Summary of the day
Politicians in Germany pleaded for calm on the campaign trail after a candidate for the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party was stabbed in the south-west German city of Mannheim, less than a week after a police officer was killed in a knife attack in the city.
A day before voting begins for the June 6-9 European elections, the European parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, issued a last plea for voters to go to the polls. “Do not take Europe for granted. Defend it. Shape it. Use your vote, or others will decide for you,” she stressed.
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has accused his political opponents of trying to undermine his government and influence the outcome of this weekend’s European elections after a judge investigating corruption allegations against his wife summoned her to testify five days before polls open.
Siegfried Mureșan, a member of the European parliament from Romania’s National Liberal party (PNL) and vice-president of the European People’s party, said that the first issue voters have been bringing up is the economy, followed by security.
The Save Romania Union (USR)‘s Dan Barna, who is leading the list for the United Right Alliance, criticised the decision to schedule local elections on the same day as the European election in Romania.
Bulgarian party We Continue the Change’s candidate Daniel Lorer told us that “in the European context and in the national context, probably the topic of income security is the most prevalent.”
A retired judge and former MP for the far-right AfD has become the subject of disciplinary proceedings by the justice ministry in the eastern state of Saxony after he allegedly quoted the lines from a well-known Nazi song at the AfD’s regional party conference in April.
As the D-Day commemorations get underway, White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said that Joe Biden will stress how the men on those cliffs “put the country ahead of themselves” and detail “the dangers of isolationism, and how, if we back dictators and fail to stand up to them, they keep going and ultimately America and the world pays a greater price.”
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, has said that his country will never forget the sacrifice of the thousands of young soldiers from across the Atlantic, across the Channel and overseas who died on the beaches of Normandy.
Addressing the 80th anniversary of the liberation of France, he said “it reminds us of the importance of a united Europe, of the strength of our alliances, in a world once again full of risks and uncertainties. May the example of these heroines and heroes strengthen our determination and our confidence in a future of peace and security.”
Mes chers compatriotes,
— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) June 5, 2024
Nous célébrons cette année le 80e anniversaire de la Libération de la France.
Tous ensemble, honorons et transmettons.
Nous le devons à nos héros. Nous le devons aux générations futures.…
Here are the latest photos from the D-Day anniversary events in France.
‘Feeling of fear and hatred’: immigration dominates agenda as Ireland votes
The Shannon Key West hotel sits silent and derelict in the village of Roosky, its windows boarded up, the grounds colonised by weeds. Birds nest in the roof and occasionally swoop out, breaking the stillness.
The hotel closed in 2011 and was to reopen in 2019 as a home for 80 refugees – but it was damaged in an arson attack in January of that year. In case the message wasn’t clear enough, weeks later came a second arson attack.
The government abandoned the refugee plan and five years later the hotel in Roosky, which straddles the counties of Leitrim and Roscommon, remains empty, a symbol of a backlash that has transformed Ireland’s politics and framed Friday’s local and European elections.
The blazes augured a dramatic shift in a country that once prided itself on welcoming refugees – a shift that has unfolded through copycat arson attacks, street protests, social media trolling, far-right candidacies and government sweeps of refugee encampments.
The contest for votes on 7 June has pitted mainstream parties against far-right newcomers with slogans such as “Ireland is full” and “Ireland for the Irish” that link a housing shortage with migrants and asylum seekers.
The dynamic has damaged Sinn Féin, the leftwing opposition party which has a working-class base and a progressive record on asylum seekers. From 37% voter support in October 2022 it now has about 22%, according to recent polls. Anti-immigrant rallies sport posters of Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald, with the word “traitor”.
Warnings over disinformation and fake news as voting to take place across EU
Experts are on high alert for a tsunami of disinformation in the hours and days to come ahead and during voting taking place between Thursday and Sunday across the EU.
This morning this was among the fake news circulating, identified by the European Disinformation Media Observatory, an EU hub for fact-checkers.
False claims that a direct attack on the EU is being prepared by Russia.
Claims that Greece is a nuclear target for the Kremlin.
Claims that China would declare war on NATO if member nations directly attack Russia.
In Portugal, a fake video purporting to show nuclear weapons mobilised by the Kremlin is circulating.
In Spain, there are false claims of a rise in youth unemployment circulating on X and debunked by InfoVeritas, one of the EU’s many fact checking centres keeping busy this week.
Fact checkers at broadcaster EFE have also debunked claims as completely false that the head of Spain’s People’s party (PP) list Dolors Montserrat called pensioners who earn €18,000 a year “greedy”.
Updated
Here are some images from the campaign in Spain.
Spanish PM hits out at rivals after wife summoned over corruption allegations
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has accused his political opponents of trying to undermine his government and influence the outcome of this weekend’s European elections after a judge investigating corruption allegations against his wife summoned her to testify five days before polls open.
Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, is being investigation for alleged corruption and influence-peddling after a complaint by the pressure group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right links that has a long history of using the courts to pursue political targets.
Manos Limpias has accused Gómez of using her influence as the wife of the prime minister to secure sponsors for a university master’s degree course that she ran.
Although prosecutors in Madrid have asked the court to throw out the case for lack of evidence – and a report by the Guardia Civil police force found no indication of criminal activity by Gómez – the investigation is proceeding.
On Tuesday, a Madrid court ordered Gómez to testify on 5 July – 11 days before witnesses in the case give evidence on 16 July.
Hours later, Sánchez, who has always insisted on his wife’s innocence, posted a public letter on X, saying he found the timing of the judge’s announcement odd.
What are Bulgarian voters talking about?
We Continue the Change’s candidate Daniel Lorer told us that “in the European context and in the national context, probably the topic of income security is the most prevalent.”
“It’s mostly about work and wages and social security. And for those who are a bit more open-minded, they have a concern how Europe – Bulgaria in particular – but how Europe will perform in the new global age that we’re coming up against,” he said.
Lorer added:
What starts as a conversation about social security and wages very quickly moves into common market issues.
For me, one of the big drawbacks of Europe – as a former economist and former entrepreneur and venture capitalist myself – one of the biggest drawbacks of Europe has always been the fragmented European market.
That really undermines the scale of Europe. We like to say that we’re the biggest and the richest and the justest society.
And we probably have a point, but our market is fragmented. So we just can’t make use of these 450 million consumers that we have.
Asked if Bulgarian voters are bringing up issues such as the climate and the Green Deal, he said:
Occasionally people do bring the topic of the Green Deal, but mostly in the context of the Green Deal hampering us to do certain stuff, either mine more coal, if you meet the coal miners who are going to be shut down one way or another, or farmers who are pissed off by Green Deal limits on soil, on tilling, on pesticides, chemicals and so forth.
And rightly so, because on the other side you have all the free trade agreements that allow imports … But they are not impeded by the same regulations. So they have the right to be angry. And the next European parliament will have to sort that conflict between our trade policy and our green policy.
Asked if voters are mentioning Russia’s war in Ukraine, Lorer said:
My observation is that the people who are bringing this up are the ones who have been exposed to far-left or far-right propaganda.
The large majority of people do not care at all, either for Ukraine or against Ukraine. They just want to go on with their lives. And the war in Ukraine is probably the tenth issue on their mind.
A retired judge and former MP for the far-right AfD has become the subject of disciplinary proceedings by the justice ministry in the eastern state of Saxony after he allegedly quoted the lines from a well-known Nazi song at the AfD’s regional party conference in April.
Jens Maier, 62, was elected onto the party’s arbitration panel during the party conference in Glauchau, Saxony, on April 25. In his candidacy speech for the role prior to his election, he quoted lines from the 200 year old song by Max von Schenkendorf, “when everyone remains unfaithful, I will keep the faith”. (Wenn alle untreu bleiben, so bleibe ich doch treu).
The song from which they were taken, known as the “Treuelied”, or ‘loyalty song’, had prominent third place amongst the songs in the official SS song book, which members regularly sang.
Saxony’s justice ministry has called the expression “incompatible with the liberal democratic basic order (as) a reference to the SS”.
Maier has denied making a connection to the SS, telling German media: “I didn’t stand up and warble some SS song in order to be elected, I only quoted a sentence, in order to express my loyalty towards the party.”
The incident comes on the back of several recent scandals involving established far-right expressions involving the AfD, including the repeated commandeering of the 2001 disco hit L’amour Toujours at gatherings of far-right sympathisers, including on the sidelines of AfD-related events, where its love lyrics have been replaced with a Nazi slogan.
Björn Höcke, the firebrand chief of the AfD in the eastern region of Thuringia, was last month fined by a court for deliberately using a slogan associated with the Nazi party’s paramilitary wing, the SA, in a speech at a campaign event in 2021.
Here are some images from the campaign in Bulgaria.
Daniel Lorer, a candidate from Bulgaria’s reformist We Continue the Change party, told the Guardian that he is “on a mission” to talk to voters about the significance of the European election.
“Voters all over the continent have a hard time understanding the importance of European elections,” he said.
“Most of my meetings start with explaining in fact how important the European parliament is. And a very strong point in that sense is my experience for the past few years being a member of the national parliament, where I witnessed that more than half the legislation we have been passing is actually various adaptations of European legislation,” he added.
Spotlight: the European election in Bulgaria
Bulgaria will hold a national election on June 9, the same day as the European election. This will be the country’s sixth national election in three years.
In the European election, Bulgarian voters will elect 17 members of the European parliament.
Boyko Borissov’s GERB, a member of the European People’s party, is leading in opinion polls.
‘It is gradually dying away’: D-day veteran keeps story alive 80 years on
The first ship Ken Cooke ever saw was the one that took him from Southampton to the beaches of Normandy in the early hours of 6 June 1944. He was 18 and an infantryman in the 7th battalion of the Green Howards, known as the Yorkshire regiment, with six weeks’ basic training under his belt. “You could walk across the harbour without getting your feet wet, you know, that many ships,” he recalls.
Cooke, now 98, was one of 160,000 men sailing under dark skies on a vast armada of 3,000 landing craft, 2,500 ships and 500 ancillary craft and merchant vessels, tasked with launching the liberation of Europe.
That morning, along with 24,969 other British soldiers, he would step on to French sand somewhere along the five-mile stretch of land between between La Rivière and Longues-sur-Mer – codenamed Gold beach.
Lying on his bunk below decks, Cooke felt the heavy judder as the Empire Rapier pulled out of harbour at 2am. But he was not fearful or even nervous. He had been called up while working as an office boy in a factory in York alongside his father and could have no conception of what awaited him on the other side of the Channel.
Eighty years on from D-day, Cooke is fit and well but one of a dwindling few in Britain left to speak of the experience, as well as the last man standing of the York Normandy Veterans Association. When he returns on Thursday to Gold beach for the 80th anniversary of the launch of Operation Overlord, he can be assured that the locals will shower him with love and gratitude.
But if he was not concerned about his fate eight decades ago when he leaned nonchalantly over the side of his landing craft to take in the “fireworks”, Cooke does admit to misgivings now.
Meanwhile, the European Socialists’ lead candidate Nicolas Schmit is campaigning in Italy.
🇪🇺🇮🇹Grazie #Puglia
— Nicolas Schmit, PES lead candidate (@NSchmitPES) June 5, 2024
L'Europa che vogliamo é antifascista, socialista, ecologica
L’8 e il 9 giugno vota Partito Democratico. pic.twitter.com/3sUde0SkPF
AfD politician says far-right local council candidate Heinrich Koch injured with knife 'confronting poster vandals'
Alternative for Germany’s Tino Chrupalla said the party’s local council candidate Heinrich Koch was injured with a knife in Mannheim when “confronting poster vandals” and wished him a speedy recovery.
In Mannheim ist unser Gemeinderatskandidat Heinrich Koch mit einem Messer verletzt worden, als er Plakatzerstörer stellte. Unsere Mitglieder und Repräsentanten sind am häufigsten Opfer politischer Gewalt und Zerstörung. Das kann uns nicht aufhalten. Schnelle Genesung, Heinrich!
— Tino Chrupalla (@Tino_Chrupalla) June 5, 2024
Updated
As the D-Day commemorations get underway, White House National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said aboard Air Force One on the way to France that Joe Biden will stress how the men on those cliffs “put the country ahead of themselves” and detail “the dangers of isolationism, and how, if we back dictators and fail to stand up to them, they keep going and ultimately America and the world pays a greater price,” the Associated Press reported.
“Eighty years later, we see dictators once again attempting to challenge the order, attempting to march in Europe,” Sullivan said, “and that freedom-loving nations need to rally to stand against that, as we have.”
The Save Romania Union (USR)‘s Dan Barna, who is leading the list for the United Right Alliance, criticised the decision to schedule local elections on the same day as the European election in Romania.
“Doing this, the whole European parliamentary elections became a very secondary and side issue in this moment,” he said in a phone interview. “So the campaign is only or 95% about mayors,” he said.
The centre-right alliance, which is composed of the Save Romania Union and two smaller parties, was formed to “create a centre-right alternative,” he said.
“So we are starting the discussion with the citizens in the street, pointing the local issues, and talking about the mayors to be elected and supporting our candidates. And from that point, after two or three minutes of discussing about mayors, we are touching the European level and trying to explain its importance,” he said.
“But the interest of the citizens is very focused in this moment on their next mayors,” Barna noted.
Updated
Far-right German politician stabbed
The DPA news agency is reporting that a politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was injured in a knife attack in Mannheim yesterday.
The incident came days after a police officer was killed in a knife attack in Mannheim.
#BREAKING A politician with the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) was attacked with a knife in Mannheim, dpa has learned from security sources pic.twitter.com/Fy0BtG2vpt
— dpa news agency (@dpa_intl) June 5, 2024
Updated
What do the polls say about Romania?
Pollster INSCOP found last month that the joint PSD-PNL list would get 43.7%.
The far-right AUR would get 17.5% while the centre-right United Right Alliance, led by the Save Romania Union (USR), would get 14.1%.
We asked Siegfried Mureșan, a member of the European parliament from Romania’s National Liberal party (PNL) and vice-president of the European People’s party, what he’s been hearing from voters on the campaign trail.
“Firstly, it’s obviously the economy,” he said, adding that while the country “has a relatively good energy mix” it is still facing increased energy prices.
The second issue voters are bringing up, he said, is security.
We feel safe for the time being, because we’re a member of NATO, because we have a close partnership with the United States, because obviously we’re in the European Union.
But there is this general concern with regards to security. We have had a certain number of Russian drones targeting Ukrainian civil infrastructure just hundreds of metres away from the Romanian border, falling down on Romanian territory. We know it was not a deliberate, targeted attack by Russia against NATO member Romania…. But still those are Russian drones on Romanian territory. And people are concerned.
Updated
Spotlight: the European election in Romania
We’ll take a look at the latest in Romania, where voters will elect 33 members of the European parliament on Sunday.
In a move that is rare in Europe, the National Liberal Party (PNL), which is a member of the centre-right European People’s party, and the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which sits with the Socialists and Democrats group in the European parliament, have formed an electoral alliance and are running on a joint list.
The two parties are currently in a coalition government, and together are expected to come in first on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the far-right Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR) could end up in second place.
An alliance of centre-right parties opposed to the current Romanian government, the United Right Alliance, could come in third.
King Charles and Rishi Sunak to join veterans for 80th anniversary of D-day
Rishi Sunak’s election campaigning and King Charles’s convalescence from cancer will be put on hold for 48 hours, as the two men join veterans to mark the 80th anniversary of D-day on the south coast of England and in Normandy.
Two days of events at the ports where allied troops embarked for their perilous journey, and on the French beaches from where they began the liberation of Europe in 1944, will begin on Wednesday at 11am on Southsea common on Portsmouth’s sea front.
The king, who has made only a few public appearances since his cancer diagnosis in February, and the prime minister will join hundreds of local schoolchildren for what is billed as a spectacular cultural commemoration that will be broadcast live on BBC One.
Dame Helen Mirren will narrate the ceremony and the prime minister, who is taking a break from campaigning for the 4 July general election, will deliver a reading.
'Use your vote, or others will decide for you,' parliament president says
A day before voting begins for the June 6-9 European elections, the European parliament’s president, Roberta Metsola, issued a last plea for voters to go to the polls.
“The European Union is delivering for people. And we can still improve,” she said.
“Together, we can make Europe better, stronger and fairer for tomorrow. Do not take Europe for granted. Defend it. Shape it. Use your vote, or others will decide for you,” she stressed.
“And tell your friends and family to vote too,” she added.
.@ep_president Roberta Metsola has one final message for voters before the #EUelections2024 begin this week:
— European Parliament (@Europarl_EN) June 5, 2024
Do not take Europe for granted. Defend it. Shape it.#UseYourVote. Or others will decide for you. pic.twitter.com/n4OwBfBAZY
Welcome to the blog
Good morning and welcome back to the Europe blog.
Today we will be looking at the latest campaigning ahead of the European elections, as well as the events commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-day this week.
Stay tuned and send your comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.
