A cyberattack disrupted operations at several major European airports on Saturday, including Brussels Airport and London’s Heathrow, causing flight delays and cancellations. The attack targeted the service provider for the check-in and boarding systems on Friday evening, Brussels Airport said in a statement. As a result of the attack, only manual check-in and boarding were possible, the airport said. “This has a large impact on the flight schedule and will unfortunately cause delays and cancellations of flights,” the airport said. By 10:30 a.m. Saturday, 10 flights departing from Brussels Airport had been canceled and 17 were delayed by more than an hour, said Ariane Goossens, a spokesperson for the airport. Heathrow said on its website that Collins Aerospace, which provides check-in and boarding systems for airlines across multiple airports, was “experiencing a technical issue that may cause delays for departing passengers.” A spokesperson for Collins Aerospace said the company had become aware of a “cyber-related disruption” to their MUSE software in select airports and were “actively working to resolve the issue and restore full functionality to our customers as quickly as possible.” “The impact is limited to electronic customer check-in and baggage drop and can be mitigated with manual check-in operations,” they added. Berlin Brandenburg airport also reported longer waiting times at check-in “due to a technical issue at a system provider operating across Europe.” Airports advised passengers to check their flight status before coming to the airport.

In a bid to force Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas to step down after last week’s deadly funicular disaster, Portuguese lawmakers are using the politician’s own words against him. Sixteen people died when the iconic Glória Funicular’s suspension cable snapped last Wednesday, causing one of its tram cars to plummet down a steep slope and smash into a building. Following the catastrophe, leading politicians are claiming the city failed to adequately maintain its 140-year old railway system, and are evoking Moedas’ past statements in an attempt to push for his resignation. In 2021, Moedas’ predecessor Fernando Medina came under fire when his administration admitted to giving Russian authorities the personal information of at least three Lisbon-based Russian dissidents. Moedas — at the time a former European commissioner running as the center-right candidate in the local elections — had slammed the incumbent mayor, saying he had to take responsibility for the scandal. “City hall put these people in mortal danger,” he told POLITICO. “There have to be political consequences: Medina has to resign.” Now, with less than a month before Lisbon’s local elections, Moedas’ political opponents are citing his words from four years ago and demanding he take responsibility for the funicular disaster. “What would the Moedas of 2021 say to the Moedas of 2025?” asked André Ventura, leader of the far-right Chega party. “Serious politicians do not hide in times of crisis and do not shirk their responsibility: They assume it.” On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Secretary-General of the Portuguese Communist Party Paulo Raimundo also said Moedas’ own standards mean he’s no longer qualified to lead the city. The Socialist Party’s parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias similarly called for the mayor to be “coherent.” In an interview with POLITICO, Moedas insisted the funicular disaster couldn’t be compared to the scandal that embroiled his predecessor. While Medina had “direct responsibility” over the municipal employees who shared dissidents’ personal information, he argued last week’s accident wasn’t “attributable to a decision made by the mayor.” ASSIGNING BLAME A preliminary report released by Portugal’s transit safety authority this weekend attributes the crash to mechanical failure and rejects the possibility that human error played a role in the tragedy. Moedas’ critics say the findings raise serious questions about the historic funicular’s upkeep. In the aftermath of the disaster, employees of Lisbon’s Carris public transit authority said they spent years raising concerns about the funicular’s maintenance, which is subcontracted to private companies. They argued experienced in-house municipal engineers are better equipped to deal with the city’s aged infrastructure. Moedas told POLITICO the companies overseeing the maintenance have to “meet very strict specifications” and are monitored by Carris technicians who “reviewed and adapted all maintenance plans in accordance with necessary developments and changing realities.” He also declined to take responsibility for the outsourcing, which was decided in 2006, and insisted his administration hadn’t cut Carris’ operating budget. Moedas’ assertions don’t appear to have swayed Chega’s mayoral candidate Bruno Mascarenhas though, who is set to present a censure motion against the mayor on Tuesday. “The maximum representative of Carris, [the mayor] has to take responsibility,” Mascarenhas declared. Carlos Moedas insisted the funicular disaster couldn’t be compared to the scandal that embroiled his predecessor. | Horacio Villabos/Getty Images The mayor dismissed the censure motion as grandstanding ahead of the local elections. “This case has brought out the worst in politics and political exploitation,” he said, noting that the proposed motion would be nonbinding. Wary of being seen as playing politics with the tragedy, Socialist candidate Alexandra Leitão — who is polling neck and neck with Moedas — has yet to call for her rival’s resignation, insisting that it’s “premature” to make a political assessment. But on Monday, she urged Moedas to be more transparent about what went wrong. “The preliminary report shows that the safety system was insufficient, and that the technical inspections failed to detect the problems that eventually occurred,” she told supporters. “Something needs to change.”

The death of at least 15 people following the derailment of one of Lisbon’s iconic funiculars on Wednesday threatens to upend knife-edge local elections scheduled for Oct. 12. Current polling has incumbent center-right Mayor and ex-European Commissioner Carlos Moedas narrowly ahead of Socialist Party candidate Alexandra Leitão. But the odds could change in the aftermath of the disaster, which is raising questions about the funding and maintenance of the Portuguese capital’s public transit system. In the immediate aftermath of Wednesday’s crash, employees belonging to Carris — Lisbon’s public transit authority — said they had repeatedly raised concerns about the safety of the city’s aged transport infrastructure, as well as the decision to subcontract maintenance of the funiculars to a private company in a bid to cut costs. “There were successive complaints from workers regarding the level of tension in the funiculars’ support cables,” said Manuel Leal, head of the union representing the capital’s public transit workers. “There needs to be a thorough investigation into this disaster.” Employees also linked the crash to wider budget cuts. Moedas was criticized by opposition politicians last year after it emerged that his administration had redirected millions of euros in public cash from Carris to finance the Web Summit technology conference. Municipal authorities later insisted that the public transit authority’s budget had not been altered because EU cash had been used to make up for redirected funds. The crash took place in the late afternoon, when one of the cables that tows tram cars up the steep Glória hill snapped. The vehicle, which was carrying several dozen passengers, sped down the incline before smashing into a building at the bottom. Authorities on Thursday said that nearly all the victims “have foreign last names” and are presumed to be tourists. In addition to the fatalities, the crash left 23 passengers seriously injured, five of whom are in critical condition. Following the disaster, Portugal’s government declared Thursday to be a day of national mourning, with two additional days of official mourning to be observed in the capital. The Glória Funicular, in operation since 1885, was originally built to carry residents from the low-lying Rossio Square to Bairro Alto neighborhood, but as Lisbon has turned into a tourist mecca, foreign visitors have become its primary customers. It’s common to see long lines of influencers waiting to snap photos on its railway cars, which have been recognized as national monuments since 2002. City authorities have provisionally suspended service on the capital’s five funicular lines while technicians review the infrastructure.

The Schuman roundabout, at the heart of the Brussels EU quarter, risks being completed without its showpiece steel canopy unless more money is allocated by mid-September. A spokesperson for Berilis, the city’s building authority, confirmed Friday there were “problems” with funding the canopy, adding, “We have been sending regular letters” to the Brussels government to “ask them to give us a decision on this.” If more cash isn’t allocated by Sep. 15, the works will have to continue “without the awning,” the spokesperson said, adding this was now the most likely scenario. “We are nearing this date, the point of no return really … and since we have not received a reply, we have to assume the funding has not been found,” said the Beliris spokesperson. The Schuman roundabout, which has been under renovation since fall 2023 and was expected to be completed by next summer, is facing ballooning costs. The canopy, which would serve as a stylish touch to a large pedestrian area dominated by greenery and bikes instead of cars, has increased the cost, leaving the government with a €3 million gap to fill. In a letter addressed to members of the Brussels government, and first reported by BRUZZ, Beliris stated that while they intend to proceed without a canopy, this could also entail additional costs. The caretaker government for the Brussels region had previously requested that the EU institutions finance the construction of the Schuman roundabout in a letter in June, stressing that it lacked sufficient funds for the canopy. Brussels city is grappling with a gaping hole in its budget and severe political paralysis, with government negotiations stuck in limbo since elections in June 2024. Brussels’ Minister-President Rudi Vervoort, Minister of European Relations and Urban Planning Ans Persoons, mobility and public works chief Elke Van den Brandt and Interior Minister Bernard Quintin, in charge of Beliris, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication.

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. For many locals the world over, this summer — just like every summer and, indeed, every month — tourism brings misery rather than enjoyment. In Barcelona, locals fed up with overtourism took to the streets in protest. In Genoa, Lisbon and the Canary Islands, they did the same. And in Venice, locals were enraged their city had to play backdrop to tech billionaire Jeff Bezos’s wedding party. Copenhagen, however, has turned the tourism curse on its head, inviting visitors to do good deeds for the city and be rewarded for it in return. And it’s time other cities got similarly creative. “During 2024, the Spanish tourism sector experienced its best year since 2019. Its contribution to GDP rose by almost 8% to €248.7 billion, or 15.6% of the economy. It also employed 3 million people, nearly 14% of the country’s total jobs,” the World Travel & Tourism Council reported in May. For many Spaniards, though, this hardly feels like good news. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. To them — and to locals in many other cities tourists like to visit — what it actually means is overcrowding, lack of housing and constant littering. It’s a cursed bargain, tourism: It brings in cash and jobs, but the more tourism you get, the more locals’ discomfort turns to misery. These days, even the trails leading up to the Himalayas are tainted by litter — and don’t even mention Instagram tourism. But tourism doesn’t need to be this destructive. Switzerland, for example, has begun giving rail discounts to those who book a stay at sustainable hotels, and it charges anyone visiting the Lake Brienz pier, which was made famous by the Korean drama “Crash Landing on You,” 5 Swiss francs. The proceeds are then invested in local infrastructure. Copenhagen’s approach is even more innovative. Last year, the Danish capital launched CopenPay, a scheme that invites tourists to do good deeds for the city — and get rewarded. “All you need to do is, for instance, bike instead of drive, help maintain the city, work in an urban garden or take the train to Copenhagen instead of flying, stay longer at the destination,” CopenPay explains. The initiative was launched as a four-week pilot program last year, and this summer it expanded to nine weeks, with 100 attractions participating — a fourfold increase. For instance, as part of CopenPay, there are currently 15 different opportunities to clean up litter across the city, one of which is to “Clean the harbor with GreenKayak and enjoy a free non-alcoholic drink and rye bar with your Smørrebrød purchase at Hallernes Smørrebrød.” While I can’t speak for everyone, to me, cleaning the harbor in central Copenhagen by kayak certainly sounds like an exciting undertaking I’d do for free — though I’d also happily claim the beverage. And if that doesn’t quite strike your fancy, you can help clean the harbor by self-sailing boat too. And picking up litter is just the beginning. If you bike or use public transport to get to the National Museum, you get a free ice cream with your entry ticket. If you arrive in Copenhagen by train or electric car, you get similarly rewarded. There are free bike rentals, free yoga sessions, free guided tours, all waiting to be claimed. Visitors arriving by train from abroad can even get free surplus meals at Copenhagen Central Station. There are free bike rentals, free yoga sessions, free guided tours, all waiting to be claimed. | Mads Claus Rasmussen/EPA You get the idea: Be a good citizen while you visit, and good things will come your way. And hopefully the impact of CopenPay — and other similar initiatives currently in the works — won’t stop there. Imagine if participants start thinking differently about their role as tourists. Once you take part in city maintenance as a temporary sanitation worker, perhaps you start viewing your surroundings less as an Instagram commodity and more as a local community worth protecting. Imagine what such participatory schemes could do for other tourist destinations, especially those most affected by throngs of oblivious visitors. I’ve long wondered how Romans can be so tolerant of the throngs that crowd their beautiful piazzas and narrow streets. How could the local government convince visitors to stop congregating and littering in front of Fontana di Trevi? Perhaps they should introduce a scheme inviting tourists to pick up litter and intimately get to know a street or two, or perhaps sweep the floor of one of the city’s many stunning churches, or tend to part of a graveyard. It would certainly be a memory to tell one’s friends about. Yes, there are reasons why such initiatives may not work. Dishonest tourists will claim to have done a good deed when they haven’t — CopenPay, for example, operates on an honor system. But tourism isn’t just a burden to locals, it’s a burden on our planet. It emits some 8 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide and is 20 percent more carbon-intensive than the average for the global economy. Offering tourists the opportunity to pick up litter as they explore local waterways may not work for every town and city, but each destination can easily come up with its own innovative ideas. Just imagine cities full of visitors who bring a helping hand as well as their cash. That ought to be tourism we can live with.

Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year, municipal officials revealed this week. Although road deaths are on the decline across the EU, with a 3 percent decrease in 2024, accidents with tragic outcomes are still commonplace in metropolitan areas. To go a full year without one is a remarkable feat for most cities — let alone a European capital. In 2023, 7,807 Europeans lost their lives in traffic accidents in EU cities. Fifty-five people died in traffic accidents in Berlin last year, and nine individuals lost their lives in collisions in the Brussels region over the past 12 months. While Helsinki is among the smallest EU capitals, with a little under 690,000 residents, some 1.5 million people live in and commute throughout the metropolitan area. Roni Utriainen, a traffic engineer with the city’s Urban Environment Division, told the Finnish press that the achievement was attributable to “a lot of factors … but speed limits are one of the most important.” Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed of impact from 40 to 30 kilometers per hour, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021. The limits were enforced with 70 new speed cameras and a policing strategy based on the national “Vision Zero” policy, with the goal of achieving zero traffic injuries or deaths. Data collected by Liikenneturva, Finland’s traffic safety entity, shows Helsinki’s traffic fatalities have been declining ever since. EUROPEAN MODEL Helsinki’s authorities have spent the past five years trying to replicate the miracle they first achieved in 2019, when no pedestrians or cyclists were killed in automotive collisions. Utriainen stressed the mission’s success is based on data-driven, long-term mobility policies and urban development strategies that have transformed the once car-centric capital. In many parts of the city, roads have been narrowed and trees have been planted with the deliberate goal of making drivers uncomfortable — the rationale being that complex urban landscapes force drivers to move more cautiously through populated areas. The city has also invested in new pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, including a comprehensive network of cycling paths that span over 1,500 kilometers. It has boosted its public transportation network with decarbonized and self-driving buses, and received European Investment Bank funding for a new tram line. Utriainen said the upgrades helped “reduce car use and, with it, the number of serious accidents.” And statistics show that between 2003 and 2023, the number of traffic-related injuries in the city dropped from 727 to just 14. Helsinki’s success is being noted in Brussels, where the European Commission is pressing to curb road fatalities. Earlier this year, Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas noted most member countries weren’t on track to meet the EU’s 2018 goal of halving traffic-related fatalities by 2030. Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this article.

PARIS — To many Parisians, swimming in the Seine sounds icky. But starting Saturday, taking a dip in the famed river while enjoying a view of the Eiffel Tower will officially become possible. For years, the notoriously skeptical Parisian public was unconvinced that the estimated €1.4 billion project was worth it, especially as authorities struggled to keep the water clean during the Olympics last summer. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, however, is not one to let critics or pessimists get in the way of her plan to transform the French capital from a polluted megacity into an oasis of urban sustainability. Making the Seine swimmable is one of the final major projects Hidalgo will inaugurate before she leaves office next year. She will depart having overseen one of the most drastic makeovers Paris has undergone since the mid-19th century, when Napoleon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann ripped up what was a fetid medieval city and laid the groundwork for Paris as it is today. A walk around the city makes clear just how much has changed since Hidalgo took office in 2014: The Seine riverbanks are no longer high-speed roads but instead pedestrian-friendly areas with parks, walkways and cultural spaces. Close to 130,000 trees have been planted on Paris’s streets since 2020 to help create new green spaces, like the 4,000-square-meter area in the formerly cement-heavy, car-centric Place de la Catalogne office district. The famed Place de la Concorde — once a busy intersection — now features palm trees and plenty of walking space. Hidalgo’s unabashed embrace of these policies has earned her glowing plaudits from left-leaning mayors across the globe. Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — now the C40 Cities network’s ambassador for Global Climate Diplomacy — calls Hidalgo the “Joan of Arc of climate change.” Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala says his Parisian counterpart “inspired” him to make his city greener during the pandemic. And Utrecht Mayor Sharon Dijksma, who spoke to POLITICO during a global summit of mayors to discuss the role of cities in fighting climate change, described Hidalgo’s work as the epitome of “political courage.” But Hidalgo’s zealous commitment to sustainability has made her a deeply divisive figure, and it played a large part in her dismal performance in the 2022 presidential election. She scored just 1.7 percent of the vote despite being the capital city’s mayor and representing the Socialists — one of the country’s historically most popular parties. A future in French politics looks bleak, as do any succession plans Hidalgo may have had. Opposition parties are gearing up for a shot at taking Paris back from the Socialists, and the party itself has chosen Emmanuel Grégoire — Hidalgo’s former heir-apparent with whom she had a falling out and now refuses to campaign for — as its candidate for the 2026 race. But while Hidalgo’s political legacy may be murky, her imprint on the city is set in stone. RED LIGHT FOR CARS Since the Parisian mayor was first elected in 2014, the core tenant of her politics has been to reduce — if not altogether remove — the presence of cars in the city. Authorities have closed off roads in front of schools; expanded sidewalks at the expense of street width; hiked parking fees for SUVs; banned through traffic to central portions of the city; and cut the speed limit on the French capital’s ring road, the Boulevard Périphérique, from 70 to 50 kilometers per hour. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is not one to let critics or pessimists get in the way of her plan to transform the French capital from a polluted megacity into an oasis of urban sustainability. | Teresa Suarez/EPA-EFE Airparif, a nonprofit that monitors Paris’s air quality, said in an April report that “since 2005, the levels of the two main harmful air pollutants — fine particles (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) — have gone down by 55% and 50% respectively.” The city’s official figures also show that the reduced speed limits have made Paris quieter with fewer accidents. According to Canadian urbanist Brent Toderian, such policies can actually end up being a net positive for drivers — despite criticism that Hidalgo’s policies do not consider people living outside city limits, who traditionally earn lower incomes, commute daily and rely on their cars. “The transformations that Paris made work better for everyone, including drivers,” Toderian said. “When everyone was trying to drive … it was still a city where, if you made the mistake of getting into a vehicle anywhere near the center of the city, you were stuck … For people who still need their cars for some things, if they can do short trips without the car, that frees up a lot of space.” Paris-based urbanist Carlos Moreno, who worked with Hidalgo, underlined that the city’s transformation meant more than just making it eco-friendly, and that increasing proximity meant “developing the economy and reinforcing local social life.” THE FUTURE Hidalgo won her 2020 reelection campaign by doubling down on a green Paris and embracing Moreno’s concept of the “15-minute city,” where all daily amenities are accessible via a short walk or bike ride. As the campaign to succeed her heats up, Hidalgo’s changes to Paris appear safe, with more Parisians growing attached to them despite the green backlash making waves in national politics across Europe and in Brussels. She even took something of a victory lap via an exhibition at Paris City Hall marking the 10-year anniversary of the 2015 Paris climate accord, which effectively showed off the changes made during her tenure. On the political side, Hidalgo also spearheaded legislation that constrains her eventual successor from reversing her policies and long-term goals, such as the creation of 55 acres of new green areas by 2040, and requiring at least 65 percent on any piece of land bigger than 150 square meters remains soil or plants, with no building or paving allowed. Voters unhappy with the city’s changes are likely to coalesce around the center-right options that will be on the ballot next spring. On the other hand, progressive voters could opt for candidates further to the left, who embrace campaigning on the housing and cost-of-living concerns that dogged Hidalgo’s time in office — much like Zohran Mamdani did to win the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. For Hidalgo’s Socialists, meanwhile, the mayoral race will prove challenging. The party is deeply divided and prone to infighting, and a recent survey by pollster Elabe showed support for the Socialists has dipped. Hidalgo’s imprint on Paris is sure to last, as is her international reputation as a transformative politician. But when it comes to local politics, an era may be coming to an end.