BRUSSELS — In the 10 years since the Brussels terror attacks, the EU has tightened its security strategy but the internet is opening up new threats, according to the bloc’s counterterrorism coordinator.  Daesh is “mutating jihadism,” Bartjan Wegter told POLITICO in an interview on the eve of the anniversary of the terrorist attacks in Brussels, which pushed the bloc to bolster border protection and step up collaboration and information-sharing. The group has “calculated that it’s much more effective to radicalize people who are already inside the EU through online environments rather than to organize orchestrated attacks from outside our borders,” he said.  “And they’re very good at it.” Ten years ago, two terrorists from Daesh (also known as the so-called Islamic State) blew themselves up at Brussels Airport. Another explosion tore through a metro car at Maelbeek station, in the heart of Brussels’ EU district. Thirty-two people were killed, and hundreds more injured.  The attacks came just months after terrorists killed 130 people in attacks on a concert hall, a stadium, restaurants and bars in Paris, exposing gaps in information-sharing in the bloc’s free-travel area. The terrorists had moved between countries, planning the attacks in one and carrying them out in another, said Wegter, who is Dutch. “That’s where our vulnerabilities were.” Today, violent jihadism remains a threat and new large-scale attacks can’t be excluded. But the probability is “much, much lower today than it was 10 years ago,” said Wegter. In the aftermath of the attacks, the bloc changed its security strategy with a focus on prevention and a “security reflex” across every policy field, according to Wegter. It’s also stepping up police and judicial collaboration through Europol and Eurojust, and it’s putting in place databases — including the Schengen Information System — so countries could alert each other about high-risk individuals, as well as an entry/exit system to monitor who enters and leaves the free-travel area. But the bloc is facing a new type of threat, as security officials see a gradual increase in attempted terrorist attacks by lone actors. A lot of that is being cultivated online and increasingly, younger people are involved. “We’ve seen cases of children 12 years old. And, the radicalization process [is] also happening faster,” Wegter said. “Sometimes we’re talking about weeks or months.” In 2024, a third of all arrests connected to potential terror threats were of people aged between 12 and 20 years old, and France recorded a tripling of the number of minors radicalized between 2023 and 2024, said Wegter.  “Just put yourself in the shoes of law enforcement … You’re dealing with young people who spend most of their time online … Who may not have a criminal record. Who, if they are plotting attacks, may not be using registered weapons. It’s very hard to prevent.” Violent jihadism is just one of the threats EU security officials worry are being cultivated online. Wegter said there is also an emerging trend of a violent right-wing extremist narrative online — and to a lesser extent, violent left-wing extremism. There’s also what he called “nihilistic extremist violence,” a new phenomenon that can feature elements of different ideologies or a drive to overthrow the system, but which is fundamentally minors seeking an identity through violence. “What we see online, some of these images are so horrible that even law enforcement needs psychological support to see this kind of stuff,” said Wegter. Law enforcement’s ability to get access to encrypted data and information on people under investigation is crucial, he stressed, and he drew parallels with the steps the EU took to secure the Schengen free movement 10 years ago. “If you want to preserve the good things of the internet, we also need to make sure that we have … some key mechanisms to safeguard the internet also.”

When German historian Rainer Zitelmann reposted a photo of Adolf Hitler to warn against appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, he didn’t expect it to trigger a police probe. According to police, the problem was the image itself: Hitler was shown wearing a swastika armband — a banned symbol under Germany’s criminal code, which prohibits the public display of Nazi and other extremist insignia. Zitelmann was informed in February that authorities were examining the case. Zitelmann’s is just one of several recent investigations into online speech, which have raised questions about how far German authorities are going in enforcing strict speech laws — and whether efforts to curb extremism are colliding with satire and political criticism. Zitelmann said he posted the image as a warning, not an endorsement. Like Hitler, Putin cannot be trusted when he says he has no further territorial ambitions. “I’m usually against Hitler analogies,” he said. “They’re often inaccurate and used to discredit political opponents.”  But, he added, ”the parallels practically impose themselves.” A week earlier, a journalist found himself in a similar situation for mocking the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.  In a podcast, Jan Fleischhauer suggested the party’s youth wing, known as “Generation Germany,” might be better named “Generation Germany awake” — a reference to a banned Nazi slogan. Fleischhauer’s case comes after police had searched conservative commentator Norbert Bolz’s home in October for using the same slogan to mock a left-wing newspaper that had called for the AfD to be banned. “A good translation for ‘woke’: Germany awake!” Bolz had written. Fleischhauer reacted to his investigation with humor. “Maybe [the complaint was filed] … by an AfD supporter who was annoyed that I made fun of the AfD youth wing,” he said.  But, he warned, such cases risk chilling free speech. Jan Fleischhauer at the 69th Frankfurt Book Fair in Frankfurt am Main in October 2017. | Frank May/picture alliance via Getty Images “I come from the 1968 generation,” Fleischhauer said. “I thought the path of free speech had been cleared once and for all by the ’68 movement. But as we can see, all of that can be rolled back.” TRADEOFF The cases highlight a tension at the heart of Germany’s postwar legal order: how to guard against extremism without restricting free expression. After World War II, lawmakers — encouraged by the occupying Allied powers — moved swiftly to ban symbols of the country’s Nazi past, seeking to prevent fascism from reasserting itself. Critics now argue authorities are going too far. Wolfgang Kubicki, deputy leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, wants the law scrapped or narrowed. “If one wants to keep it, it would have to be limited strictly to explicit endorsement of National Socialist ideology,” he said. “At the moment, it has become vague and ill-defined. The legislature urgently needs to change that.” But others warn that loosening the rules could embolden extremists.  Lena Gumnior speaks to MPs in the plenary chamber of the German Bundestag on May 16, 2025. | Katharina Kausche/picture alliance via Getty Images “The point is not to allow governments to suppress political expression, but rather to protect the principles of our liberal constitution,” said Lena Gumnior, a Green lawmaker. “It is about strictly prohibiting the use of unconstitutional symbols, particularly those associated with National Socialism, in order to protect our democracy.” A separate provision of Germany’s criminal code — which designates it an offense to insult or belittle a politician — also sparked controversy recently. In January, a retiree came under investigation after posting a Facebook comment about Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s visit to his town: “Pinocchio is coming,” he wrote, adding a long-nose “lying” emoji.  That case drew the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, prompting a a post by Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers, who has taken a strong stance against European laws that regulate online speech. “Most Germans I’ve talked to don’t want their laws applied this way,” she wrote. “When you’re regulating speech at scale, on platforms based in America (whose American users, especially, deserve First Amendment protection), this creates problems worth solving.” German authorities have dropped the probes into Fleischhauer and the Pinocchio emoji. The investigation into Zitelmann was still open as of Friday. For Matthias Cornils, a law professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, the outcome matters more than the investigations themselves. “Courts often reject criminal liability, even in quite harsh cases,” he said. “The strong constitutional protection of freedom of expression, developed over decades, remains intact.”

‘ALL I COULD DO WAS JUST WAIT AND PRAY’: AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE BRUSSELS BOMBINGS 10 years ago, terror attacks shook the Belgian capital. Here’s how the day and its aftermath unfolded, in the words of those who lived it. By SONJA RIJNEN and SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC Illustration by Patrik Svensson for POLITICO On March 22, 2016, just before 8 a.m. on an ordinary weekday morning, two explosions ripped through the departure hall of the main international airport in Brussels. The nail-packed bombs shredded flesh and blew off limbs as flaming tiles rained down from the ceiling. About an hour later, across town, a third detonation took out a train carriage at a metro station in the city’s European Quarter. Tensions and security measures in Brussels had been escalating since coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks had killed more than 130 people in Paris four months earlier, including 90 at a rock concert in the Bataclan theater.  Advertisement Belgian officials had warned of possible strikes just days before, after raids in Brussels led to the capture of key suspects linked to the deadly assaults in neighboring France. A decade on, POLITICO spoke with politicians, emergency service officials, journalists, survivors and their families about that fateful morning, reconstructing a timeline of the Brussels bombings and the painful days that followed. *The following interviews were conducted in English, French and Dutch. They have been translated, edited and condensed for clarity. AT ZAVENTEM AIRPORT At 7:58 a.m., two suicide bombers detonated explosives, nine seconds apart, in the crowded departure hall. Karen Northshield, American-Belgian athlete and survivor: I was at the Brussels international airport to fly out to the U.S., like a lot of other people that day. The moment I was hit by the first bomb, literally all hell broke loose. I’m swept off my feet, I’m on my back, fatally injured and just waiting, hoping, praying somebody will come and see me. Tara Palmeri, journalist and former POLITICO reporter: I think I just got a Twitter alert. I was still in bed, hadn’t properly woken up for work yet, and I saw the news of the terror attack. I got in an Uber and asked them to get me as close to the airport as possible. They dropped me off on the highway, and I started walking. When I got there, it was chaos. People were running. It was like a crime scene. Karen Northshield: I was lying on the floor for the longest time. I’m losing my breath. I’m losing every ounce of strength I have in me. There’s blood gushing out of my leg. And I’m thinking: “How did this happen?” There were other survivors that were severely injured. They were waiting for help. There was a lot of noise and crying and yelling and screaming. Of course, it was chaos. Tara Palmeri: I just remember the sound of the sirens. It reminded me of a World War II movie. In my head, I remember feeling like I was in the middle of a war. Karen Northshield: When a life-or-death situation happens, the body can do amazing things. I was able to hoist myself up onto an airport cart. At a certain moment, I looked off to the side and saw somebody running back in. He was a couple meters away from me, looking to see if there were any more bodies to save. I’m thinking: “This is my only chance. It’s now or never.” I do everything I can to gain just enough strength to show him I’m alive, so I wave my hand, and he understands. He comes running to me, pushes me out and wheels me on one of the carts out to the sidewalk, then he disappears. A plume of smoke rises over Brussels airport after the terrorist attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. | Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images Tara Palmeri: I remember there was this wonderful woman who taught yoga at the gym. She was an American girl [Karen], and she lost, like, half her body. Karen Northshield: It took about an hour before the ambulance finally arrived [at the airport]. I was doing everything I could to stay awake and remain conscious and remain alive. But that hour just felt like hell. I was literally dying, and all I could do was just wait and pray that God would come rescue me. When the ambulance finally arrived, I think my subconscious mind said: “Okay, you’re good. Now you can let them take care of the rest.” AT THE MAELBEEK METRO STATION At 9 a.m., another suicide bomber detonated inside a subway car at Maelbeek Station. Christelle Giovanetti, survivor: On March 22, 2016, I left for work. I didn’t usually take the metro, but once every two months I had a meeting in the city center, which fell on that day. The metro started moving, and as soon as the first car entered the tunnel, the explosion happened. I was sitting in that first car — it was in the second one that the suicide bomber blew himself up. There was a big ball of fire and the sound of a really loud explosion. I was thrown up and then crashed back into my seat. Advertisement Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, journalist and former POLITICO reporter: I was based in London and had started at POLITICO just a few months prior, so I was on a trip to Brussels. Because I had woken up late, I decided I was going to take the metro from Maelbeek. I was on the phone with my dad because he’d heard on the radio about the bombs that went off at the airport, and he called to check I was OK. While I was talking to him, I heard these loud bangs, and it was the bomb going off at the metro station right below where I was standing, right where I was about to go. Christelle Giovanetti: I remember being in the dark because I was already partially in the subway tunnel. I remember touching my legs and wondering what was on me — it was debris and dust. It felt like I had swallowed dust and had things in my mouth. There was a man next to me who kept praying. Then, there was some movement, there was some noise, and people started switching on their phones, so everything came back to life a bit. The driver came from his cabin and helped us take out a window for an emergency exit. We let people out, women and children first. I was one of the last ones out. Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: Obviously, when it happened, it was surreal because I’d never been anywhere where bombs were going off. It’s just one of those very strange situations where you realize you’re in the middle of something that will become big news, but in the moment, you don’t really realize it’s happening. I remember just telling my dad I was going to get off the phone. Christelle Giovanetti: I think I was a bit in shock, so instead of leaving like everyone else, I stood stuck on the platform. There were things on the ground, human pieces. I was very taken aback. There was a young woman who was with me who told me not to look. I looked anyway. Policemen stand guard at the entrance of a security perimeter set near the Maelbeek metro station, on March 22, 2016. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images I wanted to go into the second train car, but it wasn’t possible. All the people who had died were there. I saw a lot of horrors. I pulled one woman out of the rubble who was stuck and was barely responding. Tine Gregoor, physician and volunteer first responder: My partner and I were by chance in the car in the European Quarter, and I saw on Twitter there had been a second attack in the area. I thought there probably wasn’t a doctor there yet, so I walked to the site. I said: “Je suis medicin” (“I am a doctor”). At some point, I met someone, I think from the fire department, who took me to a first-aid station. The most critically injured were brought there. Christelle Giovanetti: The first police arrived on the opposite platform. There was no light in the station, so we couldn’t see each other well. The officer yelled at me to evacuate, and I shouted back that there were survivors. He replied that I should get out. So, I stepped over a lot of things, and I went up the escalator. I couldn’t even see a meter in front of me because of the smoke. At the top, there were already firemen and ambulances.  Lack of equipment was a problem for everyone. I had respiratory problems because I inhaled a lot of gas from the bomb, but I couldn’t get a mask because they didn’t have enough of them, and they were obviously given to someone who was no longer breathing.  Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: Basically, the Thon Hotel (on Rue de la Loi) turned into triage, and from the hotel gym — I think it was on the first floor — you could see law enforcement arriving, and people being taken out of the metro station on stretchers, both the injured and the deceased. Tine Gregoor: People just kept coming. Tables were moved to the side, and at one point there were 11 seriously injured people just in that room, which was actually quite small. They were all lying side by side, each one in worse condition than the other. It was very intense. They all had life-threatening injuries. Anyone that could still walk was sent to another room. Christelle Giovanetti: We were triaged based on our injuries and then sent to a hospital. In the beginning, I was surrounded by passersby, people who had taken care of me and other victims. We became very close because we’d all come out of something terrible. One of the people who was on the metro with me and with whom I had spent all morning at the Thon came looking for me. It was good to see him, even though we hadn’t known each other just the day before. He took care of me, went to get me water and charged my phone. Advertisement Tine Gregoor: I was taking care of injuries that were like war injuries. At one point I had a scalp in my hands. The victims couldn’t hear anything, and they were covered in black stuff. I had to improvise a lot because we had very little material. We also had to triage and decide who we thought had the highest chance of survival. There were many people with broken bones, almost all of them had severe burns and some had brain injuries too. You could see their heads were swollen. After an hour, the most seriously injured were taken to the hospital. In the chaos, I’d lost my handbag and keys. I was a bit dazed. I remember a nurse asking me if I was OK, and I said yes. You just had to flip a switch and keep going. FIRST RESPONSE Authorities raced to secure EU institutions, clear the metro and identify victims, while families desperately awaited news. In total, 32 people were killed and more than 340 were injured. Philippe Vansteenkiste, director of V-Europe and special adviser on Victims of Terrorism to the European Commission: On the morning of March 22, I was driving my kids to school. The day before, my wife had told me to stop listening to the news with the kids in the car because it’s not always pleasant, so I’d switched on music that day. When I arrived at the school, I heard that a bomb had exploded at the airport. My sister worked at the airport. Then, I got a call from my mother saying my sister wasn’t answering her phone. She usually did a morning shift that ended at 6 a.m. But someone had called in sick that day, and my sister decided to stay until 8 a.m. At around 8:45 a.m., I suddenly had a very weird feeling I’d never had before. It was like my sister passed by to say goodbye. I jumped in the car and decided to drive straight to my parents. Christian Decobecq, former head of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), Belgian federal police: I received a call from one of my colleagues who told me there had been an explosion at Zaventem. We’d been fearing attacks — especially after France — and the federal police were on alert. Special police forces stand guard outside the Council Chamber of Brussels on March 24, 2016 during investigations into the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images The DVI was only a team of seven, but we had a pool of 80 in case of major disasters. I started putting together teams on my whiteboard — teams for recovering bodies, autopsies, speaking to families for identification, and logistics and coordination, etc. We heard about the second explosion in Maelbeek while I was writing the names. So, I drew a line on my whiteboard and assigned a second team. Alexander De Croo, former prime minister of Belgium: At that point, I was deputy prime minister, and my competencies were digital and telecom. The first thing was that the telecom network was crashing. I remember that, without consulting anyone, I sent a tweet asking people to please use IP-based messaging such as WhatsApp instead of calling and sending texts. It’s been my most retweeted post of my whole life. It helped a lot in reducing the tension on the telecom network. Jean-Luca Cocci, head of Dispatching Unit, European Parliament: Once we had more or less understood what had happened, first at the airport and then in the Maelbeek metro, we knew this was something we’d never experienced before. This wasn’t attacks in France or Germany — it was next door. It was the EU’s backyard. The first thing that collapsed was the mobile network because of congestion, so I launched one of the first WhatsApp groups. We needed to immediately inform everybody we could with the means that we had. Tom Michiels, former technical director, Brussels Metro Business Unit: Initially, getting information was almost impossible because communication [was cut off]. But I realized quite quickly that we would need to go on-site. It became apparent we would need a team on standby to clean up the train. We went to Maelbeek, but we were not allowed down. We were there for hours on standby. Advertisement Christian Decobecq: The first thing the DVI does is go on-site and recover the bodies. Once the bodies have been collected, we transport them, and postmortem activities are carried out in collaboration with forensic experts. When I realized it was terrorism, one of the first things that went through my head was: “Do not make mistakes.” The French had told me they made a mistake with two young girls. They didn’t follow the Interpol standards and made a comparison based on visible identification and an ID card. The two girls looked alike, and they gave the news to the wrong family. I thought to myself: “Christian, you must not do that. We will follow the procedures, and that may take some time.” Jean-Luca Cocci: The EU institutions took the decision to keep people at home and let them stay there until we had certainty from the Belgian authorities that no other explosions or attacks were ongoing. We had many requests coming one after the other: What about my kids in school? Should we join them? Should I leave Parliament and go home? It was hard to give instructions because information was coming in from everywhere. So, block by block, step by step, we tried to answer all the questions. Alexander De Croo: Brussels had very strict rules about how much power cell towers could have because of concerns that they might impact our health. We decided to tell telecom networks to double their power to get network stability. By late afternoon, I think we had our first Security Council meeting with government and the heads of security agencies. I think the first major discussions were about if we could have the military in the streets to secure some high-risk areas. It was a tense discussion. It’s still a difficult discussion these days. Dimitri Defre, emergency preparedness coordinator, University Hospital Leuven: That first day was the most dramatic in terms of the medical aspect. But alongside that, we also had the forensic part of things. We were quickly designated the hospital in charge of analyzing all the physical remains of the victims and perpetrators from the airport.  There were a lot of moving parts. We had to improvise because our morgue was not big enough for the extra bodies alongside the usual flow. A ambulance man pushes a stretcher with a body bag outside the Maalbeek metro station. | Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images Philippe Vansteenkiste: We couldn’t find [my sister]. It was a very, very intense and difficult day. No one understood exactly what was going on, and as time goes by, you just get more and more desperate. Then, as evening approaches, suddenly all the helplines are closed because their office hours are over. You start to feel so much frustration because you need help, and it’s just not coming. Tom Michiels: Around 11 p.m., we were allowed down [to the metro]. The police had done their investigation, so we worked for a few hours. We saw quite a scene — the train was folded open like a sardine box. The roof had been blown open and a piece was stuck to the ceiling. We were thinking: “What can we do to get this train back to a depot?” We realized relatively quickly that we needed more equipment, so around 3 or 4 a.m., we made the necessary contact. Our team went to sleep for 3 hours before getting back to work. There were 12 to 15 of us working on the train. There was a bit of urgency to clean up for political reasons. To get the metro running as fast as possible, to show: “Look, we won’t let ourselves get destroyed.” Over four days, we only slept six hours.  Christian Decobecq: There are standards we follow: The bodies must be identified via scientific methods — that is to say, teeth, DNA or fingerprints. Only based on this can we make a positive identification. It takes time, of course. We started this the first day. The DVI also meets with relatives for an interview to establish what the persons looked like. What were they wearing? Do they wear jewelry? Do they have any tattoos or scars? What’s the address of their doctor and dentist? We also asked if they had traveled abroad. If they’d been to America, then maybe we could find their fingerprints.  Philippe Vansteenkiste: We kept searching for [my sister], on and on. On Thursday afternoon, we finally got a call that we should come to the DVI. I went with my mother, and they asked for a description of my sister. It took an hour-and-a-half. Finally, a step was being taken. Advertisement Then, on Friday morning, a policeman called me, thinking I had already received the news that my sister had been killed — I hadn’t. So, it had happened on Tuesday, and I got the news that she had passed away on Friday, a bit by mistake. It took four days. I understand the DVI cannot make errors, but she had a uniform. She had a badge. It can’t be that families have to wait for such a long time. Christian Decobecq: I know that for the bereaved, one minute feels like a century, but we have to be absolutely sure. We can’t make mistakes. At one point, all the families were gathered at a Red Cross center, and I explained as much as I could. There was one family, where the wife came to me and said: “Sir, sir, please give my husband back.” I’ve never forgotten that. THE AFTERMATH  In the ensuing days, political leaders rushed to show resolve and solidarity. But as Belgium struggled to comprehend how the attacks were able to take place, many began demanding answers. Philippe Close, mayor of Brussels: In 2016, I was deputy mayor and a member of the Brussels Parliament. We were aware the risk existed. But in democracies, we think it’s impossible because we live in peace, that it’s unimaginable that people would attack their own country. We know that intelligence services do their utmost to control and arrest terrorist cells, but this last group decided to act, I think because they knew they were recognized by the services. Was the city prepared? For an attack, no. To help the injured people, yes. There was a lot of solidarity. We are one of the most multicultural cities in the world, and it’s important that a large part of the population want to defend that, also after the attack. A Belgian serviceman stands guard at the Maalbeek metro station on its re-opening day on April 25, 2016 in Brussels, after being closed since the 22 March attacks. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images Alexander De Croo: I found the prime minister [Charles Michel] handled it well. In general, the government did well. But when terrorist attacks happen, one way or another, it is a failure to prevent that. It was a case of really working together with security services and also making some legal reforms to give police and legal institutions more leverage to act against these terrorists. Tara Palmeri: I remember there was a lot of debate about the right to move freely within the EU and how countries like Belgium just aren’t able to protect their citizens the way they can in the U.S. There was a huge sense that they should have done more to protect their citizens. One of the top priorities of a state is to provide security to its people. They weren’t able to do that. Philippe Close: I remember we decided not to freeze the city. It’s a very difficult decision. The advice is to close everything. We didn’t decide that. If we decided to do that, when would we reopen? The population is made more afraid by the measures than the risks. As a politician, you need to pay attention to the balance between the risk and also the values you want to defend, and that our city needs to continue to live. If you don’t defend that, they win. Advertisement Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: On the evening of the attacks, the day after and the days following, there was an incredible silence at the airport, the train station and around the city in general. It was suddenly extremely empty and quiet. Because it wasn’t very long after the Paris attacks, it was a moment in time in Europe where everyone kind of had a sense of being in potential danger and wanting to avoid situations that could put them in harm’s way. So, everyone was a bit wary of just carrying on with their regular lives. Christelle Giovanetti: The week that followed was really complicated because I felt like there was an attack going on inside my head. I had hearing problems, felt withdrawn in my suffering, and even though the people around me were really present, I couldn’t find what would help me. A woman reacts during a minute of silence held at a makeshift memorial in front of Brussel’s Stock Exchange on Place de la Bourse (Beursplein) on March 24, 2016. | Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images A week after, the police organized a discussion group among victims. It was the first time I met other victims since the attack, and that really helped me. It was the starting point for my recovery. Sitting down with other people who have been through the same thing really helped. In the end, I got four days of sick leave and then went back to work. Karen Northshield: I ended up in the hospital for 79 days — 79 days nonstop in terms of terror, in terms of agony, in terms of suffering. My body, my skin, my cells, my bones, everything was fully in flames. I had zero chance of survival, my heart had stopped so many times, I went into septic shock so many times. Everything I had built up until then, all my hopes, all my dreams just vanished into thin air. Françoise Schepmans, member of the Brussels Parliament and former mayor of Molenbeek: I understand the anger that people felt at that time because it was a period of fear and uncertainty for residents. They were deeply worried. Advertisement Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: There was a general sense of wariness of the people around you, which I think was the worst part, really. I have always thought of Brussels as an inclusive city where different people mingle, and there’s just a melting pot of people from different walks of life. Suddenly those people or those communities were singled out. Alexander De Croo: This was the first major terrorist attack in 40 years. It opened many people’s eyes to the fact that no one is shielded from this. I think it’s a major trauma in Belgian society. I think that we’ve always been a very stable and peaceful society. People from the security forces [used to] say that we don’t really have a culture of security — and that’s true. But that’s also the type of society we had. Politicians in general were very accessible and had no security forces, parliament and ministries essentially had open doors. That had to change quite a bit. It really changed the way we look at how we have to secure our society. Philippe Close: Our police departments need to study these terrorist actions more. For example, what happens in the Middle East is always a risk for Brussels — and we know it. We need to invest in intelligence. We also need to detect radicalism. A large part of people become [radicalized] on social networks. I think there’s a real responsibility from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all of them, to manage what we can put on social networks more. Françoise Schepmans: A lot has changed in the last 10 years. People were afraid back then. Today, we are better prepared, better coordinated and better equipped to prevent and respond to threats. We have stronger tools, clearer procedures and more experience in protecting our society. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we have to be aware that anything can happen. That’s why we must stay vigilant and prepared. But at the same time, we cannot live in fear. We have to stay hopeful, united and trust that our institutions and our society are stronger than they were before. Advertisement

British authorities are seeking the cooperation of the Justice Department as they pursue investigations arising from the Epstein files, the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said in an interview Wednesday. Commissioner Mark Rowley declined to opine on why the files have resulted in the arrests of two high-profile figures in the U.K. — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, and former ambassador to the U.S. Peter Mandelson — while U.S. authorities have made no arrests or charges in the wake of the files’ release. But Rowley touted British authorities’ willingness to pursue “eminent” figures. “I can’t speak about American policing strategies on this, because I haven’t plowed through their files,” he said. “But in the U.K., we’re proud of operating without fear or favor, and we’ll go where the evidence takes us. And we’ve investigated, and sometimes prosecuted, eminent people in the past, and I’m sure we’ll do it again in the future.” Rowley said “conversations” between investigators in the Met Police and the Justice Department and FBI have been happening for some time — though he declined to provide a timeline. He said communication between British and American law enforcement is a precursor to more formal requests British authorities intend to file, including mutual legal assistance treaty — or MLAT — requests. “You need the original documentation that the American teams have got, and a full, evidenced understanding of where that documentation came from, to be able to stand up a case if it’s ever going to result in a prosecution — which, of course, it may or may not do, depending where the investigation goes,” Rowley said. The arrests of Mountbatten-Windsor and Mandelson have fueled criticism in Congress and elsewhere about the lack of consequences in the U.S. for the many prominent figures exposed in the Epstein files as having close ties to the late convicted sex offender. Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office. In 2019, Mountbatten-Windsor was accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein’s accusers, but he denied all allegations. Days after Mountbatten-Windsor’s arrest, British police also arrested Mandelson on suspicion of misconduct in public office amid allegations he passed confidential information to Epstein. Mandelson’s lawyers have said he is cooperating with the investigation. Neither has been charged. A spokesperson for the Justice Department said “each country has its own laws and rules of evidence.” “Prince Andrew was arrested for ‘misconduct in public office’ under U.K. law. No such federal crime exists here. As we have said repeatedly, if new evidence of a crime presents itself, we will investigate,” the spokesperson added. Rowley said the conversations with the Justice Department are a preliminary move before a “formal process” can commence. “The norm is, if you’re working with a country, you think they’ve got some material relevant for your investigation, you tend to start with conversations, because otherwise you’re sending an MLAT into — you’re sending it blind, really. So it tends to start with a conversation about what’s possible, what exists, what questions make sense to the recipient country, and then, and then it goes into the formal process. So we’re just working our way through that process.” He declined to identify which Justice Department officials he has contacted, but indicated he has been satisfied by their willingness to cooperate thus far.

The FBI is buying up information that can be used to track people’s movement and location history, Director Kash Patel said during a Senate hearing Wednesday. It is the first confirmation that the agency is actively buying people’s data since former Director Christopher Wray said in 2023 that the FBI had purchased location data in the past but was not doing so at that time. “We do purchase commercially available information that’s consistent with the Constitution and the laws under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, and it has led to some valuable intelligence for us,” Patel told senators at the Intelligence Committee’s annual Worldwide Threats hearing. The U.S. Supreme Court has required law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant for getting people’s location data from cell phone providers since 2018, but data brokers offer an alternative avenue by purchasing the information directly. Many lawmakers want to end the practice. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced the Government Surveillance Reform Act on March 13, which would require federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies to obtain a warrant to buy Americans’ personal information. “Doing that without a warrant is an outrageous end run around the Fourth Amendment, it’s particularly dangerous given the use of artificial intelligence to comb through massive amounts of private information,” Wyden said at Wednesday’s hearing. The bill has a House counterpart introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). Committee Chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) defended the practice at the hearing. “The key words are commercially available. If any other person can buy it, and the FBI can buy it, and it helps them locate a depraved child molester or savage cartel leader, I would certainly hope the FBI is doing anything it can to keep Americans safe,” he said. Defense Intelligence Agency Director James Adams told senators at the hearing that his agency also purchases commercially available information.

ROME — Facing possible defeat in an important referendum, Italy’s right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Thursday put herself at front of the campaign, throwing her full political weight behind a vote that is increasingly shaping into a test of her authority. The March 22-23 referendum on judicial reform is a decisive showdown for Meloni. The Italian right has long looked for an opportunity to remold a legal system that it sees as skewed to favor the left. But the national plebiscite has evolved beyond a vote on the rules governing the careers and oversight of judicial officials and into a broader vote of confidence in her and her government. The latest polls suggest she may be facing the first major reversal of her premiership, just as she appeared to be on a roll at home and in Brussels. Meloni’s tone was combative on Thursday, as she accused the current judicial structure of committing numerous miscarriages of justice, and calling some judgments “surreal.” Speaking at the Franco Parenti theater in Milan, Meloni doubled down on the central arguments of her campaign, insisting judges are unaccountable and out of control. She is also increasingly casting the judiciary as run by left-wing opposition “factions” and accusing judges of blocking her key goal of clamping down on illegal migration and crime. “If the reform doesn’t pass this time, we will probably not have another chance. We will find ourselves with even more powerful factions, even more negligent judges, even more surreal sentences, immigrants, rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers being freed and putting your security at risk,” she said. “When justice doesn’t work you can’t do anything, no-one can do anything,” she said. “Except this time,” she added, urging people to get out and vote later this month. ENTERING THE RING In the months leading up to the vote, Meloni largely kept her distance from the campaign, encouraging allies and ministers to deliver the message while she limited herself to occasional remarks and sporadic attacks on judges. But with the final public polls last week suggesting her side will lose by around five points, the prime minister has now decided to step in more directly. Opposition figures say the move shows the government fears defeat. “The prime minister, in contradiction to her commitment not to involve the government in the referendum, has thrown herself headlong into the campaign,” said parliamentarian Alfredo D’Attorre, a senior figure in the opposition center-left Democratic Party,. “It is clear that she is very worried about the result.” He added voters might not be impressed if Meloni “spends the next two weeks being an influencer for the ‘yes’ vote” rather than governing Italy “at a moment of international tension.” Indeed, Meloni is having to weather political headwinds at home related to her alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump, who is highly unpopular in Italy, and the war in Iran that Italians fear will increase their already steep power bills. POLITICAL GAMBLE The challenge for Meloni is that the referendum campaign revolves around technical institutional changes that are difficult to explain, and even harder to mobilize voters around. “The arguments are very technical and abstract which doesn’t win hearts,” said Giovanni Orsina, a political historian at Luiss University in Rome. “The opposition has a solid core of voters who will turn out against Meloni regardless. How can she mobilize her supporters? By creating an enemy and a clash between good and evil.” Meloni has tried to frame the referendum around issues that resonate more strongly with her electorate, particularly migration and public security. Orsina said Meloni’s cautious entry into the campaign made political sense. “As prime minister, you cannot expose yourself too much,” he said. “If you become the face of the campaign and lose, you pay the price.” “She will be monitoring private polls and testing the waters. If she enters the campaign and the polls move in her favor, she will become a stronger presence. If not, she may step back to avoid taking the full blow.” The dilemma is clear: without Meloni’s direct involvement, the campaign risks losing momentum. But the more closely the referendum becomes associated with her personally, the greater the political damage a loss would inflict on her. “The referendum has turned out to be an unnecessary risk for Meloni,” said Orsina. “This was selected as the easiest of the reforms she planned to carry through, but even so, it much less easy than expected.”  Italians know all too well that former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had to step down after a failed referendum on constitutional reform in 2016, but Meloni insists she’s going nowhere, whatever the result. “There’s no way I’ll resign under any circumstances. I want to see the end of this legislature,” she said.

Georgios Samaras is an assistant professor of public policy at the School for Government, King’s College London. I’ve spent more than a year examining the media’s habit of using substitute labels instead of calling the far right what it is — and this practice is now everywhere. Newsrooms cycle through a growing list of alternative descriptors, usually in search of language that feels safer or less likely to trigger backlash: hard right, alt-right, new right, religious right, national conservative, traditionalist… The list keeps growing. This would matter less if any of these terms added clarity, but most do not. They’re vague, they aren’t grounded in political science research, and they blur ideology rather than naming it, only to leave readers with softer language that hides what these actors truly stand for. And there are grave consequences to this mainstreaming. Of course, none of this is new. Scholars of far-right mainstreaming, such as Katy Brown and Aurelien Mondon, have shown how buzzwords — especially “populism” — helped produce this kind of journalistic ambiguity. The far right understood this dynamic long ago and has been exploiting it with discipline. Many of these actors now routinely deem being described as “far right” as defamation, treating accurate political description as if it were a form of vilification. Instead, these parties— from Reform UK and France’s National Rally to Brothers of Italy and Alternative for Germany — are selling a self-proclaimed conservative vision that is wrapped in the language of common sense. Paired with promises of order and national renewal, this is the standard trick for presenting racist politics as natural, and smuggling some of the darkest ideas of the 1930s back into public life under the cover of murky policy language. Let’s take, for example, the concept of “remigration.” In political science, remigration refers to the forced removal of minorities, especially those of African and South Asian descent, through coercion, exclusion and mass displacement — it’s ethnic cleansing dressed up in bureaucratic language. But today this term is appearing across Western media with far too little scrutiny, often treated as just another hardline immigration policy in the far-right playbook. We can observe the same pattern being applied to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which which purports that political and cultural elites are deliberately engineering demographic change by encouraging immigration and higher birth rates among non-white, non-Christian populations to displace white Christian Europeans. Claims that whole cities are being “lost” to Islam, “no-go zones” and “two-tier policing” myths; distortions around grooming scandals; and blatant lies about crime statistics are turning the conversation around migration into a permanent moral panic. While the effects of this are visible all across Europe, Britain’s Reform UK presents one of the clearest cases — not least because the party has been at the front of the line when it comes to legal threats and public pressure against media outlets for using established terms to describe its ideology. Alas, much of the media has also handed Reform UK an absurd amount of airtime. This party, with just eight members of parliament, is routinely given a platform to push extreme ideas with a free pass, while its figures pose as a government-in-waiting more than three years ahead of the U.K.’s next general election. This is exactly how someone like Reform UK policy head Zia Yusuf has become such a central figure. Not even an MP, Yusuf has been laying out his far-right vision in plain sight, getting it amplified nonstop. He has threatened mass deportations on a staggering scale — floating figures approaching 300,000 people a day — called for an end to “Indefinite Leave to Remain” when it comes to Brexit, and proposed an enforcement agency akin to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to carry it out. He has also boasted that Reform UK wouldn’t just leave the European Convention of Human Rights, but “derogate from every international agreement” standing in the way of its deportation agenda. But while these slogans play well on X and rack up thousands of likes, the second a journalist pushes back and calls this ideology what it is, the whole act falls apart — as when BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire pressed Yusuf to name even one protected characteristic his party wanted to remove from the Equality Act, and he couldn’t name a single one. The ecosystem now has a global engine it would be naïve not to name — U.S. President Donald Trump. | Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images This interview showed exactly how little substance sits behind the political performance — and the vital importance of proper scrutiny. The problem is that moments like this are growing increasingly rare. The BBC’s reporting style, for example, is all too often shaped by internal guidelines and a collapsing vision of performative neutrality. This was clearly demonstrated in coverage of the death of 23-year-old Quentin Deranque in France two weeks ago, with a report that described Deranque as a “far-right feminist” — a phrase that invents a political category no serious politics course anywhere in the world would recognize. Far-right politics and feminism come from fundamentally different traditions and pursue fundamentally different aims. But this isn’t a one-off example. These aren’t isolated editorial lapses. They reflect a political climate that rewards euphemism and intimidation. And that ecosystem now has a global engine it would be naïve not to name — U.S. President Donald Trump. Last year I wrote in POLITICO that Trump wants to poison global political culture. What we’ve seen since is an effort to export a style that thrives on bullying journalists and steadily lowering standards, including those of political language. It’s a lesson that travels fast. His European counterparts are catching up. They now understand that these practices can pressure media organizations into softening their language and normalizing their presence. And with far-right parties topping the polls across so much of Europe, we’ve already passed the mainstreaming stage. Every uncritical mention of far-right rhetoric is an editorial decision with political consequences. Every headline, every clip, every click adds weight. This is how the line gets crossed. And how some media are no longer just covering the far right but helping it speak.

LONDON — Western governments are being urged to clamp down on cryptocurrency as new research suggests $350 billion has been laundered by criminals and hostile states using the technology in the past two decades. A new report for the Henry Jackson Society think tank, shared with POLITICO, finds that worldwide money laundering has shifted dramatically towards cryptocurrency in recent years — with the United States, Russia and Britain seeing the highest number of confirmed cases. The report draws on a database of 164 publicly identified and documented money laundering cases between 2005 and 2025. It was compiled by Alexander Browder, son of American-British financier and anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder. Alexander Browder said that the true figure could even be “many multiples” higher than the hundreds of billions that have been identified. The study also sheds light on lax enforcement of money laundering powered by crypto. It finds that 79 percent of cases have resulted in no convictions, while only 29 percent of funds have been recovered by authorities. The researchers, based in the U.K., call on the British government to set up a new Cryptocurrency Asset Recovery Office. This would hold recovered funds to transfer back to their rightful owners. Chris Coghlan, a member of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee told POLITICO: “The sophistication and speed of crypto currency money launderers is much higher and faster than our government’s ability to react.  “As a result, our sanctions and law enforcement are in an increasingly weak position to stop it. This report highlights the need for a robust policy response to this pressing issue.” POLITICAL ISSUE Cryptocurrency is increasingly becoming a regulatory battleground in both the U.K. and the U.S. In America, President Donald Trump has come under fire for his ties to the industry. In April last year the U.S. disbanded a Department for Justice unit tasked with investigating crypto-related fraud. In Britain, Nigel Farage’s right-wing Reform UK became the first major British political party to accept crypto donations. The British government is considering a ban on political donations through crypto. But cryptocurrency exchanges will not be regulated by the country’s Financial Conduct Authority until 2027. Much of Britain’s concern about crypto comes from Russia’s recent embrace of the currency as an alternate means of financing its war economy following the invasion of Ukraine. Browder said Russia is now successfully evading sanctions using cryptocurrency — and that it is becoming a global epicenter for its illicit use. “Half of the illicit exchanges identified in the database have been based in Russia. Four out of five major ransomware groups in the database have been based in Russia.  “It is the home to crypto darknet marketplaces such as Hydra — one of the largest in the world, which had processed over $5 billion in illicit funds through the sale of harmful drugs and other illegal services,” he warned. Browder added that British, American and EU policymakers have so far been unable to tackle the problem: “Criminals and rogue regimes are basically running circles around U.K., U.S. and EU prosecutors.” “Criminals are able to escape without legal consequences, and victims are left without redress and adequate compensation.”

OTTAWA — Canada’s Liberal government says it is prepared to regulate AI chatbots if tech companies like OpenAI can’t demonstrate they have safeguards to protect Canadian users. AI Minister Evan Solomon issued the warning after what he described as OpenAI’s “failure” to report a Canadian ChatGPT user who police say went on to kill eight people in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, in a school shooting. “Of course a failure occurred here. I mean, look what happened. This is a horrific tragedy,” Solomon said Wednesday. “We were really disturbed by the reports that there might have been an opportunity to escalate this to law enforcement further, and we want to make sure if any company has that opportunity, they would escalate,” he added. OpenAI’s head of policy, Chan Park, and six others from the company, met with members of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Cabinet on Tuesday in Ottawa — a meeting ministers later described as “disappointing.” Justice Minister Sean Fraser said he expected OpenAI to return with substantial new safety measures. “The message that we delivered, in no uncertain terms, was that we have an expectation that there are going to be changes implemented,” Fraser told reporters Wednesday. “If they’re not forthcoming very quickly, the government’s going to be making changes.” Solomon has said “all options are on the table,” but wouldn’t say if that includes banning OpenAI from Canada. The Liberal government is waiting to see OpenAI’s proposals. “Trust is going to be earned,” Fraser said. “We need to actually see what changes are going to be forthcoming, both from the company’s point of view, but we also need to identify the best path forward.” OpenAI, which operates the popular chatbot ChatGPT, said it has strengthened safeguards and changed guidelines about when to notify police in cases involving violent activities. “But the ministers underscored that Canadians expect continued concrete action — and we heard that message loud and clear,” an OpenAI spokesperson told POLITICO. “We’ve committed to follow up in the coming days with an update on additional steps we’re taking, as we continue to support law enforcement and work with the government on strengthening AI safety for all Canadians.” In June, OpenAI said it banned the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar, who police said went on to kill eight people, including five children, on Feb. 10. OpenAI said the account was flagged through its own monitoring systems, which use both automated tools and human review, to detect potential misuses linked to violence. The company considered whether Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account should be referred to Canadian police, a move OpenAI says it ultimately didn’t take. OpenAI’s threshold for referring a user to police depends on whether the case involves an imminent and credible risk of serious physical harm to others. OpenAI says Van Rootselaar’s account did not meet that threshold. Solomon said he’ll put some of these questions and concerns to developers of AI chatbots and digital platforms in the coming weeks. “Public safety will always come first for this government,” he said.

OTTAWA — Canada’s Artificial Intelligence Minister Evan Solomon said Monday he has summoned senior staff at OpenAI to discuss “safety protocols” after the tech company decided against reporting a Canadian ChatGPT user who police say went on to kill eight people in a school shooting. Solomon said he will meet with OpenAI’s senior safety team on Tuesday in Ottawa after speaking with them over the phone on Sunday. “We will have a sit-down meeting to have an explanation of their safety protocols and when they escalate and their thresholds of escalation to police, so we have a better understanding of what’s happening and what they do,” Solomon told reporters. OpenAI had banned the account of Jesse Van Rootselaar seven months before police said the 18-year-old killed eight people, including five children, in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. on Feb. 10. The Wall Street Journal first reported that Van Rootselaar’s ChatGPT account was internally flagged after some employees interpreted her writings as “an indication of potential real-world violence,” and urged company leaders to alert Canadian police. An OpenAI spokesperson told The Wall Street Journal that at the time of the banning, Van Rootselaar’s account activity didn’t meet the company’s criteria for reporting to authorities. The company reached out to police after they learned of the shooting, she said. “Those reports were deeply disturbing, reports saying that OpenAI did not contact law enforcement in a timely manner,” Solomon said. OpenAI did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment, and it was not immediately clear who from the company will meet with Solomon. But it appears the company agreed to meet with Canadian officials because neither members of Mark Carney’s government, nor Parliament, can summon a person who lives outside of Canada. However, it can enforce the summons if they ever set foot in the country, a move that would be considered extremely rare. Canada’s Justice Minister Sean Fraser, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Culture Minister Marc Miller are also involved in the investigation. Solomon wouldn’t say how far the Canadian government is willing to regulate AI chatbots or if this incident reshapes their online harms strategy. “I’m not going to pre-judge. The details of this case, obviously I can’t get into, but I will say this … we are making sure that all options are on the table to make sure that Canadians are kept safe,” Solomon said. Canada’s Liberal government has promised an online harms bill for five years, but has struggled to strike the right balance between protecting children online while preserving online speech. Two iterations of the bill failed to pass through Parliament under then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.