU, often using local intermediaries to mask their origins.   Together these tactics inform a pressure campaign that European security officials say is designed to exhaust institutions, undermine trust and stretch Europe’s defenses.  The Democracy Shield was a key pledge President Ursula von der Leyen made last year. But the actual strategy presented this month lacks teeth and concrete actions, and badly fails to meet the challenge, opponents said. While “full of new ways to exchange information,” the strategy presents “no other truly new or effective proposals to actually take action,” said van Sparrentak, the Dutch Greens lawmaker.  EU RESPONSE A WORK IN PROGRESS Much of the Shield’s text consists of calls to support existing initiatives or proposed new ones to come later down the line.   One of the pillars of the initiative, a Democratic Resilience Center that would pool information on hybrid warfare and interference, was announced by von der Leyen in September but became a major sticking point during the drafting of the Shield before its Nov. 12 unveiling.  The final proposal for the Center lacks teeth, critics said. Instead of an independent agency, as the Parliament had wanted, it will be a forum for exchanging information, two Commission officials told POLITICO.  The Center needs “a clear legal basis” and should be “independent” with “proper funding,” Tobé said Tuesday.   Austrian liberal Helmut Brandstätter said in a comment to POLITICO that “some aspects of the center are already embedded in the EEAS [the EU’s diplomatic service] and other institutions. Instead of duplicating them, we should strive to consolidate and streamline our tools.” EU countries also have to opt into participating in the center, creating a risk that national authorities neglect its work.  RIGHT BLASTS EU ‘CENSORSHIP’  For right-wing and far-right forces, the Shield reflects what they see as EU censorship and meddling by Brussels in European national politics.   “The stated goals of the Democracy Shield look good on paper but we all know that behind these noble goals, what you actually want is to build a political machinery without an electoral mandate,” said Csaba Dömötör, a Hungarian MEP from the far-right Patriots group.   “You cannot appropriate the powers and competence of sovereign countries and create a tool which is going to allow you to have an influence on the decisions of elections” in individual EU countries, said Polish hard-right MEP Beata Szydło.   Those arguments echo some of the criticisms by the United States’ MAGA movement of European social media regulation, which figures like Vice President JD Vance have previously compared to Soviet-era censorship laws.  The Democracy Shield strategy includes attempts to support European media organizations and fact-checking to stem the flood of disinformation around political issues. Romanian right-wing MEP Claudiu-Richard Târziu said her country’s 2024 presidential elections had been cancelled due to “an alleged foreign intervention” that remained unproven.  “This Democracy Shield should not create a mechanism whereby other member states could go through what Romania experienced in 2024 — this is an attack against democracy — and eventually the voters will have zero confidence,” he said.  In a closing statement on Tuesday at the plenary, Commissioner McGrath defended the Democracy Shield from its hard-right critics but did not respond to more specific criticisms of the proposal.  “To those who question the Shield and who say it’s about censorship. What I say to you is that I and my colleagues in the European Commission will be the very first people to defend your right to level robust debate in a public forum,” he said.

Spanish Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz resigned Monday, stepping down before a judicial ruling banning him from holding public office for two years went into effect. Spain’s Supreme Court last week convicted García Ortiz of leaking details of a tax probe involving the partner of Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a rising star among the country’s conservative voters. The outgoing attorney general denies leaking the information, and several journalists who published articles about the probe testified he was not their source. Although the court announced García Ortiz’s guilty verdict within days of his trial’s conclusion, the panel of judges who tried him has yet to publish the legal reasoning behind the ruling. In a resignation letter addressed to Justice Minister Félix Bolaños, García Ortiz said that his “deep respect” for judicial decisions and “desire to protect the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office” obliged him to step down immediately. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday said he “regretted” the conviction and affirmed his belief in the outgoing attorney general’s innocence. But he also underscored the sanctity of the rule of law in Spain, insisting the government “respects rulings and abides by them.” Sánchez added that there were legal channels by which García Ortiz can “address any controversial aspects of this ruling.” The outgoing attorney general could file an appeal with the country’s Constitutional Court, or even seek to challenge it beyond Spain’s borders. García Ortiz’s conviction has generated immense controversy in Spain, with opinions split largely along ideological lines. While the center-right People’s Party and far-right Vox group have cheered the court’s decision, Sánchez’s ruling coalition has rallied around him, accusing the judiciary of being weaponized by conservative political forces. Groups less friendly to Sánchez have also sided with with García Ortiz, citing their own, unhappy experiences with alleged “lawfare” in Spain. Last week the Catalan separatist Junts party — which recently staged a public breakup with the Spanish government — said it was unsurprised by the ruling “because we know how the Supreme Court works.” The usually critical, far-left Podemos party on Monday said the attorney general’s exit was the result of a “judicial coup.”

LONDON — Criminal networks are “weaponizing children” to commit torture and murder by recruiting them through multiplayer video games and smartphones — and parents often have no idea what’s happening, the boss of Europe’s law enforcement agency warns.  These groups now pose the greatest single criminal threat to the European Union because they destabilize society by targeting children and destroying families, said Catherine De Bolle, executive director of Europol.  “The weaponization of children for organized crime groups is what is going on at the moment on European soil,” she said in a joint interview with POLITICO and Welt. “They weaponize the children to torture or to kill. It’s not about petty theft anymore. It’s about big crimes.”  The “worst case” Europol has seen was of a young boy who was ordered “to kill his younger sister, which happened,” she said. “It’s cruel, we have never seen this before.”  She even suggested that children and young people are being used by hostile states and hybrid threat perpetrators as unwitting spies to eavesdrop on government buildings.  The Europol chief is in a unique position to describe the criminal landscape threatening European security, as head of the EU agency responsible for intelligence coordination and supporting national police. In a wide-ranging discussion, De Bolle also cautioned that the growth of artificial intelligence is having a dramatic impact, multiplying online crime, described how drug smugglers are now using submarines to ship cocaine from South America to Europe, and described an increasing threat to European society from Russia’s hybrid war.  De Bolle’s comments come amid an ongoing debate about how to police the internet and social media to prevent young and vulnerable people from coming to harm. The greatest threat facing the EU from organized crime right now comes from groups that have “industrialized” the recruitment of children, she said: “Because [they are] the future of the European Union. If you lose them, you lose everything.” FROM GAMING TO GROOMING Criminals often begin the process of grooming children by joining their multiplayer video games, which have a chat function, and gaining their trust by discussing seemingly harmless topics like pets and family life.  Then, they will switch to a closed chat where they will move on to discussing more sinister matters, and persuade the child to share personal details like their address. At that point, the criminals can bribe or blackmail the child into committing violence, including torture, self-harm, murder and even suicide.  Europol is aware of 105 instances in which minors were involved in violent crimes “performed as a service” — including 10 contract killings. Many attempted murders fail because children are inexperienced, the agency said. “We also have children who do not execute the order and then, for instance, [the criminals] kill the pet of the child, so that the child knows very well, ‘We know where you live, we know who you are, you will obey, and if you don’t, we will go even further to kill your mother or your father,’” De Bolle warned.  Criminals will also offer children money to commit a crime — as much as $20,000 for a killing, sometimes they pay and sometimes they don’t. While these networks often target children who are vulnerable because they have psychological problems or are bullied at school, healthy and happy children are also at risk, De Bolle said. “It’s also about others, youngsters who are not vulnerable but just want new shoes — shoes that are very expensive.”  Sometimes young people are even recruited for hybrid war by state actors, she said. “You also have it with hybrid threat actors that are looking for the crime as a service model — the young perpetrators to listen to the foreign state, to listen to the communication around buildings.” Once police catch a child, the criminals abandon them and move to groom a new child to turn into a remote-operated weapon.  “Parents blame themselves in a lot of cases. They do not understand how it is possible,” she said. “The problem is you don’t have access to everything your child does and you respect also the privacy of your children. But as a parent, you need to talk about the dangers of the internet.” DRUGS AND AI ARE ALSO A PROBLEM Among the new criminal methods crossing Europol’s desks, two stand out: The use of so-called narco-submarines to smuggle drugs like cocaine from South America into the EU and the growth in AI technology fueling an explosion in online fraud that enforcement agencies are virtually powerless to stop.  Instead of shipping cocaine into the ports of Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp through containers, criminals have diversified their methods, De Bolle said. One key route is to sail semi-submersible vessels from South America to Europe’s North Atlantic coast, where speedboats meet them and offload the illegal cargo via Portugal, according to Europol’s information.  While Europe now is “overflooded with drugs,” criminal organizations may make more money, more easily through online fraud, she said. “Artificial intelligence is a multiplier for crime,” she said. “Everything is done a thousand times more and faster. The abuse of artificial intelligence lies in phishing emails — you do not recognize it very easily with phishing emails anymore because the language is correct.”  She said “romance fraud” is also “booming,” as “people look for love, also online.” “With deepfakes and with voice automation systems, it’s very difficult for a law enforcement authority to recognise that from a genuine picture. The technology is not there yet to [tell] the difference,” De Bolle added.  De Bolle said Europol needed to be able to access encrypted phone messages with a judge’s authorization to disrupt these criminal networks. “When a judge decides that we need to have access to data, the online providers should be forced to give us access to this encrypted communication,” she said. Otherwise, “we will be blind and then we cannot do our job.”

Police have detained eight people and raided 18 homes in Brussels and Leuven in connection with death threats against a top prosecutor known for fighting organized crime and drug trafficking. Law enforcement in Brussels received information in July about a possible plot to attack Julien Moinil, the city’s public prosecutor, as reported by Belgian news outlets. The threat level against Moinil, who took office in January and is under police protection, was raised to four, the highest category, after police learned of the alleged plans. “The main suspects have criminal records for organized drug trafficking. They are active within the Albanian criminal underworld,” said the Belgian state prosecutor’s department on Tuesday. It remains unclear whether the suspects actually planned an attack on Moinil. Brussels has struggled with drug-related crime and violence for the last several years, with dozens of shootings. By the end of October, 78 shootings had been recorded in 2025. Amid a particularly violent week in August, Moinil lambasted politicians for their lenient stance on gun violence, warning that “anyone in Brussels can be hit a by a stray bullet.” In 2024, 92 shootings claimed the lives of nine people, according to official figures. In September, Belgian Security and Home Affairs Minister Bernard Quintin sparked debate when he suggested soldiers could be deployed on the streets of Brussels for their “shock effect” alongside police. In a recent anonymous open letter, a judge in Antwerp said drug trafficking is turning Belgium into a “narco-state” and that “extensive mafia-like structures have taken root.” The alleged plot against Moinil raises questions about the safety of other officials involved in combating drug violence. “This investigation once again shows the absolute necessity to better protect police officers and magistrates who fight tirelessly every day against organized crime and who, as a result, are targeted by these organizations,” Federal Prosecutor Ann Fransen told Belgian media on Tuesday.

PARIS — Back-to-back horrific shootings in recent days that law enforcement have linked to drug trafficking are highlighting how security issues are likely to play a dominant role in important municipal elections next year. The profile of the victims in each incident were shocking. A shooting sometime between Saturday night and Sunday morning in Grenoble left a 13-year-old gravely wounded, authorities there said, while on Thursday, the younger brother of a high-profile Marseille community activist was killed in what the prosecutor leading the investigation said was a potential intimidation attempt. Justice Minister Gérald Darmanin said Friday that the killing of Mehdi Kessaci, 20, a day earlier was a “frightening tipping point” given that he and his brother Amine had become anti-drug trafficking advocates following the death of their elder half-brother in a gang-related shooting. The 22-year-old Amine is one of the highest-profile crusaders against the narcotics trade in Marseille, the southern port city that for decades has failed to curb drug-related violence. He was profiled in the New York Times last year. Benoît Payan, the center-left mayor of Marseille, struck a similar tone as Darmanin, stating that the crime would usher the fight against drug trafficking into “a new era” if its intimidation motive is confirmed. In the wake of such brazen violence, security issues have become a top concern for voters ahead of municipal elections set for spring 2026, surveys show. An Ifop poll released Sunday showed security was the top concern ahead of those elections for 76 percent of voters. More than 10 percent of homicides last year were related to drug trafficking, per Interior Ministry statistics. The French government has since responded by doubling down on its war-on-drugs strategy, backing new legislation to give law enforcement agents and justice officials more leverage to go after traffickers. But the intense focus on repression has its critics. “We’re acting like the U.S. did when they had prohibition, which led to the mafia,” said Eric Coquerel, the head of the public finances committee in the French National Assembly and a prominent member of the hard-left France Unbowed movement. Coquerel is calling for the legalization of cannabis and harm-reduction policies.

President Donald Trump on Friday directed Attorney General Pam Bondi and the FBI to investigate links between Jeffrey Epstein and notable Democrats, the president’s latest attempt to deflect scrutiny over his connections to the late disgraced financier by focusing on his political opponents. In a social media post, Trump pushed Bondi to target former President Bill Clinton, Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman and former Harvard President Larry Summers, who served in senior positions in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, along with the bank JPMorgan Chase. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats. Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island,’” he wrote. “Stay tuned!!!” None of the Democrats named by Trump have been accused by prosecutors of wrongdoing. Bondi quickly assigned Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, who heads the office that prosecuted Epstein and won the conviction of his co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, to run point on the probe. “Thank you, Mr. President,” Bondi wrote. “SDNY U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton is one of the most capable and trusted prosecutors in the country, and I’ve asked him to take the lead. As with all matters, the Department will pursue this with urgency and integrity to deliver answers to the American people.” Clayton, however, may be hamstrung in his efforts to further investigate Epstein’s sex-trafficking operation. In July, the Trump administration fired one of the last remaining prosecutors in the Manhattan office who worked on the Epstein and Maxwell cases: Maurene Comey. Comey, the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, wasn’t provided an explanation for her firing, and she is suing the Trump administration over her termination. The White House has spent much of the week struggling to contain the fallout after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday released emails in which Epstein said Trump “knew about the girls” without providing further evidence. Trump and his allies have denied that he knew about Epstein’s crimes, and no evidence has suggested that Trump took part in Epstein’s trafficking operation. Epstein killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019. Administration officials have argued that Democrats dropped the emails to distract from Republicans’ success in ending a record-long government shutdown and that none of them incriminate the president. Also this week, Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) succeeded in triggering a discharge petition to force a vote in the House on the release of all the Epstein files. Senior GOP officials believe that dozens of House Republicans could join Democrats in voting for the disclosure bill. Trump and Epstein were friends, but the president has maintained for years the two had a falling out decades ago and has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing associated with Epstein. “Some Weak Republicans have fallen into their clutches because they are soft and foolish,” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post Friday. “Epstein was a Democrat, and he is the Democrat’s problem, not the Republican’s problem!” Trish Wexler, head of policy and advocacy communications for JPMorgan Chase, said in an email Friday that “the government had damning information about [Epstein’s] crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks.” “We regret any association we had with the man, but did not help him commit his heinous acts,” she said. “We ended our relationship with him years before his arrest on sex trafficking charges.” The Department of Justice pointed to Bondi’s post on X when asked for more information about any steps it is taking to comply with Trump’s request. Representatives for Clinton and Summers did not immediately reply to requests for comment. Hoffman denied having a relationship with Epstein beyond solicitations for donations revealed in the emails released by Oversight Democrats, and called on Trump to release all files connected to the Epstein investigation. “I want this complete release because it will show that the calls for baseless investigations of me are nothing more than political persecution and slander,” Hoffman wrote on X. At least one House Republican was critical of Trump’s call for an investigation. Retiring Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) — who indicated earlier this week that he’d vote in favor of the House bill demanding the DOJ release the Epstein files — said he doesn’t think Trump’s ask is “appropriate,” saying the Justice Department shouldn’t act on cases because of pressure from the White House. “We should leave the DOJ and make them as independent as we can,” he told CNN on Friday. “When the president gives orders to Pam Bondi and our law enforcement arms of the federal government — what it does is it undercuts the credibility of our law enforcement.” JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, did business with Epstein for many years, including lending money to the financier and helping to move his assets overseas. The bank ended its association with Epstein in 2013 and in 2019, it filed a suspicious activity report regarding Epstein and his associates’ transactions. Senate Democrats recently opened a new line of inquiry into the bank regarding its association with Epstein. The bank has previously expressed regret for its involvement with Epstein, and has emphasized that it did not have knowledge of his illegal activities. JPMorgan Chase settled lawsuits in 2023 with the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Epstein had a compound, and with some of Epstein’s victims. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon was among a coterie of Wall Street executives who met with the president for dinner earlier this week. He has previously said that he would comply with an Epstein subpoena. Aiden Reiter, Faith Wardwell and Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.

BERLIN — Dozens of politicians from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party will travel to Washington in December at the invitation of a group of House Republicans, said U.S. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. The invitation to AfD politicians comes at a time when German far-right figures are increasingly looking for support from MAGA Republicans in the U.S. for what they frame as a struggle against political persecution and censorship at home. “It’s 40 members that we’re hosting from the AfD,” Luna said in an interview with Welt, which is a sister publication of POLITICO in the Axel Springer Group. “And it’s not just going to be me, it’s going to be other members of Congress as well.” A spokesperson for the AfD said he could “neither confirm nor deny” whether that number of the party’s politicians is in fact set to travel to the U.S. next month. The spokesperson of the AfD’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag said the number of federal lawmakers traveling to the U.S. capital would not be that high. Luna has taken an active interest in German far-right figures’ claims that they are being persecuted in Germany for their views, recently telling POLITICO that “the German government’s recent actions against its own citizens resemble the authoritarianism of the Soviet Union prior to its fall more than Russia does today.” Some Trump administration officials have also spoken out in support of the AfD. When Germany’s federal domestic intelligence agency declared the AfD to be an extremist organization earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the move “tyranny in disguise.” During the Munich Security Conference, U.S. Vice President JD Vance urged European mainstream politicians to knock down the “firewalls” that shut out far-right parties from government. Germany’s postwar constitution allows domestic intelligence agencies to surveil political parties, actors and organizations deemed extremist — and to make it theoretically possible to ban such parties. These restrictions were intended by the drafters of the West German constitution to prevent a repeat of the Nazi rise to power, when anti-democratic forces were able to subvert democracy from within. AfD leaders see the invitation to Washington as an opportunity to win more legitimacy domestically for their claims of persecution. Luna invited AfD co-leader Alice Weidel to Washington at the end of last month via a post on X. Weidel reacted postively and said she would reach out to discuss further arrangements. Luna also recently met with Naomi Seibt, a right-wing influencer and AfD ally, who recently said she had applied for asylum in the U.S., claiming to be the target of  “severe government and intelligence surveillance and harassment” for her political views and defense of free speech in Germany. “I think that she [Seibt] is a great young woman, and I do think that she has a promising future whatever she decides to do, and so we’ll be fully backing her,” Luna told Welt. “I’m actually not just going to be helping her, but I’m going to be helping others like her,” Luna said. “I do hope that maybe this at least provides some open dialogue on how the German government — specifically the politicians, law enforcement — treat their own citizens even if they don’t agree with them.” The trip to Washington by AfD members in December is to be followed by a larger-scale conference early next year, Luna said, something that “will counter Davos” and be more focused on “the sovereignty of nations.” Julius Brinkmann contributed to this report from Washington.

The European Union’s law enforcement agency wants to speed up how it gets its hands on artificial intelligence tools to fight serious crime, a top official said. Criminals are having “the time of their life” with “their malicious deployment of AI,” but police authorities at the bloc’s Europol agency are weighed down by legal checks when trying to use the new technology, Deputy Executive Director Jürgen Ebner told POLITICO. Authorities have to run through data protection and fundamental rights assessments under EU law. Those checks can delay the use of AI by up to eight months, Ebner said. Speeding up the process could make the difference in time sensitive situations where there is a “threat to life,” he added. Europe’s police agency has built out its tech capabilities in past years, ranging from big data crunching to decrypting communication between criminals. Authorities are keen to fight fire with fire in a world where AI is rapidly boosting cybercrime. But academics and activists have repeatedly voiced concerns about giving authorities free rein to use AI tech without guardrails. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups “navigating constantly between the physical and digital worlds.” The Commission’s latest work program said this will come in the form of a legislative proposal to strengthen Europol in the second quarter of 2026.  Speaking in Malta at a recent gathering of data protection specialists from across Europe’s police forces, Ebner said it is an “absolute essential” for there to be a fast-tracked procedure to allow law enforcement to deploy AI tools in “emergency” situations without having to follow a “very complex compliance procedure.” Assessing data protection and fundamental rights impacts of an AI tool is required under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and AI Act. Ebner said these processes can take six to eight months.  The top cop clarified that a faster emergency process would not bypass AI tool red lines around profiling or live facial recognition. Law enforcement authorities already have several exemptions under the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). Under the rules, the use of real-time facial recognition in public spaces is prohibited for law enforcers, but EU countries can still permit exceptions, especially for the most serious crimes. Lawmakers and digital rights groups have expressed concerns about these carve-outs, which were secured by EU countries during the law’s negotiation. DIGITAL POLICING POWERS Ebner, who oversees governance matters at Europol, said “almost all investigations” now have an online dimension.   The investments in tech and innovation to keep pace with criminals is putting a “massive burden on law enforcement agencies,” he said. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has vowed to more than double Europol’s staff and turn it into a powerhouse to fight criminal groups. | Wagner Meier/Getty Images The Europol official has been in discussions with Europe’s police chiefs about the EU agency’s upcoming expansion. He said they “would like to see Europol doing more in the innovation field, in technology, in co-operation with private parties.”  “Artificial intelligence is extremely costly. Legal decryption platforms are costly. The same is to be foreseen already for quantum computing,” Ebner said. Europol can help bolster Europe’s digital defenses, for instance by seconding analysts with technological expertise to national police investigations, he said. Europol’s central mission has been to help national police investigate cross-border serious crimes through information sharing. But EU countries have previously been reluctant to cede too much actual policing power to the EU level authority.  Taking control of law enforcement away from EU countries is “out of the scope” of any discussions about strengthening Europol, Ebner said. “We don’t think it’s necessary that Europol should have the power to arrest people and to do house searches. That makes no sense, that [has] no added value,” he said.   Pieter Haeck contributed reporting.