LONDON — Eurostar passengers travelling between London and the continent could face higher fares thanks to a U.K. government tax raid on the Channel Tunnel. Eurotunnel, the company which owns the under-sea link, says a business rates revaluation on its infrastructure will effectively treble its payments and see it paying 75 percent tax on new investments. The infrastructure firm says costs will be passed onto operators through higher access charges for trains using the tunnel — raising overheads that are likely to be passed onto passengers. Rail operator Eurostar said the plans “would be at odds with the Government’s ambition” to promote rail travel. Rail freight will also be hit as Eurotunnel warned plans to bring an east London goods yard back into operation would have to be cancelled. It comes as the U.K. braces for a budget of tax rises, with Chancellor Rachel Reeves expected to focus on smaller, specific revenue raising measures after cancelling a planned general hike in income tax. ‘NOTHING LEFT TO INVEST’ Eurotunnel says the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), which sets business rates for the government, hasn’t been transparent about the rise in its payments, which from April are set to go from £22 million to £65 million. The company says access charges are decided by a set formula taking business rates into account, and that they would inevitably rise as a result. “All of the users of the tunnel pay for access. When business rates go up, that’s split amongst the different users,” John Keefe, director of public and corporate affairs at Eurotunnel, told POLITICO. “At this stage, the numbers aren’t one hundred percent known, because we’re hoping we can talk a bit more with the government about this and about bringing a bit more pragmatism into it. But there is a mechanism whereby everybody contributes.” Higher charges for tunnel users would also hit Virgin Trains, the new challenger operator hoping to start running competing services to Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam through the tunnel by 2030. The second operator got the green light just last month with the aim of reducing fares and increasing competition on the key international rail route. “Since 2017 we’ve had, over three valuations, a nine-times increase in the valuation. This time it’s gone up, multiplied by three, from £22 million that we pay at the moment to £65 million, which is the ask,” Keefe said. “It needs to be based on what business can actually pay, generate and pay and still invest. Because if you take all the money in business rates, there’s nothing left for investment. So there’s nothing left for growth. “While we’re hearing leading up to the budget, ‘growth, growth, growth, growth, growth’, nobody can invest at that level.” Eurotunnel also complains that the VOA’s calculations are “opaque beyond belief.” “They say, ‘here’s the number.’ And you go, ‘why did you get the number? How did you get to that number? What numbers are you using?’ And they go, ‘there’s the number’,” Keefe said. POLITICO has contacted the VOA for comment. FREIGHT INVESTMENT PAUSED Eurotunnel was planning to reopen Barking rail freight yard in east London to make running freight on trains through the tunnel a more attractive proposition — in line with the government’s own target for a 75 percent increase in rail freight. But Keefe said: “The sums just don’t add up when you’re paying a 75 percent marginal tax rate. So it’s unfortunately going to be frozen.” A spokesperson for Eurostar, the high-speed rail operator, said: “Our priority is enabling more people to travel sustainably, which includes offering affordable lead-in fares and products, and we remain fully committed to our growth plans regardless of the VOA review. “Eurostar continues to engage with the Government and the Valuation Office Agency and is determined to find a positive way forward. However, a three-fold increase in business rates for Channel Tunnel users for the second time would be at odds with the Government’s ambition of economic growth, pioneering European rail connectivity, and encouraging low-carbon rail travel. “Throughout our conversations, we have urged fairness by treating international rail in the same way as domestic rail in business rates terms. Nevertheless, Eurostar continues to commit to its own ambitious growth plans and investments including €2bn in new fleet and new destinations of Frankfurt and Geneva direct from London.”

LONDON — Far-right British activist Tommy Robinson has been cleared of a terror offense after he was tried for refusing to give police access to his phone during a border stop at the Channel Tunnel. During the two-day trial, Robinson — who has become a key figure on the far-right of British politics — said in a video posted on X that the platform’s owner Elon Musk had “picked up the legal bill” for what he branded “absolute state persecution.” Robinson thanked Musk outside the court after being acquitted. “Why did it take an American businessman to fight for our justice here,” he told a crowd of supporters. Musk’s team have not confirmed this claim, but the X owner addressed a British rally organized by Robinson in September. “You either fight back or you die,” Musk told the crowd. Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard that officers demanded Robinson, whose real name is Stephen-Yaxley Lennon, share the pin to his phone under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act during a stop in July 2024. Robinson is said to have told officers that there was “journalistic material” on his device and refused. The Terrorism Act gives officers the power to stop someone passing through a U.K. port to assess “whether they may be involved or concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.” This developing story is being updated.

Virgin is one step closer to launching cross-Channel rail services after Britain’s rail regulator approved its application to share Eurostar’s depot.  The multinational confirmed in March it was interested in launching Virgin Trains as a rival service to Eurostar by 2030. The Office of Rail and Road said Thursday that Virgin will be allowed to use the Temple Mills Depot in east London, a requirement for a train operator running cross-Channel services.   The depot is the only maintenance and storage facility that is accessible from the high-speed railway linking London to the Channel Tunnel, and is able to house the larger trains used for continental travel. The ORR decision thus makes Virgin’s ambition more attainable — though the company still needs to secure a “commercial agreement” with Eurostar to use the facility, the office warned.  Virgin founder and billionaire magnate Richard Branson hailed the ruling as a victory for consumers. “It’s time to end this 30-year monopoly and bring some Virgin magic to the cross-Channel route,” he said in a statement.   The ORR concurred, saying in a statement that the decision “unlocks plans for around £700mn of investment in new services and the creation of 400 new jobs, in a win for passengers, customer choice, and economic growth.”  The ORR added it had rejected similar applications from train operators Evolyn, Gemini and Trenitalia, with Virgin making the strongest case. “Virgin Trains’ plans were more financially and operationally robust than those of other applicants, and it provided clear evidence of investor backing,” the regulator said.   Eurostar has held a monopoly on cross-Channel travel since the tunnel opened in 1994. The operator wants to expand its fleet, announcing this month it had signed a €2 billion deal for at least 30 more double-decker trains.  However, the ORR said earlier this year that the Temple Mills Depot has room for either more Eurostar trains or another operator — but not both, teeing up a possible fight between the rivals.  A spokesperson for Eurostar said it was assessing the regulator’s decision and “considering our next steps to ensure we can continue to grow,” according to the BBC. Eurostar did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.

Israel said it launched airstrikes and artillery fire at targets in southern Gaza on Sunday, trading blame with Hamas and dimming hopes that a ceasefire brokered by U.S. President Donald Trump can lead to a lasting peace. “Earlier today, terrorists fired an anti-tank missile and gunfire toward IDF troops operating to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the Rafah area, in southern Gaza, in accordance with the ceasefire agreement,” the Israel Defense Forces said. “In response, the IDF has begun striking in the area to eliminate the threat and dismantle tunnel shafts and military structures used for terrorist activity,” it said. According to media reports, Hamas said it was “unaware” of any clashes in Rafah and that it “remains committed to the ceasefire agreement.” It also accused Israel of “violating the deal and fabricating pretexts to justify its crimes.” The Israeli far right in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government coalition is using the moment to call for a full resumption of the war. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called on Israel to renew its military operations in the Gaza Strip “in full force” following the IDF reports, writes Israeli newspaper Haaretz. The far-right minister said Saturday that he had given Netanyahu a deadline to dismantle Hamas and enact the death penalty for terrorists, threatening that if his conditions were not met, his far-right Otzma Yehudit party would quit the government, writes another Israeli daily, the Times of Israel. Also on Saturday, the U.S. State Department said in a statement that it has “credible reports” that Hamas could violate the ceasefire with an attack on Palestinian civilians in Gaza. If the attack takes place, it “would constitute a direct and grave violation” of the agreement forged by Trump to end the two-year war between Israel and Hamas, the statement said. According to Bloomberg, an Israeli official said there are tentative plans for U.S. Vice President JD Vance to accompany White House mediator Steve Witkoff to the Middle East in the coming week, a signal of American seriousness about shoring up the deal. The U.S embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment, it said.

CHIATURA, Georgia — Giorgi Neparidze, a middle-aged man from near the town of Chiatura in western Georgia, still has marks on his lips from where he sewed his mouth shut during a hunger strike last year. He says Georgian Manganese, a mining company with close links to the government, has wrought environmental devastation around his home and has ignored the rights of its workers. He is seeking compensation.  Europe, which imports Georgia’s manganese, is partly to blame for the black rivers and collapsing houses in Chiatura district, Neparidze says. The former miner-turned-environmental and civil rights activist claims that in one village, Shukruti, toxic dust from the pits is making people unwell. Filthy black water, laced with heavy metals, periodically spurts out of pumps there. Houses are collapsing as the tunnels underneath them cave in.  Manganese, a black metal traditionally used to reinforce steel, is crucial for Europe’s green energy transition as it is used in both wind turbines and electric car batteries. The metal is also vital for military gear like armor and guns. In 2022, the European Union bought 20,000 metric tons of manganese alloys from Georgia — almost 3 percent of its total supply. A year later the bloc added manganese to its list of critical minerals. But Chiaturans say their lives are being ruined so that Western Europeans can breathe cleaner air. “We are sacrificed so that others can have better lives,” Neparidze says. “There are only 40,000 people in Chiatura. They might feel ill or live in bad conditions but they are sacrificed so that millions of Europeans can have a cleaner environment.” Neparidze says cancer rates in the region are unusually high. Doctors at a hospital in Chiatura back up the observation, but no official study has linked the illnesses to the mines. An aerial view of Chiatura with the polluted Kvirila River running through the town | Olivia Acland Hope that things will improve appears dim. European companies often don’t know where their manganese is sourced from. As ANEV, Italy’s wind energy association, confirms: “There is no specific obligation to trace all metals used in steel production.”  Last year the EU enacted a law that was meant to change that. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive obliges companies to run closer checks on their supply chains and clamp down on any human rights violations, poor working conditions and environmental damage.  But barely a year after it took effect, the European Commission proposed a major weakening of the law in a move to reduce red tape for the bloc’s sluggish industry. EU member countries, motivated by this deregulation agenda, are now pushing for even deeper cuts, while French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz want to get rid of the law altogether.  Meanwhile, Europe’s appetite for mined raw materials like manganese, lithium, rare earths, copper and nickel is expected to skyrocket to meet the needs of the clean energy transition and rearmament. Many of these resources are in poorly regulated and often politically repressive jurisdictions, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Indonesia and Georgia. Weakening the EU supply chain law will have consequences for communities like Neparidze’s. “Only an empty shell of the directive remains,” says Anna Cavazzini, a member of the European Parliament’s Green Party, adding that the legislature caved to pressure from businesses seeking to reduce their costs. “Now is not the time to abandon the defense of human rights and give corporations a free hand,” she says.  A resident of Chiatura standing on a collapsed house following a mining-related landslide in Itkhvisi village. | Olivia Acland As Georgia’s government pivots toward Russia and stifles dissent, life is becoming increasingly dangerous for activists in Chiatura. On April 29, four activists including Neparidze were arrested for allegedly assaulting a mine executive. A statement put out by Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, says that Tengiz Koberidze, manager of the Shukruti mine, was “verbally abused and pelted with stones.” Supporters call it a staged provocation in which Koberidze tried to incite violence, and say it’s part of a broader campaign to silence resistance. If convicted they face up to six years behind bars. Koberidze did not respond to requests for comment. Chiatura residents are protesting over two overlapping issues. On one side, miners are demanding safer working conditions underground, where tunnel collapses have long been a risk, along with higher wages and paid sick leave. When the mine was temporarily shut in October 2024, they were promised 60 percent of their salaries, but many say those payments never materialized. Workers are also raising concerns about mining pollution in the region. “The company doesn’t raise wages, doesn’t improve safety, and continues to destroy the natural environment. Its profits come not just from extracting resources, but from exploiting both workers and the land,” says one miner, David Chinchaladze. Georgian Manganese did not respond to interview requests or written questions. Officials at Georgia’s Ministry of Mines and the government’s Environment Protection and Natural Resources Department did not respond to requests for comment. A collapsing building in Shukruti. | Olivia Acland.  The second group of protesters comes from the village of Shukruti, which sits directly above the mining tunnels. Their homes are cracking and sinking into the ground. In 2020, Georgian Manganese pledged to pay between 700,000 and 1 million Georgian lari ($252,000 to $360,000) annually in damages — a sum that was meant to be distributed among residents. But while the company insists the money has been paid, locals — backed by watchdog NGO Social Justice — say otherwise. According to them, fewer than 5 percent of Shukruti’s residents have received any compensation.  Their protest has intensified in the last year, with workers now blocking the roads and Shukruti residents barring entry to the mines. But the risks are intensifying too. Since suspending EU accession talks last year amid deteriorating relations with the bloc, Georgia’s ruling party has shuttered independent media, arrested protestors and amplified propaganda. The country’s democracy is “backsliding,” says Irakli Kavtaradze, head of the foreign department of the largest opposition political party, United National Movement. Their tactics “sound like they come from a playbook that is written in the Kremlin,” he adds. ‘KREMLIN PLAYBOOK’ In the capital Tbilisi, around 200 kilometers east of Chiatura, protesters have taken to the streets every night since April 2, 2024 when the government unveiled a Kremlin-style “foreign agents” law aimed at muzzling civil society.  Many demonstrators wear sunglasses, scarfs and masks to shield their identities from street cameras, wary of state retaliation.  A scene from the 336th day of protests in Tbilisi in April 2025. | Olivia Acland. Their protests swelled in October last year after the government announced it would suspend talks to join the EU. For Georgians, the stakes are high: Russia already occupies 20 percent of the country after its 2008 invasion, and people fear that a more profound drift from the EU could open the door to further aggression. When POLITICO visited in April, a crowd strode down Rustaveli Avenue, the city’s main artery. Some carried EU flags while others passed around a loudspeaker, taking it in turns to voice defiant chants. “Fire to the oligarchy!” one young woman yelled, the crowd echoing her call. “Power lies in unity with the EU!” another shouted. They also called out support for protestors in Chiatura, whose fight has become something of a cause célèbre across the country: “Solidarity to Chiatura! Natural resources belong to the people!”  The fight in Chiatura is a microcosm of the country’s broader struggle: The activists are not just taking on a mining company but a corporate giant backed by oligarchs and the ruling elites.  Georgian Manganese’s parent company, Georgian American Alloys, is registered in Luxembourg and counts Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky as a shareholder. He is in custody in Kyiv over allegations that he hired a gang to kill a lawyer who threatened his business interests in 2003. Kolomoisky has also been sanctioned by the United States for his alleged involvement in siphoning billions out of PrivatBank, Ukraine’s largest bank.  Giorgi Kapanadze — a businessman closely connected with the ruling Georgian Dream party of Bidzina Ivanishvili — is listed as general manager of Georgian American Alloys.  Until recently, Kapanadze owned Rustavi TV, a channel notorious for airing pro-government propaganda. The European Parliament has called on the EU to hit Kapanadze with sanctions, accusing him of propping up the country’s repressive regime. Kolomoisky and Kapanadze did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment. The government swooped in to help Georgian Manganese in 2016 when a Georgian court fined it $82 million for environmental destruction in the region. The state placed it under “special management” and wrote off the fine. A new government-appointed manager was tasked, on paper, with cleaning up the mess. He was supposed to oversee a cleanup of the rivers that flow past the mines, among other promises. Manganese mining pit in Chiatura region, Georgia. | Olivia Acland But POLITICO’s own tests based on four samples taken in April 2025 from the Kvirila River, which runs through Chiatura, as well as its tributary, the Bogiristiskali, which were examined in a U.K. licensed laboratory, show the manganese levels in both rivers are over 10 times the legal limit. Iron levels are also higher than legally permitted. Locals use the polluted water to irrigate their crops. Fishermen are also pulling in increasingly empty nets as the heavy metals kill off aquatic life, according to local testimonies. The water from the Kvirila River flows out into the Black Sea, home to endangered dolphins, sturgeons, turtles and sharks.  A 2022 analysis by the Georgian NGO Green Policy found even worse results, with manganese in the Kvirila River averaging 42 times the legal limit. The group also detected excessive levels of iron and lead. Chronic manganese exposure can lead to irreversible neurological damage — a Parkinson’s-like condition known as manganism — as well as liver, kidney and reproductive harm. Lead and iron are linked to organ failure, cancer and cardiovascular disease. On Georgian Manganese’s website, the company concedes that “pollution of the Kvirila River” is one of the region’s “ecological challenges,” attributing it to runoff from manganese processing. It claims to have installed German-standard purification filters and claims that “neither polluted nor purified water” currently enters the river. Protesters like Neparidze aren’t convinced. They claim the filtration system is turned on only when inspectors arrive and that for the rest of the time, untreated wastewater is dumped straight into the rivers. BLOCKING EXPORTS Their protests having reaped few results, Chiaturans are taking increasingly extreme measures to make their voices heard.  Gocha Kupatadze, a retired 67-year-old miner, spends his nights in a tarpaulin shelter beside an underground mine, where he complains that rats crawl over him. “This black gold became the black plague for us,” he says. “We have no choice but to protest.” Kupatadze’s job is to ensure that manganese does not leave the mine. Alongside other protesters he has padlocked the gate to the generator that powers the mine’s ventilation system, making it impossible for anyone to work there. Kupatadze says he is only resorting to such drastic measures because conditions in his village, Shukruti, have become unlivable. His family home, built in 1958, is now crumbling, with cracks in the walls as the ground beneath it collapses from years of mining. The vines that once sustained his family’s wine-making traditions have long since withered and died. Gocha Kupatadze, an activist sleeping in a tarpaulin tent outside a mine. | Olivia Acland. For over a year, protesters across the region have intermittently blocked mine entrances as well as main roads, determined to stop the valuable ore from leaving Chiatura. In some ways it has worked: Seven months ago, Chiatura Management Company, the firm in charge of staffing Georgian Manganese’s underground operations, announced it would pause production.  “Due to the financial crisis that arose from the radical protests by the people of Shukruti village, the production process in Chiatura has been completely halted,” it read. Yet to the people of Chiatura, this feels more like a punishment than a triumph.  Manganese has been extracted from the area since 1879 and many residents rely on the mines for their livelihoods. The region bears all the hallmarks of a mining town that thrived during the Soviet Union when conditions in the mines were much better, according to residents. Today, rusted cable cars sway above concrete buildings that house washing stations and aging machinery.   While locals had sought compensation for the damage to their homes, they now just find themselves out of work.  Soviet-era buildings and mining infrastructure around Chiatura. | Olivia Acland.  Making matters worse, Georgian Manganese, licensed to mine 16,430 hectares until 2046, is now sourcing much of its ore from open pits instead of underground mines. These are more dangerous to the communities around them: Machines rip open the hillsides to expose shallow craters, while families living next to the pits say toxic dust drifts off them into their gardens and houses.  MORE PITS The village of Zodi is perched on a plateau surrounded by gently undulating hills, 10 kilometers from Chiatura. Many of its residents rely on farming, and cows roam across its open fields. “It is a beautiful village with a unique microclimate which is great for wine-making,” says Kote Abdushelishvili, a 36-year-old filmmaker from Zodi.  Mining officials say the village sits on manganese reserves. In 2023, caterpillar trucks rolled into Zodi and began ripping up the earth. Villagers, including Abdushelishvili, chased them out. “We stopped them,” he says, “We said if you want to go on, you will have to kill us first.” A padlocked gate to the mine’s ventilation system. | Olivia Acland Abdushelishvili later went to Georgian Manganese’s Chiatura office to demand a meeting with the state-appointed special manager. When he was turned away, he shouted up to the window: “You can attack us, you can kill us, we will not stop.” Two days later, as Abdushelishvili strolled through a quiet neighborhood in Tbilisi, masked men jumped out of a car, slammed him to the pavement and beat him up. Despite the fierce resistance in Chiatura, Georgian Manganese continues to send its metal to European markets. In the first two months of 2025, the EU imported 6,000 metric tons of manganese from Georgia. With the bloc facing mounting pressures — from the climate crisis to new defense demands — its hunger for manganese is set to grow. As the EU weakens its corporate accountability demands and Georgia drifts further into authoritarianism, the voices of Chiatura’s people are growing even fainter.  “We are not asking for something unreasonable,” says activist Tengiz Gvelesiani, who was recently detained in Chiatura along with Neparidze, “We are asking for healthy lives, a good working environment and fresh air.” Georgian Manganese did not respond to requests for comment. This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.

BRUSSELS — It’s summer. You’ve hopped on a train to glide through Europe, laptop open, to-do list ready — but the onboard Wi-Fi has other plans. Emails don’t send, pages don’t load, and streaming? Forget it. European rail companies often tout connectivity in trains as a perk, but for many passengers, it’s still an exercise in patience over productivity. “The performance and quality of Wi-Fi onboard European trains is very poor,” Luke Kehoe, an industry analyst at connectivity intelligence firm Ookla, told POLITICO. The high speed of a train makes it predictably difficult for Wi-Fi antennas in a carriage — or your smartphone — to keep a steady connection between changing mobile towers. “If a train is going at 200km an hour, the device could be crossing a cell site every 45 or 60 seconds, which is a rapid turnover,” Kehoe said. “What that introduces is a technical challenge called the Doppler effect.” That is when moving fast changes the signal’s frequency— like when a siren shifts pitch — and it can mess with the ability to hold onto a stable connection. The high speed of a train and density of towers make it predictably difficult for Wi-Fi antennas in a carriage — or your smartphone — to keep a steady connection between changing mobile towers. | Stefano Guidi/Getty Images On French SNCF trains, travelers logging onto the Wi-Fi receive a pop-up warning: “Due to the lack of coverage and our speed, the quality of the Wi-Fi may differ from that in your home.” It also advises against watching online videos, which “contributes to limiting the bandwidth.” ‘HELLO? YOU’RE BREAKING UP …’ But bad train Wi-Fi isn’t just about pace or tower count. Many cabins aren’t actually designed to let radio frequencies in. “A lot of trains would have historically used windows that have metalized or [low-emissivity] glass coatings that are inherently not conducive to signal propagation,” Kehoe said. That setup would make the cabin similar to a sort of Faraday cage — an electromagnetic armor that blocks wireless signals, much like what causes your phone to drop calls in an elevator or keeps microwave radiation from escaping. Last year, Belgian rail firm SNCB gave up on setting up Wi-Fi on its trains because of the “high implementation costs and coverage by telecom operators,” spokesperson Tom Guillaume said. Instead, SNCB decided to pass the buck to telecom companies while it invested in “de-coating” glazing that is more conducive to mobile signals. “Telecom operators, therefore, need to improve signal quality and coverage in the vicinity of railway infrastructure,” Guillaume said. The physics of radio frequencies are also well established: The band commonly earmarked for 5G in Europe isn’t great at cutting through trees and leaves, which often line train tracks. It makes it more challenging to reach cabins or phone users directly, in contrast with 4G, where the lower-band frequencies typically used can’t carry as much data, but travel further and handle obstacles better. “We see in our data every summer a significant degradation in mobile network performance in areas of heavy foliage,” Kehoe added. Add in the thousands of tunnels in the continent’s network, and it’s clear European trains have a tough job delivering solid Wi-Fi — though some countries manage to handle it better than others. Switzerland leads the way by far, with onboard Wi-Fi speeds nearly 30 times faster than in Austria and the Netherlands. It was the only country in Ookla’s sample to break the 25 megabits per second median download speed mark — the minimum baseline for reliable internet use. TRAINS ARE IN FOR AN UPGRADE Some rail operators are now looking to the skies — literally — for better onboard internet, turning to satellite providers to help fill coverage gaps along train routes. Czech Railways is experimenting with Elon Musk’s Starlink network, while France’s SNCF is reportedly eyeing both the U.S. constellation and its Franco-British rival, Eutelsat. SNCF didn’t respond to POLITICO’s request for comment. While satellite connectivity works well for airlines — thanks to clear skies and proximity to orbit — it’s not a “bulletproof solution,” Kehoe said, but rather a supplement to the overall connectivity mix. “So much of the focus is about getting the signal to the train, but they have forgotten about getting the signal around the train,” he said. The Wi-Fi equipment and the standards behind it play a major role in how good the connection actually is. Connections sampled by Ookla in Poland — which ranks near the bottom for performance — showed trains still running on Wi-Fi 4, a 2009 standard that offers far less bandwidth and much slower speeds than newer generations. Whether rail operators upgrade routers or windows, “if there is no network coverage, there will be no mobile signal in the train, regardless of the technology used,” SNCB’s Guillaume said. And if you’re thinking of just using your phone’s hotspot to get around a flaky Wi-Fi connection — think again. “If everyone is broadcasting their own Wi-Fi networks, there is a massive interference challenge here,” Kehoe warned. Train internet still sucks — and getting a full steam ahead connection on Europe’s rails is set to remain hit and miss for a while. Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this report.

A section of the Brussels metro was shut down Thursday afternoon after a corpse was discovered in a tunnel, according to the city’s transport operator STIB.   “A dead body was found between Porte de Hal and Hôtel des Monnaies a bit earlier than 1 p.m.,” STIB spokesperson Laurent Vermeersch said. He said that service was suspended on the 2 and 6 lines between the Trone and Gare du Midi stations, but the rest of the metro line remained operational. “The justice department and police are currently investigating in the tunnel to understand what happened. As long as the investigation is ongoing the metro will be suspended,” Vermeersch added.