European Movement - West London

22/09/2026

After Iceland’s European Union referendum, the bloc’s next big enlargement test lies on the Adriatic, where delay carries a strategic cost.

Iceland’s rejection of renewed EU accession talks will not push the country out of Europe. Iceland already belongs to the European Economic Area and the Schengen zone. It has access to the Single Market, applies much EU law and can afford to keep the political part of membership at arm’s length.

Montenegro is in the opposite position. It does not want an à la carte relationship with the European Union. It has spent 14 years negotiating full membership, has opened all 33 chapters and provisionally closed 18. Its problem is not how to remain comfortably outside the EU, but whether years of reform will end in membership or in another form of permanent waiting.

That distinction matters because countries are not strategically important in proportion to their population or GDP. Montenegro has fewer than 650,000 people and would have a negligible effect on the EU budget. Yet it occupies a sensitive part of the Adriatic, is a NATO member, borders the Union and sits inside a Western Balkan region where European, Russian, Chinese and Turkish interests meet. Its political direction matters beyond its economic weight.

Full article
https://emerging-europe.com/why-montenegro-matters-more-to-europe-than-its-size-suggests/

After Iceland’s European Union referendum, the bloc’s next big enlargement test lies in Montenegro, where delay carries a strategic cost.

22/09/2026

Growing up, I used to walk around the allotments – those small city gardens – to see if any vegetables or fruit hanging over the fence could be put into my belly.

I revisited that habit recently, snacking on yellow plums that had begun transforming into jam on the pavement (I went for the ones still round but perfectly ripe). Some gardeners volunteer their harvest, putting apples in boxes on the streets with a little sign saying to “take some”.

Urban foraging is hardly new, although collaborative maps and edible-city projects have made it far more visible.

Falling Fruit is one such map. Launched in 2013, it shows where there's food up for grabs in cities across the globe.

Full article
https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/eating-our-way-through-the-city-for-free

Growing up, I used to walk around the allotments – those small city gardens – to see if any vegetables or fruit hanging over the fence could be put into my…

22/09/2026

Planning a European autumn getaway? Why not take inspiration from the Euronews Travel team...

Forget mourning the end of summer. Autumn might just be one of the best times of year to travel in Europe – bringing fewer crowds, lower prices and destinations at their most atmospheric.

From crisp countryside walks and fiery autumn colours to cosy cafés and seasonal celebrations, these are the trips on the Euronews Travel team’s bucket list for the “-ber” months.

Full article
https://www.euronews.com/travel/2026/09/06/the-euronews-travel-autumn-bucket-list-our-top-picks-for-holidays-in-europe

Planning a European autumn getaway? Why not take inspiration from the Euronews Travel team...

22/09/2026

“Anger doesn’t move goods across a border. A slogan doesn’t put a British lorry driver back on the road.”

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2010121512990091/

22/09/2026

At first sight, Ursula von der Leyen’s announcement that she is “opening the door for Canada to being the first associate member of the European Union” seems like a geopolitical earthquake.

Faced with the diminishing reliability of the US a trade and security partner, Canada is transplanting its political centre of gravity from North America to Europe, while the notoriously inflexible EU suddenly appears open to ‘concentric circles’ of membership which have for decades been discussed but never acted upon.

And within the UK, it has immediately been picked up on, both as evidence of the kind of closer EU relationship it could have got were it not so fixated on a hard Brexit, and as a new potential path back towards the bloc.

Yet, for now, the reality remains more prosaic. We simply do not know what associate membership means. Von der Leyen’s ambition to ‘to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible’ is deliciously vague: it implies some limit on the extent of possible cooperation, but does not tell us where it exactly lies.

Von der Leyen envisions replacing the existing EU-Canada Trade Agreement (CETA) with an ‘Alliance for the Future to create a common prosperity and economic security space’. Areas of focus will include AI, tech, quantum, defence industry, critical minerals, batteries and the Arctic.

But the nature of that cooperation – and the balance of Canada’s rights, obligations and institutional integration – remains undefined. Will Canada de facto join the EU single market in some or all of those areas, signing up to EU rules in exchange for frictionless trade and integrated supply chains, and some chance to influence EU policy formation? Or will it amount to a looser partnership based on coordinating policy approaches (e.g. on AI safety) and conducting joint initiatives (e.g. on critical minerals procurement)?

Full article
https://ukandeu.ac.uk/canadas-new-eu-association-holds-lessons-for-the-uk

Joël Reland reflects on what it would mean in practice for Canada to become an associate member of the EU, as well as the lessons for the UK in thinking about its own future EU relationship.

22/09/2026

Charles lands at Heathrow with just two bags and nowhere to go as a result of Brexit and Stockholm’s hardline immigration position

Doubled over a Heathrow baggage trolley, the former British business director is sobbing uncontrollably, exhausted emotionally and physically after being deported from Sweden.

Hours earlier the 65-year-old had been marched on to a plane in Stockholm, separated from his home and his Swedish wife after a five-year battle to stay in the country after Brexit came to an end.

An only child with no children and no property in the UK, Charles has in effect been made homeless. He was last in the UK in 2022 for one week, and before that not since 2017 when he emigrated.

“I have nothing, nothing in the UK at all,” says Charles as he shows a text from the British consulate explaining where in Heathrow those suddenly left homeless can get help.

“All I want is to return to my wife, my home and my friends in Sweden and to live a quiet, peaceful life,” adds Charles, who does not want to publicly share his full identity.

His forced flight on Tuesday shows that deportations of British citizens who lived in Sweden before Brexit are continuing. Stockholm has already deported 458 British people after rejected residency applications, a higher proportion in terms of its population than any EU member state.

Full article
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/20/british-man-torn-from-swedish-wife-and-home

Charles lands at Heathrow with just two bags and nowhere to go as a result of Brexit and Stockholm’s hardline immigration position

22/09/2026

Just Sayin'

21/09/2026

Happy Independence Day Malta !

Il-Jum it-Tajjeb tal-Indipendenza, Malta!

21/09/2026

By 2026, EU countries must roll out their national wallet apps for the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet, a digital space for storing and sharing personal data. Italy, France, and Finland are leading the way. What's the status of other countries?

Brussels wants to streamline and simplify personal administrative tasks. By the end of the year, the EU will launch the EU Digital Identity Wallet (EUDI Wallet). It’s a private digital space where citizens, residents and businesses can store and share personal documents, access private and public services, and sign documents digitally.

The Digital Identity Wallet is a free app that users can download on their mobile devices. It reduces reliance on major tech companies' storage solutions, like Apple and Google Wallet, and on national systems, while giving users more control over their personal data.

There won't be a single digital wallet app for the entire EU. Instead, each member state has to create its own. These apps will share the same technical standards, allowing users to access their wallets and service providers to deliver services anywhere in the EU at any time.

Full article
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/09/15/would-you-trust-one-app-with-all-your-digital-identity

By 2026, EU countries must roll out their national wallet apps for the EU’s Digital Identity Wallet, a digital space for storing and sharing personal data. Italy, France, and Finland are leading the way. What's the status of other countries?

21/09/2026

After scavenging through the exhilarating 113 pages of the EU's controversial Return Regulation, we sketched out how its plans to deport migrants to third countries could look. Attention: it involves time travelling.

Full article
https://europeancorrespondent.com/en/r/deportations-so-shady-we-had-to-invent-one

Back in June, the European Parliament briefly felt like a Trump rally. As the Parliament passed the Return Regulation, set to increase deportations of…